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$250 Freescale-Based "Green" "Cloud" Computer
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Jul 22, 2008 01:11 PM
from the fully-buzzword-compliant dept.
from the fully-buzzword-compliant dept.
An anonymous reader sends word of the CherryPal, a tiny desktop computer that its maker says will consume just 2 watts. It uses a Freescale processor that runs Linux and has no moving parts. The CherryPal has integrated software and an embedded Linux (based on Debian) that has been stripped down to support Open Office, Firefox, iTunes, instant messaging, and multimedia access locally. More applications are available in the cloud, and 50 GB of cloud storage is included. It comes without keyboard or mouse but with ports for VGA, USB, Ethernet, and built-in Wi-Fi. It's claimed that the CherryPal will boot up in 20 seconds from 4 GB of flash. They've buried Linux so that the end user doesn't see it; the entire UI is presented through Firefox. The CherryPal site says: "There's no software or upgrades to install, no risk of viruses, and no operating system to deal with and free 24/7 support."
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Submission: Cloud computer just $250 and "green" to bo by Anonymous Coward
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"green" vs "no upgrades" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"green" vs "no upgrades" (Score:5, Insightful)
so buying a throw-away brick is now considered green?
Yeah, because the parts you replace when upgrading are notoriously biodegradable!
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:"green" vs "no upgrades" (Score:5, Insightful)
That analogy means the opposite what you think it does. You really might as well throw away the whole puzzle if you already are missing a piece.
Parent
Re:"green" vs "no upgrades" (Score:5, Funny)
No, i want the entire pie and will picket your house until you produce the missing piece.
I can wait all day folks....
Parent
Re:"green" vs "no upgrades" (Score:4, Funny)
Oblig.
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these -- as the bricks of your house!
Parent
Re:"green" vs "no upgrades" (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:"green" vs "no upgrades" (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:"green" vs "no upgrades" (Score:5, Funny)
And why exactly would you throw it away?
Its just a matter of time until the release the CherryPal2...
Parent
Re:"green" vs "no upgrades" (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:"green" vs "no upgrades" (Score:4, Informative)
And $5 a month plus $250 every year or two to support the "latest software" that "You're already paying for" is even more.
The company claims that their system will last ten years, and I was going on the (probably generous) assumption that that's an honest claim. It is at least plausible, since the system is designed to be little more than a thin client for server-side applications, which (depending on the app) offloads a lot of the computation work onto the server. Hell, if all you're running is Firefox and all you have to do is make sure AJAX applications are relatively snappy, you don't need particularly hefty hardware.
In this case, the business model will probably be based on cheap and durable hardware (as promised) but a costly subscription model. But IANABusinessAnalyst.
Parent
Re:"green" vs "no upgrades" (Score:5, Funny)
And why exactly would you throw it away?
Its just a matter of time until the release the CherryPal2...
I'm really, really hoping the next version is the Cherry 2000 [wikipedia.org] instead. I'd buy one of those.
Parent
Re:"green" vs "no upgrades" (Score:5, Funny)
You don't know me very well. I didn't.
Parent
Re:"green" vs "no upgrades" (Score:5, Insightful)
I've never thrown a PC away. I've been upgrading my trusty Radio Shack TRS-80 CoCo2 all this time. . . component by component. I've even kept the circuit boards.
Seriously, the ecologically worst parts of the computer are the circuit boards and the LCDs if I recall correctly. I don't see how swapping a big-ass motherboard in and out of your relatively benign metal case is that green.
This, on the other hand, is small and does consume very little power. I bet its footprint isn't much bigger than the average video card. If you want to be green it probably means not buying a computer, or making due with old / slow shit.
Reduce, reuse, recycle. IN THAT ORDER! How many geeks here follow the first and most ecologically beneficial part of that triad?
Parent
Re:"green" vs "no upgrades" (Score:5, Interesting)
I didn't go quite that far back... well, maybe I did. My third computer was an IBM XT I bought used in 1987. It was the last whole computer I bought. At one time my "IBM XT" sported a forty meg hard drive, 386 processor, joystick, mouse, and SVGA graphics. Alas, the next upgrade replaced the last remaining origional parts, the case and power supply, as the new motherboard wouldn't fit in the XT case.
I put back together with its original parts, but its monochrome hercules card had died. I left it in the house the bank foreclosed on in 2005, along with a bunch of other computers, all built with spare parts.
