Jamcracker set out to replace in-house PC software ownership, and most common servers, at businesses large and small by offering a single portal through which users could log on and use a variety of web based software packages their company had subscribed to through Jamcracker.  In that way, companies could shed responsibility for maintaining and upgrading software (where far more problems than hard drives present actually take place) and they could purchase relatively simple computers or dumb terminals through which to access the "best of breed" software.  One of the main stumbling blocks, however, was that most people and businesses actually prefer to put up with all of the cost and trouble of running their own show rather than sacrifice the ability to customize their software in ways that just aren't cost effective to make available to the masses, as well as to choose to niche software, which puts them back in the full blown PC and software maintenance game.

I suspect the same problem exists for hardware choices.  People will want to have some new goodies that mass providers don't want to support until they bugs are worked out and incompatibilities are addressed, which, in many cases is never because of the constant cycle of change in the tech industry.

It's a nice idea.  And the fact that Jamcracker still exists--though not as the major player they were once expected to be--suggests there is a viable niche market for this sort of thing.  But until other shifts are made in the general culture and infrastructure of life in the most developed countries--and especially in North America, where property rights and individualism are regarded as next to godliness by many--I think it is going to be a tough sell.

Business models aside, I think we are on the verge of a technological shift.  A number of companies tried "thin clients" when slower nets and smaller non-volatile storage capacities made it difficult.

Now we have faster nets and the size of a cheap flash card is passing the installation size of my linux-powered web surfing machine.

I hope Zonbu does well, but I think they are a bell-weather for a incipient trend no matter what.

All that said ... a Zonbu is a lot like a notebook computer without a screen.  Notebooks do very well on power consumption (plug one into your Kill-A-Watt for a week), and are falling rapidly in price.

So sure ... not only is green computing possible in the consumer sector, you can go buy it.

(one last hat tip to the Mac Mini, plug one into your Kill-A-Watt for a week)

If Zonbu can find that PC in OEM form maybe they can unix-ize it.

Do people really go through PCs that fast? Computers in my house last an average of 3 years (the average being brought down by buying an hp). Anyway, it seems a bit early to jump on this bandwagon, but you never know.

On another note, am I the only person irritated by that wretched phrase "save the planet"? As in "you save on electricity bills and you save the planet by reducing CO2 emissions". I mean, I suppose it's nice having people running around determined to save the planet, but it'll take a hell of a lot more than simply buying a new computer. And there's a lot more wrong with the planet than just CO2 emissions, if it comes to that.

If I share initials with 'Global Warming', is that a sign?

Really interesting concept and I might actually get one to serve in additional locations in my home network but I can't really see it replacing the existing PCs in the household at this time.

I would rather support the Climate Savers initiative.

http://www.climatesaverscomputing.org/

and here's an article suggesting a flash-based Mac.

As I said, a[n] incipient trend.  It makes for neater products that are greener as a bonus.

Your living room may be using less energy, but they have a room full of servers somewhere to keep up.  I wouldn't believe their claims until they have evidence that your OVERALL energy use is significantly lessened.  It may be true, but they may also be overstating their case significantly.

Although, I would guess that there is still a gain in the reduced material footprint of the thing--I'm guessing (without benefit of data) that a bunch of little devices fed by a server is overall much more efficient than many full-size PCs doing the same tasks.

The 5% Project

Unlike personal computing equipment, there has not been an Energy Star program for servers, routers, and switches, but that is finally changing.  Meanwhile, the faster nets that Odograph was referring to are big power suckers with a long way to go before they reverse their trend of rapid energy consumption growth:

. . . "Data centers use 50 times the energy per square foot as an office [does]," says Mark Bramfitt, principal program manager at PG&E.

Industry experts say the power consumption of data centers is doubling every five years or so, making them one of the fastest-growing drags on energy in the U.S. "The IT industry is where the automotive industry was 20 years ago," says Rakesh Kumar, research vice-president at consulting firm Gartner (IT). "We are so backwards when it comes to using alternative-energy and energy-efficient technologies."

. . .

