
Paperspace – A full computer you can access from any web browser - davidbarker
https://paperspace.io
======
EvanDotPro
I've done _A LOT_ of research and experimentation in this space over the
course of the last 5-ish years, mainly out of sheer curiosity. This sounds
very, very similar to something I prototyped a while back using x264 +
Broadway.js (HTML5 video streaming with low latency is a non-starter).

I'm extremely curious, has Paperspace actually developed an entirely new video
codec, encoder, and efficient JS decoder for this?

I'm a little confused by the statements so far (and the comments are flowing
in, so apologies if this was addressed while I was typing): "we are using a
video stream", "using a JS renderer", "building a streaming protocol", "using
GPU tech originally developed for video game streaming", "a remote desktop
protocol that could stream HD video"

So, is _just_ the streaming protocol you've developed and not the codec? In my
expiriments, simply pushing out h264 NAL units over websockets and passing
them to the decoder was a pretty solid start. Add a tiny layer of buffering
over that and I imagine it'd be fairly stable. Ultimately, I backed away from
h264 for licensing and performance issues.

Also, what's the transport into the browser? Websockets? WebRTC data channels?
Have you encountered performance issues with Firefox not being able to handle
websockets or data channels in web workers? (Which is seemingly coming in
FF37.)

~~~
DTE
awesome questions! There will be tech blog deep dive that goes into more
detail, but just to clarify things a bit we are using h264 as the underlying
codec but the protocol is a combination things -- h264 packets over websockets
is where we started too!

Usually you want a "reliable" transport (tcp) for handshake, some transfer,
etc and then you can get away with a more fire-and-forget (udp) stream for
everything else. We broker different connections for different scenarios. The
web version is naturally limited to either webrtc or websockets but for the
paperweight it didn't make sense to force a web paradigm (or full webbrowser
just to access limited socket types) so we interface directly with the
hardware.

Haven't encountered big problems with firefox, but browser inconsistencies are
definitely something we spend a lot of time working through

~~~
billconan
how do you interface directly with the hardware?

~~~
rcconf
Because Paperweight is the black circle hardware device they made to stream
from Paperspace. There's no point to using a browser on it, just stream
directly through the wifi/ethernet port using TCP/IP.

------
noonespecial
Yes its like renting a VPS with VNC or rdesktop. That's not the interesting
part. The magic they claim is a low latency video transport to show you the
screen on the remote.

You can web browse on a remote computer with VNC but you sure can't use
photoshop. Even on 1GB/s with the remote right next to you. Its not the
network in that case, VNC is just too slow with its screen scraping and
reassembling. Rdesktop is better but it still hurts to use something like
photoshop. Forget games.

Their entire product hinges on delivering that low latency video feed of the
remote screen. None of the other features matter in comparison. They win if I
can't tell its remote. Anything lesser...

~~~
arm
I don’t know what these guys are using, but there _is_ remote desktop
technology out there that is fast enough to let me play games and watch videos
on the server with minimal lag (so useable in fact, that I’ve been using my
Mac mini that way through a Windows laptop for over a year now). I’m talking
about NX¹ (specifically, I use NoMachine²).

――――――

¹ —
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NX_technology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NX_technology)

² — [https://www.nomachine.com/](https://www.nomachine.com/)

~~~
gcb0
nx is the same as the most expensive tiers of vnc in my experience. my
employer buys both.

but, people already forgot about OnLive? the company that streamed games in a
way you could play multiplayer shoothers rendered in a server.

~~~
ekianjo
> people already forgot about OnLive

NVidia just announced today at the GDC they would be doing the same thing, at
a premium cost, at full 1080p, 60 fps streaming.

------
buckbova
> The Professional tier is made for high-end 3D CAD, Creative Suite, GIS etc.

What I'd love is to use a virtual terminal that has every application possible
pre-installed or available on demand and runs like a citrix application with
payment by time/cpu or whatever makes sense.

So I want to use AutoCAD, I find it in the catalog of apps, use it for 20
minutes, pay 2 dollars or whatever. I want Visual Studio 2013, I find it in
the catalog, use it for 2 hours, pay a dollar fifty.

Then all I need is a cheap laptop with a nice screen and I'm good for years
and years.

~~~
tenser
What about sharing - heavy - files with coworkers not using this app? What
about uploading files? It feels to me like working in a bubble... but maybe
I'm wrong.

