Comment by GekkePrutser
3 years ago
The real-time nature is not what makes it closed though. It's simply that it's been designed to be closed.
For example, Intel's ME could be a really useful feature if we could do what we want with it. Instead they lock it down so it's just built-in spyware.
Isn’t the primary purpose of the ME to run DRM and back door the system? How would it be useful at all open source? People would just turn it off entirely.
I could imagine a super low power coprocessor that's always on would be a real useful tool. It could check my email and other low power tasks.
And remote management isn't bad if it's entirely under my control. It's the closed nature that makes me distrust it.
This has already been solved. Modern devices come with low power general purpose cores and OSs can wake up briefly to check for new messages. I just can’t see why you would ever want to remote manage your own laptop where some software installed on the OS isn’t sufficient.
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Intel recent CPUs come with efficiency cores and support S0 standby, aka "Modern Standby", which can periodically wake up and do stuff like check for new emails.
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