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Thin Client PC Fits in Wall Socket 205

Posted by Zonk from the best-toys-ever dept.
ukhackster writes "Last year, there was a lot of excitement about a cut-down PC that fitted into a wall socket. Next month, the Jack PC will go on sale in the UK for just £209 ($390)." From the article: "At a low price and using low power, MacLellan believes the device is 'one of the biggest developments in PCs that we have seen' and is one of the 'ever-growing range of thin clients, which are rapidly replacing PCs as a more effective desktop computing solution for modern businesses'. The Jack PC runs Windows CE, is designed to connect to 'any terminal server-based environment' and has Citrix ICA and Microsoft RDP clients built in. It runs Internet Explorer 6.0 to connect to Web-driven applications, and runs an 'up to 500MHz' AMD RISC processor, which the company says is equivalent to a 1.2GHz x86. It can come with up to 64MB of flash memory and 128MB RAM."
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Thin Client PC Fits in Wall Socket

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  • Oh, the display is not included.

  • If it fits in a wall jack... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rootofevil ( 188401 ) on Thursday June 01, 2006 @11:14AM (#15445157) Homepage Journal
    ...why do you have to plug in a DC 5v connector to the front?

  • what would this be used for? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by yagu ( 721525 ) * <yayagu@[ ]il.com ['gma' in gap]> on Thursday June 01, 2006 @11:14AM (#15445159) Journal

    This is an interesting device, but:

    advantages:

    • tiny
    • low power consumption

    disadvantages:

    • difficult if not impossible to move around (though it's not entirely clear -- is it a "plug and play" into a pre-installed wall jack? If so, then it becomes "moveable", but requires custom installation of jacks anywhere you'd use it.)
    • low powered processing
    • WinCE
    • IE6
    • limited standalone capability (designed to leverage Terminal Services)
    • price (not really that inexpensive, no bargain over current desktop prices, but much less functionality)
    • video memory (max video memory is 8M)
    • video resolution (max is 1600x1200)
    • expandability

    I can't quite figure where this product fits. I'm guessing it's more of a business solution, but if that's true, I can't imagine it in any of the business settings I've experienced.

    It's kind of cool technology, but is it a solution in search of a problem?

    • I work for an automotive dealership. We run 100% Terminal Services *shutter*. This would absolutely rock our world. :)
    • It's kind of cool technology, but is it a solution in search of a problem?

      I think you've really identified the issue here. It's got fanstastic "wow" power, but when you sit down to figure out where it can/will be used, the applications seem so be pretty narrow in scope. I could see it as part of a POS system, or in a cube farm for non-technical types. It might have been a real contender if the server-terminal system popular 20-30 years ago hadn't devolved into a 2GHz machine on every desk. It might make
      • I always thought it was a shame the the study carels in the college library had big Windows boxes taking up about 1/3 of the space under the desktop. It also seems like it would be a good bet for a library or other location where you want to provide Web access without the hassle of a full-blown PC.

        I agree though that the price is a little steep.

      • But with Power over Wireless, who's to stop anyone from stealing my electricity?

        Guess we'll need WPA2/PoW. Although the advantages might be that more people might care about securing it, once they see their first electricity bill.

      • Now, if they'd move this to a Power Over Wireless, that'd be really neat (it's a joke, folks. no you don't have to laugh).

        Wireless power for very small electrical devices isn't that far fetched. Ever used a crystal radio? They were invented in 1906 or so. :)
    • Since it is a low power device, it is targetted at all those workers not reputable to be 100 Watts guys. Since, it requires only 5 Watts, seems the right fit for marketing employees.

      Jokes aside, multiply the power consumption for the average PC by the number of employees and many of them obviously don't need much powerful CPUs, and anyway, the CPU power is on the terminal server and available if needed. So, this is a green solution to reduce electricity bill in many shops. And it's not to say this is a low

    • HOTELS HOTELS HOTELS!!!!

