New Nano-ITX Boards Shown At Cebit 228
Subartik writes "The new nano-itx boards from Via have been shown at the CeBit show in Germany. It looks like it will be a suitable platform for all kinds of small form factor devices. See
VIA embedded and
Linux Devices for the specs and pictures"
An anonymous reader points to PC World articles about the Nano-ITX board itself as well as the first system which will include it.
Ironic Advertising (Score:1, Interesting)
Perfect size for a media center? (Score:1, Interesting)
notice the AES hardware encryption... (Score:1, Interesting)
IPv6 (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:IPv6 (Worse than you think) (Score:4, Interesting)
Absolutely. In fact, your fridge might demand an entire subnet. Smaller, cheaper boards drive appliance makers to a federated, modular architectures in which every new function has its own CPU. Your fridge might need range of IPs addys if it has an ice maker, RFID-reading intelli-chiller, home-message center, Kalory-Kounter terahertz sensor array, Phreshness Gas Sensor, Open-Door SMS alert sender, remote shopping list VPN website, etc.
Its just much easier to make a bunch of modules that sit on a network than create a bloatware central system that has wires for every conceivable add-on function.
Tons of uses... (Score:5, Interesting)
-Homebrew $200 firewalls (routers, gateways, etc) with much, much greater capabilities than those little D-Link units.
-Personal NAS devices that, again, are mega-cheap and tiny
-home automation devices: c'mon, who hasn't dreamed of fully automating their house?
-motorcycle-based GPS system anyone?
-cheapass public terminal systems: incorporate one of these into an LCD screen?
-smaller tablets, laptops with longer battery life? Sure there's not much computational power, but if you're just doing surfing or doing office chores...
-add a single wifi chip/small antenna and you have instant access point. I bet Starbucks would love this idea. Instant, easy, cheap wireless internet.
Now, personally, I think these things could be great building blocks for doing distributed computing research. You could build a rather large network of these tiny things into a standard ATX tower, and have yourself a portable beowulf cluster, or hell, nice little units to experiment with distributed computing ideas. I can see it now: a couple of 8-drive HDD external bays, with each slot housing full systems!
Re:Heat? (Score:2, Interesting)
distributed research platform: (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh god, would I love to build such an array...oh baby...
Re:Heat? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:useless to me (Score:3, Interesting)
Just because you once blew out the onboard video doesn't mean that every motherboard will have that happen, or even any more than a very few motherboards.
Besides, you're just as likely to blow a regular video card as you are to blow the VGA on this board - and that regular video card might just cost *more* to replace than this entire mortherboard!
If anything, I've found most computer hardware to be much more resiliant and hard to "blow" than I would have imagined. I've hot-(un)plugged just about every type of PC interface there is without damaging the computer (sometimes on purpose, sometimes on accident). And if I went into the stories of things I've seen people do without damaging a computer, your eyes would probably pop out of your head.
The only thing I've had damaged by hot-(un)plugging was one particular model of monitor from one particular vendor. They weren't designed well, and they'd go "pop" quite often if you plugged them in to a running computer. However, that hasn't stopped me from doing it with some uncountable number of monitors, and no others have ever given me any problem.
Besides, don't tell me that you'd never buy an Opteron for fear that the memory controller in it would get blown, rendering the rest of the CPU useless....
steve
Re:Tons of uses... (Score:3, Interesting)