I met a rich man once, who told the that the secret to wealth was to never throw anything away! When the great depression hit he'd bought a Model T Ford from a friend as a favor to the friend, who needed fifteen bucks to buy mules and a wagon to move to California. He had no use for it and stored it in his barn.
In 1951 a collector spied it and bought it from the old guy for $100,000. He invested the $100k and will never want for anything again.
I met this gentleman long before the bank took the house, but I had been overcome by insanity; I'd not gotten over my divorce, they were taking my house away, the doctor took me off Paxil and the only thing that kept me from killing myself was knowing what it would do to my children.
As lomg as you never throw its parts away, all computers are green; at least, as green as they ever were. So maybe this "green" computer isn't so green after all; at least, not in the hands of a nerd like me.
Parent
Re:"green" vs "no upgrades" (Score:5, Informative)
Obviously he didn't invest that $100k in Enron
This was some time in the early 1980s, Enron didn't exixt. However, if you had bought Enron early and fled before it crumbled you would have made a killing. That's the way of riches; you have to have it to get it. The insiders got rich while California had brownouts and small investors and employees lost everything.
If you want to be scared shitless, read Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s [virginia.edu] by Frederick Lewis Allen [wikipedia.org]. It was required reading in a required undergrad history class I took in the late 1970s, the University of Virginia has placed the entire text online (darn, back in the old days we had to BUY books!)
The 1920s had many eerie similarities to now, especially finance. Their ultra-rich were as sociopathis as today's. We mey be heading for another depression.
Parent
Re:"green" vs "no upgrades" (Score:5, Informative)
No, using less power is considered green. If this machine really uses 2 watts (yeah, I'm skeptical too), then it's saving about 100 watts. Assume that the computer is turned on about 40 hours a week, then it uses 4 kilowatt hours a week.
A little random googling and I came up with it taking a ton of coal to produce 2,460 kilowatt hours of electricity. So if 615 people using a 4-watt computer instead of a 100+ watt computer save a ton of coal a week. Not exactly a major impact, but not trivial either.
(Cue the green-bashing snipers with their "stupid environmentalist cliches". Sorry, not interested.)
Anyway, how does lack of upgradability make a computer a "throwaway brick"? If a computer does what you need it to, why do you need to upgrade it? Most users, especially business users, never install a PCI card. If you buy a computer that already has enough RAM (most are sold undersupplied, to keep the list price down) and a big enough disk (except this thing doesn't need a disk), you probably won't upgrade. Unless you need a fancy video adapter to play Halo. And if you do, you won't buy this kind of computer in the first place.
Parent
Has to be said... (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry, couldn't help it.
Re:Has to be said... (Score:5, Funny)
So who is going to be the first to pop that cherry?
Not me, I live in north america, you insensitive clod. I'll have to wait for the CherryNTSC to get a taste.
Parent
iTunes under Linux? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Same thing I was thinking. And I seriously doubt a PC like this would run it with Wine.
Free-based computing (Score:3, Funny)
Sounds cool.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Bender: well, if jacking on will make total strangers think i'm cool, then ok, I'll do it!
Re:Free-based computing (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
More better circuitry (Score:5, Funny)
Green Cloud? Can we have a Brown Hornet computer? How about a Black Canary monitor?
The Black Canary can tell us whether we can safely breathe in the Green Cloud.
Re:More better circuitry (Score:5, Funny)
From the submission:
It uses a Freescale processor that runs Linux and has no moving parts
The processor has NO MOVING PARTS!!! You bet your sweet bippie that this is more better circuitry. Finally - a solid-state microprocessor!
Parent
Digital Cameras? (Score:3, Insightful)
If this works with digital cameras and has even basic photo support I may have found a computer for mom. Every time I come home there's a camera that hasn't been offloaded since last time I was home.
But it's not that much cheaper ... (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with this device is that it isn't that much cheaper than a full budget PC that will whack this into the ground.
$250 for what is essentially a DTV receiver (my ex had a £25 Sagem Freeview receiver that had an integrated 250MHz PowerPC) with 4GB flash... sure it comes with 50GB of online storage, but they haven't reduced the affordability.
Re:But it's not that much cheaper ... (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree that it has a nice size.
However, for $50 more at Wal-Mart, I can pick up an el cheapo Compaq sporting basic sound, 512MB of RAM, and a hard disk good enough to put a modern distro of Linux on it and have it work as a decent box. No, it won't boot in 5 seconds, but it will do a lot more for not that much more outlay.