To keep servers at the right temperature, companies mainly rely on air-conditioning. The more powerful the machine, the more cool air needed to keep it from overheating. By 2005, the energy required to power and cool servers accounted for about 1.2% of total U.S. electricity consumption, according to a report released in February by staff scientist Jonathan Koomey of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and sponsored by chip manufacturer AMD (AMD). Gartner reckons that by 2010, about half of the Forbes Global 2000 companies will spend more on energy than on hardware such as servers. Energy costs, now about 10% of the average IT budget, could rise to 50% in a matter of years, Kumar says.

That is, unless companies take some radical measures--soon. . . .

SOURCE: BusinessWeek Online.

That 1.2% (and rapidly rising) share of electricity may not sound like much, but it is significantly more than enough to swallow the entire national wind and solar output.

But technically I think fat pipes is about backbone bandwidth.  I have no real idea of the energy intensity of that bandwidth, but I'd expect it to improve over time.

On the other hand, the big servers doing hard work (Google, Amazon) do need to rotate lots of disks, execute lots of instructions.

I had a podcast link to google's early "build it fast" network, i'll try to find it...

fit-PC draws only 5 Watts, consuming in a day less power than a traditional PC consumes in 1 hour. You can leave fit-PC to work 24/7 without making a dent in your electric bill."

... this field seems to be breaking open.

Like buying CFLs, this looks like one of those technological win win win scenarios. Not only more durable and environmentally benign, but you also save  money.

I suspect that someone has already touched on this but, unless you can compare how much energy is being saved by the Internet, via telecommuting and on line shopping etc, you can't say that the energy sucking server centers are a net negative.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

I did hear a Sun executive claiming a net energy win for online shopping, but I'm not sure how many studies have been done.  Certainly online comparison shopping will beat driving around town ;-)

I wish I could telecommute, but even though it is technically feasible, and we text-chat from desk to desk anyway ... they want me there.  Maybe that's because most of the technical staff is in Russia and Manila these days and they want to see somebody.

(I'm tempted to try one of these low power PCs as well ... but I really should get a notebook again, and shift some usage to that.)

If you can get all your computing done to your satisfaction with a more efficient personal computer that will continue to meet your needs for many years, retiring your old power sucker is a clear move forward on that front.  But if you will need to augment with other computers, or move some of your computing work onto other computers or server farms, it is not as cleat that net power and other environmentally impacting resource savings will result.  (That said, going from a 300 watt system to a 5 watt system is a no brainer--if it will actually last and do what you need to do.)

Here is some perspective on home computing power consumption from LocalCooling, the outfit behind the utility linked above.

More than 30 billion kilowatt-hours of energy is wasted because many of us simply forget to shut down our computers when we're not using them. If we could just improve the efficiency of how we use our PCs, the savings in energy costs would be over $3 billion! The CO2 emissions from just 15 computers are equivalent in energy terms to the gas consumption used by one car.

A barrel of oil contains 42 gallons and produces an average 556 kilowatt hours of electrical power. Now consider your computer. A good spec PC can use up to 200 watts per hour. If you have a CRT monitor, it adds a further 80 watts (TFT screens use less). So your system is consuming over 1 KWh of power for every four hours of normal use. If you leave your computer on 24/7, that's the equivalent of a whole barrel of oil every 90 days! If you optimize your computer with LocalCooling and power down when you're not using it you could extend this to over six months!

Remember, if you leave the PC on with just a screen saver on the CRT when you're not using it, it's STILL using up to 280 watts per hour of completely wasted power. Power that pumps out 1.5lbs of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere for every KWh. If left on for 24 hours that's 9lbs of CO2 every day and 3,285lbs per year. That's more than 1.6 tons of CO2 thrown up into the atmosphere just to keep your one single PC working.

. . .

Today's waste of 30 billion kilowatt-hours of energy every year is responsible for putting 45 billion lbs or 30 billion kgs of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. A figure that will DOUBLE within five years if we don't improve the power efficiency of the way we use our PCs.

To put the 30 billion kilowatt-hours of waste into perspective, data center servers in the U.S. were estimated to have used 45 billion kilowatt hours of electricity in 2005, a figure projected to double in just a few years.  So, Odograph, you are right, cutting waste out of personal PC's is some very ripe and low hanging fruit, but it is important to be aware of and encourage programs and voluntary efforts to tighten up server farm efficiency before it gets further out of hand.