Intel to release thumb-sized PC next year

Intel has made a rather interesting announcement – starting next year the tech company will offer thumb-sized “compute sticks” that will plug into smart TVs or monitors to “bring intelligence” to them. The news came out of Kirk Skaugen who is senior vice president and general manager of the PC Client Group at Intel during the Intel investor conference in Santa Clara, California, which was also webcast.

Mr. Skaugen also demonstrated one of these devices, which are the size of a USB stick but no tech details were given. The devices will also be an extension to laptops and mini-desktop PCs which have Intel Core processors in small PCs that can be handheld.

The yet unnamed device seems to be very similar to other thumb PCs offered by PC makers with the Android OS and an ARM processor. For example the Dell Wyse Cloud Connect, which plugs into a HDMI port, can turn a screen or display into a PC, gaming machine or streaming media player. Such devices do not have on-board storage but can be used to access files and use services in the cloud. The Dell Wyse Cloud Connect, for instance, has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

Intel believes that the market for such devices is in the tens of millions. In addition the computing stick will bring x86 computing back to fanless designs.

We’ll see what we will get next year. By the way, the actual device is expected around the end of 2015.

Source: PC World