Tech giants push computers on sticks!

No pun intended in the title :-D  You know a USB 'stick', right? That's the type of stick I'm referring to. So, recently, we have seen technology giants competing to push computing devices, approximately the size of a large-size USB stick to the market; and as everything else technology does, it excites me. Not to worry, I'll bring you up to speed in a moment and get you exited too.

The technology

If you are as "recent" as I think you are, then you should be quite familiar with the laptop. If you do not know the laptop, then you might be in a wrong time period. Take a good look at the laptop, you basically have a large screen, a large keyboard, battery and then the real computing stuff on the mother board. What a bunch of smart guys have said is that how about we cram "computing power" (not as powerful as those in laptops though) in something a little larger than a USB stick, equip the "large USB stick" with a means to connect to TVs or other computers, and then put WiFi and/or USB connectivity on it. The result is a "pocketable computer", which I will call a "ComStick" (it's still so new, that there is no standard industry name for it). So the "ComStick" is usually connectable via an HDMI (basically a good interface for transferring audio/video) port or USB. When you connect the "ComStick" to a TV for instance, the screen of the TV becomes your display monitor, you can use a mouse and keyboard with the "ComStick" via Bluetooth, and the inbuilt WiFi can be used to connect the "ComStick" to the internet. What you have then set-up is basically a computer.

So what? Why are we discussing this?

Recent Developments

Recently, we have technology giants Dell, Intel, Asus and Google pushing out their models of these types of devices (click their names to see their respective products). Previously, these devices run on Android OS but we are now seeing the introduction of Windows and Linux on them as with Intel Compute Stick. We are also seeing cheap prices, with Google's offering coming at less than $100. This is clearly going to be an area of competitions for the tech companies.

Potential Uses

Do you remember cloud computing everybody has been clamoring about?  That idea that you can carry out the actual computing process at a remote location and then transmit to a user-end terminal, yes that one! That fits perfectly with this computer-on-a-stick thingy we are talking about. So lets assume your company puts its data on the cloud and you have a "computer on stick" device. Just imagine this swag: you walk into an office, bring out a stick from your pocket, plug it into a TV or another computer, and your operating system (basically windows or android) loads and displays on the TV or computer. You then use the WiFi (wireless internet) on the stick to connect to your company's cloud (remote data storage) and voila! all your applications are up and you have access to your data. Isn't this great?

Another ingenious use worth mentioning is that of Keepod. So two young guys decide to do this computer-on-a-stick thingy for charity. Their $7 USB device is loaded with Android 4.4 and they are giving it to people who do not have access to computers in some African countries. The idea is that these people can then share computers in public spaces because all their resources are actually domiciled on the Keepod stick.

The takeaway

Development in technology is continually providing cheaper and innovative ways of doing things. Keep abreast and consult to see how you can make huge savings in your enterprise using IT (information technology).

Feel free to contact me on techmaxng@gmail.com