Then there are initiatives like the Intel Realsense cam (like Kinect), Edison, Moblin( which morphed into Meego and later Sailfish). Intel often doesn't get the credit it deserves - Contributing to open source and open standards, having intervened in the markets when someone (usually Apple or Microsoft) got too dominant or comfortable(That was what Meego, Ultrabooks, NUC was about). They certainly make the market more interesting.

I guess this one is aimed at Android TV, and meant to level the field for Microsoft and Linux-based systems.

My Dad had gone through a couple of those Shuttle "Mini" computers (the motherboards were Flex-ATX, slightly bigger than Mini-ITX and obviously needed to be smaller than micro-ATX), so I thought the NUC (between Nano-ITX and Pico-ITX [1]) might appeal to him. They both died and he's currently using a standard desktop. I believe one or both of his Shuttle's died due to a PSU failure, so it's nice to have the external power brick on the NUC.

He and my Mom had previously been using a Windows Media Center desktop with a tuner card and Comcast cable, but they're using DirecTV boxes on all the TVs now so not much need for a HTPC. He said he was thinking about trying to use the NUC with Windows 8 and a touch screen somehow...Not really sure how he can accomplish that. Besides introducing him to Linux, I was thinking he could use it on his TV as just an alternate computer and wanted to show him how to use Synergy to control it with his desktop keyboard/mouse. He's currently switching his TV between the DirecTV box and his desktop as a second display.

At the very least it's a backup, and he could potentially take it on trips as a more powerful alternative to a laptop. There's just so many different options for computing these days. It's like information overload, but with hardware.

[1] http://www.anandtech.com/show/5800/slimming-desktops-down-in... (existence of Nano-ITX and Pico-ITX pointed out in the comments)

Yeah. I have two Dreamplugs lying there unused at the moment, plus a CuBox used as NAS/TimeMachine, and a MicroPython waiting for some free time... so many options, so little time.

They are also getting so powerful, I'm seriously considering a few "enterprise" scenarios. Remember when IT meant mainframes, so individual departments would just bypass them and buy their own PCs? I think we're ready for a new wave of that decentralized approach: between mobile and these little bad boys, there's plenty of power around to run a number of applications that would have required a rack server 5 or 10 years ago. Now John Accountant could just buy a little silent box and put it on his desk, without having to go through hellish rounds of IT approvals.

Which would be nice, if we had the hardware of today with the IT practices of a time when enterprises might exert centralized control of departmental server purchases but not exert the same control over individual desktop system purchases and even the software installation on those desktops.

I never understood why he did that.

It was a good NUC and he needed a good NUC. If he had used it or even honed it, or took it out of his pocket and looked at it -- that's all he had to do.

There's no i7 option, and they will run you about the same base price as an Gigabyte Brix which does offer i7 and/or i5's with more powerful graphics (and AMD APU options for very nice graphics if required).

My home server did not require much graphics of course, but the i7 quad core is very much so a nice-to-have.

Even a Zotac Zbox with an i5 will get you more bang-for-the-buck since they are about $50-$100 cheaper, and come with more peripherals (like dual Gigabit ethernet ports).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjdyudYdIPc

That's very cute, however if it's the box that actually plays the sound isn't it terribly wasteful, ecologically?

I remember way back I was trying to make a cheap wifi-powered box with a display that could play short video's and stuff. The base idea came from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ywr0A2aC_Jk, and I'd use a very cheap 3g-wifi router running openwrt as base. But in the end the firmware changed and made it impossible.

But nowadays with an arduino mini pro, i2c, cheap small displays or audio modules you can get a long way! It does however require you to purchase a lot of stuff like resistors, opamps, breadboards.. etc. And in theory, with the ESP8266-module you could make any device internet-connected.

How so? It makes the box unrecyclable; worse still, as soon as such an item is detected in the recycling plant it will often cause the whole batch of material to be rejected and dumped[1].

No-one has time to pick-through cardboard removing batteries and circuitry.

[1] Source: anecdote from a colleague who worked in a 'recyclarium'. Contaminated material causes the line to be stopped, batch dumped and machines cleaned.

The actual pre-processing sorting is quite fascinating, using spectrometers to detect the type of materials.

And while I sympathise, consider that this is part of packaging for a computer, where the manufacture of the computer itself will consume many times as many resources, and the power to use the computer over its lifetime will consume many times as many resources. With respect to the overall environmental impact of the purchase of that device, the inclusion of a device like that will be a rounding error.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingredient_branding

I'm sure they're great for some things so YMMV

I power 2x 1920x1080 screens off of a NUC and am very happy.

1920 * 1080 pixels * 5 * 60 = 622MPixel/s of fillrate required.

Radeon 9700 Pro, high end from over 10 years ago, had a fillrate of 2600MPixels/s

Let's take a high end graphics card from a few years back, say... GTX 480? A 2010 card? That has a fillrate of 33,600 MPixels/sec.

5x 1920x1080 quads is child's play for any reasonable desktop GPU part. In fact high end cards from 2009 could game at 5760x2160 (that's 6x 1920x1080 displays) off of a single card.

I find that the Chromecast is the perfect tech item. It does a few things and does them extremely well. Part of the reason why it out sold and is out used more then any other media player.

Meanwhile, this Intel stick looks even better. Between this and the announcement of a new NUC with an i7, it looks like I'll be saving up for a couple more Intel-powered Linux devices this year.

But yeah, the Chromecast is still handy sometimes, and it does do some things well (like YouTube and Pandora). It's just not always the best fit for everyone.

I now use that over the PS4 for streaming video now. Chromecast I found really only useful for casting Youtube videos, which is a really niche use for a dedicated device.

That has nothing to do with the processing power of the Chromecast and everything to do with the casting system. It's all just a video stream to the Chromecast.

Which, admittedly, is also not a Chromecast issue per se, but since the Fire TV stick does support it (for obvious reasons), and since I ought to be watching videos and justifying my Prime membership, it'll probably end up being the more useful product to me. An Intel stick would probably end up being even more useful, since I wouldn't be at the mercy of Amazon to provide support for things (and would instead be at the mercy of XBMC or Kodi or whatever the hell it's called now to provide support for things).

Chromecast = Media Player

Stick = Computer

I am still thinking I want a NUC though.

Edit: I see there's a hardware difference too. That's a bit of a shame. I wonder what corporate forces are in action here..

I doubt it's actually that much of the price tag.

[1] http://www.howtogeek.com/195934/what-exactly-is-windows-8.1-...

Eh, the hundreds of hours I spent learning Windows were much less useful to me.

Basically, the difference in price between the two SKUs is purely hardware based. So, buy whichever hardware you need, and install GNU/Linux.

On a side note, I have an HP Stream 7 tablet with an Atom CPU and 1GB RAM, and it runs 8.1 very well. I'd imagine even the lower spec SKU of the Intel stick would run it fine. Storage space would be the only real issue for that OS.

Hardware design fail: A male HDMI connector on something this big is a bad idea. You don't want to hang this kind of weight (imagine USB other cables connected to it) off an HDMI connector on a TV or monitor. The female connectors are not designed as load-bearing devices. It'd be far better to put a female HDMI connector on the stick and let people use a proper HDMI cable.

Sure, there are issues with the ARM world. But i kinda prefer the vibrant market there over the 2 1/2 horse race that is x86.