Bullet-Proof PC

Don't know if someone is already working on this but I haven't seen or heard of it. The other day I was thinking about my older sister and her home computer that wasn't connected to the internet, ostensibly because she is afraid of getting viruses. Now, she certainly isn't unfamiliar with computers since she has been using one for quite a few years at work, but still, she worries about the wild wild west reputation that he internet has, and has decided that she doesn't need that headache.

In many ways I think she is to be admired for trying to simplify her life and not get caught up in all the high tech that so many of us labor with on a daily basis. I don't necessarily agree with her rationale for not hooking up to the internet, but it made me think about how many other people there are in the world who have deferred using the internet for the same reasons.

So, given my interest in technology for seniors, my thoughts naturally evolved to wondering if there could be a machine that solves this problem and simplifies the entire experience of using a computer.

Here is my idea:
Suppose you had a reasonably fast broadband connection and you subscribed to an online service that managed all your software maintenance - automatically.
That means that, lets say every night, your PC would log onto your service and the entire operating system and whatever programs you subscribed to would be checked out and refreshed daily. You would have a pretty simple setup with something like Microsoft works and all your files would be stored and backed up online, not on your machine, and you would have no ability to load new programs locally and screw it up.

The intent here is to appeal to those people who have a need to browse the internet, write e-mails, maybe even converse via a built-in video camera and microphone. We're talking a simple communication device with wireless keyboard and mouse, and a single USB port set up to upload digital photos. The objective would be to create a PC that was almost totally impervious to virus attack, with firmware that could go online and refresh (or upgrade) all the local software if needed.

This would require a big investment to integrate the online component and the hardware component, but it could be done. I'm even thinking that the PC may not even need a hard disk with the price of ram and flash ram getting so cheap. That would significantly add to the reliability.

Given all the hair pulling that computer users go through to keep their machines working, this would solve a lot of problems for people who use a home computer as a communicator - reading and writing messages, learning about things online, shopping, etc.

Who is working on this?????