8 ms·

Hi HN! Founder here. We just announced Paperspace today and I'd be happy to answer any questions (technical or otherwise).

by DTE 12y ago

virtuallynathan 12y ago
Where are you running it? AWS?
- DTE 12y ago
  We did a lot of prototyping on AWS and still use them a lot, but really we are pretty agnostic as to where the VM lives. We need nvidia GRID cards (which is what we use to scrape the remote desktop really fast and which AWS has for prototyping) but the rest is pretty off the shelf. So currently its a pretty hybrid system
  - techaddict009 12y ago
    How much bandwidth should the user have for smooth experience? P.S I am from India and its difficult to find more than 2 Mbps internet bandwidth with ease here.
    - sidcool 12y ago
      This is a really important question. I am from India and good bandwidth is a luxury here.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - codezero 12y ago
      Their website states 20MB down with 60ms latency. This seems like a high value in general.
      - techaddict009 12y ago
        Seems like they will have very less amount of users from developing countries like India then. Sad even I will not be able to use it.
        dagw 12y ago
        Not just a problem with developing countries. I have 100 Mb at home so that's not a problem, but the main use case I see for this for me is to able to use it while traveling. Even in countries with a great high speed internet in general, getting great high speed internet in a hotel room or conference center is almost impossible.
      - majordroid 12y ago
        20MB down is too much to ask for even here in the States.
        MichaelGG 12y ago
        Hopefully it'll scale down gracefully when not doing graphics-intensive work. RDP is quite usable even with 100ms latency and only a few Mbps. OTOH I guess nothing's stopping you from renting a machine from Amazon now. I'd just be worried if they use H.264 that there's not lossless compression on most UI elements. RDP falls back to lossy video-compression like behaviour under pressure, and it looks terrible and quite unusable. For Photoshop and graphics apps, sure. But for text and most UI elements, ouch.
      - kmfrk 12y ago
        Copy says >15Mb at the moment. Funky way to denote minimum - reminds me of the "Recommended" specs on a videogame. That rules out me, but it's a nice reminder of how much of an obstacle to innovation lack of broadband can be.
  - billconan 12y ago
    but nvidia is building their own similar service, www.nvidia.com/object/trygrid.html, how will you differentiate?
    - tasteup 12y ago
      From my understanding, trygrid is aimed at supporting specific applications. Paperweight is the entire PC sort of like how you would lease a VPS.
old_adam 12y ago
Will there be any support for gaming?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
Mithaldu 12y ago
The copy on your website ranges for me from confusing to offputting. I'm not even sure exactly what you're selling after having looked at your site for two minutes. Maybe you sell virtual machines in a data center, accessible with vnc or rdp implemented in JS? And maybe an additional mini computer preconfigured to access that? Note: The answers to that do not matter. What matters is that your website doesn't answer them and is in fact so vague that it triggers all of my mental fraud bells. Edit: Also small footnote. This is probably honest and well-meant, but it reads like snake-oil: "Your desktop is managed in a secure data center and we send you a fully-encrypted feed." Which data center? What does secure mean? What guarantee do i have about that security? What encryption are you using? What about the data i put on my VM, are you backing it up? Is it encrypted by default or can any paperspace employee read my diary on my cloud computer? You need to answer them in that sentence but without links and/or footnotes to further explanations it's just meaningless and amounts to "Just trust us, ok?"
- DTE 12y ago
  Apologies for the confusion (and yes, the website needs some love). To answer the questions, we are primarily building a streaming protocol that makes remote desktops usable for a broader range of applications (namely "media-rich" use cases like photoshop, CAD/CAM, etc) Behind the scenes we are using GPU tech originally developed for video game streaming, but using it primarily as a way to send a vanilla desktop. We are currently delivering this desktop to any webbrowser using a JS renderer. That said, we didn't want you to have to have an old machine to use this one, so thats where the paperweight comes in. VDI/remote desktops have been around for a while but they are usually really poor quality/hard to setup/etc. So we are trying to wrap that all in a simple package.
  - Mithaldu 12y ago
    Now that's a great explanation of what your company does! That makes me really look forward to when i can use that technology to remotely access my own machines from my cellphone. :D
    - 12y ago
q7 12y ago
In the video you claim that it is "secure". I understand that as "nobody else can see my files or what I do, guaranteed". Well, you could place a bug between the VNC and the VPS parts. Or your government might force you to do it. How can you reassure me that isn't the case?
- DTE 12y ago
  We take privacy and security really seriously and have designed the brokering process (the part that connects you to your remote computer) to support this claim by following industry best practices. We are still in a limited pilot program, but one of primary things we are testing is how to ensure that your computer is not compromised in any way. We think that if we can achieve the technical goals then arguably, having a remote machine is more secure than one that someone can take from your house/car/etc. That said, it is a really hard technical problem to manage a computer for someone without having any access to it and that is something we are designing out now.
