We all knew it was heading in this direction, but we didn’t think it would come from a relative unknown. Zonbu announces the first computer that has everything – except – storage. You store all of your data – all of it – online, on the Zonbu servers.
The concept of the Linux based Zonbu is that you get a tiny PC – so small that you can hold it in one hand – which has all the whizbang and connectors you need to allow you to connect whatever you want to it to your heart’s content (iPod, camera, you name it – it has 6 USB ports onboard). What it doesn’t have is a hard drive, although it does have flash memory, to which it does automatic backups of your vital data.
Instead, you store all of your data online, on the Zonbu servers.
This, they explain, gives you the advantage of being able to access your data from anywhere.
It also gives you the disadvantage that all of your personal data is online, at the mercy of whatever Zonbu has in place to protect it.
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Zonbu is pushing this as the green alternative to a desktop – with no drive and thus no fan, the Zonbu is ultra quiet and, they claim, will run on just a tenth of the power required by a traditional PC.
Of course, what you save in energy costs you’ll more than make up for by paying the monthly fee to, you know, access your data. Which runs between $12.95 and $15.95 a month.
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I suppose the point is it’s supposed to be more enery efficient and that you can access the data normally stored on the hard drive build into your desk/laptop from any computer anywhere… right? Sounds cool except I don’t know if I can really trust my data in the hands of someone else. Sounds like something along the lines of “big brother watching” or at least can should and whenever he desire.
This might make more sense to me if Zonbu also offered Internet access and online storage as a package. Having to pay someone else for Web access, then pay Zonbu again to access what I’d storing for free in any other brand of computer… what’s really the point?