      They will eat this stuff up. Check your email from the room, great for travelling families and folks who *don't* have laptops. Use the usb connection to send out pictures from the vacation, or update the iPod for the beach. Yes, they'd have a server, but they'll also charge you $10 a day to use their "pc". And being a thin client, no matter what porn or spyware you wade through, it can be set to toast everything on exit. Just nail the monitor to the desk and put a "fluid" resistant m
    • Yeah, my first thought was "Wow! That's, finally, a thin client that really lives up to its promise of reducing desk space used by a PC!" But then I realized that the big "desk space" problem is caused by the display, keyboard and mouse - not the CPU itself. (Nowdays, it's quite easy to strap a full-featured computer onto the back of a flat panel display - or to buy a machine that's "all in one" like Apple's iMac.)

      When you consider that we're talking about "thin clients" here, and not even full-fledged c

    • Re:what would this be used for? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by grasshoppa ( 657393 ) on Thursday June 01, 2006 @11:35AM (#15445419) Homepage
      # difficult if not impossible to move around (though it's not entirely clear -- is it a "plug and play" into a pre-installed wall jack? If so, then it becomes "moveable", but requires custom installation of jacks anywhere you'd use it.)

      For some environments, these are cheap enough to just scatter around the office. But even for locations that aren't, in most places workstations hardly move around. My workplace, for example, the same damn systems are in the same damn spots from 6 years ago.

      # low powered processing

      I don't need a lot of power. I have 3 apps I need to work ( two propriety dental apps, and ms office ). That's it. Not a whole lot of processing required.

      # IE6

      Again, most enviroments don't need workers going on the web for anything, so this is a moot point.

      # limited standalone capability (designed to leverage Terminal Services)

      This is actually a benefit..of sorts. A more centralized computer model is what we should have been moving to this entire time. Why do my clients need all this horsepower and harddrive space if they are just doing basic word processing?

      Answer: No reason in the world. This is a far more efficient solution. Technical merits of Terminal Services notwithstanding.

      # price (not really that inexpensive, no bargain over current desktop prices, but much less functionality)

      Except what you end up paying for maintence in the long run. Fewer things to break, lower chance of breaking.

      That alone makes this gold.

      # video memory (max video memory is 8M)
      # video resolution (max is 1600x1200)

      Most industries, this doesn't matter worth beans. As long as the damn thing can display windows and a reasonable res ( 1280x1024 is the high range of reasonable ), then it's fine.

      # expandability

      My clients don't need expandability. They need reliability and simple.
      • Totally agree, most of the people that work where I work don't need anything more powerfull.

        Only drawback as I see it is when the terminal server goes.. well terminal, everything grinds to a halt.

        • Only drawback as I see it is when the terminal server goes.. well terminal, everything grinds to a halt.

          This is what backup servers are for, if the machines are that critical to the operation of a business. Add to them same/next day service, and you are set. Where I work, we added next day service to every workstation (they are not that critical, as this is a college envirionment). We purchased 200+ machines with 17" LCD's -- the machine/monitor cost was under $1k (again, this included the next day servi
      • Off-topic but I'm curious as to the dental apps you mentioned. I am in dental IT and it's rare to hear it mentioned anywhere :)

