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Intel Planning Thumb-Sized PCs For Next Year

Posted by timothy on from the why-not-all-the-fingers dept.

angry tapir (1463043) writes Intel is shrinking PCs to thumb-sized "compute sticks" that will be out next year. The stick will plug into the back of a smart TV or monitor "and bring intelligence to that," said Kirk Skaugen, senior vice president and general manager of the PC Client Group at Intel, during the Intel investor conference in Santa Clara, California. They might be a bit late to the party, but since Skaugen mentioned both Chromecast and Amazon's Fire TV Stick, hopefully that means Intel has some more interesting and general-purpose plans.

101 comments

  1. Probably not the same thing at all... by jedidiah · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Chromecast and the Roku thumb sized machines are very specialized hardware that likely won't have the capabilities or flexibility of an Intel variant. They likely not to be in the same class at all.

    If anything, they might be comparable to some generic Android stick and possibly not even that due to the limitations of Android.

    This might be more like a Chromebox.

    --
    A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    1. Re:Probably not the same thing at all... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Intel makes some fairly limited hardware too now. The low power Atoms and Celerons for example can decode and encode high definition video without problem, but they are hardly fast enough to pass as desktop CPUs. And those are not the smallest chips Intel makes. On the other hand, who needs to compute anything anymore...

    2. Re:Probably not the same thing at all... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      On the other hand, who needs to compute anything anymore...

      And 640kB ought to be enough for anyone, right?

    3. Re:Probably not the same thing at all... by hairyfeet · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It won't matter as THEY ARE ALL DOOMED, at least in the USA...why? Because they ALL require plentiful bandwidth to the cloud and the ISPs are going with ever nastier data caps.

      This is why I'm not worried about these premades competing with my HTPC business, because very customer so far that has tried it has come crawling back to me after they see their Internet bill LOL. With a real HTPC you can rip your own DVDs and BDs onto your media tank and use zero bandwidth, while these sticks will blow through a data cap like shit through a goose.

      Sorry Intel but unless you plan on spending a couple hundred billion rolling out your own national ISP you can give it up, these things just won't have the bandwidth to make them any more than paperweights.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    4. Re:Probably not the same thing at all... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What ISPs have data caps in the US? I'm not aware of any. Just wireless carriers. HTPCs are dead.

    5. Re: Probably not the same thing at all... by tom229 · · Score: 1

      who needs to compute anything anymore...

      Is there an app for that?

      --
      If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
    6. Re:Probably not the same thing at all... by amiga3D · · Score: 1

      I have a Chromecast already. I took it out of the box, hooked it up to my TV and set it up to work with my tablet and computer. I then put it back in the box. What a waste of $35 dollars. It's so locked down as to be useless. If that's Intel's idea of a product then they can keep it.

    7. Re:Probably not the same thing at all... by BoogieChile · · Score: 1

      Was that before or after the screen mirror function was added? Because if it was before, you might want to take it out of the box again...

    8. Re:Probably not the same thing at all... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What a fucking joke. I can do the same thing with the MHL capable USB port on my phone, without having to waste $35 on a Chromecast piece of shit.

      Also, why did you link to a video of a nasally little kid instead of a real person?

    9. Re:Probably not the same thing at all... by iamwhoiamtoday · · Score: 1

      When I was on Cox, I had a 400GB (unenforced) Cap. Moved, and now I have Comcast. 250GB cap and they bill me $10 for evert 50GB over that cap.

    10. Re:Probably not the same thing at all... by currently_awake · · Score: 1

      If Intel and Google want high bandwidth and net neutrality they should just build their own national internet with those features. And add crypto hubs at each users end so all data traffic is encrypted. Intel makes the hardware and Google siphons up the data for advertising, win-win.

    11. Re:Probably not the same thing at all... by NoMaster · · Score: 1

      If Intel and Google want high bandwidth and net neutrality they should just build their own national internet with those features. And add crypto hubs at each users end so all data traffic is encrypted.

      You left out the blackjack and hookers...

      --
      What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
    12. Re:Probably not the same thing at all... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      640kB ought to be enough for anyone

      640KB is enough for some things. Every time you increase it by an order of magnitude, it becomes enough for more things. Eventually, the set of things that it's not enough for becomes too small a market to justify the R&D investment.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    13. Re:Probably not the same thing at all... by tomhath · · Score: 1

      Yea, they'll fail just as badly as the iPad

    14. Re:Probably not the same thing at all... by Bob+the+Super+Hamste · · Score: 1

      It is enough to run Linux.

