This little wall plug is actually a full computer with 1.2GHz cpu, with 512MB of RAM and 512MB of of flash memory. It comes with versions of linux, ported for its ARM processor. At $50, this cool system could be finding itself in a lot of homes. You can get more information from the manufacturer. What uses can you think of for it?
[thanks, everyone who sent this in]
Interessting but what do you do with it?
Posted at 1:09 pm on Feb 25th, 2009 by antoine
i would love to add a usb-based input device to turn it into a home automation remote. control the stereo from another room, turn lights on/off, etc. the problem is there’s no display so the buttons would have to be very specific… anybody got a good usb device with lots of buttons in a decent looking case and a howto? =)
Posted at 1:22 pm on Feb 25th, 2009 by mike
Rouge Server! Man, you could do all sorts of things with that bad boy. It’s discreet enough that if you plugged it in and connected the ethernet to it, only a technician would even think to stop and ponder it’s purpose.
Posted at 1:22 pm on Feb 25th, 2009 by oldglory747
I might get a few of these…
a VPN server
a Git host
USB based NAS.
… I probably have more ideas for this kind of thing. I would love to hook up a plant-watering/monitoring system via USB to one.
Posted at 1:25 pm on Feb 25th, 2009 by Christopher Kinniburgh
It could be a good platform for sensors and home automation, especially if there is an undocumented serial port in there somewhere.
Add an Arduino and an xbee and you’ve got an ethernet accessible xbee node.
Posted at 1:25 pm on Feb 25th, 2009 by Nick
should have enough “uumph” to be a networked webcam, just add usb webcam. plus all sorts of home automation.
you could also use it scour flickr and plug it into a cheap digital pic frame, just slap jpegs in an emulated USB disk drive.
Posted at 1:25 pm on Feb 25th, 2009 by fdsa
Also, this could be used for a number of not-so-good things. It would be simple enough to program it to work with a usb-based wireless card, have it sniff open wireless connections in a place like Starbucks, and easily grab passwords and other important data. Tech this small and easy starts getting very dangerous very quickly.
Posted at 1:27 pm on Feb 25th, 2009 by Christopher Kinniburgh
it would also make a fantastic traffic sniffer thanks to that SD port. i can’t count the number of times i’ve wanted an IDS somewhere I didn’t have one.
sheevaplug/snort/a mirror port would be a handy combination. you could add usb wifi for a management interface, if needed.
Posted at 1:31 pm on Feb 25th, 2009 by Nick
No X10, powerline networking, or WiFi? This thing is undercooked.
Posted at 1:44 pm on Feb 25th, 2009 by Eliot Phillips
this is almost too good to be true….
Posted at 1:46 pm on Feb 25th, 2009 by u
I wish they had brought out the PCIe on the chip. A mini PCI-express connector for wifi or other stuff would’ve been very cool.
Posted at 1:48 pm on Feb 25th, 2009 by amd
You can control home automation using the Ethernet jack, can’t you?
Also, you can get a serial to USB converter cable, plug into the arduno, and voila!
Posted at 1:49 pm on Feb 25th, 2009 by Hegemon
I was thinking about using to do the job of a mobile authentication/directory server. Load it up with LDAP, samba for winbind, dhcpd, maybe radius for some 802.1x auth, and hell, even asterisk and you could setup a portable intranet by literally just plugging this and a wifi router into a power outlet. Great for everything from lan parties to disaster recovery.
For $50, it’s cheap enough to monkey around with it.
Posted at 1:51 pm on Feb 25th, 2009 by spx
Adding X10 would be really, really nice.
Posted at 1:55 pm on Feb 25th, 2009 by Vik Olliver
hmm, you could;
make a simple script that emails you the current [external] ip, setup openvpn on it, then connect it somewhere [at work / school], and presto! free [or $99 if you don't plan to later retrieve the server] vpn service. :]
Posted at 2:11 pm on Feb 25th, 2009 by scott
At first I said “Cool!” but I realized that there isn’t really anything I would do with it that I don’t already do my NSLU2, which is not much.
* a NAS?
* plug a USB 1-wire adapter into it and make a Zone heating control system for my house (something I’ve thought about doing with my slug)
I like that it is supper low power. When I stopped using my slug as a Nas, I noticed the drop in my electrical bill, but that was probably the cheap usb enclosure I was using.