    • Re:what would this be used for? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by djwoodard ( 944832 ) on Thursday June 01, 2006 @11:40AM (#15445481)
      "...is it a "plug and play" into a pre-installed wall jack?" From the vendor's Web site (http://www.jadeintegration.com/jackpc.php [jadeintegration.com]), "Please note you MUST use the custom mounting boxes - the units will NOT fit into standard 1G pattresses." As to who might use these, I work in a public school and am the only IT for four buildings, 1000 students and teachers, 250 PCs/laptops, and four (soon to be eight) servers. We are looking into thin client devices to cut down on the number of trips I have to make to school buildings in order to repair PCs. One of the concerns we've had is the physical damage the clients will sustain from young children accidentally knocking them off the table. A walljack thin client would alleviate that concern, while reducing (physical) maintenance, centralizing system maintenance, and improving my support times. BTW, one of the points of thin clients is that you do not need to move them around. If someone moves into an office, they can just use the thin client that is already there - no need to swap PCs. Some of your other disadvantages are solved on the server end. Need more powerful processing? Upgrade the server. Don't like IE? Install Firefox on the server and give users access to it. Granted, no one is going to use these for AutoCAD or Quark, but for general office programs the video memory and resolution are sufficient. All of which is a long way to answer the question, "Who would use these?" Someone who needs to adminster lots of computers that are only used for general office applications, that's who.
    • This isn't sold as a "You want to go out and replace all your systems with this." deal.
      It's sold as, "So, your getting more office space, your re-wireing it, and you use terminal services? This is the Box you want".

      Think hotels (as others have said) any sort complete rewire situation.

      Oh and the really nice part, they need a custom tool (supplied) to get them out, you can have your *own* personal tool if you are buying a lot.

      Try steeling my PC's now! Yeah, the TFTs can still go, but the clients ar

    • Re:what would this be used for? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by wwest4 ( 183559 ) on Thursday June 01, 2006 @11:43AM (#15445508)
      The product fits in cube farms where everyone needs to use Office & Outlook at a minimum (i.e. nearly everywhere on God's Green Earth).

      -mobility: it can't be that difficult to move, and who cares anyway? it's meant to be install-and-forget. you don't upgrade/repair thin clients as often as PCs. that's the idea--they're appliances, not PCs.

      -CPU: thin clients don't run much locally. that's the point. apps runs on the server. only the user interface stuff is done on the client (keyb, vid, mouse)

      -OS: All WinCE has to to is run ICA and RDP, which it does just fine.

      -IE6: Just have the users run mozilla in their terminal server session. problem solved.

      -limited standalone capability is a feature, not a bug.

      -price: not actually bad considering what you're getting.

      -video memory: thin clients are not meant to be graphics workstations.

      -resolution: 1600x1200 is (arguably) plenty for everyday office productivity use

      -expansion: Most modern thin terminals support at least USB peripherals (scanners, flash memory, drives, etc) in concert with Terminal Services and Citrix; I don't see whu this one would be any different. Aside from occasional firmware updates, you don't change much on the client. You're not meant to.

      No offense, but I'm continually amazed by the general ignorance of the intended application of thin clients. If it's as good as advertised, this box is a sweet thin client. Brain-dead installation, low cable mess factor, PoE ready, tiny footprint, low-power... it sounds almost too good to be true.
      • I dont know, but I find this thing really cool and amazing.

        To start, I would love to put one in my kitchen, provided that it is WiFi enabled (or if it is PoE and the Ethernet is still usable it would be the same) , imagine how cool would it be, to have one of this babies on each room at the side of your light socket.

        And then, you would have a central server & database, with different applications, each one for a different room.

        I believe this thing could certainly give a push to the automated house (brin
      • I generally agree; but I still find the price a bit steep for a thin client. I'm sure it'll find a use.
    • Lemme see
      A flexible office with a bunch of Salesmen who plug in at any old available cube space.

      A library college computer commons. They can not worry about CPU's being vandalized of walking off in the early hours

      A convention center or hotel that has instant office space. They can just move the modular walls around to configure the required space and not worry about wire drops etc since the cable runs are built into the modular walls

    • Or you could just get one of these [sun.com] . Doesn't fit in a wall socket, but it's a full-fledged thin client (doesn't require a "terminal server" [how quaint!] environment). Also doesn't come with keyboard/mouse/monitor (supports DVI or VGA). Not sure what the advantage of either of these is, but I guess if you need them, they're nice to have. Actually, the one I listed supports smart cards, so it's handy if you move around a lot (your session gets switched to whichever node you plug your card into, kind of
    • I can't quite figure where this product fits. I'm guessing it's more of a business solution, but if that's true, I can't imagine it in any of the business settings I've experienced.