~~~
dagw
How about some sort of dropbox like syncing? Put your files in a shared
dropbox folder, sync dropbox folder on remote VM, save your work on remote VM
when done, changes get synced back to shared dropbox folder.

Obviously not perfect and obviously problematic if lots of people try working
on the same file at the same time, but should solve at least some of the
problems.

------
DTE
Hi HN!

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

~~~
Mithaldu
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
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
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

~~~
mod
FWIW I already do this. It's not running a window manager, rather a command
line, but it does what I need it to.

~~~
Mithaldu
Oh yeah, i also already do VNC into my windows machines from my android phone.
But i'd like some more advanced software for it. :)

------
kstenerud
So, a thin client connecting to a virtual machine under some other company's
control? No, thanks.

The fact is, computers are plenty fast now, and can handle 90% of peoples'
usage patterns (browsing reddit, watching cat videos) with ease. The last
thing I want is to have a remote desktop that lags out whenever there's a
network hiccup.

~~~
xmonkee
I'm sorry, is this a running joke on HN? The first reply is always some bland,
obvious attack on whatever is posted. I mean, the fact that a streaming
computer in the cloud is sensitive to network hiccups is so obvious to anyone
who sees this it's not even a valid criticism.

~~~
kstenerud
Actually, I wasn't the first reply. TBH I was expecting this to be buried
since I was so late to the party.

But regardless, my criticism is that slow speed in the hardware is rarely a
problem these days. Almost every "slow computer" problem I've diagnosed in
recent times (that hasn't been due to McAffee) has in fact just been a slow
internet connection or a misconfigured router. When you're not a computer
expert, it's hard to know why your Youtube video stutters.

So yes, they will probably get a lot of sign ups with a mantra of "faster",
but IMO this isn't solving the actual problem that users tend to have with
computer "slowness". In fact, it will only exacerbate it, although that might
be good for pushing towards greater bandwidth.

I'm also not too keen on putting even more of my data on someone else's
system.

------
brownbat
I thought OnLive and other thin client gaming services took a shot at latency,
made some great achievements, but hit walls.[1-4] It seems hard to put a few
miles between the game and the screen and keep response times natural.

Maybe 99.9% of computing doesn't need latency as low as FPS and fighters
though. Maybe this is just taking OnLive[5] tech and making a really smooth
remote desktop out of it. If so, I guess this kind of a shoot for the stars,
land on the moon technology. I guess that's still pretty cool.

[1] [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-onlive-
lag-...](http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-onlive-lag-analysis)
[2] [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-face-off-
ga...](http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-face-off-gaikai-vs-
onlive) [3]
[http://www.iis.sinica.edu.tw/~swc/onlive/onlive.html](http://www.iis.sinica.edu.tw/~swc/onlive/onlive.html)
[4] [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-onlive-
boos...](http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-onlive-boosts-image-
quality) [5] Or StreamMyGame or GaiKai or others. I gather there were a few
different approaches to the problem, involving debates about whether
datacenter placement or higher framerate rendering were more important.
UPDATE: Ooh, DTE, I'd be really curious which of those approaches you thought
were failures, assuming you studied competing services, or if you just
harvested a few ideas from everybody.

~~~
jzelinskie
nVidia has had a service superior to OnLive called Grid which is going to be
made publicly available in the near future. They claim ~150ms of lag.

------
habosa
I am very excited about this, however I found the copy on the website to be
extremely confusing. Here is what I think is going on, would love
confirmation/clarification:

* Paperspace is running some sort of super low-latency system to serve me a VM in my web browser * The paperweight is a computer that runs such a web browser so I can attach it anywhere I have a monitor (like a raspberry pi?)

~~~
DTE
We are updating the site to be more clear, so thanks for the feedback!

And you are correct. We provide you a desktop OS that we deliver directly to a
web browser. Unlike traditional remote desktop protocols (i.e. maybe you have
VPNed into your work computer from home, for example) we are developing a
high-performance streaming protocol that makes this machine feel like its
right in front of you.

~~~
diminoten
I might just be dumb, but I was having trouble understanding what the purpose
of the Paperweight was. The above comment sorted me out, but I didn't get that
understanding from your site.

Again though, I might just be dumb.