At $100 for the dev kit, it’s not really competitive with a Slug which can usually be found for under $100 these days.
corporate espionage comes to mind.. phone home software on it, plug it in near a network jack and boom you have a beachhead. Discreet enough that noone would think much about it.
Posted at 2:20 pm on Feb 25th, 2009 by george
note that they only said it could *once* be $50, for now they’re listing it as a $99 device. so here in europe we’ll probably buy it for E120. a euro was worth how much dollar?
Posted at 2:22 pm on Feb 25th, 2009 by tulcod
@mike
“anybody got a good usb device with lots of buttons in a decent looking case and a howto? =)”
i believe what you’re looking for is known as a “keyboard”. ;)
Posted at 2:41 pm on Feb 25th, 2009 by iprefermuffins
As a developer with a lot of home projects, I like the idea of a carry it with me SVN server. Crossover cat5 and my laptop and I’d have my full dev environment wherever i went! I’d prolly need more than 512Mb, but 2Gb oughta be plenty.
Posted at 2:45 pm on Feb 25th, 2009 by random
I’ve been looking for a cheap upgrade to my NLSU2 this looks great, can you install debian on it?
Posted at 3:19 pm on Feb 25th, 2009 by Tom
They did not bring out any interface to LCD or touch screen. I think the cpu is capable. This would also be a nice ARM dev board /embedded linux dev board, housed in its own powersource.
Posted at 3:23 pm on Feb 25th, 2009 by vhangell
this thing is awsome im gonna buy myself one!
Posted at 3:30 pm on Feb 25th, 2009 by jgrimm
Streaming web cam for security based systems ie zoneMinder, motion.. setup to nas box for offsite storage…you get the idea
Posted at 4:02 pm on Feb 25th, 2009 by sanchoooo
I would use it for an XDRP terminal server for when i want to access things that i need that are blocked from work.
Posted at 4:13 pm on Feb 25th, 2009 by Arthur
Admitantly I love the idea, not sure how practical it is in the end tho, it’s nice if maybe you want a limited webserver just for the sake, maybe a small media server if you like… but now days you really want more than that.
the IP cam idea isn’t bad but is it really cost effective, and how many cheap cams can you get running under linux?
The only thing I think would be neat is maybe just adding a USB bluetooth module and running it as some kind of advertising tool or just a simple bluetooth AP, again not all that useful tho.
Posted at 4:35 pm on Feb 25th, 2009 by #YLS#
I’m thinking art installations. It could run various components for a computer controlled piece.
Posted at 4:47 pm on Feb 25th, 2009 by hum4n
because this has such a tiny power footprint, you could easily setup a webserver for yourself on your home cable connection and use dyndns or similar. at only 5W you are looking at under $.50 per month at peak usage.
this would also be interesting to setup with openvpn or hamachi as a network intrusion device.
Posted at 4:47 pm on Feb 25th, 2009 by dan
OMG!! A 1.2Ghz ARM native compiler!!
/me has an orgasm.
Posted at 4:48 pm on Feb 25th, 2009 by n00bhunter
hmmm… been looking for something like this to tunnel my network traffic through ssh. Might just do the trick!
Posted at 5:53 pm on Feb 25th, 2009 by moloch
NAS for sure, I have an NSLU2 sitting on my gig network – it tops out at 5 MB/s. This thing has a gig adapter and USB 2 – so it should be able to do a little better.
Posted at 6:29 pm on Feb 25th, 2009 by foxops
…Why do so many people want to hook up an arduino to a device that could be basically the same as an arduino with a little bit of programming? I do not understand.
Not too hackish, but I don’t think a 512 MB device is terribly useful these days. A 1GB ram chip would probably only cost an extra $10 with the RAM market plummeting.
Would it not make sense to pop this thing open and see about modding in some more ports or upgrading the ram?
Posted at 6:35 pm on Feb 25th, 2009 by Louis II
I’m thinking (once the price drops) buy 10-20 of these, some power strips, and a couple of switches, and bam: instant render farm/beowulf cluster. Of course, at $99 apiece, it still isn’t bad (considering how versatile it is.)
