Wow look! A Personal Computer on a Stick!

You can get pretty much anything on a stick. You can actually, and I kid you not, get fried butter on a stick. And soon, thanks to Intel, you can even get a full, Windows 8.1 PC on a stick.

The Windows 8.1-based Compute Stick contains a quad-core Atom processor, 32 gigabytes of storage, 2 gigabytes of RAM, and wi-fi and Bluetooth support. It will retail for $149, early this year. A separate Linux version will contain half the RAM, a third of the storage, and will sell for a reduced $89.

Here’s the thing in all its stick-y glory:

Intel is working to shrink the size of its computing products. Its new Quark SE SOC — system on a chip — could help the wearable revolution become less a dream, and more of a functional reality. Intel was late to smartphones and tablets — its earnings tell that story each quarter — but when it comes to even smaller machines, the company appears bent on not falling behind.

- Source: TechCrunch