      1) Call centers

      2) Telemarketing centers

      3) Automotive shops (mecanics, etc) for parts lookup/ordering/word processessing/billing (terminal services)

      4) Offices where workers are doing Word/Excell/etc (again, terminal services)

      5) My situation where my laptop/docking station is used 90% (or more) for Word/Excel/Outlook and a commerci

      • These are far from "useless" as you'd imply.

        Thanks, yours has been the best and most comprehensive reply, very helpful.

        I didn't mean to, but guess I did, imply "useless", I only listed what I saw from my perspective. You, and others, have salted me with some ideas, excellent.

    • . . .requires custom installation of jacks anywhere you'd use it.

      Like, at your desk?

      limited standalone capability (designed to leverage Terminal Services)

      Well, yes. It is overtly a thin client. The cpu is really just a "cache" of computing power with the real computing power residing elsewhere. But that receptionist and bank of data entry people on the eigth floor are wasting the power of their PC anyway and still have to be connected to the central server to accomplish their jobs.

      This isn't a box for progr
    • It's a thin client, period. Those of us who like "real" PCs will never make our peace with these glorified terminals — but the decision makers are in love with them, because of the low administrative cost. And if you're a big company with thousands of employees using thin clients, it makes sense to have them permanently installed in your walls.

      If you haven't seen this before, it because you've only worked for companies where everybody has his own PC. I guess that's still the majority, but the trend

    • - Single Button Logon (main advantage)
      Much smaller than XPe (loads faster)
      XPe is actually much harder to lockdown to just a kiosk and an RDP connection (as I've found out)
    • It's kind of cool technology, but is it a solution in search of a problem?

      Am I the only person who realizes this thing doesn't have moving parts?

      First of all there's the reliability factor that this produces (moving parts are always first to break), but more importantly, it doesn't produce any noise. This is a completely quiet computer. That's a major advantage in my book. You don't realize how much the PC's hum annoys you until you work a while without it.

      The introductory price is a bit too steep, but if i
    • Many people on /. would have the same type of reaction that you did. "Not enough power for what I do, or what I have seen done." This is not targeted towards power users, programmers, or engineers. In many buisinesses, all a person needs is MS Office (Some have mentioned Real Estate offices, legal offices would be a good target here too). There is no reason for them to have a $1500 workstation on their desk for such work. The latest graphics processor is not necessary for creating excel spreadsheets.

  • The obvious question: (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Dzimas ( 547818 ) on Thursday June 01, 2006 @11:15AM (#15445169)
    1. at £209, wouldn't it make much more sense to purchase an office full of cheap Dells, which offer much more processing power as well as local storage? The only advantage I can see of this device is that it is very compact and wall-mounted... and that advantage is totally wiped out by having to have a bulky LCD panel, keyboard and mouse on each desk.

    IOW, this is an interesting idea that will probably fail in all but a few niche applications - I wouldn't invest in the company. ;)

    • 1. at £209, wouldn't it make much more sense to purchase an office full of cheap Dells, which offer much more processing power as well as local storage?

      Local storage is a bad thing. Local storage means office workers can put shit on the hard drive and the hard drive doesn't get backed up. I've worked in offices where they rely on local storage to keep all their files and it's administration hell. In my mind, the one really nice feature of thin-client networks like Citrix (and I _hate_ Citrix) is th

    • If it was a tenth of that cost they would start probably kickstart a revolution. Central Server + One WallJack PC for each room (say @ construction time) and you can hook up monitors etc @ will in each room , similar stuff for office Space. I wonder how much of the cost is Win CE and if that could be replaced by Damn Small Linux w/RDP. I would definitely hook up family members using it if it was significantly cheaper

    • Re:The obvious question: (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rtaylor ( 70602 ) on Thursday June 01, 2006 @12:18PM (#15445940) Homepage
      No. If you can save 1 sqft of space for each person in say a call centre, which allows you to squeeze in a few extra people, this is well worth every cent.