I wonder if there would be any way to rig a monitor up to this thing and use it as a low-end home pc.
Posted at 6:55 pm on Feb 25th, 2009 by fwirt
Now if only it had a power socket on the front for piggy-backing (and not taking up an entire socket) and an in-built solid-state relay controlled by the CPU so you can switch the other device on or off via software.
Posted at 7:19 pm on Feb 25th, 2009 by meowsqueak
psh.
for me, it’d be…. find an open wifi hotspot/wired network, instant proxy.
also, NAS.
Posted at 8:25 pm on Feb 25th, 2009 by sean
You guys do realize this is a development kit and not a proper commercial product right? So you can take the kit, and implement all your brilliant ideas, then sell it as a product :)
but I agree with amd, would be nice if the PCI-E and SATA connections were broken out.
Posted at 9:17 pm on Feb 25th, 2009 by jproach
This thing has better specs than the box that I’m currently using as a server, with the exception of the storage. However, that could be fixed with a $25 dollar 16 GB SDHC card.
What would be really interesting is if a several people each bought one and then used the group as a distributed server. They would share storage, bandwidth, and computational capacity. It seems like that would be a really scalable idea. If the security issues could be worked out, people all over the world could make some sort of crazy huge network of them that would work like Amazon EC3. I wish I could pull that off.
Posted at 9:42 pm on Feb 25th, 2009 by TJSomething
@vik
The manufacturer specifications say that this device works at 100-240VAC/50Hz-60Hz
Posted at 12:28 am on Feb 26th, 2009 by CrashingDutchman
plug’n'play webserver. imagine you go to some crazy huge conference. just setup your own irc channel, dropbox, wikis, etc. would be sweet!
Posted at 1:16 am on Feb 26th, 2009 by max
Tiny, headless torrent box. How has no one mentioned that yet?
Posted at 2:15 am on Feb 26th, 2009 by MattM
Mind boggles with possibilities! I definitely want one! Imagine the GEEK points with this! Step up to a girl and say: Hey! I’ve got a server in my pocket!
Bwahahaha! Precious!
Posted at 3:01 am on Feb 26th, 2009 by xdr
that would do a great job as a little low-powered vpn server…
Posted at 3:12 am on Feb 26th, 2009 by percy
First thing to come to my mind was: “OMG $50!! I can replace my broken server with that!”
It would probably run an FTPd and an SSHd (d is daemon, dummy :D) so i could plug it in next to the router and use it to send files home from school!
Posted at 4:13 am on Feb 26th, 2009 by Squeakyneb
the $50 price drop is not in the near future. It is not possible to add lcd or any display device, sine it is not available in the pcb. The pcb itself doesnt offer much of a hardware hack, but still, there might be ways… The schematic and board layout is available at marvell’s website.
Posted at 4:22 am on Feb 26th, 2009 by vhangell
the cpu is not capable of interfacing to a lcd device. It is not in the function of the cpu, based on the hardware and functional datasheet of the 88F6281 processor. too bad, still. who needs gui, when this can run silently on the background. another webserver would be great
Posted at 5:10 am on Feb 26th, 2009 by vhangell
Is a shame that the e-commerce dosnt work on http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com else I would have snaffled one of these this morn
I would buy one and add sata connectivity (supported by the controller)
Posted at 6:17 am on Feb 26th, 2009 by Mike
wonder if displaylink usb lcd will work with it .. anyone ?
Posted at 6:18 am on Feb 26th, 2009 by stussyking
hell with homes. I can sneak that puppy into any corperate setting and have it sit there sniffing usernames and passwords and then send them home for collection.
I’m betting that puppy would go unnoticed behind the copier or printer for years.
It’s an awesome corperate espionage tool!
Posted at 6:28 am on Feb 26th, 2009 by fartface
Just ordered one, they are $115.00 with shipping and NOT $50.00 like some people think. You cant get to $50.00 unless you order 10,000 of them.
I’d like to know who pulled the $50.00 price out of their butt.
Posted at 6:43 am on Feb 26th, 2009 by fartface
This would be killer if it had a VGA port or something like that. There should be a GPIO port or something like that with a device socket. That way, you could add your own display adapter module, WiFi module, surveillance camera, etc.
