Purdue University has announced an interesting mobile concept, a means to free up lots of space that is now housing apps and app data.
Why not, the university asks, stream the apps themselves from the cloud?Let's let the school explain its own idea: "New software streams data and code resources to an app from a cloud server when necessary, allowing the app to use only the space it needs on a phone at any given time.
'It like how Netflix movies aren''t actually stored on a computer.
They are streamed to you as you are watching them,' said Saurabh Bagchi, a Purdue University professor of electrical and computer engineering, and computer science, and director of the Center for Resilient Infrastructures, Systems and Processes.
'Here the application components, like heavy video or graphics or code paths, are streaming instantly despite the errors and slowdowns that are possible on a cellular network.' Bagchi team showed in a study how the software, called AppStreamer, cuts down storage requirements by at least 85 percent for popular gaming apps on an Android.
The software seamlessly shuffles data between an app and a cloud server without stalling the game.
Most study participants didn''t notice any differences in their gaming experience while the app used AppStreamer.
Because AppStreamer works for these storage-hungry gaming apps, it could work for other apps that usually take up far less space, Bagchi said.
The software also allows the app itself to download faster to a phone.
The researchers will present their findings Feb.
18 at the 17th International Conference on Embedded Wireless Systems and Networks in Lyon, France." (Note: This press release was written before Feb.
18.)