Personal Server, A New Concept in Mobile Computing

A team at Intel Research lead by Roy Want is working on a device that he believes will replace handhelds and laptops. The invention is called a Personal Server and it acts as a wireless hard drive.

The Personal Server doesn't have a screen or any way to directly enter text. Instead, it wirelessly connects to whatever computer is nearby. Mr. Want says, "You could sit down in front of any PC that has the necessary wireless capability and a small icon representing you would appear in a corner of the screen. When you clicked on the icon, it would expand to a much larger window, perhaps with a set of documents and applications that you are currently using, and you could access them in the same way as if you were sitting at your own computer."

Its main advantage over laptops and handhelds is how easy it would be to carry around. The device itself will be about the size of a deck of playing cards. As it is wireless, the user wouldn't even have to take it out of their pocket or purse to use it.

An obvious limitation of the Personal Server is it is useless if there isn't a regular computer of some kind nearby. Mr. Want's solution for this is to "introduce the concept of scrap computers: when PDAs become inexpensive enough that they are left scattered around, in the same way we treat pens and paper today, you could pick up any of these devices and through the personal server it would, by association, become your device accessing your data.

The Personal Server is still very much in development. The Intel researchers and ones at UC-Berkeley and the University of Washington are looking into the best wireless standard to use, the best ways to connect to the PC or handheld, ways to increase battery life, and much more. "There's a possibility that we could see early versions of the device on the market within three or four years," says Mr. West.

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