      --
      Time to offend someone
    15. Re:Probably not the same thing at all... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Why do you think Google is rolling out its own unlimited use fibre networks? The realized that ISPs are a threat and decided to either force them to offer a decent service simply drive them out of business.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    16. Re:Probably not the same thing at all... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So far, we've increased it by better than 5 orders of magnitude. 'Eventually' doesn't seem to have arrived yet...

    17. Re:Probably not the same thing at all... by unixisc · · Score: 1

      Most OSs are now 64-bit. The theoretical limit of that memory is 1.844674407×10^19 bytes. Let's say you halve that, you still have a humongous amount of memory that would cover pretty much everything. So while the OSs may have de-facto limits like 64GB or 8TB or whatever, we won't need to move to a 128-bit OS like we had to go from 16 to 32 to 64-bit OSs.

      So not only is TheRaven right, but chances are that there is nothing that any of the current 64-bit OSs ain't enough for.

    18. Re:Probably not the same thing at all... by unixisc · · Score: 1

      That's what I thought. I have TWC, and they have unlimited data no matter which plan I'm on: I just have to pay depending on how fast I want my connections to be. At 15Mbps, I'm a happy camper.

      I don't use Verizon's cellular data connections unless I'm flying b/w cities.

    19. Re:Probably not the same thing at all... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why do you think Google is rolling out its own unlimited use fibre networks?

      To spy on users traffic and sell their profiles to advertisers.

      Chrome is already a keylogger that sends everything to Google. I guess that wasn't enough for them.

    20. Re:Probably not the same thing at all... by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 1

      we won't need to move to a 128-bit OS like we had to go from 16 to 32 to 64-bit OSs.

      We probably will, just not any time soon. I think 4GB of memory was unimaginable to most computer engineers when 16-bit was becoming the norm. In fact I recall reading an RFC where somebody argued that a 64-bit IP addressing system should be enough to address the combined memory AND hard disk of every computer in the world, therefore it's unlikely we'd need anything higher. (See IEEE RFC1475, section 2.1.) Only five years later that was changed to 128-bit, and five years (totaling a decade) after that it was settled.

      You might think of the time period going from one architecture to another as growing exponentially longer with each generation. After all, 2^64 is exponentially larger than 2^32, and 2^16, and 2^8.

    21. Re:Probably not the same thing at all... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      Not quite, but we're getting there. This is part of the reason why lots of people are moving to smartphones and tablets as their primary computing platforms: something with the computing power and memory of a laptop from 5 years ago is ample for their needs. If it can browse the web, play back music and video, send and receive emails, and edit basic office documents, then that's enough for a massive chunk of the population. It's not enough for everyone, and some of the people that it's not enough for have very deep pockets.

      I was recently talking to someone at ARM about Moore's law and how it applied to different market segments. Moore's law says that the number of transistors that you can get on an IC for a fixed cost doubles every 12 months. In desktop processors, that's meant that the price has stayed roughly constant but the number of transistors has doubled. In the microcontroller world, they've been using about half of the Moore's Law dividend to increase transistor count and half to reduce cost. A lot of customers would rather have cheaper microcontrollers than faster ones and getting ones that are a bit faster and a bit cheaper every generation is a clear win (faster reduces development costs, cheaper reduces production costs). I just got a Cortex M3 prototyping board. It's got 64KB of SRAM, 512KB of Flash, and a 100MHz 3-stage pipelien. That's an insane amount of processing power and storage in comparison to the microcontrollers of 20 years ago, but it's nowhere near as big a jump as mainstream CPUs have made. It used to be that a microcontroller was a CPU from 10 years earlier (that's about the time for the Z80, for example, to go from being a CPU in home computers to being an embedded microcontroller), but the M3 isn't even as powerful as the MIPS chip from 1993, by quite a long way. The M0 has the same transistor count as the very first ARM chip back in the early '80s.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    22. Re:Probably not the same thing at all... by unixisc · · Score: 1

      However, the gaps ain't as big. Going from 32-bit to 64-bit has meant crossing the 4GB barrier in memory. However, it would only be necessary to go from 32 to 64 when - and IF - 1.844674407×10^19 is the minimum you have in memory.

      The IPv6 analogy is not a good one. Since in reality, IPv6 is an overlaid 64 on 64 bit address, as opposed to a flat 128 bit address, as 32-bit IPv4 was. I know that IPv6 sounds a whole lot, but when you look at the strict assignments & rules that have been placed on various address ranges by both IETF and IANA, it turns out to be far fewer network/subnet addresses, since ISPs can't touch the lower 64-bits of the address. So IPv4 -> IPv6 is hardly an analogy that would be equivalent to 32-bit to 128-bit migration.