If Cherry Pal could kick the price down to $100 or so, that would be an alternative, but right now, unless one wants a highly portable cheap computer (which for $50-$100 more, an EeePC can do the job with a monitor), this computer has a hard market to crack into.
Parent
Re:But it's not that much cheaper ... (Score:4, Informative)
You should try to compare apples to apples instead of to Cherries. Where can you get a low power x86 for $250-300? Show me a 2W x86 that lets you browse the net, write documents, view porn, etc. The closest thing I can think of is a VIA Artigo and those are more like $500. (after you buy the RAM and HDD/Flash for them)
Parent
What's missing: (Score:5, Interesting)
Strange what small things they left off:
* no microphone jack, so no voip
* no extra usb jack, so no uploading pictures, printing, scanning, using a thumb drive, or loading your ipod
Those things would have hardly added to the size or cost and would greatly increase the usability of this thing.
Oh yeah, it'll be a pain to replace the "all firefox" interface with a more familiar linux desktop as you'll have to do the installation over the wire.
But I think the small size and pared down power are not so bad. It could be cool ... one day.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
* no extra usb jack, so no uploading pictures, printing, scanning, using a thumb drive, or loading your ipod
Or you could spend the extra couple of dollars and buy a decent USB keyboard with a couple of ports built in and use those ports. USB is chainable.
Re:What's missing: (Score:4, Informative)
Actually USB is not "chainable" in the sense of daisy-chaining (a la SCSI). Those USB keyboard with additional ports are just bus-powered USB hubs with USB keyboards permanently attached to one of the hub inputs.
You're still right, of course, this is one way around the problem of only two USB ports, if not particularly desirable. Bus-powered hubs can't support the same power needs as the original hub for obvious reasons. The point is that for a "cloud" (ugh) device, a second USB host to provide two more ports would make this thing great for webcam/microphone use - a cheap connectivity device for Skype, MSN, etc.
Parent
iTunes? (Score:5, Funny)
They have a version of iTunes for a Debian system that never needs to be updated?
I don't even think Apple has that yet!
Another Stab at Ad-Supported Computing (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/21/cherrypal_launches_cherrypal_with_cherrypalcloud_and_cherrypal_etc/ [theregister.co.uk]
While I have no objection to this sort of arrangement, I think a bit more information is forthcoming. Then again, they haven't actually released the device yet, so I'm going to assume that they will make it clear what is going on.
OT: Asus B202 (Score:5, Interesting)
Isn't Asus suppose to be releasing their Asus Box B202 [hothardware.com] about now?
What's up with that?
WTF? (Score:5, Funny)
CherryPal!?
Was "My Little Computer" fraught with trademark peril? Or could they not get Hello Kitty to return their calls?
There's a "popping cherry" joke here somewhere, but damned if I can find it.
Oh, wait... *snicker*
Nice try. (Score:5, Funny)
Firefox Commandline Plugin? (Score:5, Interesting)
Is there a Javascript interface to Linux that can use the URL line as a commandline to an embedded shell? Something like "javascript: alert(cmd('ls -l ~'))"? Or even better, a javascript option that can direct output to the main Firefox window (tabs for file descriptors). Of course, with security settings to lock untrustworthy javascript (eg. in downloaded HTML pages) in a crippled/chrooted sandbox, but allowing typed commandlines just like in a bash shell.
That way, Firefox can wrap the OS out of sight, except that skilled users could still get to the OS and a commandline. But without a whole extra terminal app, or any other apps for that matter.
Interesting, but questions arise... (Score:4, Insightful)
Erik
marketplace chaos (Score:5, Insightful)
I think we're currently in a period of marketplace chaos, and when the dust settles we'll find that a $1000 PC in a tower case seems about as archaic as a radio in a wooden case the size of a washing machine.
The biggest computer manufacturers are still selling machines in the $1000 price range. If you look inside, you'll see that these machines are typically mostly air inside. They could have been put in a package the size of a hardcover book, but consumers associate the big case with a powerful machine. Part of the reason these machines cost so much is profit-taking by the manufacturers, and part of it is the artificial impetus to get insanely powerful hardware, because software like Vista and OOo is coded so inefficiently. This whole setup is a house of cards, though. People don't need the equivalent of a 1990 supercomputer in order to send email and do their word-processing.
