Applications for your plug computer
tonidoplug.com
tonidoplug.com
Was wondering when someone would do that, but apparently, it's been done and done and done: http://www.marvell.com/products/embedded_processors/develope...
What really interests me, is how long has it been since Apple did the Airport Express? Years. And that has universal plugs for around the world, just like their laptop chargers.
365 days = 8760 Hrs
Conventional Server: Assume 100 watts and cost 15¢/KWH(based on commercial hosting service) Cost/Year: 8760 * 0.1 * 0.15 = $131.40/Year
Plug: Cost/Year: 8760 * 0.005 * 0.15 = $6.57/Year
Plug is definitely cheaper and greener.
It's tough however. If your target audience is the main stream public, which it seems like it, then there will always be a mental barrier of learning how to operate yet another machine. Most of this audience don't even know what a server is.
Aside from that, you will be competing with every cloud-base service out there, even the ones that are not on the radar yet. You end up spreading your resource to develop interfaces for music, photo, documents, etc, while sites like flikr only need to worry about photo.
Personally I'd pick an easier battle field, but then again, what's an entrepreneur but someone who innovates and fights hard battles.
This looks cool, but I do wonder if the advent of free streaming media (i.e. Hulu) has caused a large decrease in demand for the storage drive market.
Now that would be interesting.