      At £20+ per sqft of space per month in your office lease, £200 to save 1 sqft is a pretty good deal.
    • wouldn't it make much more sense to purchase an office full of cheap Dells

      You clearly don't work with Terminal Servers.If you have an office filled with Dells, you will require personell physically present to maintain these PCs, follow up and/or pay for support-contracts. Being physically there for someone having mail-problems and such is a waste or resourches.

      With [a|some] Terminal server[s] you have typically less people managing the server, on a central point. Connecting clients cannot screw up as much

  • I wonder if it comes with built in homeplug [google.com] support?

  • Wow (Score:3, Funny)

    by ch-chuck ( 9622 ) on Thursday June 01, 2006 @11:17AM (#15445192) Homepage
    Imagine a Beowulf cluster of those on a power strip.

  • Price of JackPC to fit in wall socket, £209. Price of builder to make a hole the wall £200, Price of plasterer to seal the hole £200. Lol, but seriously isn't a ordinary small form factor pc, more capable and not much more money.

  • How much??!! (Score:3, Informative)

    by myxiplx ( 906307 ) on Thursday June 01, 2006 @11:21AM (#15445259)
    I'd love to move our office to thin clients however I really can't justify the cost. For £200 I can get a 2.4Ghz Celeron with 512MB of RAM, XP Pro, a keyboard, mouse and 17" flat panel monitor.

    So for a little more, I can get a tiny little box instead... wohoo!

    But hold on, that box doesn't include monitor, keyboard, mouse, or operating system. Add those on and for a typical organisation running windows, these devices work out around £200 more than a regular PC. And that's before you even look at the costs of the server you need to run all the software.

    Hmm... so right now I can replace a £200 PC if I spend about £600 per user on a thin client solution... and that will save me money how exactly?

    Until somebody takes a brave leap of coming up with a simple design and mass producing these the prices simply aren't even nearly competative.

    So, thanks, but no thanks.

    • Re:How much??!! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jrumney ( 197329 )
      I'd love to move our office to thin clients however I really can't justify the cost. For £200 I can get a 2.4Ghz Celeron with 512MB of RAM, XP Pro, a keyboard, mouse and 17" flat panel monitor.

      What are your monthly electricity bills?

    • I'd love to move our office to thin clients however I really can't justify the cost.

      I'm wondering.. how well does this actually scale. Seems to me that the real issue with Windows thin clients is the server side. Doesn't a single TS login take up pretty hefty resources? What kind of a server farm would you need to maintain to run, say, 100 TS/Citrix clients simutaneously?

      -matthew

    • Re:How much??!! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Teckla ( 630646 )
      I'd love to move our office to thin clients however I really can't justify the cost. For £200 I can get a 2.4Ghz Celeron with 512MB of RAM, XP Pro, a keyboard, mouse and 17" flat panel monitor.

      I'm calling bullshit on this. However, I'm happy to be corrected on this if someone can point me to a reputable company that'll sell a system with these specs for £200 (which is approximately $375 USD, according to Google).

      But hold on, that box doesn't include monitor, keyboard, mouse, or operating syst

    • Hmm... so right now I can replace a £200 PC if I spend about £600 per user on a thin client solution... and that will save me money how exactly?

      1. As your current PC's need replacing, replace them one by one with one of these. Eventually, you're all switched over.
      2. When you open a new office, start with these all around.

      Replacing current macines still in service might not be the best way, but for attrition and additions, it might be.

