Intel's Compute Card Is a PC That Can Fit In Your Wallet (arstechnica.com) 80
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Intel mostly missed the boat on smartphones, but the company is trying to establish a firm foothold in the ever-broadening marketplace for connected appliances and other smart things. Intel's latest effort in this arena is its new "Compute Card," a small 94.5mm by 55mm by 5mm slab that includes a CPU and GPU, RAM, storage, and wireless connectivity. Intel hasn't given us specific information about the specs and speeds of its first Compute Cards, but you can expect the fastest ones to approach the performance of high-end fanless laptops like Apple's MacBooks. Intel told us that processors with a TDP of up to 6W could fit inside the Compute Cards, which covers both low-power Atom chips like those that powered early versions of Intel's Compute Stick to full Core M and Y-series Core i5 and i7 CPUs like the ones you find in laptops. Intel says that the card uses a variant of the USB-C port called "USB-C plus extension" to connect with the systems it's plugged into. That connector gives devices direct access to the USB and PCIe buses as well as HDMI and DisplayPort video outputs. The company considers the Compute Card to be a replacement of sorts for the Compute Stick, which Intel says will probably disappear from its roadmap in 2018 or so. The issue with the Compute Stick from Intel's perspective is that its input and output ports were unnecessarily limiting -- it could only connect to HDMI ports and could only accept a limited number of USB inputs. The Compute Card can be slid into a wider variety of enclosures that can use all kinds of ports and display interfaces, and Intel says the Card will also offer a large array of performance and storage options, unlike current Compute Sticks.
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No it's not. A smartphone has a high-resolution touch screen display and a battery.
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If you can fit a smartphone in your wallet, you need to get a smaller wallet. Phones do not have the dimensions of credit cards, particularly when it comes to thickness.
I would just be happy... (Score:2)
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What would you need 64GB in a nuc for? I'm sure native software that takes a fraction of that exists to replace the javascript bloatware you intended to use.
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I believe it's a Beowulf cluster you're supposed to be imagining!
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New? (Score:1)
Re:New? (Score:5, Informative)
Looks like they just took their compute stick and changed the dimensions a bit.
Did you even read the summary? Specifically, where they said:
So yes, they did just change the dimensions of the Compute Stick, as well as give it different ports and potentially a wider assortment of CPUs. (I prefer the simplicity of the Compute Sticks myself)
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They also shaped in more like say a passport or ID card. The ideally corporate ID card, it monitors your speech, your location and any other biometry they are interested in. So how long before carry it or you will be arrested. How long before being require to present it on demand, so they can check you current state, citizen or declared non-citizen for dissent. Then again they can already do that with smart phones.
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Binary Blobs (Score:5, Interesting)
If you buy this device, Intel still owns it due to the binary blobs that are required to run things. The future will be open hardware; support RISC-V projects, like this one [lowrisc.org].
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(Shrug) This battle was lost in 1982 when they shipped the 80286 without including the source code to REP MOVS.
Which OS? (Score:2)
If you buy this device, Intel still owns it due to the binary blobs that are required to run things. The future will be open hardware; support RISC-V projects, like this one [lowrisc.org].
What is the OS of choice that Intel uses for this card?
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If you buy this device, Intel still owns it due to the binary blobs that are required to run things...
What is the OS of choice that Intel uses for this card?
If Intel did to this what they've done to their later x86 processors, then it probably doesn't matter much. [hackaday.com]
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If you buy this device, Intel still owns it due to the binary blobs that are required to run things. The future will be open hardware; support RISC-V projects, like this one [lowrisc.org].
Oh cry me an open source river.
Re: I already have one! (Score:1)
This is just Intel's attempt to stave off the move to a less monopolized CPU architecture. Too late, though, the ARM future is coming for you.
Intended Market? (Score:2)
For any mass-produced product, this will likely be significantly more expensive than including an ARM processor on a single logic board that controls the other functions of the product, e.g. a TV. People want cheap electronics that look cool, not upgradable ones. Apple understands this, although I personally hate it. I just don't see much potential for this, although it's cool.
EOMA68 (Score:3)
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The card complying with an existing standard is about as likely as them coming out with a chip that works in AMD motherboards.
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Lets hope it is using the EOMA68 standard.
The card complying with an existing standard is about as likely as them coming out with a chip that works in AMD motherboards.