------
dahdum
What are the advantages to this over something like Amazon Workspaces? With
that I can use a thin client, ipad / android apps, desktop apps, etc.. We can
use AD, NAT, images or none of it.

It looks awesome, but I can't think of a recent time when I had access to a
modern browser only. Does it have a good support for tablet access / extra
controls?

~~~
DTE
great questions! amazon workspaces is conceptually very similar but
implemented very differently. A few key differences: 1. they focus pretty
exclusively on enterprise and the tooling around configuring, monitoring, and
backing up AWS is not something you can jump right in to as a non-technical
person. 2. we

With paperspace, we want to provide the power of cloud computing with a really
foolproof access layer. i.e. you go to our website, click a button and a new
machine is provisioned for you with all the tricky stuff worked out. In the
case the paperweight, using it requires almost no configuration at all. you
plug it in and it connects to your desktop in the cloud.

~~~
billconan
what kinda of graphics card do you have? possible to play games with this?

------
fortytw2
As far as I can tell, Paperspace is a hosted VNC+VPS esque service wrapped in
a friendly user interface? Seems nifty.

Anyways, the intro video is easily one of the more amusing ones I've seen in a
long time. Props.

~~~
mod
I feel like the music built up some tension that never got released.

I can feel it in my head, it's like I'm "in battle" in a video game or
something.

------
smlacy
So this is basically OnLive but "consumerized" (as they are focusing on
enterprise these days it seems).

Even your line "using GPU tech originally developed for video game streaming"
makes me think you've actually licensed or are a subsidiary of OnLive.

------
xs
I love this idea. I'm very tempted to pre-order but the lack of a pricing page
keeps away from pulling my wallet out.

Here is one use I'm really interested in. I'd love to get this for my father
who is not very computer literate and needs a lot of help with it. He doesn't
have strong security concerns because he only uses it for email and basic card
games. Unfortunately I live hundreds of miles away and have a difficult time
doing remote support for him. With this device+service it cleans up the
clutter on his desk, and I hope allows for us both to connect to the VPS even
though I don't have the paperweight. This way I can help him when he needs it
and I can connect with ease.

~~~
piyush_soni
I don't think doing that is pretty hard with today's technologies. I do the
same to my father using a free version of TeamViewer and setting unattended
access on his machine. I can access his machine whenever I want, fix things
and close the session. I don't need anything more than that.

------
mooktakim
Who remembers Sun Microsystems (now Oracle) Sun Ray's [1]? I worked for Sun
(UK) in 2005 and they used them for all their employees. I never understood
why they didn't sell them to schools and enterprise. Maybe they tried but
couldn't.

I really liked the true hot-desking. Find a desk anywhere (even another
building) stick your badge into one of the thin clients and you had your
entire desktop.

You could also use USB thumb drives and it would work as expected.

My manager had a Sun-ray in his house. He also used to go abroad to the other
Sun offices and would just carry on with his session like nothing changed.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Ray](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Ray)

edit: added url

------
thehoff
This looks pretty awesome.

What if I muck up my space, can I go back to a fresh install? Which flavor of
linux?

Where are my files stored? Say I want to take those files on the plane with me
and work from my laptop, will I need something like
Dropbox/OneDrive/SpiderOak?

Liked the video as well.

~~~
dkobran
Paperspace founder here. We offer an instant rollback to a safe state which is
a neat thing that VMs can do that regular computers can't (or at least don't
do very well). Everything is stored in the cloud so have your entire desktop
available to you at all times meaning you wouldn't need to transfer your stuff
to a cloud storage service. It's actually just like cloud storage but with the
added benefit of having your whole operating system (apps, settings,
shortcuts) on the go.

------
davidrusu
For people doubting if this will work, check out OnLive[1], you can try game
demo's for free, the experience was very good for me

[1][https://games.onlive.com/](https://games.onlive.com/)

------
peeyek
With minimum speed of 15mbps to access, it's like impossible for students in
developing country which i think they more need service like this for study,
research, etc.

For example in Indonesia, in my campus internet speed is only about 3-4mbps.

Scaling infrastructure is hard, i think the future of service similar to
paperspace is not a bunch of feature that they offer, but it's more about how
they can optimize data compression to deliver full of experience with low
internet speed. That's the key to own big market.

~~~
atarian
I live in Silicon Valley and even I don't get 15mbps with my home Internet,
which I pay $40/month for (which illustrates how bad the Internet situation is
in the US as well).

