Intel’s Next Unit of Computing

Adrian J Cotterill, Editor-in-Chief

This past week The Register, then Engadget picked up on news that (likely) by the second half of this year Intel will have in production its NUC (Next Unit of Computing) which it firmly envisions as a component in digital signage.

The pen shows the size of the (final) device

Whilst we’ve been personally excited (and distracted somewhat) by the Raspberry Pi this NUC 10 x 10-cm (4 x 4-in) form factor device may well usurp that (at least for use in kiosks and digital signage).

The NUC has a Core i3 / Core i5 Sandy Bridge chip with Intel HD 3000 graphics and has Thunderbolt, HDMI and USB 3.0 sockets on the back.

That Core i5 CPU will most likely make the NUC much more powerful than the ARM processor powered Raspberry Pi but will for sure cost more. The Register wrote “The price is not yet decided, but the smart boxes are likely to cost significantly more than the USD35 Raspberry Pi … blog Extreme Tech suggested a $100 price tag”.

If you imagine this device preloaded with a basic OS and OpenSplash tweaked to take advantage of that Graphics engine and you surely have a game changing device?


One Response to “Intel’s Next Unit of Computing”

  1. Eric Says:

    LOL, I like your use of “most likely” in “That Core i5 CPU will most likely make the NUC much more powerful than the ARM processor powered Raspberry Pi”.

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