PC-on-a-stick concepts have been around for a while. Most of them, however, are powered by ARM processors and other relatively unknown brands. That is until Intel decided to dip their toes into that market. The Intel Compute Stick is a four-inch-long dongle that runs on an Atom Bay Trail quad-core processor. It can turn almost any HDMI display into a computer and it is equipped with a USB port, mini-USB port, microSD slot, as well as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity.
The Compute Stick is designed to work as everything from a media streaming machine, web browser, social networking device, thin client for enterprise with remote desktop and plug-and-play functionality. There will be two versions of the Compute Stick available. One will have Windows 8.1 pre-installed with 2GB of RAM and 32GB internal storage. The other will have Ubuntu pre-installed with 1GB of RAM and 8GB internal storage. They will be priced US$149 and $89, respectively, and be released in March.