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The Great Teleport Debate

Computer on a Stick

How long will it be before the USB memory stick becomes your computer?

Several years ago I speculated about the memory stick being used to boot a computer, something I had never seen. At that time I hadn't even bought my first USB drive, my only experience of memory chips was of a word processor fitted into an EPROM chip which was soldered onto the motherboard of my first (second-hand) computer, a PCMCIA memory expansion chip I used on a notepad computer and memory cards for my digital camera. It was obvious to me that once the price of such devices fell and their capacity had risen it would become feasible to use them to boot your computer, to hold all your personal settings, being able to retrieve your own desktop on any compatible computer on the planet and possibly even allow you to boot up a computer using an operating system that is not installed on it.

I had forgotten about this prediction until I was asked to help a friend install some new programs on her brand new Vista laptop. As I switched on there was an error message, the drive was not bootable. What drive? The USB memory stick. The BIOS of the laptop was obviously checking on removable USB drives for boot files ahead of the C drive. Of course that makes sense, nobody these days has any use for a floppy drive, if you want to do an emergency or alternative boot regime the USB drive is the obvious way to do it.

Now, fast forward another five to seven years. All computers have front mounted USB 2 (or USB 3) or Firewire 2 or whatever. How difficult would it be to have a marker pen, chewing gum stick or lipstick sized solid state drive with sufficient memory to boot up, interrogate and operate any (co-operative) computer it was plugged into? Desktop machines could be programmed to recognize their own password protected key drives and allow them full access to encrypted sections of the hard drive or to allow any drive access to just those sections of the C drive that control allowed functions such as keyboard, mouse, printer and perhaps also certain applications.

Imagine checking into a hotel room and there is a keyboard with a couple of drive sockets on it. Plug into that device and you can access the hotel's computer network, you can order room service and a porno movie (you won't be able to download much porn for free because the hotel subscribes to a services that ensures as many as possible of these feeds are blocked, unless you pay to lift the block, of course sir...). The keyboard and the detachable mouse will also act as the remote control for the high definition television. Should you wish to send SMS messages obviously it would be handy to connect this keyboard to your phone via Bluetooth. If you don't already have the drivers for this the screen gives you the premium rate number you need to call to install this software into your phone, along with a complimentary map of all Hilton hotels, adding the numbers of all hotels in the group to your phone's memory is as easy as not checking the tiny box at the bottom of the screen. Naturally while you are a guest of the hotel you can use all the very latest software titles, and when you pay your bill you are given a code to order that indispensable title direct from Microsoft with a 5% discount. American Express? That will do nicely sir.

Why would you want to plug in to a hotel's keyboard? It saves you the bother of carrying your own laptop. The hotel's keyboard is full sized, light and responsive. And with it you can connect to the internet via broadband so all your personal files are right there on your webdrive. You don't still keep your own storage media at home do you sir? That went out with clockwork gramophones. For the security conscious there is always the multiple biometric drive, for those who don't mind being seen whispering into the arm rests of train seats or shining a torch into their eyes in the first class lounge or having to explain to their sceptical accountant why their computer device actually costs more than a bottle of champagne.

© 1999 - 2008 by Martin Willett.

mwillett.org: Debate Unlimited