As for home automation, one could outfit this device for Control4 as well as X-10.
I wonder if the PCI-E 1X slot is being used for anything in this implementation? One could add one of those 1X video cards if a driver could be thrown together.
Heh, Blender 3D on a wallwart.
WANT!!
Posted at 6:45 am on Feb 26th, 2009 by Derek
@stussyking
That’s what I was wondering as well.
If you could, set it up with driftnet and let the lulz roll in
Posted at 7:10 am on Feb 26th, 2009 by djlspider
This device ($50), an old X-Terminal, like a HP Entria ($10) and a cheap TFT ($50) is all you need. Add a 8GB USB-Stick ($10) for storage.
$120 for a silent, powersaving X-Workstation.
Posted at 7:21 am on Feb 26th, 2009 by foo
if this had 2 ethernet ports, it would increase the likelihood of me getting one. It would be then i deal to be a small, highly flexible home internet connection sharing and server that takes up very little total space.
Posted at 8:38 am on Feb 26th, 2009 by cornelius785
Seems to big to small and to small to be big.
I can see a few jobs for it, stuff you’ld like to do with a microcontroller but can’t. Say video motion detection or verifying fingerprint scans. but to me, 9 times out 10 a server ain’t no good without a terabyte of harddrives.
Posted at 8:45 am on Feb 26th, 2009 by chris
As to having a display and all that… wouldnt using VNC be possible ?
Posted at 8:56 am on Feb 26th, 2009 by Killes
I have a small NAS/Firewall based on an VIA ITX platform that sucks down about 50 watts. I’d love to replace it with this, using less power, with a smaller form factor, and likely less flakey than x86 hardware. It’s clearly headless meaning its probably possible to remotely admin (from the couch) the box should the need arise.
I just wish it had more USB ports and an extra ethernet. If I decided to pull the trigger, the first thing I’ll do is rip it open and look for extra USB headers. The ethernet, i can almost live with just 1.
Posted at 9:21 am on Feb 26th, 2009 by fdawg4l
at 50 bucks i would have purchased several, for novelty alone. though i did have a few uses in mind.
at 99 bucks, the novelty wears off.
Posted at 9:41 am on Feb 26th, 2009 by Bizzaro
if these things get prevalent and result in ADSL connections being used as ad-hoc game/irc/multiuser servers with dyndns or something expect ISP’s to bitch and moan or increase latency on the upstream
Posted at 10:49 am on Feb 26th, 2009 by steve
Those saying it cant drive an lcd, I’ll bet you $260,000US right now that I can get a LCD on it in 30 minutes. It even has GPIO pins available to drive a serial LCD if I wanted to.
did you guys even look at it?
Posted at 11:12 am on Feb 26th, 2009 by fartface
@ Fartface (69): Graphic, vga/dvi lcd, not character or serial lcd. This is a dev computer, with full schematic online at the manufacturer. The cpu does not have a native lcd or vga controller, and even if it did, it is not brought out from under the cpu, like the mini pci slot. You would need to revision the board.
great! I need one =)
Posted at 12:17 pm on Feb 26th, 2009 by bri
i would remove the power part, insert a small switching regulator and a second dedicated processor for video out.
Posted at 12:20 pm on Feb 26th, 2009 by Rlyeh_drifter
i forsee voip… pbx in a flash would be awesome on this…
Posted at 12:36 pm on Feb 26th, 2009 by xero
@Foo
“This device ($50), an old X-Terminal, like a HP Entria ($10)…”
Where can I get an old x-terminal, like the HP Entria, for $10??
Posted at 1:15 pm on Feb 26th, 2009 by MEAT!
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.20383
Posted at 1:19 pm on Feb 26th, 2009 by Bart_65
Give it a little more memory, load it with Samba, and it would make a great little apache server.
Posted at 1:42 pm on Feb 26th, 2009 by dotcommunist
displaylink usb lcd<- if you have linux drivers why not. ecommerce not working? use internet explorer not firefox. too less usb? use usb hub. its not $50 people. no lcd? i was pertaining to graphic lcd with touchscreen, same with cellphones. the gpio is kinda limited, and not much interfaced in the pcb. so for video, sorry, theres no direct connection.
