Cloud-based desktop services for thin clients

Cloud computing and ubiquitous network availability have renewed people's interest in the thin client concept. By executing applications in virtual desktops on cloud servers, users can access any application from any location with any device. For this to be a successful alternative to traditional offline applications, however, researchers must overcome important challenges. The thin client protocol must display audiovisual output fluidly, and the server executing the virtual desktop should have sufficient resources and ideally be close to the user's current location to limit network delay. From a service provider viewpoint, cost reduction is also an important issue

Automatic fine-grained area detection for thin client systems

A

Prime: A framework for co-located multi-device apps

Even though mobile devices are ubiquitous, the conceptually simple endeavor of using co-located devices for multi-user experiences is cumbersome. It may not even be possible when certain apps are not widely available. We introduce Prime, a thin-client framework for colocated multi-device apps (MDAs). It leverages wellestablished remote display protocols to enable spontaneous use of MDAs. One device acts as a host, executing the app on behalf of connected clients. The key challenges is dynamic scalability: providing high framerates, low latency and fairness across clients. Therefore, we have developed: An online scheduling algorithm that provides frame rate, latency and fairness guarantees; a modified 802.11 MAC protocol that provides low-latency and fairness; and an efficient video encoder pipeline that offers up to fourteen times higher framerates. We show that Prime can scale a host up to seven concurrent players for a commercially released open source action game, achieving touch-To-pixel latency below 100ms for all clients

MVNC: A Multiview Network Computer Architecture

In this paper, MVNC, a multiview network computer system for a high usability thin-client computing environment, is introduced. MVNC uses a revised SBC model to offer a new framework for thin client computing. MVNC can be used as a full functional Windows machine, or used as a Linux workstation, or a~graphic terminal. Its multiview work style is achieved by the attempts on GUI seamless integration technology, device integration technology and local video playback support. MVNC is implemented in an embedded Linux environment using a MIPS-4KC microprocessor. Test results on video application show that MVNC system uses its client hardware more efficiently and the load of MVNC server is lightened

Semantic multimedia remote display for mobile thin clients

Current remote display technologies for mobile thin clients convert practically all types of graphical content into sequences of images rendered by the client. Consequently, important information concerning the content semantics is lost. The present paper goes beyond this bottleneck by developing a semantic multimedia remote display. The principle consists of representing the graphical content as a real-time interactive multimedia scene graph. The underlying architecture features novel components for scene-graph creation and management, as well as for user interactivity handling. The experimental setup considers the Linux X windows system and BiFS/LASeR multimedia scene technologies on the server and client sides, respectively. The implemented solution was benchmarked against currently deployed solutions (VNC and Microsoft-RDP), by considering text editing and WWW browsing applications. The quantitative assessments demonstrate: (1) visual quality expressed by seven objective metrics, e.g., PSNR values between 30 and 42 dB or SSIM values larger than 0.9999; (2) downlink bandwidth gain factors ranging from 2 to 60; (3) real-time user event management expressed by network round-trip time reduction by factors of 4-6 and by uplink bandwidth gain factors from 3 to 10; (4) feasible CPU activity, larger than in the RDP case but reduced by a factor of 1.5 with respect to the VNC-HEXTILE