------
iask
Cool! I've worked with similar technologies in the past. Most common issues
are with peripherals and web browsing (sticky frames) in enterprise
environments. Ncomputing came closest to what I was looking for. Integrates
perfectly with printers, scanners, barcode scanners, usb sticks, audio etc.
Small-form factor with wiFi (not all models) and you are able to host the
instances right in your DC or LAN.

------
new299
I've been interested in full operating systems implemented /in/ the browser
for a while (rather than access remotely).

The Linux in Javascript demo seemed like a neat demo:

[http://bellard.org/jslinux/](http://bellard.org/jslinux/)

But I think it would be neat to create an in browser operating system that
forwards traffic via a Websockets proxy.

That's partly what prompted me to create minaterm:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9137496](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9137496)
([https://www.minaterm.com](https://www.minaterm.com)).

Which is a full ssh client implemented in Javascript. It creates complete ssh
sessions in the browser and then uses a TCP proxy on the server to connect to
the target server.

This was kind of a tech demo as a first step to implementing a complete OS in
the browser. I can see that you could have encrypted drive images that the
browser would download and launch (based on a user supplied password which
never hits the server). It seems like a neat idea, though I'm not exactly sure
what the practical applications are! :)

~~~
Lennie
Sure you can run a full operating system in Javascript, how about DOS/Windows
3.1 ?:

[http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4546](http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4546)

~~~
new299
Sure, I linked to a in browser Linux emulation too. But both I think Windows
isn't really what you want, and the Linux emulation has no network access.

They both also rely on emulating an x86 system. I think what might be
interesting is something that creates an in browser process model, possibly
POSIX compliant. To which you could target applications, critically I think
they'd need network access.

------
tlrobinson
VNC between two machines 2 feet apart, connected through gigabit ethernet, has
noticeable latency. I'll be impressed if Paperspace doesn't.

~~~
sp332
I don't know why that would be true. x264 was getting sub-10ms latency (one-
way) back in 2010.
[http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/archives/249](http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/archives/249)

------
PythonicAlpha
As much I understand, the service (not the device) is not generally available?

When will it be ready? When will it be possible to use it from other countries
(other than US)?

The service as such is very interesting, for example, when I want to have
quick access to a Linux/Windows desktop with a particular OS without the need
to install on real iron.

Depends of course on the pricing. The idea sounds really neat!

~~~
gtirloni
Ability to select a region in a specific country would be key.

------
Elderwand
I already use this with Splashtop. I have a beast computer connected to a
100Mbps network offsite and connect to it via my budget laptop.

Really neat, but not suitable for games due to the slight but noticable delay.

However, it kicks ass to have 2 computers at the same time, if one starts
lagging I just go to the other one. Similarly, I can download heavy files or
encode video on one of them while working on the other. I also can do all
downloading on the offsite computer to keep my slower home network in top
shape.

The good thing about Splashtop though is that it doesn't work like a video
stream. Instead it only updates the parts of the screen that has changed.
Meaning I can use Splashtop for chatting/surfing with almost no download
bandwidth required locally. It also works great for HD streaming though.

------
drglitch
What is the longer term target market?

Is this designed to compete with thin client offerings from the big boys when
it comes to larger installs?

One big advantage for something like microsoft remote desktop services is
ability to throw a beefy server into an existing infra with aging desktops and
use them as thin clients/dumb terminals.

I can see an advantage of this as being able to take just that box when i
travel, plug it into any random machine, and get an instant resume of my
previous desktop session over VPN... but this makes it oh-so-close to Windows
To Go?

Most importantly, what is the monthly cost of the actual VPC (not the
hardware)? Its not listed anywhere on the site that i could find. What would
you do better than Azure, Amazon VPC, rackspace, or multiple others?

------
BinaryIdiot
So after reading the page I can buy your computer to keep at home which can
then connect me to a virtual machine in the cloud? As I was reading I kept
feeling like I had to buy that $50 machine to do this but it sounds like I
don't.

~~~
DTE
(apologies for the confusion -- we are working now on reworking the homepage
with more info)

just to clarify: the paperweight is completely optional. The primary interface
for paperspace right now is a web browser but if you want an inexpensive
device to act as a dedicated terminal, you can buy the paperweight.

