p2pnet news view Open Source | Cool:- Which would you rather do? Pay $100 for this now? Or wait a year or two and get it for less than half price?

Because that isn’t a new kind of telephone adapter.

It’s the SheevaPlug — a Linux computer.

Or as Scientific American described it back in April, it’s a “cheap and powerful home server stuffed into a package the size of a power brick”.

Now, “There’s no display,” says the New York Times, “But there is an Ethernet jack to connect to a home network and a U.S.B. socket for attaching a hard drive, camera or other device. Inside is a 1.2 gigahertz Marvell chip, called an application processor, running a version of the Linux operating system.”

And it can be yours for $99 today and, “probably for under $40 in two years”.

It’s designed to, “deliver storage capacity and processing power for technophiles looking to string together every network-capable device in their house so they can share movies, music, photos and other files, hook up surveillance cameras or create a mini data center that fits in the palms of their hands,” said Scientific American, also observing:

“Knowing that its current audience consists of tech-savvy tinkerers interested in experimenting with new computing platforms, Marvell designed the Sheevaplug to run on the Linux operating system, whose source code is freely available for anyone to use. Marvell also documented the device’s hardware on its Web site so the curious could see how it works.”

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Scientific American – Hackers Weigh In: 8 Big Things to Do with a Mini Server, April 28, 2009
New York Times – Plugging In $40 Computers, May 21, 2009