The forthcoming Limepc and LimeOS represent the ever-shrinking “motherboard-on-a-chip” concept, allowing fully functional computers to run off of an integrated hardware board that’s smaller than an iPod Nano.
The devices should be available in the US by the end of the year and will include varying versions of UMPCs, data-enabled HDTVs, thin-clients, smaller PDA-type devices, and all-in-one desktops. The rep with whom I spoke said that they’ll retail between $200 and $500, depending on which form factor tickles your pickle.
The operating system itself “is a full-screen HTML rendering environment or ‘desktop’ that runs on top of an open source Debian Linux OS and server stack.” It looks pretty slick and seems to be responsive despite running on machines that only consume 2-watts of power thanks to itty bitty motherboards.
More info available in this press release.