Posted at 2:23 pm on Feb 26th, 2009 by vhangell
@fartface: If you read the link it clearly states that “For those that do wish to build products on the platform, volume pricing could fall to $50, Marvell expects.” Like you said, 10,000 qty, no JTAG board to worry about. Also expect some markup from the platform cost, and oh look, you can already pre-order the Pogoplug for $79 :).
@bart_65: yes, that is a cool product with working features, but it is nowhere near as fast, doesn’t come with as much ram, storage, etc.
Posted at 3:03 pm on Feb 26th, 2009 by jproach
TROJAN HORSE TORRENT DOWNLOADER! Plug this bag boy into a network (maybe tucked away in a corner of WalMart?), pop on a 500GB external hard drive, connect (remotely) via SSH, and control it. It’s like hacking into a remote computer, but in reverse. You could use it to do things (like download torrents) for several weeks, then just collect it when you’re ready to claim your loot!
This is as $50 as the $100 notebook is $100.
also, this is a proof of concept from the chip maker. and it’s a box on a chip. so, $50 is probably *their* base price.
now add their profit +80%, transportation +100%, dealer profit +30%.
Posted at 3:37 pm on Feb 26th, 2009 by gabriel
I’m thinking about a cluster MySQL and Apache servers!
Posted at 4:01 pm on Feb 26th, 2009 by ellisgl
The truth on this one.
This is ACTUALLY being sold at about $99/unit. $50 is a speculative bulk rate, probably for orders 10k units or more. Manufacturing costs are probably high as it’s not a mass-production item, just a development kit. Odds are, it won’t ever hit that low unless ***mart chooses to carry it and then forces it’s prices down.
It’s not intended for consumers to use directly… it’s intended as a development platform, although it does have an out-of-the-box simple server capability.
For those worried about it’s size and concealability… Consider that my cell phone is capable of most of what this thing does (and more besides) at about half of the size. Furthermore, it can run without AC for several hours and therefore can be shoved just about anywhere. Beyond that, I’ve got a La Fonera which runs on batteries which could serve many nefarious purposes in the same way.
Back to this gadget… I can think of some silly projects like a twittering nightlight and some mundane projects like networking printers or acting as the brains for a CNC device. Here’s my first thought though, can it be hacked to remove the AC transformer? If so, a carputer project could be fun or if you can make it light enough it becomes a base for a cheap wearable PC.
Posted at 4:55 pm on Feb 26th, 2009 by The truth
I could get a USB cable and use it to charge my iPod or Blackberry.
Posted at 5:09 pm on Feb 26th, 2009 by Steve Shockley
Why in god’s name didn’t they put power line networking in this thing? Now THAT would have been killer…..
Posted at 5:20 pm on Feb 26th, 2009 by powerondude
not to through too much water on the parade, but I’d like to see a vga port on this thing… not everybody wants to go headless.
Or should i just mount a pico-itx on the back of my monitor.
Posted at 8:42 pm on Feb 26th, 2009 by the steven
jesus, this is the problem with poor journalism. Someone writes an article (well meaning or not), people of low intelligence only bother to read the caption or the summary, then run with those statements without actually discovering if they are true or not.
The article CLEARLY states that it is a $100 development kit, you can order it RIGHT NOW for $100. Where exactly is the disconnect?
btw, as an aside, read a few articles on anchoring and you will realize how many terrible price based judgments you’ve made in the past :) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring
@powerondude: good idea, you can be the first to add one to this *platform* and use it for something brilliant :). On the other hand, it could turn out like my satellite receiver. It has USB and powerline networking circuitry, both of which are completely unused, cost them god knows how much.
Posted at 11:30 pm on Feb 26th, 2009 by jproach
i’d put several around the house with usb powered motors/switchs for homeautomation, a bluetooth usb dongle for a full house bluetooth grid reception
then use the cell phone app as a home automation controler by bluethoot
and maybe use all of them for cloud processing.
Posted at 7:09 am on Feb 27th, 2009 by gabriel
I could open it up and solder a cable from the power plug ends to my desktop to commit suicide on demand. Its a steal.
