PC fits into keyboard, uses only five Watts

“Built into a standard-sized keyboard, the “Gecko Surfboard”
runs on a 1GHz x86 SoC (system on chip), operates fanlessly, and
uses just five Watts, the company says.

“NorhTec’s Gecko Surfboard is an interesting follow-on to the
Gecko EduBook, a $200 netbook announced in May, and the Gecko
Infopad, a $300 tablet PC announced in September, both of which are
said to be capable of running on AA batteries. Like these previous
Geckos, the Surfboard uses the 1.0GHz Vortex86MX (also marketed as
the MSTI PMX-1000) a SoC introduced by Taiwan-based DMP Electronics
last December. (The Vortex86MX, pictured below, is related to DMP’s
earlier Vortex86DX, but adds integrated graphics and audio.)

“NorhTec, which rebrands the Vortex86MX as the Xcore86,
characterizes it as a “light-duty” processor, but says the SoC
provides enough power to run Windows XP, Windows CE, or one of
several different Linux distributions. The SoC runs fanlessly, and
includes graphics and other typical northbridge/southbridge
functions while using just five Watts, the company says.”

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