by
Brian Madden
"
Fluid
Computing" is a term you'll probably hear more and more over the next few
years. Specifically, it describes the concept of an application that seamlessly
follows a user between diverse client devices. Fluid Computing is a subset of the
grander "Ubiquitous Computing" vision.
Today's vision of a Fluid Computing future (led by
IBM's Zurich Research Lab) involves applications that run on
various client devices that stay synchronized with each other. Your laptop, Palm
Pilot, mobile phone, and wristwatch would run some form of the same application at the
same time, allowing you to access it from any one of them. Special
considerations can be made when multiple devices can connect to each other at
the same time. (Maybe the phone and the watch are constantly communicating via
Bluetooth?) From a practical
standpoint, implementation of this vision should be relatively straightforward
over the next few years as developers figure out how to make real .NET
applications. But what about Citrix and
server-based computing? How does that fit the Fluid Computing vision?
Today's Citrix MetaFrame allows users to roam from device to device while accessing
the same server-based application session. While this allows a certain amount of
fluidity, there are several shortcomings to this. The most obvious is that all
the client devices must be more-or-less the same. Sure, they don't all need to
run the same OS, but they do all need to have the same types of keyboards, large
displays, etc. Instead, what if MetaFrame was smart enough to know the
properties of the client device the user connects from? (Sort of like Citrix's
now defunct
Project
Vertigo.) Forget max resolution and color depth . I'm talking about whether a client device supports handwriting and
ink, voice recognition, a touch screen, or whether it even has a keyboard. The
server-based application could be smart enough to change its GUI based on the size and nature
of the screen.
We're a long way off from seeing Fluid Computing implemented in a practical
way--especially in a Citrix environment. Even so, it's interesting to think
about. Now, if only I could find use my cell phone to play Quake.
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