  • Do I understand correct: no network boot? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Mostly a lurker ( 634878 ) on Thursday June 01, 2006 @11:23AM (#15445274)
    Surely the single biggest win with thin client solutions can be the ability to maintain a single boot image and just have the clients use the latest image. Unless I am missing something, that is not an option here. Given that I can get pretty compact second hand boxes for US$50 or so that work great with Linux Terminal Server, these wall socket devices seem cute but not very practical.
  • I can see this device finding a place in the home as a media centre. Having no moving parts, it would be completely silent. It would of course have to be linked to a server, but imagine being able to plug a display directly into a wall socket. It could also find a place in the kitchen - no danger of spilling liquids onto a wall socket, and no worktop space taken up.

    I wonder whether it could be viable to add enough extra flash memory to make one of these into a web server based on Linux? It would be the idea
  • for just £209 ($390) ... too expensive, you can buy a full PC for this sort of money. I plain old PC is always more valuable than a crippled "thin client". It uses easy to service commodity parts, can be easily found for $390 or less, and performs a lot more tasks than a thin client can. So you can fit it in a wall socket. Is this what will make your "data driven business" highly efficient, as they claim? I can already see businesses running, tripping over themselves to go buy it, and put it in the

  • beep beep beep (Score:2, Insightful)

    by MrSquirrel ( 976630 )
    Cute toy -- but it doesn't seem practical... yet. While this seems like a decent thin-client (some of the ones I've seen come with horrid built-in displays and they still are a box -- if I'm going to have a box on my desk either way, I'd rather have it be a fast one) it's still a little too expensive. As the price comes down I can expect these to be a little more popular -- these are not the right kind of machine for everyone (or probably even most people)... but for a business I can see this working if t

  • IE6? (Score:2)

    by roca ( 43122 )
    IE6 runs on MIPS/ARM?

    • Re:IE6? (Score:2, Informative)

      by nicknack ( 123089 )
      probably a version for handheld devices (without some bells, wistles, activeX, bugs from the PC-version).
      but yes: Windows CE runs on MIPS (probably also ARM), as handhelds often don't use x86-chips.

  • RDP is great (Score:3, Informative)

    by hotspotbloc ( 767418 ) on Thursday June 01, 2006 @11:31AM (#15445364) Homepage Journal
    I hate MS Windows as much the next /. reader but RDP is sweet (either the Terminal Server version or XP Pro for a single RDP session server.). I serve up a half dozen RDP sessions daily and at one time over a 768k upstream link and even that is total overkill (if you only serve up the right apps). If you use XP Pro I'm guesing this wall bug should work right out of the box.

    BTW, IMO the TC mentioned is a bit pricey (but could be a great solution for the right need, is very cool and the wireless support is a serious bonus) since a standard (and still quite small) TC can be had on ebay for less then $50USD. As for CPU speed, rdp requires very, very little. Think Puppy Linux and rdesktop on a PI works fine. Thin clients are a blast to play with.

    If they could just get the price below $200USD it would be great but for what it offers their price is somewhat reasonable.

  • If you want to run a cluster, you will need to rip out the wall to install the plug boxes before installing each computer. Of course, you may want to do that on an interior wall with air conditioning. The police with a thermal imager outside might get suspicious if your exterior wall is glowing bright hot.
  • It just needs voice-controlled power supply, so you can say "jack on" , and of course, "jack off"! There are just so many ways to work that phrase in if you're using these computers.
  • Unless I'm missing something, you had better not put this inside a well-insulated wall. If you surround a tiny 5-W heat source with foam insulation, say.

    Let's guess some numbers:
    0.04 m^2 surface area (62 in^2 for the SI-challenged)
    RSI = 2 (about R=11 in US)
    Insulating plastic cover similar to foam

    I get a 250 C rise. It must depend on either a clear wall cavity, or a lot of heat conduction through the cables.
  • "Thinclient PC" is a contradiction in terms.

    A PC is a personal computer - emphasis on computer. A thin client is a dumb terminal.

    They even admitted that it's not a PC near the end of the article: "While the device itself consumes less power than a standard PC, users who want to run a range of applications will need to connect it to a server. This will raise the total power consumption."

