5 ms·

Lol did you just invent a terminal from the 1970s, but a cell phone?

by dmead 2y ago

yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
We reinvent thin clients every few years; aren't we due for the latest take on it?
- notepad0x90 2y ago
  well, think of thin clients but much much thinner, like anorexic clients :) , also think of peripherals, display and audio i/o units being discrete thin clients on their own that network with each other and various compute units.
grues-dinner 2y ago
Sounds like the hand terminals from The Expanse which you can flick onto any nearby display. Which I dearly would like to see, but the protocol and security implications make my head hurt.
- fragmede 2y ago
  Apple doesn't have the "flick" UI for it, but you can screen share a Mac to Apple TV, so I'm able to use my TV as a monitor with no trouble. The security boundary is that all devices need to be logged into the same wifi, maybe also iCloud.
  - grues-dinner 2y ago
    Right but that's the point, isn't it? If you have a single manufacturer with complete control of the devices and software on both ends and you own the devices and have a single trusted network or authentication service it can work (but still not exactly easy to implement). But that's not the hypothetical in question - for that to be a reality, you have to have it work pretty much anywhere, on any network (or a way to negotiate an adhoc private network) and on virtually any third party IO hardware. And that's before you get to the possibility of the gym treadmill screen or coffee shop keyboard or whatever being a hostile device. Which they would easily be if people were going to use the system for something of high value as opposed to casting YouTube to the treadmill screen. Which may be a little bit of a data leak opportunity as it stands, but it's not quite a screencast of your banking account, complete with key log.
    - fragmede 2y ago
      My point is that the underlying technology is there, in a way that's accessible to users, so it's just a matter of use case and implementation and the market for such technology. If all you think about is the reasons it won't work, then you'll never try. Some great companies have come from people that didn't know they shouldn't try. As far as technology though, Airplay is what macOS uses to project the video, and there are open source implementations out there that you could run on a raspberry pi. As far as wanting it to work everywhere, if Apple supported Chromecast it would probably work more places, since Google licenses that technology so it's already on a lot of TVs and projectors. I'm not imagining using this in very many places other than my home and any office locations where I have wifi, but there are standards like wifi-direct where you wouldn't even need that. I'm only transmitting video, the keyboard/mouse is connected to my device via Bluetooth, so the worst a malicious device could do is record video that I'm transmitting, which, if I don't want people to see the video I'm transmitting, I should not transmit it in the first place.
      - grues-dinner 2y ago
        > I don't want people to see the video I'm transmitting, I should not transmit it in the first place. Lol, you tell me I'm looking for reasons it won't work (when I'm the one saying how cool it would be, just incredibly hard to do) and you're the one limiting the concept to a toy home office setup. Good one. Dare to dream outside of your daily experience.
        fragmede 2y ago
        Oh you're a dreamer! Should have just told me you weren't going to do any work, contribute anything useful or finish anything. Apple started in a toy home office aka garage. I'm sure they won't mind the company.
- dmead 2y ago
  It sounded like satire about dumb tech bros to me.
- dmead 2y ago
  sure, but those are alot of words to be entirely unoriginal.
notepad0x90 2y ago
cell phones have embedded compute units in them and 70's terminals were neither wireless nor lightweight.

Lol did you just invent a terminal from the 1970s, but a cell phone?

by dmead 2y ago

Lol did you just invent a terminal from the 1970s, but a cell phone?

yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago

We reinvent thin clients every few years; aren't we due for the latest take on it?

notepad0x90 2y ago
well, think of thin clients but much much thinner, like anorexic clients :) , also think of peripherals, display and audio i/o units being discrete thin clients on their own that network with each other and various compute units.

grues-dinner 2y ago

Sounds like the hand terminals from The Expanse which you can flick onto any nearby display. Which I dearly would like to see, but the protocol and security implications make my head hurt.

fragmede 2y ago
Apple doesn't have the "flick" UI for it, but you can screen share a Mac to Apple TV, so I'm able to use my TV as a monitor with no trouble. The security boundary is that all devices need to be logged into the same wifi, maybe also iCloud.
- grues-dinner 2y ago
  Right but that's the point, isn't it? If you have a single manufacturer with complete control of the devices and software on both ends and you own the devices and have a single trusted network or authentication service it can work (but still not exactly easy to implement). But that's not the hypothetical in question - for that to be a reality, you have to have it work pretty much anywhere, on any network (or a way to negotiate an adhoc private network) and on virtually any third party IO hardware. And that's before you get to the possibility of the gym treadmill screen or coffee shop keyboard or whatever being a hostile device. Which they would easily be if people were going to use the system for something of high value as opposed to casting YouTube to the treadmill screen. Which may be a little bit of a data leak opportunity as it stands, but it's not quite a screencast of your banking account, complete with key log.
  - fragmede 2y ago
    My point is that the underlying technology is there, in a way that's accessible to users, so it's just a matter of use case and implementation and the market for such technology. If all you think about is the reasons it won't work, then you'll never try. Some great companies have come from people that didn't know they shouldn't try. As far as technology though, Airplay is what macOS uses to project the video, and there are open source implementations out there that you could run on a raspberry pi. As far as wanting it to work everywhere, if Apple supported Chromecast it would probably work more places, since Google licenses that technology so it's already on a lot of TVs and projectors. I'm not imagining using this in very many places other than my home and any office locations where I have wifi, but there are standards like wifi-direct where you wouldn't even need that. I'm only transmitting video, the keyboard/mouse is connected to my device via Bluetooth, so the worst a malicious device could do is record video that I'm transmitting, which, if I don't want people to see the video I'm transmitting, I should not transmit it in the first place.
    - grues-dinner 2y ago
      > I don't want people to see the video I'm transmitting, I should not transmit it in the first place. Lol, you tell me I'm looking for reasons it won't work (when I'm the one saying how cool it would be, just incredibly hard to do) and you're the one limiting the concept to a toy home office setup. Good one. Dare to dream outside of your daily experience.
      - fragmede 2y ago
        Oh you're a dreamer! Should have just told me you weren't going to do any work, contribute anything useful or finish anything. Apple started in a toy home office aka garage. I'm sure they won't mind the company.
dmead 2y ago
It sounded like satire about dumb tech bros to me.
dmead 2y ago
sure, but those are alot of words to be entirely unoriginal.

notepad0x90 2y ago

cell phones have embedded compute units in them and 70's terminals were neither wireless nor lightweight.