      Even if the past is any guide, it will take 64 transitions before we are ready for 128-bit. Already, on the semiconductor side of things, people are talking about Moore's law hitting its limits, and getting to the point where a transistor is just a handful of atoms, thereby hardly leaving any room for further shrinkage. I do think that OSs will remain 64-bit, while some things, like file systems, may go 128 bit (like ZFS)

  2. more power by jsepeta · · Score: 1

    great to make tiny pc's but that doesn't help those of us who want more computing power.

    --
    Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
    1. Re:more power by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Get a core i5 NUC..
      http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/nuc/overview.html

      I always liked 'full sized' PC's myself, but the NUC can't be beat for some things, and is more than enough for 90% of all 'normal' computer users.
      Plus..
      When someone is all cranky about having computer issues it is so nice to just walk over to them, pull out this little thing, swap it and just bring their pc back to shop to re-image/repair.

    2. Re:more power by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Current Atoms are equal to high-end core2 duos coupled with a good-enough gpu and h264 accelerator. Not that bad.

    3. Re:more power by exomondo · · Score: 1

      great to make tiny pc's but that doesn't help those of us who want more computing power.

      Just like powerful desktop CPUs doesn't help those who want tiny PCs, but I didn't see anything in the article to suggest they are abandoning high power chips in favor of small low powered ones.

    4. Re:more power by suutar · · Score: 2

      mount a few dozen of these on your clothes and have a wearable beowulf :)

    5. Re:more power by SeaFox · · Score: 2

      Imagine a beowulf wardrobe of those!

    6. Re:more power by Neil+Boekend · · Score: 1

      This is for those that don't need the computing power. This is something in between a normal PC and a ChromeCast. Not as locked down but just as slow.
      Now ChromeCast has a specific market: easy video streaming with your Android device as a remote. Whether this offers enough over that to find a real place in the market remains to be seen.
      It does offer full windows or linux. That means the possibilities are far greater. Whether the processor is sufficient for enough of those possibilities will probably be a deciding factor in the market size for this.

      For computer power this changes nothing in the possibilities of a real PC. They will probably be irreplaceable in that regard for a long time. These thumb size devices have far to little cooling power.
      But such strength isn't always needed. Often a low power processor is sufficient: cat videos don't need much power.

      --
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    7. Re:more power by hairyfeet · · Score: 1

      The NUC sucks,Look at the new AMD APUs as they have MUCH better graphics performance** as that is what you need in a media box. You can get the quad AM1 Athlon APU with the board for around $100 , just slap it in a VCR style case and you have a kicking HTPC, or if you want something closer to OOTB you can get a Zotac AMD quad micro for just $175. Personally I prefer the Athlon as not only do you get better options on the AM1 boards than either the NUC or the AMD super mini but you get a more powerful APU capable of transcoding if you need to convert some of your media before sticking it on your portable devices.

      **.- Try looking up real world tests instead of benchmarks and you'll find the AMD chips are in reality in the single digits when compared with intel and in some cases like the FX8xxx chips (which can be had for less than $140) against the i5 it curbstomps it pretty badly. The reason why the benches say different is pretty easy to explain, intel bribes them to compile their benchmarks with the Intel Cripple Compiler. in some cases even that isn't enough for Intel as Cinebench was recently caught putting "If AMD slow down tests" in their benchmarking software to make Intel look better. Wanna guess where a VERY large portion of their advertising budget comes from? For examples of what happens when you don't use rigged benches see this video where an AMD 8350 goes up against an Intel 3850, a CPU which literally costs double what the 8350 does, and the 8350 wins damned near every test, or this one where a now 3 generations behind Phenom II X6 is placed against the midrange Intel and the difference is still under 5%. Oh and for those that'll say "ZOMFG AMD will wreck your power bill ZOMFG!" that is complete and total bullshit as to make up the difference in cost between an AMD and an Intel, even using the 125w AMD, would take you 18.9 years. if you OC the shit out of the AMD it would still take nearly 7 years, longer than anybody will likely keep a PC.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    8. Re:more power by asdfman2000 · · Score: 1

      How's the straight-CPU power on the AMD machines? Comparable to I5?

      We've been using NUCs as mini development servers, and so far I've been disappointed with their reliability. Apparently there are widespread problems with the USB3 when connecting to external drives (intermittent, only happens on some of our NUCs). Additionally, they intentionally crippled their driver stack to not support Windows Server.

