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A year or two ago I read an article which said that the desktop computer was soon going to be a thing of the past, and in its place is going to be a lot of small computer like devices with only a few uses

# posted by Dan 8:29 PM

A year or two ago I read an article which said that the desktop computer was soon going to be a thing of the past, and in its place is going to be a lot of small computer like devices with only a few uses

# posted by Dan 8:32 PM

I think Alice and I did something like that after taking a look at 3Com's Audrey (although Audrey wasn't on our mind inparticular).

# posted by Bill 8:50 PM

It's too bad that these things don't have an ethernet jack built-in. However, that can be added with a USB adapter (it's got 4 USB ports) so I guess that's okay. It would be interesting to see how these things will perform when running Linux.

# posted by David 9:43 PM

An ugly Mac Mini clone without the firewire port, CD/DVD ROM, BSD 4.3, OSX and non-Internet only apps!

Now that is exactly what I want.

Pardon me - I really want to pay my income taxes before the end of January - no sense depriving the government of the interest - lord knows I don't have the sense to use if for anything but a clamshell PC dedicated to the Internet.

Back in 1997 this was called "The Network Computer" a/k/a a "thin client". How many times will this scam be rerun?

What a crock. This thing will sink faster than you can say "push-media server".

Aren't you two supposed to independently review (warn the newbies of old tricks) and dish the facts - even if the new gadget proves it is a load of dingoes' kidneys?

# posted by Anonymous 10:38 PM

It doesnt officially mention the cost, there are figures thrown around in some of the news posts, but nothing solid. It needs to be below $150 to work, I'd really like to see it break the magical $100 mark, then it would really take off in developing countries.

I don't really think it's meant to be a competitor to the Mac Mini, it hasnt even got a CD drive from what I can see. But it would be great for those people in poorer situations that would just like internet access.

-Perros-

# posted by Perros 2:12 AM

It's an internet appliance, plain and simple. The price will be set by the ISPs who will offer it, not by AMD. You might even find it given away for free with a "plan."

As for warning people (or informing them), what do you think this is, cheeze whiz?

# posted by Bill 3:15 AM

Web-TV of the new age?

# posted by JD 4:08 AM

This is all we need-

Legions of Windows CE "powered" machines available for use in DDOS attacks.

IE6 as a browser? pu-leeze..

# posted by Anonymous 6:11 AM

With the name "AMD" on the box I can't help but feel that the word "game" will be stuck on it somewhere at sometime.

# posted by Bill 6:24 AM

It's powered by a geode processor, which isn't particularly powerful, but does have low power consumption (1 watt).

It's *not* a mini mac clone because it predates the mini mac by months. If anything, Steve Jobs saw it on mini-itx.com and said "Hey, what a great idea. Let's add an ethernet port!"

# posted by James 6:51 AM

Internet Appliance
Net PC
Dumb Terminal

All terms for a flawed concept: the machine that lets people who are not computer-savvy get on the internet.

Sorry, but the internet is not a TV. It will always require a different set of skills to operate than a TV or telephone, and most of those skills are coincident with computer skills, so a person with zero computer skills will always find his options on the internet to be limited.

Getting on the net without a computer is like sculpting a marble statue with a spoon; it's not impossible, but it's really, really hard.

# posted by WillCAD 11:50 AM

It needs an ethernet port. I can't think that it would add that much to the cost and it opens up an entire world of possiblities. Most cable / DSL modems spit out ethernet. So I can see doing a dialup for a few months, but if you want to go highspeed you need to buy a new box or do the USB / Ethernet dongle thing. And now you are into driver issues, etc.

There are people that are doing lots of things with low power / smaller devices. For example the Linksys NSLU2 is a small, cheap ($80) box that runs Linux. Add a USB drive and you have a file, Webpage, MP3, bit torrent server. It's nice to toss a 12*12*4 inch box away and replace it with a silent setup that is the size of a Girl Scout cookie box.

The PIC could be another of those boxes with a huge home market.

# posted by Anonymous 4:45 AM