#lono computing

Solar Protocol

Solar Protocol is a web platform hosted across a network of solar-powered servers set up in different locations around the world. A solar-powered server is a computer that is powered by a solar panel and a small battery. Each server can only offer intermittent connectivity that is dependent on available sunshine, the length of day and local weather conditions. When connected as a network, the servers coordinate to serve a website from whichever of them is enjoying the most sunshine at the time.

With servers located in different time zones, seasons and weather systems, the network directs internet traffic to wherever the sun is shining. When your browser makes a request to see this website, it is sent to whichever server in the network is generating the most energy. For example, right now you are seeing the version of this website that is hosted on Trent server located in Trent University where it is 08:15 AM and the weather is broken clouds.

The Solar Protocol network explores the sun’s interaction with Earth as a form of logic that shapes the daily behaviors, seasonal activities and the decision making of almost all life forms. Solar Protocol honors this natural logic, exploring it as a form of intelligence that is used to automate decisions in a digital network.

via solarprotocol.net

Back in 2012 in our first essay here on Solarpunks.net we asked: "What would computing look like if it had to get its power from purely local and renewable sources? What is the potential of low-and-no-power computing and sensor networks?"

In the quest to improve the power efficiency for the processor chips in drones etc, DARPA is looking to resurrect the analogue computer in the shape of probabilistic computers.

Probabilistic computing has two basic promises: one is to open the door to low-power, high-performance computing, especially in areas where the answer doesn’t have to be completely perfect — image rendering for example.

That’s what researchers at Rice university hit at earlier this year when they designed a low-power chip that uses probabilistic computing techniques to do energy-efficient, if occasionally inexact, calculations.

Another promise is to build new types of chips that can solve some of the complex data analysis problems that are on the cutting edge of today’s computer science.