    And trust me, you do not want to work on a thinclient. I had to for a year while doing defense contracting. Every minut
    • I don't know what it is like in Windows, but with Linux it is fairly decent. I have set up terminal service with PXE boot over 10BaseT ethernet, and it worked fine. This was on P100 machines no less. For a couple of years My 366Mhz Celeron notebook booted off CDROM and used an 802.11b Wifi card for an X forwarding session to a 1Ghz Desktop. It was not bad if a little slow at times.

      No on a recent trip to Vegas, X forwarding was quite slow, but my home connection is limited to only 128K upload. So you ca
  • Great, now we can hide a PC in a wall socket, I have read some crazy people managed to put a webserver in a big ethernet connector.

    [offtopic]
    And they want me to trust them when they bring an electronic voting machine, hopefully show me some code, maybe show me the inners of the machine and tell me "this is the code we run, trust us even if we have a past of lies and deception".
    [/offtopic]

    I would like to know one time for sure that I am just a paranoiac guy that tend to apply network security practices
  • Cue the jokes about slashdotted server running on the reported on hardware...

    (It was slow for me, anyway)
  • Well done to the people who designed this gadget. It's very neat, but more importantly, it points the way ahead for 'commodity' computing, I think.

    I imagine soon, everyday computing for most people will revolve around one or more I/O devices they have access to (mobile phones, TV's, terms in public spaces and cafes etc.)

    CPU power, memory, bandwidth, storage and usage of applications will be provided by large network suppliers.

    Nobody's going to stop you running and maintaining your own box, but most people
  • Presently the company I work for is moving to a terminal services infrastructure. I used to think that the Mainframe/Terminal architecture had had its day. In the process of deciding which way to go I built a small linux terminal server based system. The whole server/client terminology juxtaposition is wierd. The reason we decided on a windows terminal server solution instead was becasue we need a particular app that is windows based. I tried to convice them to have our own application developed on lin
  • For truly ubiquitous computing you need the supository form factor with methane powered fuel cell.
  • The biggest benefit of something like this is that now the only footprint needed on the desk is keyboard and the smallest LCD flatpanel you can buy.

    Time for office designers to realize that the 2 inches of wall between cubicles is low-hanging-fruit in the search for space.

    Hope you like your coworkers, because you're going to be literally rubbing elbows with them from now on.
  • I spent some time recently researching in-wall audio solutions for a kitchen.
    The "whole-house audio" stuff is extremely pricey, and usually depends on remote power (remember power for speakers is going to take more power than an itty-bitty WinCE device).

    I can see devices like this serving as Media Connector boxes to serve music throughout my house... but it still needs an audio amp.

    I ended up buying a SpeakerCraft SoundSource, a 50w CD player that sits in the wall... and needs a brick power supply plugged i
  • Did Slashdot suddenly become a British publication? IIRC, the past tense of "fit" in American English is "fit," not "fitted."
  • 209 pounds? Isn't that like $400 dollars? Can't you get a full fledge PC for this (probably with a monitor)? And with more choice of OS rather than the limited CE?

    Sounds like it's kind of missing the mark.
  • Its a little box running Windows CE on low power. In most respects then, its more like a PDA or cell phone than a PC.

    Now, if it ran embedded linux in a way that let you update the firmware, it might be the basis for a really interesting brick computer.
  • "It can come with up to 64MB of flash memory and 128MB RAM."

    That means that the entry level system includes less than 64MB of flash or less than 128MB of RAM or less of both. Given the price, this looks like a PC for suckers.

  • No one seems to have mentioned this yet, so I'll toss in my 2 cents:

    With these WinCE thin clients that only run ICA/RDP, you can still make use of them without having a Windows server kicking around. Nice little project called XRDP [sourceforge.net] has been working on an RDP server for Linux (and other *NIX) machines. It works pretty well, although currently it's just a pass-through to a VNC session (they're working on a full RDP server). Makes for some fun issues with Ubuntu as the VNC server sources are configured a bit..

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