Posted at 7:37 am on Feb 27th, 2009 by jackass
This could be great to stream webcam data from remote locations where you do not want to sue much power. Vacation homes come to mind…
Posted at 12:27 pm on Feb 27th, 2009 by ZERO
This is indeed a really cool product but they will release it by end of march and only at 99$/ developer kits. The thing I’m missing is WIFI. Because you plug it in somewhere to do some automation etc but you’ll need to have an ethernet connection nearby. Luckily an usb-wifi stick can resolve this issue (if the drivers work on it, remember it is arm!). Apart from that, this is the product most hackers have been looking for :). This is why everyone was hacking the routers to have a linux device that uses low power and can be left on 24/7…
You use the usb for screen, no?
Posted at 2:16 pm on Feb 28th, 2009 by orangesrhyme
web server.
circumventer… school and work cant stop you from reaching your beloved myspace!
NAS with the addition of a usb drive.
firewall with usb nic.
media server.
seedbox (leave it run at work, school, or anywhere really if you added some wifi via usb)
I would buy at least one of these now if it would run FreeNAS but it is freeBSD and this thing seems to be linux :(
Posted at 10:44 pm on Feb 28th, 2009 by jon
I ordered a devkit for this, for $99 But the transaction did not complete on the website. I did not receive acknoledgement, but my payment was completed via paypal. I emailed, buy they wont reply to acknowledge that they received my payment. Talk about customer support, all I wanted was for them to verify that they received my order. I was charged $99 no shipping… Yet Im from another country. oh what to do.
Posted at 2:01 am on Mar 1st, 2009 by Rampage
“can it be hacked to remove the AC transformer?”
Yes. Anything with a transformer runs DC. All you might need to discover would be the Volts and Amps that it the converter runs the DC at, then you can build an appropriate circuit for your vehicle and throw away the AC inverting parts.
Also… this could be used with home climate control, food growing box control, PV array automation and a number of “out of town” chore purposes. Maybe it might replace every aspect of your home caretaker (when out of town?) except for picking up your mail?
It certainly has a lot of potential, in any event, just like an intel macmini.
Posted at 1:28 am on Mar 2nd, 2009 by Louis II
“Anything with a transformer runs DC”
That’s not true…
“All you might need to discover would be the Volts and Amps that it the converter runs the DC at, then you can build an appropriate circuit for your vehicle and throw away the AC inverting parts.”
The block diagram in the article shows that the unit runs off of 5 volts, and since the unit is claiming to use 5 watts or less, that comes out to about one amp…..
Posted at 8:39 am on Mar 2nd, 2009 by Hitek146
This is exactly what I’ve been looking for to plug in behind my TV. With the USB it can be used with my external drive enclosure and a USB wifi thingum as a NAS. I can also hook up a webcam to have a constant view from my flat which I’ve always wanted to do. Actually with a USB to composite adapter I can also use it is a little media centre, judging from the good video playback on the ARM chip in the GP2X, this should be no problem. Porting stuff to this thing should also be a breeze in general.
Posted at 12:24 pm on Mar 4th, 2009 by Kriek
>>”“Anything with a transformer runs DC”
>>That’s not true…”
I was speaking with regards to these kinds of devices, not on a broader scale. I did not intend to mislead a reader and your point is valid.
I did not review the block diagram closely enough to determine the actual values needed by the device, but provided a general bit of thought as to how it might apply in the case asked about, implying that the reader needs to go read (discover) the article.
Posted at 1:07 am on Mar 6th, 2009 by Louis II
You cannot enable internal sata support on this one. The main chip comes in BGA package and according to schematics sata pins are not routed. Also Marwell did not release pin layouts of this chip.
Video card and wifi would have probably doubled the price. Face reality here. Besides, Intel is going for that market segment with their Atom CPUs. Also there are Atheros AP81 and Realtek RT3502 socs that both run at 400MHz. Plenty of competition around here. Video card, wifi, sata etc. can be done with usb.
Posted at 6:30 pm on Mar 6th, 2009 by jep
sheevaplug + usb flash drive + powerline ethernet = uber stealth ftp
Posted at 6:03 pm on Mar 7th, 2009 by Brim
Bought one.. dev-kit is $99. Expected ship date is end of March 2009. So it’s kind of like a pre-order.