    9. Re:more power by hairyfeet · · Score: 1

      IF you bought the 125w FX8350 (instead of the cheaper and similar performance 8300) and ran it side by side with the i5 you'd be looking at 18.9 years to break even, that is 18.9 years before the amount you spent on the i5 over the AMD will be used up in energy costs. The link is in my previous post complete with the math and I think you'll agree that its seriously doubtful you'll keep that Intel CPU long enough to ever break even much less save a single cent.

      On the other hand if you use the money you save by going AMD into the system itself you will end up with a better rounded and higher performing system, just use the savings for a better SSD, more HDD space, hell considering the last I checked the i5 was nearly $140 more than the FX8300 you could use that to buy a 64Gb SSD boot AND a 1TB HDD for storage and STILL have money left in your pocket!

      Oh and the USB3 works fine on the AMD and NONE, I repeat NONE of the CPUs or APUs from AMD are crippled, you can run Windows server from any of the socket AM1 APUs and you even have full hardware virtualization support in case you need to run a VM on your server. The AM1 APUs use just 25w under full load and with the 1.3GHz Sempron quad APU costing just $39 and the Asrock AM1 with 4 SATA 3 also $39 its the absolute cheapest way to set up a low power server. Give it a spin, I bet you'll like it.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  3. Been there, done that by Stormwatch · · Score: 3, Interesting

    So, just like any of the countless ARM-based Android mini-PCs that are already out there right now. Except this is quite more expensive.

    --
    Circumcision is child abuse.
    1. Re:Been there, done that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      http://hexus.net/tech/news/systems/76025-intel-bay-trail-powered-hdmi-stick-pc-available-online/

      Just like countless arm-based android mini-PCs.

      Except not Arm based, running intel and you can run most of your normal business and entertainment software on it.

      So not like arm at all.

    2. Re:Been there, done that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The trouble with the "countless arm based android mini-pcs" is that they quickly become pretty useless.

      Unsupported mystery builds of android running on undocumented SoCs that can pretty much only run said mystery android build that they shipped with.

      Intel, on the other hand, has a pretty good reputation with documentation and portability. Your intel stick will run windows, any flavor of linux you want, chromeOS, etc.

      Will likely be a lot faster too. Since baytrail Intel's low end cpus have been competitive with ARM in terms of power usage.. But have enough oomph to run full-fat destop windows 8.1

    3. Re:Been there, done that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, just like any of the countless ARM-based Android mini-PCs that are already out there right now. Except this is quite more expensive.

      No ARM based Android mini-PC has industry standard device discoverability, memory configuration or any of the other raft of features of the PC architecture that allow operating systems to just run on them without per platform custom configuration.

      So your ARM based Android mini-PC will continue running Android. Maybe you want to run QNX or Ubuntu or some RTOS or even Windows. You'll be out of luck because the software vendors didn't all customize their OS for that ARM on that chip on that board.

  4. Thumb? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    My, what big thumbs you have!

    1. Re:Thumb? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      So that I can play Assassins creed with you, granddaughter!

    2. Re:Thumb? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is that a pc in your pocket, or are you just not very happy to see me?

    3. Re:Thumb? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      For the love of god tell me you're not a proctologist.

  5. First World Problems by SeaFox · · Score: 5, Funny

    And here I worry about losing memory sticks because they're so small.
    "Dammit! I left my computer in my pocket and it went through the wash..."

    1. Re:First World Problems by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

      "Honey, that's not what I meant by 'cleaning up windows'!"

    2. Re: First World Problems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I would live it if that was possible. Indeed a good time to be alive )

    3. Re:First World Problems by hairyfeet · · Score: 1

      You made a funny but for an HTPC? Its just too damned small, it limits the system too much.

      IMNSHO as a system builder and VAR a much better choice would be something like the Sempron 3850 if you want a media tank and streaming box or the Athlon 5350 if you want something with a little more kick for tasks like transcoding your vids to your mobile devices. Pair it with this Asrock board and an Apex VCR style case and voila! A VERY capable HTPC based on the same APU used in the XB-One and PS4 that just sips power while being able to do pretty much any HTPC related task, even game as long as you stick to older games or lowered settings. this is one of my most popular builds,just slap a BD player into it and you have a box that looks nice in any media cabinet, can play any popular format with full hardware acceleration, and is quiet as a churchmouse.

      those sticks are just too limited, most won't play local content, very few video/audio formats supported, its just too limited in function. Hell the above is flexible enough that when one of my customers had his sister's laptop die he lent her his office PC and while he waited for me to get the parts in to build her what she wanted he used his Athlon quad HTPC as his office computer and was quite happy with the performance. Oh and if you slap a couple of wireless controllers they make damned good emulator boxes, you can play everything from Atari 2600- PS1 on one of those, great for when you have friends or kids/grandkids over.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    4. Re:First World Problems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Woah, look at all the negative reviews on newegg for the parts you have listed here.
      Are you actually building these for satisfied customers? What HTPC software are they running?