~~~
Paperweight
Is it a USB boot drive or a little micro PC that plugs into a monitor?

It would be nice to have a cheap "disposable laptop" that works off a cloud-
desktop that you don't need to worry about losing or breaking. People don't
buy laptops because they're slow anymore, but because they're physically worn
out!

The equivalent of a cheap Chromebook that's like a real desktop with lots of
power and runs Windows games and real applications!

In the future, I wonder how you could implement a cloud-desktop that's zero-
knowledge a la SpiderOak. That would be the ultimate secure workstation.

------
PhasmaFelis
So 30+ years later, we've rediscovered the dumb terminal. Interesting.

It's a neat little service/gizmo. I'd like to see an honest assessment of
Paperspace's weaknesses. I doubt it will handle most games at all well, for
example. That's okay, not everyone needs or wants that, but it's still an
important point. I see that they do mention sensitivity to connection speed,
which is good ("For the best experience we recommend >15Mbps download speed
and less than 60 ms of latency"), but that's going to affect a lot of people's
use cases.

~~~
DonGateley
The loss of which I've bemoaned for about 30+ years. This, or something very
like, it is exactly what I want going forward. My biggest concern would the
fate of my virtual computer should the provider go belly up. Without providing
for that contingency I'd be really hesitant to put all my eggs in the basket.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
I'm awfully leery of giving someone else total control over my computer for
any reason. Take the security concerns over Dropbox and cloud storage and
multiply them by 10. Convenience is great, but I'm not sure it's worth the
prospect of willingly handing someone else complete observation and control
over my entire computer and everything I do with it.

------
vbezhenar
You really should send vectors, not video stream. It'll allow to keep
bandwidth requirements low for most of the office workflow. Of course watching
video on youtube require sending video stream and that's where you embed H.264
stream, but not everywhere. AFAIK Windows RDP works closely with the operating
system to allow it to send only vector primitives instead of raw bitmaps. You
can't stream lossless 4k retina video and anything other is a compromise for
many people.

------
blfr
So it's a pre-configured VPS and a little physical VNC device?

~~~
garry
The team actually built their own streaming tech from scratch so it works
quite a bit better than VNC.

~~~
DTE
Yea, so VNC is really versatile but not very performant. We set out to build a
remote desktop protocol that could stream HD video streams and which would
make doing things like high-end graphics and other media-rich applications
possible.

On a more technical level, VNC sends block of pixels whereas we are using a
video stream.

~~~
kuschku
So, like existing products like ThinLinc? Which can stream HD1080 over 8Mbps
connection? Doesn’t seem like you actually provide some new product...

------
ShoePooPoo
This would be useful in places with notoriously bad internet connections. When
I was in China a couple years ago, even getting a reliable connection was a
stretch, let alone being able to use it for something other than transfer of
small plaintext.

I set up a box back at home and was able to use my 60MB connection by just
transferring I/O via something like VNC or LogMeIn. I can see this being
valuable for users in countries with subpar internet connectivity.

~~~
dkobran
Thanks for the typo catch... Great use-case btw, it's surprising how well
virtual desktops can perform on slow connections. I'm from the east coast but
work in Mountain View now and I stream my desktop from Virginia everyday for
work. Right now in fact haha.

------
sreejithr
I can definitely see this work in an office environment. Working remote,
collaborating and sharing could be easier. But a lot of companies might
actually demand on-premise setups though.

When I'm using AWS here in India, with my server there in the US, I face a
clear lag. And that too in the terminal. I've seen browser testing tools like
BrowserStack lag. I'm curious how Paperspace tackles this. And I sincerely
hope they open source their wizardry!

~~~
jliptzin
It's pretty hard to get past the speed of light. I assume that as demand grows
for their service internationally they'd have to distribute data centers
around the world.

------
simonebrunozzi
I used to work at Amazon Web Services, and before I left I worked on a demo
for their Amazon AppStream product. It licensed the PC-over-IP protocol
[http://www.teradici.com/pcoip-technology](http://www.teradici.com/pcoip-
technology)

From what I know, Paperspace can't be successful without a heavy dose of
similar technology.

Did they develop something meaningful? Or do they just assume that it's going
to work without it?

------
Elderwand
I already use this with Splashtop. I have a beast computer connected to a
100Mbps network offsite and connects to it via my budget laptop.

Really neat, but not suitable for games due to the slight but noticable delay.

