
Plugging In $40 Computers - jbrun
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/plugging-in-to-the-uses-of-40-computers/
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scorxn
I live near a university with an unbelievably fast network. The network in my
apartment complex is shit. Every time I need to download something large, I've
thought about planting a little device in the library and picking it up when
the download is complete. $40 is cheap enough to risk theft or confiscation.

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stcredzero
Criminals could park these in public WiFi zones to implement compute/storage
nodes in a kind of Guerilla "cloud." Or give them mobile broadband and pay off
truckers to keep them. (And activate a self destruct if the cops come around.)

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splitrocket
While interesting, I think that as a product, I'd personally be more
interested in Ubiquiti's routerstation pro, which has 4 GigE ports, POE,
slower processor, more ram, 3 mini pci slots, and depending on what you do
with the mini pci slots, less power consumption. And the routerstation pro is
cheaper too.

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biotech
The routerstation pro has a 680 MHz processor with 256 MB RAM, which is okay
for certain applications. But for many uses, 680 MHz is kind of low. The
SheevaPlug has 1.2 GHz processor and 512 MB RAM, which isn't too bad
considering the cost.

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stcredzero
How about a new kind of flat-panel screen that has WiFi and the ability to
VNC? (tunneled for security) Be able to detatch it from its stand, and use it
as a tablet or an eBook reader.

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daeken
<http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/touchbook/> is effectively exactly that. It's
a bit pricey, though, and not out yet.

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babo
Adding a few of these in a rack box with small HDs plus an internal hub and
you have a small "datacenter" in a colocation environment for a fraction of
cost. Neat.

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ShabbyDoo
The advantage of this little computer over buying a slice of a slice of
somebody's EC2 box would be had in cases where IO had to happen in a
particular physical place. And, this is primarily limited to cases where one
wants to monitor/control physical things and pipe that data to/from that
physical location. So, monitoring one's swimming pool temperature might be a
good use case, but why would anyone want a small network server, especially in
a future of more ubiquitous connectivity? I get the whole mobile use case as
well, but I think it falls into the category of wanting IO close to a physical
thing (in this case, yourself).

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babo
Running cost of this is way lower than an EC2 box, even if you add a dedicated
ADSL line, it's a cheap way to run automated processes.

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ShabbyDoo
Agree. I was just suggesting that, presuming people wanted to purchase
computing power in units this small, people could sell 1/500th of a EC2 slice
with a gig/month of bandwith or whatever. It's proximity to non-networked IO
that makes this thing necessary/useful.

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extension
Wow, at $40 it would be about the same price as an Arduino and 50-100 times
more powerful. Add WiFi and some I/O pins and you've got a fantastic gadget
controller. They should be marketing to inventors and hardware startups. What
is a consumer going to do with it?

On the other hand, do we really want to live in a world of Linux lightswitches
and doorknobs? Just of think of all the things that won't work.

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bravura
Can someone propose a list of uses for this device? Especially uses for which
this device excels, compared to a standard desktop.

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deutronium
Sounds great! I hope they make a UK version soon.

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elai
This vs. an airport express?

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daeken
You can do whatever you feel like on it, whereas the Airport Express is just a
router and music streaming device.

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TweedHeads
Huge cases are on the way out.

FitPC, MacMini, MiniITX, iPhone and now this, just beautiful.

Small is the new black.

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frossie
"Huge cases are out" if your computer is an appliance. If I need to get in
there and swap out drives, motherboards, etc., I'll take the nice big case
with room to swing a cat, thank you very much.