Posted at 6:53 pm on Mar 8th, 2009 by M@
I have decided that it will run a mail server. I might power it using an RF antenna, or an earth battery, but I am not sure yet. I doubt my router could supply the power RF… but that would be trippy if it could! How many watts are floating through the air that could be harvested effectively is the real question, I think.
Posted at 11:08 pm on Mar 13th, 2009 by Louis II
If they only added HomePlug to it … but in this format, it’s basically useless. You’re probably better off with a router that can run OpenWRT or other open Linux distribution.
Posted at 5:08 am on Mar 14th, 2009 by darkore
I wish they had brought out the PCIe on the chip. A mini PCI-express connector for wifi or other stuff would’ve been very cool.
Posted at 2:59 am on Mar 15th, 2009 by mashablez
Yeah, marvel doesnt have to do the upgrade themselves. They can just bring out the pinouts of the chip, more like a breakout board. Then, let the hackers tinker with it. That way they might attract more buyers and sales. That wont increase the price cause there wont be additional parts, but would make the sheevaplug more hackable.
Posted at 4:16 pm on Mar 15th, 2009 by Rampage
Just orderd one. I am going to take the converter of to make a wifi robot.I’ll put a wifi acces point on it use an Arduino for the stearing a playstation eye and feed it with 5V from some lipo’s probably. Does anyone has a suggestion for a (usb)gps?
Posted at 1:52 pm on Mar 19th, 2009 by oler
Might have to pick one up to use with a U401 (http://www.usbmicro.com) for easy input and output. I can see putting this in the cabin and having a security system by running door-switch sensors into a U401, or even a flood sensor for the sump pump. For that matter temperature sensors via 1-wire devices and have the server report temperature every hour.
A sneaky torrent tracker server……on a small scale, could be useful. For legal file sharing of course.
Posted at 3:13 pm on Apr 2nd, 2009 by Adam
hmmz, i’d hook it up to a tb usb storage device and use it to leech! :D
Posted at 12:45 pm on Apr 5th, 2009 by isama
Needs a port for ext. power! seriously. what to do with it. I am certain wifi will be on the list – who is supplies a USB wifi that will work w/ the install linux should be in the FAQ
Posted at 6:14 pm on Apr 16th, 2009 by grok
Forget the traditional stuff. Try thinking outside of the box people. Since this thing is portable and cheap, you could use it to automate your garagem or shed Coupled with a Teensy, you can control garage operations, extend internet, monitor webcams
Posted at 11:21 pm on Apr 18th, 2009 by qai
lets revive this. who purchased their sheevaplug? its crying out for hacks
Posted at 5:36 am on Apr 20th, 2009 by Rampage
Mine arrived yesterday. Nice packaging with a magnetic flap there is a regular laptop type power cord in the box as well and it looks like the plug can be removed, but it is very tight. I’ll have more once I connect to it.
Posted at 6:06 pm on Apr 21st, 2009 by Mike
Just ordered mine last night, not expecting it until late May. hoping by then there will be some nice mods on the net about it. It would also be nice if someone can figure out the pin layout so we can activate the second Gigabit connection. Planning on using my first on as a Firewall. waiting to see what consumer models are made from this before I get more. may just stick with the dev kit, as the only 2 I have found for sale both remove the SD slot and the mini USB Jtag.
Posted at 11:48 am on Apr 22nd, 2009 by finndo
I wonder if it could be used for some type of VIOP application? Maybe use it for the Magic Jack so that you didn’t have to run your computer all the time to be able to use the phone. Just plug it into your Internet connection and into the wall. That would make the Magic Jack something more practical to own and use.
Posted at 12:16 pm on May 5th, 2009 by Cubby
@louis ii
use the rf power from the air and maybe some kind of power harnessing from the voltage present in ethernet. not sure on standards or potential bad side effects but it seems a few simple mods could make this thing a lot more stealth, like able to sit inside the ethernet wall jack and run from aforementioned power sources
Posted at 5:14 pm on May 22nd, 2009 by adavak
Hack a Day serves up fresh hacks each day, every day from around the web and a special How-To hack each week.
Powered by WordPress
That is bad-ass.
Posted at 12:59 pm on Feb 25th, 2009 by Terry