  - tux3 12y ago
    That comment is really not reassuring. I'm happy that you take privacy and security very seriously, that's great to hear. However industry best practices is a little vague and 'to ensure that your computer is not compromised in any way' makes it sound like you want to do the job even the best antiviruses have trouble doing. Furthermore I'd argue that if someone steals your machine from your house/car/etc, getting the keys to any remote machine should be trivial just by looking at the stored passwords and configuration. But maybe I misunderstood what you were saying, sorry if that's the case.
  - sctechie 12y ago
    'Industry Best Practice' in this case amounts to 'we will hand all of your data over to the government' if required. Abdicating responsibility for personal security to ANY 3rd party makes one less secure, period. Now, when the government comes knocking, instead of handing over some files or access records, you'll be able turn over the user entire computer. That's the exact opposite of security to me.
- 12y ago
alexland 12y ago
Do you have any information to share on how much it will cost to use the service (with/without a Paperweight)? Is there a monthly subscription option, or is it pay-as-you-go?
wildboarcharlie 12y ago
"...but support for other operating systems, including Mac OS X, are planned." – Techcrunch How feasible do you think supporting OS X will be? Wouldn't Apple be hesitant (more than hesitant) to cooperate since hardware is their source of profit? Unless you are thinking about reverse engineering the Cocoa WindowServer?
- kozak 12y ago
  In can be done in hardware by connecting a Mac Mini to some sort of a KVM server. Only a matter of price.
flarg 12y ago
Looks a lot like the old workspot [0] which I really loved (when it worked) so that's cool. But why don't you lead with the Paperweight offering and just cut out all the other stuff? Just throw the lady's computer on the floor, and then give her the Paperweight. For me, that's the attractive bit. I could definitely sell that to clients because it implies 2FA security. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workspot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workspot
pfui 12y ago
Let me guess, you're using webrtc to deliver a screencast of a headless VM to my browser plus JS to capture I/O events and deliver them over a websocket to the server essentially replicating the functionality of a "zero client" using modern web technologies, no?
xs 12y ago
Is the paperweight optional? I'd like buy the paperweight for my father, but then be able to access his paperspace from my computer when he needs help on something.
- DTE 12y ago
  The paperweight is completely optional. In your case, it would make sense for him to use one and then you could access his desktop through your web browser. One of neat things about streaming desktops is that you get screen sharing built in
xs 12y ago
What do you get for the pre-order? The link takes me directly to a credit card page. Do you get a paperweight + 0 months of service? Or does it include a few months to get started?
egonschiele 12y ago
This looks really interesting. I'd like to know more about network lag. Even with a better protocol, you can't get past the physical speed of a network. How laggy is paperspace in practice?
chestnut-tree 12y ago
Thanks for stopping by to answer questions. My question is about privacy... Since you must sign-in to use Paperspace (and everything you do is saved or performed online), do you track user activity in any way? For example, apps used, tasks performed, sites visited. If you do track, what kind of data do you collect? Is the tracking data tied to individual accounts? Or disassociated from them? How long do you keep this data? Is it anonymised?
revorad 12y ago
Which OS do you support? Some screenshots or demo videos of the workspace would be nice. Edit: Also, a comment on the video - it started off well with the woman having issues with an old slow computer (which is what I have and so I could relate). But then later on all the actual use is shown on fancy macbooks and iMacs which kind of defeats the puropose for me.
_vn5r 12y ago
I want to try this NOW :D How can I?
loganbrowne 12y ago
Do you have an option to start up with a clean and fully patched system each time and not retain state? Can users have a library of machines for different purposes? I am thinking that something like this could be valuable as a secure and disposable space for someone living or traveling in a risky location. Have you tested it on a phone with an external display?
warkdarrior 12y ago
What are the constraints (if any) on the desktop VM that you host? Can I run any software on it? How powerful is it? Edit: additional question below... Can I start long-running jobs (an image render) on it and then disconnect?
csomar 12y ago
I want something touchable about latency (I tried lots of remote working but it doesn't work "coz" latency). Something like, the usual remote networking app runs on 10 frames per second, we run on 60. Or, given the connection is the same, we are 10-20-50 times better/faster...
- easytiger 12y ago
  latency in a command line + emacs is perfectly fine on even the worst connections
barbs 12y ago
What hardware and software does the paperweight itself run? I understand it acts as just a thin client, but I'm curious to know what's inside.
gravypod 12y ago
Why have you not touched on security? How do you protect people from MITM attacks against your service? This is the largest thing that could happen (since it seems you are targeting people on-the-go from hotel to hotel).
timtas 12y ago
Your copy mentions "more operating systems in the future." Does that include OSX? When?

