计算机专业时文选读之二十九

What's U3?

USB Flash memory thumb drives (UFDs) are neat and useful gizmos for storing up to 4GB of data. They are now also being delivered with small applications on them. Initially these were simple e-mail clients. This meant you could slip the thumb drive into someone else's network-connected PC or notebook and work on your e-mail with your e-mail software but using the temporary host machine's resources.

The application capabilities of UFDs have been steadily increasing. NCD of Morocco has been shipping its Pocket Desktop application. Like a software Swiss Army knife, it offers to anybody who owns a USB thumb drive a complete, secure, mobile and independent computer software desktop, with more than 20 full software applications, dependent on the UFD capacity.

With Pocket Desktop you can look at your emails anywhere in the world, receive and send as many emails you want, and navigate through the web. It doesn't leave any trace of its use on the computer your USB key was plugged in. And it offers a complete office suite with spreadsheet, text processing.

Mehdi and Réda Belkhayat, the founders of NCD, believe that people can think about computers in a very new way: The way of independence from a computer and its applications. Now, you can go anywhere you want with your data and applications in your pocket. In effect the host PC becomes a very thin client; ironic as an original thin client company, NCD, has gone away with the Moroccan company NCD resurrecting its name.

Sandisk and M-Systems founded U3 to take “USB Flash Drives (UFD) to the next level by making them the ultimate portable solution for storing data and launching applications.”

SanDisk and M-systems have been working on U3. They believe this technology will revolutionize the USB flash drive usage model and will provide more features to the end user.

U3 Platform

U3's idea is to create a new platform for developers. Obviously it is a proprietary platform. It wants to provide a common UFD hardware and software platform. That requires other UFD manufacturers to sign up for it. Sample target applications are a firewall, a password manager, Internet access, and e-mail synchronisation.

The U3 product will be based on a hardware specification and software APIs. The idea is to provide a 3-tier platform consisting of:

● U3 Launch pad — a user-friendly graphical user interface used by both developers and end-users to access and run applications.

● U3 Software Developer Kit — this includes sample code, a standard set of Application Programming Interfaces, and thorough documentation.

● U3 Web Portal — where developers can publish U3-certified applications for purchase and download. The portal is accessible via the web.

What is not clear is how UFD devices can store applications that run on a host PC without needing to be installed in the Windows sense. Software such as Office 2003, Quark, PhotoShop and many. many others needs to be installed on a Windows PC before it can run. Is it meant to be the case that a user could have a version of PhotoShop on a UFD which can run in any PC without PhotoShop having to be officially installed on that PC?

Running “client” software like e-mail clients is OK. But what about running full-blown PC applications? We suspect not and consider that only “portable” applications can run, ones not requiring full-blown PC installation.

Securing host PCs

Owners of host PCs may not be sanguine about this. Who knows what damage or discovery of sensitive data UFD applications could do? In a feature on stealing data via USB drives we mentioned Dynacom software that can control USB drive access.

Prominent amongst U3 supporters were anti-virus companies like CheckPoint and MacAfee. This is hopeful from a security point of view.

何谓U3?

优盘是简洁而有用的小发明，能储存多达4GB的数据。现在，它们还能带着小的应用程序交付使用。最初，这些应用只是简单的E-mail客户机。这意味着你只要将优盘插入别人的连着网的PC或笔记本电脑，就能用你的E-mail软件处理你的E-mail，而你是在使用临时主机的资源。

优盘的应用程序能力在稳步提高。摩纳哥的NCD公司已经在提供Pocket Desktop(袖珍桌面)应用程序。它像软件的瑞士军刀，给任何一位拥有优盘的人提供完整的、安全的、移动的和独立的计算机软件桌面，依据优盘的容量，可以拥有20个以上的完整应用程序。

有了Pocket Desktop，你就能在世界任何地方看你的电子邮件，你想要收发多少邮件你就收发多少，以及在网上漫游。这也不会在插着优盘的计算机上留下任何痕迹。它也提供包括电子表格、文本处理等的完整办公套件。

NCD公司的创始人Mehdi 和Réda Belkhayat认为，人们可以用一个全新的方式，即独立于计算机和应用程序的方式，看待计算机。现在，你能在口袋里装着数据和应用程序，到任何地方去。实际上，主PC机成了极瘦的客户机。有讽刺意味的是，最初的瘦客户机公司NCD已经消失，而摩纳哥的公司复兴了NCD这个名称。

Sandisk和M-Systems两家公司创建了U3平台，使优盘最终成为储存数据和发送应用程序的便携式解决方案，将优盘提升到新的高度。

Sandisk和 M-Systems两公司在对U3开展工作。他们认为，此技术将使优盘的使用模式发生革命，给最终用户提供更多的功能。

U3平台

U3的想法是给开发者创立新的平台。显然，它是一个专有的平台。它要提供一个公共的优盘硬件和软件平台。为得到它，其他的优盘制造商需要签订协议。预计中的应用程序的例子有防火墙、口令管理器、互联网接入以及电子邮件同步等。

U3产品将基于硬件规范和软件API(应用程序编程接口)。该设想是提供由下列三层组成的平台：

● U3发送板: 一个用户友好的图形用户界面，由开发者和最终用户共同使用，以获得和运行应用程序。

● U3软件开发者工具包: 它包括样品的代码、一组标准的应用程序编程接口和完整的文档。

● U3门户: 在该门户上开发者公布U3认证过的应用程序，供购买和下载。该门户通过互联网接入。

现在还不清楚的是，优盘装置能如何储存应用程序，使之在无需以Windows方式安装，就能在主PC上运行。Office 2003、 Quark、PhotoShop等很多软件需要安装在Windows PC上才能运行。这是不是意味着这种情况，用户可以拥有一个优盘版本的PhotoShop，就能在任何一台没有正式安装PhotoShop的PC机上运行?

运行电子邮件一类的客户端软件没问题。但运行庞大的PC应用程序行吗?我们怀疑它不行，认为只有“可移植的”应用程序能运行，而需要完整安装在PC机上的应用程序不行。

确保主PC机的安全

主PC机的拥有者可能不希望看到它。谁知道优盘的应用程序会造成什么破坏或者发现敏感数据?对于通过优盘窃取数据的特性，我们提到了Dynacom公司的软件，该软件能控制优盘的接入。

U3支持者中最突出的是防病毒软件公司，如CheckPoint和MacAfee。从安全观点看，它是有希望的。