  6. If it can transcode high bitrate/any file type by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Only then am I Interested.

    1. Re:If it can transcode high bitrate/any file type by ihtoit · · Score: 2, Interesting

      well, then yu'll be after a general purpose, platform agnostic appliance. Which, according to the summary, is what Intel are planning.
      Keep watching this story, you might be pleasantly surprised. I know I am. RasPi is great an' all, but I'm not a programmer, I'm not in it for the imagineering aspect of computing a la ZX81 Program-It-Yourself, I'm at that stage in my life where I want shit to just work. Hell, I have the same build image on my Win7 laptop I built in 2005 (updated for latest/last versions, obviously). I'm too old to be taught new tricks.

      --
      Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
    2. Re:If it can transcode high bitrate/any file type by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Get a Zotac CI320, a small SSD and a 4GB DDR3L SO-DIMM: Should cost you less than $200 and is a completely silent system (no fan, less than 15W max) with a quad core Intel CPU. IR remote receiver, wireless LAN and SD card reader built-in, gigabit Ethernet, HDMI, Display Port, four USB 3.0 ports (back), two USB 2.0 ports (front), eSATA. Can be mounted to the back of the display.

    3. Re:If it can transcode high bitrate/any file type by ihtoit · · Score: 2

      my database server is a VIA Epia M MiniITX with 512MB DDR and 1TB spinny SATA. Runs off a 35W solar pile. If you don't include the solar pile, the whole setup cost me change out of £140 (I bought the board in 2005).

      --
      Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
    4. Re:If it can transcode high bitrate/any file type by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't take this the wrong way, but that is a pocket calculator compared to the CI320. Most phones are faster and have more RAM than your "database server".

    5. Re:If it can transcode high bitrate/any file type by ihtoit · · Score: 2

      don't take this the wrong way, but my database server works fine. It's not a Warcraft hub. It has a maximum of six concurrent ordinary users (all whitelisted with a denial-by-default access portal and localhost-only admin access). It doesn't need four cores or 16GB of RAM. It's future proofed for its purpose until the universe dies. Or it does. Or the database itself outlives its utility. Which is unlikely because I've been stress testing it for 5 weeks now and it hasn't even twitched through several million random string queries (as well as quite a few real queries which with the speed the results came back you wouldn't even think there was a stress test going on).

      --
      Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
    6. Re:If it can transcode high bitrate/any file type by hey! · · Score: 1

      One aspect of optimizing systems is that you don't get any performance boost by adding a resource you already have a surplus of.

      Most database servers built from low end technologies have CPU cycles to spare. That's beause boatloads of CPU power is cheap, but I/O bandwidth is expensive.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    7. Re:If it can transcode high bitrate/any file type by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I said don't take it the wrong way. I wasn't trying to imply that you need to upgrade, just countering the insinuation that a VIA Epia M may be relevant to a discussion about small systems which can "transcode high bitrate", as the thread starter demanded. If your database needs are served by a pocket calculator, good for you.

  7. Intel press releases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Intel has been doing this for decades now. They releases a press release saying that they will "as early as next year" have a device available for purchase that (insert chip use that is currently not served by Intel chips).

    And then they actually release the product *years* later. This goes for their server line, their atom devices, and more recently, their Edison chips and now this.

    Honestly, if you have any use for a device this small just buy the damn arm version that already actually exists, or the more releastic and larger version that intel actually currently produces.

    I'm just trying to warn you not to plan anything according to intel's hype machine.

    1. Re:Intel press releases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is so true, I am not holding my breath with any Intel announcement anymore. They announced Edison last January, and they are just now getting into the stores. So perhaps one can actually buy this thumb sized PC next autumn.

  8. This only works if... by kuzb · · Score: 1

    ...you guys stop designing the worlds worst interfaces for things. DO NOT HIRE ENGINEERS TO DESIGN THE UIs. It's important. Really.

    --
    BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
    1. Re:This only works if... by 91degrees · · Score: 1

      Can confirm. I'm an engineer who once designed a UI. Turns out it's a lot harder than it looks.

    2. Re:This only works if... by Bengie · · Score: 1

      I hate UI work, I prefer APIs and commandlines.