The trouble is that although a lot of small manufacturers have been testing the waters with lower-priced machines, the big ones haven't been interested. This is partly analogous to compact cars versus SUVs -- the profit margin on an SUV can be as much as $15,000, whereas the profit margin on a Ford Focus might be under $1000. Even if there's demand for the Focus, Ford has been more interested in pushing the SUV, because that's where the profit was. Then you have Apple selling a tightly integrated package of hardware and software, which people are willing to pay big premiums for. There's also the Windows tax, which hides the vast differences in hardware cost between a bleeding edge machine and something with lower specs.
For a long time, the only low-cost PCs I was ever able to find in retail outlets were the Great Quality PCs sold at Fry's, which came with Linux preinstalled. They were wonderful machines, and I still have a bunch of them in a lab at school, working great. They sold for about $200. However, Fry's stopped carrying them about a year ago. Apparently the high rate of returns was eliminating their profit margin. A lot of users were buying them to put pirated copies of Windows on, and then if they had a problem with the install, they'd return the machine.
There's also the Everex gPC. I own one, and reviewed it [lightandmatter.com]. Perfectly reasonable hardware, although the linux distro they put on it was junk. Judging from the customer feedback on WalMart's site, they've been some of the same problems as Great Quality with keeping their gPC customers satisfied -- a lot of people buying them apparently don't understand that the machine they're buying doesn't do Microsoft.
It's great to see something like the CherryPal come out. One interesting thing about it is that they're exploring the low end of the hardware specs that are necessary to run a web browser. This is conceivably a way for them to get around the low profit margins that have so far crippled investment in this end of the market. Here's a comparison of the specs of three cheap consumer linux boxes:
The Linksys v. 4 router cost something like $50 when it was available. (Later versions downgraded the specs and used a different OS instead of Linux.) Let's estimate what it would have cost today to upgrade its specs to something more like a desktop system (assuming it had been an upgradable system, which it wasn't). Paying retail today it would cost me $45 for a 1.8 GHz celeron cpu, $23 for 512 MB of ram, and $15 for a 4 GB keychain drive. Adding that on to the $50 retail price of the router, you get $133. Of course a computer manufacturer wouldn't be paying anything like these retail prices for the parts, so this is really a vast overestimate of what it would cost to manufacture a system like the CherryPal. I suspect their manufacturing price is more like $50.
Thin clients are greener (Score:4, Informative)
First of all...2 watts.... *with* wifi? Puh. lease. I'll dub this vaporware until they prove me wrong.
Secondly.. LTSP and thin-client computing in general are on their way in (fast) as the eco-friendly alternatives to traditional workstation/server model. The educational sector is one example that are jumping on the bandwagon - not only for power savings, but for central administration (and if Linux is used, which many schools I have been contracted from are excited about) and the nice "not-paying-M$-for-Vista" aspect.
"Cloud computing" is just another buzzword with no merit behind it. Thin-clients are solid, functional and are proven - and are improving every day to provide the functionality they weren't able to provide yesterday (such as synced sound/video output, storage facilities, peripheral support). In the future I'm sure LTSP & related projects will improve in the "retail" sector for at-home thin-client computing.
Re:Cloud computer? (Score:5, Interesting)
The point of this is that it connects to their cloud. Think of this as an X terminal that connects to a mainframe via the internet. The point isn't to build a cloud out of these things.
Parent
Re:Cloud computer? (Score:5, Funny)
Well, until the meme changes from "beowulf cluster" to "cloud," then I think we're safe.
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Obligatory (Score:4, Funny)
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Central Controled Computer (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Cloud computer? (Score:4, Funny)
While I grant that it is somewhat difficult to nail down the definition of "cloud computing", what does this have to do with it?
If you want to define "cloud computing" in this context you need to consider the Web 2.0 paradigm this product leverages for its innovation. This is a "green" product that maximizes its use of the grid for next-generation social shaping, so from a Slashdot commenter's perspective you'll get web services, tagging, and real user participation if you buy this product. I think their idea is to have it be a dynamic framework for proactive immersion, which is basically win-win.
Parent
Re:2 watts? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
That's a maximum rating on the power supply (Score:5, Informative)
From their (weird) web site [72.51.37.17]: 9vDC 2.5mm 10 watt AC-DC adapter power supply So the box is not eating 2 watts, but 10, unless you can pump in it 9VDC in a more efficient way.
The 10 Watt rating is the maximum output of the the power supply - that means the computer itself has to draw less than 10W. It was probably cheaper to buy an off-the-shelf 10W power supply than have a custom 2W PSU built. It does not mean that the computer itself draws 10W.
Parent
Re:Cloud? (Score:4, Funny)
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