However, it kicks ass to have 2 computers at the same time, if one starts
lagging I just go to the other. Similarly, I can download Heavy files on the
offsite computer while keeping my laptop and slower home Connection free.

------
gotrythis
Been waiting for this and I'll sign up the second it's available. When might
that be?

Use case: As I write this, my computer is rendering a 4 minute video in the
background. For the next hour, my computer is near useless and I've got a
hundred of these to go.

I'd love to be able to set it to remote render on a super-computer and close
the tab. And, I may never have to upgrade my computer again!

~~~
fsniper
I think what you need is not a "fast streamed remote host" but a renderfarm
subscription. Of course I'm not sure if there are video render farms out
there.

~~~
fsniper
Sorry, I missed the point about creating huge raw video files on the cloud.

------
Synroc
This is amazing! I have been waiting a long time for something like this.

I can't even begin to imagine the uses that this will have.

------
MarcScott
I prefer to use Linux on my machines, but need to use a Windows machine for
various tasks such as CAD/CAM. I'd pre-order now if I had some idea of monthly
pricing. There's a big difference between £5/month for a Windows VPS that can
run SolidWorks and £50/month.

------
geoffc
Nicely done, very slick, you have nailed a lot of the pain points of VDI.
Shameless plug but at leostreamdesktops.com and leostream.com we have been in
the VDI market for over a decade with a MSP and enterprise focus. Good luck on
the venture, these are exciting times for VDI!

------
NIL8
This tech is what many of us have expected to become the "norm," but I still
think most of us would prefer having our own toys under our own beds.

That being said, if they have nailed this, I see an acquisition in the very
near future. This could be an incredibly profitable concept.

------
dharma1
I was using an aws GPU (nvidia grid) instance at spot pricing for a while to
use as a remote desktop. It was nifty but ultimately the GPU instance would
need to be an order of magnitude more powerful than my laptop to really make
it worth while

------
corywatilo
Very interesting idea when I finally saw Paperweight in the video. I pre-
ordered. But are you publicizing the tilt amount, how much you've raised of
it, or what the timeline is on actually shipping out devices?

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DonGateley
Will there be any way to connect local USB peripherals (like phones, audio
interfaces, game controllers, etc.) either to the Paperweight (better named
the Puck) or to a local computer for service by the remote one?

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hophoang
A suggestion, on the pop-up after clicking pre-order from the nav-bar, add
somewhere what is to be pre-ordered. I was confused a bit, but then see it's
on the CTA container. Awesome looking product, good luck!

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vitamen
This seems like a complete homerun for small to medium sized businesses like
the one I'm working in now, provided that's a major focus and their specific
needs are met (monitoring, backup, security).

~~~
DTE
Absolutely. If you are a very large company (lets say >500 people) then you
can buy some expensive and complicated tools from the big guys to handle this
kind of thing. We are trying to wrap the hard parts of administering desktops
into a really easy interface so that i.e. redundant and regula backups are no
longer a big worry

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redindian75
What is low monthly cost mean? $10/month would be low for someone, expensive
for others. Why not at least give the figure or even ballpark figure? (or at
least in comparative terms - a cup of coffee...)

~~~
Buge
The video says "You can start using Paperspace for about $10/month."

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negamax
What is the low monthly fee? Couldn't find that info on the website.

~~~
pmx
I think the video mentions ~$10/month

~~~
negamax
Thanks. Was looking at the text

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ShoePooPoo
Found a typo:
[https://paperspace.io/enterprise](https://paperspace.io/enterprise)

Paperspace replaces hight upfront infrastructure costs with low monthly
payments.

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ewindisch
Cute branding, but your market for the desktop thin-client will be companies
looking for VDI and I doubt you'll get very far selling them something called
a "paperweight".

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wtbob
Well, probably not _any_ web browser: I'm thinking that elinks is definitely
out, maybe conkeror will work and maybe it won't. It'd be interesting if surf
did…

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sidgup
But if I have a browser, I have a computer. And if I have a computer.. can I
not RDC/VNC? I am honestly trying to question the punchline and not being
sarcastic.

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jmgtan
Are you guys supporting multiple regions? Let's say I start my day in Asia
then fly to the US, would I be able to access my stuff using the nearest
server?

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sp4ke
Yeah sure, with all the privacy concerns today let's just put every data about
you in the hands of a company and trust them to be secure ...

