The Soul of a New Machine

Twenty-five years on, Data General is long gone, and yet here we have IBM researchers developing a "soul" for computers. The salvation accrues to users looking to move key PC essentials from machine to machine without a ton of work. The "soul" resides on a portable USB drive or mp3 player like an iPod -- basically anything with storage and a USB connection, hence the name SoulPad.

Amazingly, the SoulPad creates a virtual machine environment on target machines without regard to installed operating systems or applications. All that SoulPad needs is a fast enough USB connection to emulate those functions. In other words, your computer's "soul" can go anywhere you do, which is pretty damn neat.

Bonus geek info: Yes, Linux is involved.