Hell, it's about as likely as them coming out with a chip that works in their motherboards... from last year. Intel never met a chip socket they couldn't wait to obsolete. Intel loves standards, that's why they create so many of them.
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Well they just did, considering Kaby Lake is backwards compatible with Z170 chipset motherboards.
Hope wirless conectivity works. (Score:3)
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The problems with wifi and Bluetooth simultaneously are widely known. The overheating issue too, so much that they're unusable for anything that you want to be stable. That and the price, I can get similar performance out of an Android stick for half the price. X86 is dying and is only being held up by Windows and some legacy stuff. Once the average ARM reseller can get its head out of its ass and release the Linux sources to their modifications (looking at you MINIX/Amlogic) as required by GPL and Android
Intel Inside. (Score:1)
Intel's Compute Card Is a PC That Can Fit In Your Wallet
So Capital One will now have to upgrade their commercial.
USB-C plus extension? (Score:2)
How is the USB-C implementation different from Thunderbolt 3? Is it because it natively supports HDMI as well as USB 3, PCIe, and DisplayPort, if that is what "direct access" means?
If it is the same, why don't they just call it a Thunderbolt 3 port? If Intel has developed a port that has the capabilities of Thunderbolt 3 + native HDMI, since they own Thunderbolt, why don't they just make that port the Thunderbolt spec rather than engineering two different but very similar ports?
Cool technology... (Score:3)
Cool technology, in search of an application. Why would I want to carry an underpowered PC around with me?
I could see a $50 version being a cool "WTF it's only $50 so why not" PC to add to a television, I guess?
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It's not really intended to be carried around, it's intended to be used in embedded applications. Your example of putting one inside a TV is one example, it could certainly be the brains behind a media center.
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I could see a $50 version being a cool "WTF it's only $50 so why not" PC to add to a television, I guess?
That's a particularly good application because while it's not mentioned in either the summary or the Fine article, I assume it contains a Kaby Lake CPU. And about the only improvement of Kaby Lake CPUs is the addition of VP9 hardware acceleration. Which YouTube uses.
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Well that's what this Intel thingy is. There's already a standard slot in TV sets but it's not really for user applications (I think!). If the Compute Card slots become mainstream for different screen devices, this is yet another form factor that might be useful at a (hopefully) low price.
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Cool technology, in search of an application.
Most embedded devices are just that. You wouldn't want to carry an underpowered PC around with you. That doesn't mean that these aren't awesome for many many purposes.
dumb pic on the intel site (Score:2)
http://www.intel.com/content/w... [intel.com]
A vending machine with HDD's that if it is an drop one likely will damage them and a coin slot so put in $1 $5 $10 $20 $50 $100's in and get back coins in change I hope it has dollar coins in there.
Re: OMG! (Score:1)
It's x86-64 which, for RPi type cost and power consumption, would be a big deal.
Power (Score:1)
Based on my experience with the latest generation of Compute Sticks, the basic problem with these devices is that they are power-limited. Some of the Compute Stick devices have m3- and m5- processors, which would suggest that the devices can do a fair amount of computation. However, the processors can't perform up to their potential because they are power-limited as implemented on the boards. So, until Intel can substantially reduce the amount of power required per compute cycle, they are not all that us
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People already have a computer in their pocket, as suggested in the first sentence. Besides a universal I/O bus, what does this offer? Why not just create a universal expansion port for cell phones? The market will be far larger there, instead of creating another entry into the home-brew computing line-up.
Batteries (and screens) take up a lot of space that one could otherwise use for more useful things. Still, I can't see what problem the Compute Card (or phone docking, for that matter) will solve; if you're going somewhere with a free KV&M there's probably already a computer there.
Why would you want to carry around a computer that you can't use on the way?
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I can think of a few good reasons to carry around a passive computer.
Having something like this in my wallet to handle processing the data output from various wearable and IoT sensors sounds pretty nice.
Doubles as passive offline budget tracker thanks to its proximity to my various NFC equipped widgets, and the it does it all offline without reporting my habits or locations to anybody.
