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A Revolution in Your Pocket

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Re: A Revolution in Your Pocket

#11

Post by 0815test »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #2

Is there any hope we can have something like a "Linux phone" someday and not have to cater to anyone or any privacy infringement at all?

A Linux phone (running open, non-custom software in both the kernel and user space) is in fact comparatively easy - we sort of know how to get there, it's just a matter of work. But that, while quite desirable indeed (in that it would mean true "convergence" between desktop and mobile platforms, at least for power users) is only a small part of what the article talks about.

Re: A Revolution in Your Pocket

#13

Post by rschulman »

RodgerTheGreat wrote: post #6

I'm definitely sympathetic to the ideas described in this article. I strongly feel that software should be designed to serve the interests of users, and running locally is structurally necessary to accomplish this. For some applications, it seems plausible that mesh networking and cooperative routing could potentially replace centralized communications infrastructure. It's probably OK if an email takes half an hour o…

I appreciate the thoughtful feedback and I admit that I'm less confident about some parts of the vision than others. Some things, you're probably right, are much less amenable to a distributed network model. With that said, there have been demos of streaming video over IPFS.

Re: A Revolution in Your Pocket

#14

Post by the_duke »

tomxor wrote: post #5

> Many, if not most, of us already own a hand-sized computer with a persistent network connection that we take pretty much everywhere and which lives in our pockets or bags. The top of the line Android and Apple personal computing devices [...] run at upwards of 2 Ghz, have around 4GB of RAM, and on-board storage ranging between 64 and 512 GB. Who is "many of us" really? If this is supposed to be a promising new aven…

I recently got a Nokia 6 as a secondary phone for running/ the gym.

It was 180 Euros, comes with a 1.4Ghz ocatcore, 3GB ram, 32GB storage (+ option for 128 GB SSD) and a decent GPU. This is a cheap phone that can run beautiful 3D games surprisingly well.

(I honestly don't know why I would need anything more powerful, only the somewhat weak camera is a drawback)

Most applications are not high res video editing, they are note taking, todo/task management, document editing, small group chats, ...

A lot of those could be implemented via local compute and federation perfectly well, with the help of some cloud storage and online instances for easy sharing/coordination/discovery. Especially if implemented in memory and CPU efficient (and therefore battery preserving) languages like Rust/C++.

We would just need to change our approach to application design and implementation.

Re: A Revolution in Your Pocket

#15

Post by mwcampbell »

I noticed that the word "battery" doesn't appear anywhere in this post. Isn't conserving battery power one reason why we delegate so much to central services?

That said, I think the wireless routers that a lot of us have in our homes could play an important role in this kind of decentralized Internet. They'd need to have more computing power than many wireless routers do, but that's OK because they're already plugged into the wall all the time.

Re: A Revolution in Your Pocket

#16

Post by tomxor »

rschulman wrote: post #8
tomxor wrote: post #5

> Many, if not most, of us already own a hand-sized computer with a persistent network connection that we take pretty much everywhere and which lives in our pockets or bags. The top of the line Android and Apple personal computing devices [...] run at upwards of 2 Ghz, have around 4GB of RAM, and on-board storage ranging between 64 and 512 GB. Who is "many of us" really? If this is supposed to be a promising new aven…

I live in Washington, DC, actually... But I appreciate the feedback. I think you're right that I'm being a bit optimistic here, but the whole vision is a work in progress. I'm also not sure that current smartphones are actually what you would want to use for such a vision. They're convenient because lots of people have them, but they're not purpose-built for the kind of work that I'm discussing here.

> I live in Washington, DC, actually...

Yes, SF was just a euphemism for "rich people city", oh great now you made me say it!

> I'm also not sure that current smartphones are actually what you would want to use for such a vision. They're convenient because lots of people have them, but they're not purpose-built for the kind of work that I'm discussing here.

Smartphone technology has already created lots of nice side-effects like the super cheap single board computer craze... I honestly think this is currently the closest device that is of a practical cost and performance for almost "everyone" as a personal server.

But the main issue with all these decentralised ideas is not really if your personal server is fast enough, but whether it has enough pipe (this is still a problem even in a mesh network). Dare something be slightly popular (especially video), your personal pipe will never be large enough, this is where centralisation rules unless P2P serving technology is pushed more (there are already some nice working examples out there for video and even entire static sites).

Re: A Revolution in Your Pocket

#19

Post by fwip »

tomxor wrote: post #5

> Many, if not most, of us already own a hand-sized computer with a persistent network connection that we take pretty much everywhere and which lives in our pockets or bags. The top of the line Android and Apple personal computing devices [...] run at upwards of 2 Ghz, have around 4GB of RAM, and on-board storage ranging between 64 and 512 GB. Who is "many of us" really? If this is supposed to be a promising new aven…

Smartphone penetration in the US is over 75%. That's not just San Francisco tech bubbles, that's most of America.

Over half of China has a smartphone. Venezuela, the country where it's hard to buy bread, has 40% smartphone penetration.

Re: A Revolution in Your Pocket

#20

Post by stickfigure »

This is just... weird.

We have centralized services for a lot of reasons, but one of them is that they're more reliable than decentralized systems. Phones get lost, stolen, drowned, and crushed. People drive through tunnels or into mountains without cell signal. Batteries die.

It seems patently absurd to think that a P2P network of handsets is somehow going to replace The Datacenter, on any timescale.

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