Hi HN! Founder here. We just announced Paperspace today and I'd be happy to answer any questions (technical or otherwise).

by DTE 12y ago

Hi HN! Founder here. We just announced Paperspace today and I'd be happy to answer any questions (technical or otherwise).

virtuallynathan 12y ago

Where are you running it? AWS?

DTE 12y ago
We did a lot of prototyping on AWS and still use them a lot, but really we are pretty agnostic as to where the VM lives. We need nvidia GRID cards (which is what we use to scrape the remote desktop really fast and which AWS has for prototyping) but the rest is pretty off the shelf. So currently its a pretty hybrid system
- techaddict009 12y ago
  How much bandwidth should the user have for smooth experience? P.S I am from India and its difficult to find more than 2 Mbps internet bandwidth with ease here.
  - sidcool 12y ago
    This is a really important question. I am from India and good bandwidth is a luxury here.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - codezero 12y ago
    Their website states 20MB down with 60ms latency. This seems like a high value in general.
    - techaddict009 12y ago
      Seems like they will have very less amount of users from developing countries like India then. Sad even I will not be able to use it.
      - dagw 12y ago
        Not just a problem with developing countries. I have 100 Mb at home so that's not a problem, but the main use case I see for this for me is to able to use it while traveling. Even in countries with a great high speed internet in general, getting great high speed internet in a hotel room or conference center is almost impossible.
    - majordroid 12y ago
      20MB down is too much to ask for even here in the States.
      - MichaelGG 12y ago
        Hopefully it'll scale down gracefully when not doing graphics-intensive work. RDP is quite usable even with 100ms latency and only a few Mbps. OTOH I guess nothing's stopping you from renting a machine from Amazon now. I'd just be worried if they use H.264 that there's not lossless compression on most UI elements. RDP falls back to lossy video-compression like behaviour under pressure, and it looks terrible and quite unusable. For Photoshop and graphics apps, sure. But for text and most UI elements, ouch.
    - kmfrk 12y ago
      Copy says >15Mb at the moment. Funky way to denote minimum - reminds me of the "Recommended" specs on a videogame. That rules out me, but it's a nice reminder of how much of an obstacle to innovation lack of broadband can be.
- billconan 12y ago
  but nvidia is building their own similar service, www.nvidia.com/object/trygrid.html, how will you differentiate?
  - tasteup 12y ago
    From my understanding, trygrid is aimed at supporting specific applications. Paperweight is the entire PC sort of like how you would lease a VPS.

old_adam 12y ago

Will there be any support for gaming?

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

Mithaldu 12y ago

The copy on your website ranges for me from confusing to offputting. I'm not even sure exactly what you're selling after having looked at your site for two minutes. Maybe you sell virtual machines in a data center, accessible with vnc or rdp implemented in JS? And maybe an additional mini computer preconfigured to access that? Note: The answers to that do not matter. What matters is that your website doesn't answer them and is in fact so vague that it triggers all of my mental fraud bells. Edit: Also small footnote. This is probably honest and well-meant, but it reads like snake-oil: "Your desktop is managed in a secure data center and we send you a fully-encrypted feed." Which data center? What does secure mean? What guarantee do i have about that security? What encryption are you using? What about the data i put on my VM, are you backing it up? Is it encrypted by default or can any paperspace employee read my diary on my cloud computer? You need to answer them in that sentence but without links and/or footnotes to further explanations it's just meaningless and amounts to "Just trust us, ok?"

DTE 12y ago
Apologies for the confusion (and yes, the website needs some love). To answer the questions, we are primarily building a streaming protocol that makes remote desktops usable for a broader range of applications (namely "media-rich" use cases like photoshop, CAD/CAM, etc) Behind the scenes we are using GPU tech originally developed for video game streaming, but using it primarily as a way to send a vanilla desktop. We are currently delivering this desktop to any webbrowser using a JS renderer. That said, we didn't want you to have to have an old machine to use this one, so thats where the paperweight comes in. VDI/remote desktops have been around for a while but they are usually really poor quality/hard to setup/etc. So we are trying to wrap that all in a simple package.
- Mithaldu 12y ago
  Now that's a great explanation of what your company does! That makes me really look forward to when i can use that technology to remotely access my own machines from my cellphone. :D
  - 12y ago

q7 12y ago

In the video you claim that it is "secure". I understand that as "nobody else can see my files or what I do, guaranteed". Well, you could place a bug between the VNC and the VPS parts. Or your government might force you to do it. How can you reassure me that isn't the case?