It sounds like device itself is designed with a modular nature, so the proc, ram and storage all live in an easily replaceab
A10 and Snapdragon 821 already faster than MacBook (Score:3)
As impressive a feat as this might appear, at first, one must remember that Apple devices running last year's A9X are already faster than the Apple MacBook running Intel's equivalent processor, according to the latest GeekBench numbers - http://wccftech.com/apple-a9xi... [wccftech.com]. So, I fully expect that newer devices running Apple's A10 or Qualcomm's Snapdragon 821 (that are slightly larger than a credit card due to some additional features that Intel's compute cards lack, such as a touch screen, gyro, motion, barometric, gps, cdma, gsm, lte, wifi, dsp, hsm, etc.) to already be a lot faster than Intel's fastest Compute Cards (assuming that the MacBook remains the benchmark performance).
I think that what Intel's Compute Cards will have going for them will be accessibility, programability, price and the ease of interfacing them to custom devices for developers... That is what Intel should be emphasizing. Vending machines, signage displays, self service kiosks, home automation hubs, assembly line robots, etc. do not need lots of computing power... but they need reliability, availability and dependability with minimal human intervention in some of the harshest environments, every single day of the year.
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The article you link is misleading... The Intel chips being compared with the A9X in that article are Broadwell... 2 generations behind compared to the A9X which is the current chip. The A10X will have to be compete with Cannonlake, not the Skylake chips you see in the current Mac lineup. Assuming the A10X scales from the A10 about the same as the A9X scales from the A9, and Intel IPC generational improvements are about the same as past ones... single core ~6W TDP 2.2 GHz A10X is going to be close to raw si
Plain (Score:1)
Marketing.
"The company considers the Compute Card to be a replacement of sorts for the Compute Stick, which Intel says will probably disappear from its roadmap in 2018 or so."
If they could complete this in a year, they should already be back to the mobile business.
It would be nice see one, but it's no doubt it's just marketing hype.
This + 42 inch 4K TV + bluetooth keyboard/mouse (Score:2)
I am using this setup with current m3 compute stick and lubuntu and it makes a great desktop for productivity apps and 4K video for ridiculously low cost. Hit and miss with Steam though, and VMWare/Wine freeze trying to emulate DirectX for Windows only games. For some reason, Unity introduces more slowdown than pretty much anything else, hence LXDE.
If they improve GPU performance in next generation, this will be a great replacement for pretty much anything.
I see this being great for flex desking (Score:2)
Imagine an office environment where each desk/meeting room includes a monitor/keyboard/mouse for each user where the monitor passes through all connectivity via USB-C. Each user just carries a tiny lightweight computer that is "theirs" with all associated configuration/application/data, plugs it into the USB-C socket and off they go.
Not so different from having a laptop, except the devices are smaller, lighter, and cheaper - and with a higher quality screen, keyboard, and mouse. Sure you are constrained t
SensorTile (Score:2)
The most intersting small-form-factor board I've seen recently is the new SensorTile [st.com] from ST. It provides a 32bit ARM processor with FPU, bluetooth and microphone in a cm2 headset-scale pcb, with various docking boards for USB, microSD etc development.
looks exactly the same size as EOMA68! (Score:5, Interesting)
i'm the creator and guardian of the EOMA68 standard, and someone just brought the intel compute card to my attention on the mailing list. the intel compute card is *exactly* the same size as EOMA68, which in turn is based on legacy PCMCIA casework and connector re-use: credit-card-sized at: 54 x 86 x 5mm. fortunately, from the BBC video, if you check 30 seconds in the connector is completely different (otherwise intel would have a Certification Mark infringment case on their hands): it looks like it's Mini-PCIe which, if that's true, would be a very sensible choice as it contains USB2, one PCIe lane, some GPIO and power.
i do wonder if my discussions with intel over the past couple of years, as well as the crowd-funding campaign which i'm here in taiwan presently to fulfil, have spurred them to go "i know! let's make our own computer card standard just like that guy did because he said "NO" when it came to having hardware-level spying capability in the BIOS through the Intel Management Engine, with the resultant *complete* meltdown from a security perspective as outlined here https://libreboot.org/faq/#int... [libreboot.org] "
i'll be watching this with interest, because standards, i've learned, live and die by whether the designers have enough foresight to design it with upgradeability in mind, as well as have the balls to say NO when it comes to "adding options" that are not backwards-compatible.
Fit in my wallet? (Score:2)
At half a centimetre thick, I don't think so! Maybe ON TOP OF my wallet...
Wallet? I want it to fit in my TV (Score:2)