Pano Logic have designed a stylish 3.5-inch square box, about the size of a pack of cards, that operates as a computer. But in place of the CPU and memory is a custom Pano Logic virtualization chip. With this device and a low-latency connection to a server, customers can use the box as a fully-functional Windows XP/Vista PC with USB connectivity, thanks to virtualized I/O.

Designed on the VMWare Server platform, the Pano box is positioned to replace traditional desktop PCs with small boxes loading a virtualized environment. Each box has an audio-in/out connection, three USB sockets, VGA video, 10/100 Ethernet, and a power connector.

While this seems like a revolutionary shift in client/server design, I don’t believe that the home user will be greatly affected; it may be more valuable to keep personal information on a local disk and remain independent of network connectivity (or critical lack thereof).

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