A while back I mentioned how today we live in an "and" world where people want it all. This is true in the mobile space as well. We'd like to have small, portable and yet capable systems. In order to do this we need to overcome mobile device limitations and enable sharing multiple resources between computers, including displays, networks, storage, and peripherals. There is one technology that claims to be able to do this.
At HotMobile'08, Roy Want of Intel presented on a concept for dynamic computer connection called Dynamic Configurable Computing (DCC). With DCC you would use the computing resources available around you. So you could walk into a Starbucks and not just use their Wi-Fi, you could use a shared screen, keyboard or even additional processing capabilities. Work continues to progress on this effort.
But the number-one challenge for wide-spread availability is its adoption. For companies to build their devices with DCC, a wide range of networking and collaboration standards will need to be created. "Work on standards for layer-2 discovery is already taking place, and so is work around wireless display," Want says. Once standards are in place, it will be time to win over consumers. Want says "People will realize that a device that can share is much more valuable than one that can't."
There are a wide range of scenarios that we're all familiar with where these capabilities would be useful and improve our productivity.
The system architecture for DCC is based around three basic principles:
- Collections of disparate devices providing resources for a dynamically composed platform
- Universal connectivity provided by a high-speed wireless network
- Distributed system resources aggregated into a unified system view
There remain concerns about security... with all this sharing going on, but we could soon see us walking around with our core capabilities that expend out into the environment based on our needs.
