#tango pc

About four years ago, I wrote a post about my ideas for a CloudPC, which would be a small (very small) device that would let you carry your personal computing environment around with you. To use it, you'd just plug it into a 'dock', which would provide all the peripherals, processing power etc. My idea was that the device would be able to make use of the cloud but wouldn't be dependent on it. You could still get work done even if the Internet connection went away.

A recent TechCrunch article describes a new product called TangoPC, which it calls an 'everywhere computer'. The idea is quite similar: TangoPC is a tiny dockable unit about the size of a hard drive, equipped with a CPU, RAM, SSD and various ports and adapters. It plugs into an inexpensive desktop dock, which is used to attach keyboard, screen and other peripherals.

TangoPC differs from my proposal in that it provides a CPU. It is, in effect, an actual computer, whereas my idea was something less. In my proposed CloudPC, the base station would provide the computing horsepower, so that you could get more power by simply plugging your portable environment into a fatter, faster desktop. CPU and RAM were just another 'service' provided by the base station.

There are strengths and weaknesses to both approaches. The computing power of the TangoPC will always be restricted by the power of the CPU that you can fit into that little pocketable box (apparently cooling is a big issue, although the TangoPC makers believe that they've made major progress in this respect). The TangoPC tops out at about "ten times the power of a smartphone." You can't enjoy more power by plugging your portable device into a bigger workstation.

On the other hand, because it's a real computer, the dock can be made cheaper and simpler (an important consideration for a device that will depend on widespread availability of docks). Also, it can actually do useful work on its own: TangoPC will offer an adapter that lets you use it 'on the road' using an iPad as a display, which is a very smart idea.

The TangoPC is in some ways more practical than the CPU-less device that I proposed. The question is whether the available onboard processing power will be enough for all users. Things could go one of two ways. It may turn out that the computing power offered by a pocketable device will be sufficient for the needs of the vast majority of users. The other possibility is that enough users will find themselves limited by such a device that developers of devices like the TangoPC will work on ways to allow a portable device to leverage the additional power in a desktop (or laptop) dock, or even in a regular desktop computer. A standard will emerge allowing computation to be offloaded onto the host machine with its greater resources, through a kind of 'processor sharing' mechanism.

The other element that I expect to see in a CloudPC is a virtual filesystem, with the user's documents stored both locally and in the cloud. This is, in some senses, an evolution of services like Dropbox, but the virtual filesystem will have to go much further. Unless changes in storage technology allow near-infinite storage on a small device, the filesystem will need to intelligently juggle data between the device's own limited storage and a larger backing store in the cloud in such a way that the user is seldom aware of the limitations of the actual device. This means that the filesystem will need to do version management and conflict resolution, as much as possible without user intervention. It will also need to anticipate the user's needs, ensuring that documents or data that the user uses regularly or is likely to need in future are present on the actual device for faster or offline access, while moving little-used documents to the cloud to save space. Doing it right is challenging, but there's plenty of precedent in computer science for solving problems of this kind.

Tango PC is small and can be carried around

Tango PC is small, can be carried around and can make your life easier. The idea is simple. Tango…

Tango Super PC: Worlds most powerful Pocketable Gameable Officeable PC

아이디어 소셜펀딩 사이트인 인디고고(indiegogo)에서 휴대할수 있는 작은 탱고PC(tango pc)를 소개했습니다.

프로세서: 통합 GCN GPU HD8400과 함께 AMD A6-5200 쿼드 코어 2GHz의, 최대 25 와트

기억 : SODIMM DDR3-1600 소켓 1 개 (2GB에서 8GB까지). 노트북 RAM

저장 : SATA III MSATA SSD 소켓 1 개. (32기가바이트에서 최대 512GB 이상)

운영 체제 :모든 노트북 PC 호환 OS는 (윈도우 7, 8 프로, 리눅스 맛, 크롬 등) 탱고에서 실행할 수 있습니다. Windows 7 및 8 Pro는 실행 인증을 받아야합니다.

PC 크기 : 125mm X 80mm X 13.5

DockPort 크기 : 135mm X 135mm X 27mm

DockPort 연결 : 1X HDMI, 3 배 USB 2.0의 1x USB3.0, RJ45, 내부 무선 랜, AV 단자, DC 12V 잭

AC 어댑터:  60W, 110-270V 입력. 도킹 포트에 연결합니다.

작은 베터리와 무게는 210g이며 hdmi 스플리터케이블을 이용한 다중모니터 사용가능하다고 합니다.