C/Net reports that Via computer announced a tiny new EPIA N-Series Nano-ITX, at the CeBit computer show today. Via believes the software compatibility of x86 chips will give them an edge for embedded applications.
The tiny ITX boards, about the dimensions of a CD, use VIA’s Eden-N processor running at speeds of up to 1GHz and VIA’s CN400 digital media chipset with integrated hardware based MPEG-4/2 acceleration and advanced video rendering techniques supporting all display types.
The PC version will ship with a CD-ROM drive, a 20GB or 40GB hard drive, and optional 802.11b wireless networking. A second thin client version eliminates the CD-ROM and hard drive. The VIA Eden-N processor uses only 6 watts at 800MHz. Pricing for the Nano-ITX motherboard and the Eden-N processor was not disclosed.
The mainboard provides two PadLock Random Number Generators (RNGs) and AES encryption through the PadLock Advanced Cryptography Engine (ACE). Additionally, the VIA Eden-N processor employs PowerSaver 3.0 power management technology to help extend battery life for mobile devices based on the VIA EPIA N-Series Nano-ITX mainboard.
Through the onboard VIA VT8237 South Bridge, the VIA EPIA N offers a comprehensive range of integrated storage, multimedia and connectivity options, including Serial ATA, UltraDMA IDE, USB 2.0, onboard LAN and V-RAID, with support for multiple RAID configurations. The board also includes support for VIA Vinyl Six-TRAC 6-channel audio through 3 audio jacks in the I/O panel. The VIA EPIA N-Series also offers support for a growing number of LVDS embedded LCD panels and has a Mini-PCI slot for expandability.
Via also announced that retailer Mini-ITX.com has signed on as a customer and will begin selling in the second quarter of 2004 a digital entertainment device called Nanode that uses the tiny motherboard. The Nanode has video and audio outputs, USB (Universal Serial Bus) connectors, and ports for Ethernet and a keyboard. The Mini-ITX features a horizontal extension for CardBus and CompactFlash cards.
Software Access Points like the Segue Soft AP run on XP, Intel’s WiFi drivers run on a Linux laptop, and ControlAP might even transform a Pocket PC into a low-power AP with a cellular backbone. Alternatively, tiny power-efficient Windows XP computers like the OQO using Transmeta processors are coming on the market and could provide local content. The ASUS WL-500g and Netgear 634 support USB webcams and solid-state hard drives.
VIA’s ITX boards are a favorite of hobbyists.
“A few months ago, Jim Binkley and Jere Retzer from PSU and OHSU respectively, approached me keen to develop a radio solution for downtown Portland that would serve two purposes.
Firstly to provide PSU students and faculty with a cutting-edge wireless project that would have real world educational value.
And secondly, to pilot a technical solution that could potentially be deployed in remote locations where PSU and partner universities have a specific distance education interests.
…Using a Starbucks napkin I sketched out a solution I’d been wanting to build for years, namely a self-contained environmentally protected NEMA4 case containing radios of different frequencies/standards, fed by internal deep-cycle batteries, a photovoltaic solar panel, with the main feed being AC power.
The methodology being that should the regular power fail due to a power cut, natural disaster or terrorist attack, the robust rooftop-mounted MRU would remain operational, and not drop a single packet for a period of twelve hours. This plays into the Third-World data backhaul model where power is sporadic at best.
The MRU contains three distinct radios
- WiMAX CPE for backhaul
- Wi-Fi B/G Access Point to serve clients nearby
- Via EDEN-based Mesh unit with an 802.11a radio
Perhaps this approach could save the state of Oregon and its residents millions of dollars:
The western snowy plover, a tiny shorebird threatens to close off 57 miles of the Oregon Coast (FAQ & video report).
Saving the 100 Snowy Plovers would require restricting some recreational activities year-round and others during the bird’s nesting season on as much as 25 percent of Oregon’s sandy ocean beaches. Kite flying, for instance, would be prohibited in occupied nesting areas because kites resemble flying predators such as ravens and may disturb the birds. Dogs would not be allowed where plovers are nesting or other sections of beach where biologists say the birds might eventually return.
Hundreds of people packed coastal meetings this week and told state parks officials to keep their hands off public beaches and condemned a proposal to restrict recreation on the beach.
“What you’re trying to do is curtail our biggest asset, which is the beach,” said Joe French, co-owner of the Silver Sands Motel in Rockaway Beach. “What I think we should do is scrap this program and forget this bird.”
Two new studies published this week in Science that show steep declines in bird, butterfly and plant populations across Great Britain provide the strongest proof yet that we are in the midst of the sixth great extinction of life.
Why not monitor the Snowy Plover with a solar-powered sensor system? Intel has been doing similar work in Maine.
Maine’s SensorNet is used to monitor seabirds.
On Maine’s Great Duck Island, biologists put sensor devices in the underground nests of the storm petrel (1) and on 4-inch stilts placed just outside their burrows (2). These devices record data about the birds and relay it, bucket-brigade style, to a gateway node (3), which transmits the info to a laptop in the research station (4), then to a satellite dish (5) and, ultimately, to a lab in California. |
Great Duck Island, a 220-acre arc of land off the coast of Maine, is home to the next step toward pervasive computing. Three Berkeley computer engineers have installed an early version of a wireless sensor network. This technology is the best hope for dispersing information in a range of environments – office towers, vineyards, hospitals, caves, kitchens, and battlefields.
The tech team so far has deployed 190 devices, each the size of a shotglass, some inside the petrels’ burrows and others just outside the entrances. The little instruments, called nodes or motes, house tiny sensors that monitor barometric pressure, humidity, solar radiation, and temperature. (By watching for temperature spikes inside a burrow, researchers can determine when a petrel is present.) The motes report the readings to a gateway node, sometimes passing the data among themselves, la bucket brigade, bridging distances of up to 1,000 feet.
DailyWireless has more on Maine’s SensorNet, Solar Powered Hot Spots, $20 5GHz Relays, WiFi Birdhouses, Wireless Parks, Seattle To Portland Wi-Fi Proposal, and other Sensor Programs such as the Center for Coastal and Land-Margin Research which already has an expert team in place from the Oregon Graduate Institute and the Oregon Heath & Science University.
The Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute will initially be headquartered in donated space on Hewlett-Packard Co.’s Corvallis campus, but it will have other facilities at Oregon State, University of Oregon and Portland State University. Nanotechnology legislation, co-authored by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and signed last year by Bush, earmarked $3.7 billion for a variety of federal agencies to fund research for four years beginning in 2005. About 10 national research centers are expected to be named.
Perhaps a wireless sensor network would be of no value for this application. But maybe it could save everyone’s butt.