    3. Re:This only works if... by 91degrees · · Score: 1

      Seriously, I quite enjoy it, but please give me a UI designer, or at least an artist with UI experience to work with! I've worked on some cool interactive display stuff.

  9. What DRIBBLE! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The HARDWARE is more generally powerful and functional on a current ARM SoC - ARM SoCs having focused on accumulating the raft of supporting hardware IP (like sound, image, video processing) for FAR longer than Intel- Intel expected such functionality would lie with plug-in boards or chip-sets.

    Intel has ONE advantage, and one only- and that is when an Intel SoC is running FULL-BLOWN Microsoft Windows. Now, its Android vs Windows, and in terms of software support it isn't even funny- Google's weak-sauce locked-down version of Linux is an utter joke compared with Windows.

    If you were not such an IDIOT, jedidiah, and had any software or hardware knowledge that pertained to the 21st century, you'd know that almost every mobile non-Intel solution uses the CORTEX ARM designs or better, meaning parts VASTLY more flexible and sophisticated than every Intel chip earlier than last year's BAYTRAIL part. For Intel, Baytrail is the game changer (ONLY when running Windows- Intel's Android support is putrid). Worse for ARM/Google is the fact that Intel and Microsoft are giving away the chip and Windows 8.1 Bing to any Chinese company willing to build low cost products around them.

      jedidiah- show some self-respect and read up on the last ten years of progress in the field of computers- else give up sharing your ill-informed opinions.

    QUOTE "Chromecast and the Roku thumb sized machines are very specialized hardware"- dear lord, how can anyone be this out-of-the-loop? To not understand the difference between installed software and the hardware running that software.

    True, the unskilled end-user will only witness the APPARENT functionality, but we here are supposed to know better. The dominance of insanely powerful GENERAL PURPOSE ARM SoC parts has changed the landscape- and the sole reason Intel even bothered to produce the Baytrail in (a very late) response. The days of 'very specialised hardware' for the computer heart of a device are long gone. Even the days of 'very specialised kernel code' are mostly over when even the most dedicated device tends to be a dedicated app running on a general purpose OS on a general purpose SoC.

    1. Re:What DRIBBLE! by Serenissima · · Score: 1

      Wow. That really offended you. How dare jedidiah say something so interesting and inoffensive!!!

      --
      Give a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day. But light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
    2. Re:What DRIBBLE! by reboot246 · · Score: 1

      The word you were looking for is "drivel". Look it up and learn something.

    3. Re:What DRIBBLE! by Provocateur · · Score: 2

      ..i agree, but I think he was holding back for some reason.

      --
      WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
    4. Re:What DRIBBLE! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      U mad bro?

    5. Re:What DRIBBLE! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      LOL, you're an idiot. The Intel Atom utterly destroys all ARM CPUs in performance and power efficiency.

    6. Re:What DRIBBLE! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because jebidiarrhea is a whiny, weak bitch.

    7. Re: What DRIBBLE! by rkcth · · Score: 1

      IPad Air 2 is faster than atom, and more power efficient. Other than that chip (A8X), I think you're right.

  10. Intel: Don't announce until the product is ready. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 1

    The real story is about incompetence in Intel management. Intel has often, in past years, announced something before it is ready. Intel management is announcing something that hasn't happened yet.

  11. I used to want something kind of like this by mattventura · · Score: 1

    Basically, a minimal PC that you would plug into all the I/O hardware, so that you could bring it anywhere, plug it into someone else's hardware, always have all your files and programs there.

    But then that became completely unecessary with the advent of cheap phones, tablets, and netbooks.

    1. Re:I used to want something kind of like this by sensei+moreh · · Score: 2

      Basically, a minimal PC that you would plug into all the I/O hardware, so that you could bring it anywhere, plug it into someone else's hardware, always have all your files and programs there.

      This is what I want in my phone (in addition, or course, to the phone actually working as a phone)

      --
      Geology - it's not rocket science; it's rock science
    2. Re:I used to want something kind of like this by ihtoit · · Score: 2

      it's called a 16GB usb flash drive (£8.99 at PC World! The hell happened to the price of flash memory??) with a bootable Debian derivative installed on it, plugged into $random_terminal and booted.

      The ONLY prerequisites for such a system are the flash drive, the terminal being x86/32 compatible, having 512MB RAM or more and able to boot from USB.

      --
      Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
    3. Re:I used to want something kind of like this by SeaFox · · Score: 1

      You missed the whole having to plug it into a working computer part.
      This IS the computer. All you need is a display and a keyboard/mouse.

