MIT’s Technology Review has a post on a project to attach a computer to a sleeping computer/server.

Making Computers Talk in their Sleep

A device called Somniloquy processes network traffic autonomously, allowing a computer's CPU, hard disk, and display to be powered down.

By Will Knight

The Somniloquy network adapter. Credit: Microsoft / UCSD.

While working on a story about routing Iinternet data based on electricity price fluctuations, I came across a clever idea for reducing the amount of power used by ordinary computers.

More details on this device are in this paper.

The Microsoft-UCSD network interface (described in this paper) could take over many network-related tasks like bit torrent file-sharing, and managing a remote desktop connection and a VOIP account, allowing the connected machine to enter sleep mode without losing its network link.

The adapter consists of a gumstix module with a 200 MHz XScale processor, 64 MB of RAM, and a 2-GB SD memory card running embedded Linux. When the adapter detects that the connected machine has entered sleep mode, it copies over networking information and carries out simple communications on its behalf.

This the device used in the post I wrote about last month.

Follow the Cheap Energy, Software Routes Internet Traffic to Slash Costs

MIT’s Technology Review has an article on an Internet-routing algorithm that adapts to energy prices.

Energy-Aware Internet Routing

Software that tracks electricity prices could slash energy costs for big online businesses.