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imranq
This is something I'd expect Amazon to make...or at least take a very close
look at as they push towards the cloud (EC2, AWS, etc.)

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angryasian
I would really be interested in trying the experience before I pay, as well as
understanding what the capabilities of the machine are

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scg
Is it much faster than GUACAMOLE over RDP/VNC?

[http://guac-dev.org/](http://guac-dev.org/)

(Click for streaming DEMO)

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aminok
Does Paperspace Inc. have access to the unencrypted data? i.e. does user data
sit unencrypted on Paperspace's servers?

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yoasif_
Somewhat off-topic, but it's kind of disappointing that the intro video
doesn't play on my copy of Firefox nightly on Linux -- Kickstarter videos play
fine, since it seems like they provide a webm video.

Error says:

Awww, snap!

This video can’t be played with your current setup.

I _could_ open up Chrome or Opera to play the video, but that's too much
friction for something I might not care too much about.

It _looks_ like Vimeo -- I wonder if they let you know how many people tried
to view the video but couldn't.

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tantalor
The audio track in the video is painfully noisy and clicky... maybe it's over
compressed? Please fix.

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spydum
so all of the obvious questions have been asked, but if I hear the video
right, we're talking about $10/month? Last I checked, Amazons own Workspaces
product starts around $35/month, just no cool hardware interface, or fancy
streaming optimization.

------
beefman
I have two questions:

1\. Did Sandwich make your promo video? 2\. What desktop resolutions do you
support?

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samstave
Holy crap - I was just fantasizing about a service like this two days ago.

Cant wait to try it out!

------
metalliqaz
So, how is this different than using RDP or VNC to connect to my PC?

------
sidcool
A chromebook competitor?

~~~
DonGateley
A Chromebook adjunct. A way to get Windows and its apps on the Chromebook. The
lack (or difficulty) thereof is what stands between me and owning one.

I'm considering teaching, selling and supporting Chromebooks and the people
using them in "old folks homes" (as we called them long, long ago) as an
inexpensive and low skill entry to the internet. Some potential clients will
have enough experience that they will require Windows access. If (and it is a
bit hard to determine from the site) Windows machines with persistence can be
created that problem is solved.

Have you looked at the issue of migration from an existing Windows home system
into one of yours? Were that made relatively easy it would be a huge benefit.
Perhaps a partnership with Laplink and their PCmover would benefit both you
and them.

------
redMonkey
Are you using Docker or CoreOS in your architecture??

------
meatsock
seems like a great idea - but isn't the term 'paperweight' slang for bricked
hardware that the magic smoke has escaped from?

------
atekbiz
Will the paperweight support multiple monitors?

------
novacole
How is this different than just renting a VPS?

~~~
Fastidious
They designed their own protocol for a much better experience. Read their
comments!

------
r-u-serious
Does it say what the computer is full with? I would probably be not that
interested if it is bees. In contrast, if it is dark chocolate, I would be
very interested.

------
X-combinator
Put simply it's a Great idea!

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jkot
Does not work in ANY web browser:

1) it requires internet connection.

2) it requires JS and graphical browser. Links console browser for example
does not work.

~~~
egonschiele
No need to state the obvious :) Otherwise I would also add: you need a monitor
to use it.

~~~
jkot
It is not that obvious. I use text terminal to access other computers every
day. I also use Links (text only browser) every day.

~~~
hyperbovine
If you use links every day then you are not the target market for basically
anything. Sorry :-)

------
redMonkey
Are you useing Docker or CoreOS??

------
milkmanjr
what operating systems will it support out of the box?

~~~
blfr
Linux and Windows.

 _We’re starting off with Windows and Linux options for now but plan to offer
more operating systems in the future._

~~~
altcognito
Can I store the state of my machine, or do I only get one instance/snapshot at
a get go? What if the machine gets corrupted? What kind of backups?

~~~
dkobran
Paperspace founder here. You can take snapshots at any time and we offer an
instant rollback to a safe state in the event something happened. One of the
neat benefits of virtual machines over traditional desktops.

~~~
lbsmith
What version of windows are you running in this VM?

------
omarchowdhury
Cool.

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igl
Lag, NSA, Games. Enough said?

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icantthinkofone
So, you mean like Unix/Linux/BSD always has?