      Actually, given that you would still need an input device, they should just build this into a keyboard, with a trackpad.
      Then you just plug a long HDMI cable in so you can sit at a comfortable distance from the screen, add power...

    4. Re:I used to want something kind of like this by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 1

      Well my OS boots off a USB2 120GB SSD but anyway... :)

      The point here is that there is no need for a terminal - all you need is a TV or monitor with USB and HDMI ports.

    5. Re:I used to want something kind of like this by omnichad · · Score: 1

      £8.99? Ouch! In the US, you can get a 16GB flash drive for $8.99 - a LOT cheaper.

    6. Re:I used to want something kind of like this by ihtoit · · Score: 1

      I did say PC World, they're a brick-n-mortar store. I'm pretty sure I could get it for a quarter that at eBuyer, but I don't tend to shop online.

      --
      Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
    7. Re:I used to want something kind of like this by omnichad · · Score: 1

      Well - even brick and mortar hits that price point on sale at least once a month somewhere around. I guess I just don't buy that sort of thing when it's not.

  12. Drivel by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Drivel not dribble

  13. Re:Intel: Don't announce until the product is read by iggymanz · · Score: 1

    You are ignorant of how marketing and sales work, aren't you? Step one, generate hype.

  14. Oh yeah! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Your face is a thumb sized PC!

  15. Thumb-size, you say? by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

    I already know what I'm gonna do with mine.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
    1. Re:Thumb-size, you say? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Run 16-bit code on it? Paint it with nail polish? Lose it in the laundry?

      I CAN'T TAKE THE SUSPENSE ANYMORE.

    2. Re:Thumb-size, you say? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Use it to hold nails instead of your real thumb?

    3. Re:Thumb-size, you say? by yoshimitso · · Score: 1

      4.8

  16. Re:Intel: Don't announce until the product is read by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You are ignorant of how marketing and sales work, aren't you? Step one, generate hype.

    Nope. He nailed it. Intel is very effective at announcing techy goodies long before you can buy them. Look at the Minnow board, Edisons and Gallileos. All slated to be available on the Mousers and Sparkfuns, but actually not available until weeks or months later. In the mean time everyone went and brought a Raspberry Pi, because they could actually buy it at the time the Intel announcement came out.

  17. The most popular OS in the world is Android by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Firstly *business* software needs a PC, and that means a *close* screen not a TV at a distance.
    And since when has Windows run most of my entertainment software? It barely gets Angry Birds these days! Only the most popular Android stuff is worth porting, and even then it often isn't. Android long surpassed Windows as the worlds most popular OS.

    These devices, (this is just the 2013 refresh to add quad core) are cheaper and run Android, Intels is more expensive and doesn't. It's also way way late:
    http://liliputing.com/2013/04/tronsmart-mk908-quad-core-android-tv-stick-performance-video.html
    http://blog.geekbuying.com/index.php/2013/03/06/allwinner-a31-quad-core-tv-stickmini-pc-sample-review/
    http://linuxgizmos.com/hdmi-stick-mini-pc-runs-android-on-quad-core-arm-cortex-a9/

  18. yeah. Except RAM, CPU, and bus bandwidth by raymorris · · Score: 1

    > One aspect of optimizing systems is that you don't get any performance boost by adding a resource you already have a surplus of.

    Yeah. Well except fot the last 15 years Linux has utilized all available memory to cache up to the entire contents of your drives, making data access several thousand times faster. Even Windows is trying to do this a little bit now. So more memory is always faster, until your RAM is bigger than your drive.

    And of course modern CPUs speculatively execute instructions, which is called branch prediction. So more CPU is better, even when you have enough.

    And caching your disk to and from RAM uses any available bus bandwidth, so good to have plenty to spare. Spare storage bandwidth also reduces data loss in case of a crash.

    But yeah, other than the important bits, more won't help. Also if you're running a computer from 1987 it may not effectively take advantage of spare resources.

    1. Re:yeah. Except RAM, CPU, and bus bandwidth by omnichad · · Score: 1

      Branch predicting HLT isn't that much of a speed boost.

    2. Re:yeah. Except RAM, CPU, and bus bandwidth by hey! · · Score: 1

      Well, branch prediction doesn't get you much when most of your CPU cycles are going unused. Caching stuff in RAM can be a big win -- under certain circumstances. If adding more RAM means you can increase the probability of a cache hit significantly, good for you. But the fundamental fact remains that if a system is performing well enough, making it more powerful has limited practical utility.

