(2005-05-20) Flying Grid

A project creating Grid Computing out of Embedded Hardware systems. PhD candidate Renzo De Nardi recently completed a prototype Ultra Swarm device, a craft the project believes to be the smallest flying Web Server in the world. Once the whole flock has been completed, the onboard computers will be configured as a Pico Net (a network of devices connected in an ad hoc manner via Blue Tooth), "with the master on the arena-based computer system," Hollands says... According to Mobile computing module maker Gum Stix, the Grid Swarm and Ultra Swarm projects are making use of its "Gum Stix" computing modules - tiny computer boards about the size of a stick of gum, but powered by the same Intel X Scale processor often used in PDA-s, LinuxOS smartphones, and other relatively powerful Mobile Multimedia devices.