An artist’s rendering of a modular ARM-based Dell BL 2020. (conceptual art courtesy Spidermonkey, Inc.)
By now you’re familiar with the Blade Runner Project, a concept developed by Jason Perlow and myself. We tried to envision what the personal computer of 2019 would look like eight to ten years from now, based on existing technology and continuing advances.
We tried to stay as far away from experimental or predicted concept technology. Our forecast has its roots in today’s tech. And while our current tech isn’t quite capable of what we’ve outlined, nor as powerful, much of it could actually be built today.
Also Read:
- Project Blade Runner: The user experience of 2019
- Project Blade Runner: The personal computer of 2019
In his article, Jason delved deeply into the technology and systems architecture behind the concept. In my approach, I will be discussing how this new personal computer design would be used by the consumer.
The basic building block of the Blade Runner PC, or BRPC, is the hub. By itself it is a standalone computer, able to handle most of your computing tasks without need for additional hardware. Of course, if you play games, or record and watch a lot of video and music, you might want to expand with an extra storage module and discrete video adapter.
2 terabytes of storage may seem like a lot, but if you’re recording video at Blu-Ray quality, that’s 50-100GB of data for a 2-hour movie. If you use your computer as a digital video recorder, that storage gets used up pretty fast.
The design is deliberately geared toward ease of use. While there are plenty of people that like to tinker, most consumers do not. They just want their computer to work. To that end, expansion modules simply stack on top of the hub, allowing all stacked devices to operate on the same system bus and use the same power source.
Discrete video adapters may require more power, and thus would have their own power bricks. Since we do not foresee graphics adapters being made smaller over time, we estimated that the adapter would likely require a larger heatsink and fan in the module, possibly even residing next to the main computer stack rather than on top of it–this would definitely be the case if you used multiple GPU units to play intense video games at a high frame rate.
As more devices in our household are replaced with network-capable ones, it becomes easier to control them from a central location–in this case, the BRPC. Your TV, your stereo, household lighting, even your coffee maker, fridge and oven. If the core system isn’t enough to handle all of the tasks you throw at it, you could simply add another hub module.
As described in Jason’s first article, the entire BRPC performs as an as-needed cluster. Running on minimal current, individual CPU cores and banks of RAM don’t actually start drawing power and working until the rest of the system needs those resources.
This is very similar to the way the Toyota Prius hybrid car operates: the vehicle operates on battery power, the engine kicks in only when needed, and then the engine shuts off again when it is no longer necessary.
Ambient noise from the BRPC is also something that will have been reduced to a minimum. With the exception of a discrete video adapter and a DVD/Blu-Ray module, nothing on the unit should make any noise at all. The CPU modules run at low power and generate little heat, which is easily offset by a simple heatsink. The storage devices are SSD–solid state drives–so there are no moving parts there, either.
Connecting external peripherals will be made in one of two ways, either by a next-generation Thunderbolt cable, or by 10 Gigabit Wi-Fi. The Wi-Fi connection, which is at least 20 to 50 times faster than anything wireless that is in use by consumers today, will be fine for any handheld devices, printers, and remotely-controlled appliances around your house.
The Thunderbolt connection would be for high-speed video connections, such as your 3D 4K monitor. You’re going to want that kind of bandwidth when you’re pushing video that’s four times the size of HDTV 1080p.
One of the other aspects of the BPRC is being able to access your data from anywhere. Now, it’s obvious that plenty of people have their email in the cloud with Gmail and cloud storage services like Dropbox. But what about private data? These days, it’s becoming clear that the cloud isn’t really that secure unless you encrypt your data so that even the hosting provider doesn’t have access to it.
Enter the personal cloud. You have all of this storage at home, and unless you’re familiar with setting up your home network so that you can access your data from anywhere, you don’t want to be bothered with the trouble of learning. (If you think I’m wrong, ask your grandparents why their VCR flashes 12:00–or why they even still HAVE a VCR.)
The idea for the personal cloud stems from two scenarios. One, to access your data from a central location no matter where you are. Two, to have a backup of your critical home data in the event of a disaster.
I had originally thought of the concept of using a fireproof home safe to backup all data from your BPRC, but the material required often inhibits wifi signals from penetrating it while maintaining a cool, fireproof environment that protects your data. It might be possible using a physical Thunderbolt connection that would likely melt in the event of a fire.
We decided that the data equivalent of the Japanese capsule hotel was exactly the kind of solution we needed. You could head over to your local FedEx-Kinko’s and rent space in their facility.
They would plug in a tiny storage module with a web front-end that you could access from anywhere, and could be configured to sync to your central data at home. Ostensibly you could buy your own storage module and configure it for them to plug in, or you could buy one of theirs.