      I speak from decades of experience working with database sytems. It's wasteful to take a shotgun approach to performance improvement. You need to find where the bottleneck is, then widen that.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    3. Re:yeah. Except RAM, CPU, and bus bandwidth by raymorris · · Score: 1

      > You need to find where the bottleneck is, then widen that.

      Abso-friggin-lutely. Customers frequently come to me wanting to switch to a new processor (which means new motherboard and RAM) when their CPU is practically idle - they need faster storage.

      At the same time, if 10% more money buys 25% more _anything_ it's probably a good deal, for a server. Server operating systems will make use of as much RAM as you can give them. Also the fundamental tradeoff in comp sci in speed vs size. If you have a system using 1GB of RAM and it responds in 200 ms, there's a very good chance you can adjust it to use 2 GB and respond in half the time. ("Can adjust it" meaning you'd have to _do_ something to have it make best use of the extra RAM).

      An example is a geolocation server I wrote, which can answer hundreds of thousands of queries per second. It's incredibly fast by using twice as much disk space than competing systems use, and then even faster by having that disk space cached in plentiful RAM. It does store 16 million entries in memory at all times, which seems silly. Fortunately, each entry is just two bytes, so that's 33 MB. :)

  19. Home File Servers by billstewart · · Score: 1

    I hope they at least let you mount disk drives using Samba or NFS or whatever from your own file server at home, in addition to whatever walled-garden functionality they may be selling. Much of their target market is going to include people who have those, either purpose-built servers or terabyte-disk USB/Ethernet external drives or their old Windows box with file sharing turned on.

    --

    Bill Stewart
    New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
  20. Get a fast GPU and run CUDA/etc. by billstewart · · Score: 1

    If you really need computational horsepower, get yourself some kind of PC with a fast graphics card and run CUDA or one of the other GPU-based computation packages. (In my case, I went with a Raspberry Pi :-)

    --

    Bill Stewart
    New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
  21. Native English-speakers, please by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Skaugen said the devices will be an extension to laptops and mini-desktops, which have Core desktop processors in small PCs that can be handheld." I wish Computerworld would hire writers whose first language was English.

    1. Re:Native English-speakers, please by Shalhav · · Score: 0

      I am same thing wishing. Their English not good.

  22. Where's the profit ? by deckard026354 · · Score: 1

    This is all about internal optics in the big company.

    VPs need to be seen to be coming to the market with "innovative" new products. Note is cloning a chromecast an innovation ?

    This is the right announcement - eight/ten years late. Chromecast is out there and ARM owns this market segment. The time to get into thumb-size TV set-top box additions was 2004

    Also didn't Intel recently sell off it's TV division ? Now it's getting back in, in the USB stick/chromecast side... WTF. Hey - make a decision and stick to it guys !

    At 200 dollars - with the average Atom selling for 60 dollars a pop - adding in profit taking fo the middle man - at best Intel can flog Atom processors at cost - or very generously at say 10% margin.

    This smells like a VP and some organisation doing a "look at me I've produced something" - in time for the next pay review cycle, with some marketing stuck on to it.

    Actual potential to provide shareholder value - nah - unlikely. Actual likelyhood of costing the company money - about the same...

    Nothing to see here I'd suspect. Atom + USB interface + (WiFi maybe) + Android.

  23. 5 Photo Orang SPA atau Mandi Dengan Minyak Mentah by hendrisiregar · · Score: 1

    Cleopatra, ratu Mesir kuno, bermandikan susu keledai ‘untuk menghaluskan kulitnya, tapi di kota Baku, ibukota dari Azerbaijan, cara spa terbaru ditawarkan dan dengan harga yang sangat, sangat mahal. Hanya kalangan kaya raya saja yang mampu membayar mandi spa di dalam bak mandi dengan minyak mentah. Ya, minyak mentah yang hitam kini menjadi terapi spa yang popular di kota Baku.. Namun ilmu kedokteran mengatakan bahwa berendam lebih dari 10 menit justru menyebabkan efek karsinogen (berbahaya). Sumber : http://www.lensaterkini.web.id...

  24. OpenELEC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hopefully it'll have a built in Bluetooth receiver, would be freaking awesome if I could throw OpenELEC on something like that!!!

  25. Milan Inter live stream by weiche · · Score: 0

    http://milaninterstream.wordpr... See the game here, Milan Inter live stream

  26. Re:Intel: Don't announce until the product is read by iggymanz · · Score: 1

    No. You're talking about a niche of a niche market. That little geeky market doesn't matter

    This article is something for mainstream, huge customer base

  27. But... Can it run doom? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But... Can it run doom?