DTE 12y ago
We take privacy and security really seriously and have designed the brokering process (the part that connects you to your remote computer) to support this claim by following industry best practices. We are still in a limited pilot program, but one of primary things we are testing is how to ensure that your computer is not compromised in any way. We think that if we can achieve the technical goals then arguably, having a remote machine is more secure than one that someone can take from your house/car/etc. That said, it is a really hard technical problem to manage a computer for someone without having any access to it and that is something we are designing out now.
- tux3 12y ago
  That comment is really not reassuring. I'm happy that you take privacy and security very seriously, that's great to hear. However industry best practices is a little vague and 'to ensure that your computer is not compromised in any way' makes it sound like you want to do the job even the best antiviruses have trouble doing. Furthermore I'd argue that if someone steals your machine from your house/car/etc, getting the keys to any remote machine should be trivial just by looking at the stored passwords and configuration. But maybe I misunderstood what you were saying, sorry if that's the case.
- sctechie 12y ago
  'Industry Best Practice' in this case amounts to 'we will hand all of your data over to the government' if required. Abdicating responsibility for personal security to ANY 3rd party makes one less secure, period. Now, when the government comes knocking, instead of handing over some files or access records, you'll be able turn over the user entire computer. That's the exact opposite of security to me.
12y ago

alexland 12y ago

Do you have any information to share on how much it will cost to use the service (with/without a Paperweight)? Is there a monthly subscription option, or is it pay-as-you-go?

wildboarcharlie 12y ago

"...but support for other operating systems, including Mac OS X, are planned." – Techcrunch How feasible do you think supporting OS X will be? Wouldn't Apple be hesitant (more than hesitant) to cooperate since hardware is their source of profit? Unless you are thinking about reverse engineering the Cocoa WindowServer?

kozak 12y ago
In can be done in hardware by connecting a Mac Mini to some sort of a KVM server. Only a matter of price.

flarg 12y ago

Looks a lot like the old workspot [0] which I really loved (when it worked) so that's cool. But why don't you lead with the Paperweight offering and just cut out all the other stuff? Just throw the lady's computer on the floor, and then give her the Paperweight. For me, that's the attractive bit. I could definitely sell that to clients because it implies 2FA security. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workspot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workspot

pfui 12y ago

Let me guess, you're using webrtc to deliver a screencast of a headless VM to my browser plus JS to capture I/O events and deliver them over a websocket to the server essentially replicating the functionality of a "zero client" using modern web technologies, no?

xs 12y ago

Is the paperweight optional? I'd like buy the paperweight for my father, but then be able to access his paperspace from my computer when he needs help on something.

DTE 12y ago
The paperweight is completely optional. In your case, it would make sense for him to use one and then you could access his desktop through your web browser. One of neat things about streaming desktops is that you get screen sharing built in

xs 12y ago

What do you get for the pre-order? The link takes me directly to a credit card page. Do you get a paperweight + 0 months of service? Or does it include a few months to get started?

egonschiele 12y ago

This looks really interesting. I'd like to know more about network lag. Even with a better protocol, you can't get past the physical speed of a network. How laggy is paperspace in practice?

chestnut-tree 12y ago

Thanks for stopping by to answer questions. My question is about privacy... Since you must sign-in to use Paperspace (and everything you do is saved or performed online), do you track user activity in any way? For example, apps used, tasks performed, sites visited. If you do track, what kind of data do you collect? Is the tracking data tied to individual accounts? Or disassociated from them? How long do you keep this data? Is it anonymised?

revorad 12y ago

Which OS do you support? Some screenshots or demo videos of the workspace would be nice. Edit: Also, a comment on the video - it started off well with the woman having issues with an old slow computer (which is what I have and so I could relate). But then later on all the actual use is shown on fancy macbooks and iMacs which kind of defeats the puropose for me.

_vn5r 12y ago

I want to try this NOW :D How can I?

loganbrowne 12y ago

Do you have an option to start up with a clean and fully patched system each time and not retain state? Can users have a library of machines for different purposes? I am thinking that something like this could be valuable as a secure and disposable space for someone living or traveling in a risky location. Have you tested it on a phone with an external display?

warkdarrior 12y ago

What are the constraints (if any) on the desktop VM that you host? Can I run any software on it? How powerful is it? Edit: additional question below... Can I start long-running jobs (an image render) on it and then disconnect?

csomar 12y ago

I want something touchable about latency (I tried lots of remote working but it doesn't work "coz" latency). Something like, the usual remote networking app runs on 10 frames per second, we run on 60. Or, given the connection is the same, we are 10-20-50 times better/faster...

easytiger 12y ago
latency in a command line + emacs is perfectly fine on even the worst connections

barbs 12y ago

What hardware and software does the paperweight itself run? I understand it acts as just a thin client, but I'm curious to know what's inside.

gravypod 12y ago

Why have you not touched on security? How do you protect people from MITM attacks against your service? This is the largest thing that could happen (since it seems you are targeting people on-the-go from hotel to hotel).

timtas 12y ago

Your copy mentions "more operating systems in the future." Does that include OSX? When?