
Plugable Thin Client: The $50 Computer - revorad
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1666707630/plugable-thin-client-the-50-computer
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hahla
Whats the point of this kickstarter? Theres nothing new here. Citrix, Vmware
etc have been doing this for years now and thin clients already exist by the
hundreds. The $50 price point is towards the lower end but the client featured
also cuts back on a bunch of features that competitors at $75-100 range have.

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ExpiredLink
> Whats the point of this kickstarter?

Pluggability (to a single computer).

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maxharris
I think was a great idea, ten or fifteen years ago. But not today because the
era of growth for desktop computers is essentially over.

I have no idea what I would do with this today. I have a MacBook Pro, and my
wife does, too. Nearly everyone I know has an iPhone, and an iPad.

Why would any of us use this? Each of us already has two or three computers of
some kind that we carry everywhere, nearly all the time.

I'm not trying to be mean. I just don't see how a $50 computer that you have
to plug into a keyboard, mouse, and monitor is something that anyone with
mobile devices would want.

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robert00700
I would think the average person isn't lucky enough have an inventory of
multiple thousand dollars of high-end computing equipment. This kind of system
would be perfect in developing countries, or as the project suggests, for
education.

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maxharris
Many people in developing countries have mobile phones, and smartphones are
rapidly becoming the computer of choice for them.

Also, remember that today's high-end is tomorrow's low-end. Why develop stuff
for the past? Don't think of the developing world as a dumping ground for our
worn-out ideas and wares, because that's not what it is.

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robert00700
At first I was wondering about the benefits of using such a system vs.
something like deploying the raspberry pi en masse (which is a full system for
under $50), but after some thought it comes down to the fact that the average
utilization of any computer most of the time is very low, but we really notice
the CPU power when we do something intensive (although not very often). Each
user on this system could potentially feel the same power as a full desktop,
as the probability of multiple users requiring intensive computation at the
same time is relatively low. Kind of like how web providers quote 10MB per
customer, but their infrastructure only has to cater for a tiny fraction of
the potential full utilization.

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nupark2
The hardware in question very likely has computing power (and associated cost)
not that far off from that of the Raspberry Pi.

You also have to factor in the cost of the machine used to drive these USB
display drivers -- with 4 users on a $500 machine, you're still talking about
$125/user.

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s_henry_paulson
Ok, so they're making something that already exists. I know the HP version
costs about $80.

What I want to know is how are they planning on bringing their costs down to
be able to provide something cheaper than a larger company that already has
the ability to produce whatever they want.

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mseebach
It seems it's not in fact a thin client - as far as I can tell, it's a USB hub
and USB graphics card which then gets hooked up to its own X session on the
host.

It's much more limited than the HP devise you're referring to, so I would
think it needs to be a lot cheaper to make sense.

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brk
This also means it has to be in pretty close proximity to the host machine. No
connectivity over Ethernet or wifi...

Not to mention you have to have (or buy) the keyboard, monitor and mouse. Some
people may have an extra keyboard or two kicking around, not sure how many
people keep extra monitors handy for very long (though you can come by
monitors cheap on craigslist).

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jamesflorentino
This looks great. I suppose this will help a lot of class rooms in poorer
countries.

