Green IT: Federal Environment Agency recommends Mini-PCs
The German Federal Environment Agency has introduced a 6-point plan for the sustainable and resource-efficient use of computers in workplaces. An essential part of the recommendation is to provide stationary workstations with Mini-PCs. These are characterized by lower power consumption and thus also have fewer greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, the physical life is considerably longer compared to laptops. Long-term availability facilitates the installation and setup of the systems, since the same platform can be used over the years.
Latest Atom chips: Apollo Lake
After the news about the high-end processors of the Kaby Lake generation, Intel has now unveiled the cheaper models, which are also manufactured in the 14nm process. The Celeron and Pentium processors with two or four Goldmont CPU cores and a TDP of 10 watts are internally labeled as Apollo Lake. They are much faster than their predecessors and suitable for use in Mini-PCs. First spo-comm models with the new Atom technology are planned for 2017.
Even smaller and even faster: M.2 SSDs
Solid State Disks in M.2 format are increasingly used in embedded and industrial PCs. An advantage over the standard SSDs in 2,5” size is the much smaller form factor. Furthermore the integrated SATA 3 port provides faster transfer rates than previous card formats. From 2017 on M.2 SSDs will also be part of spo-comm PCs.
Windows 10 IoT: New license ranges
Meanwhile Microsoft published detailed information concerning the licenses of Windows IoT. The former Windows Enterprise is now divided into three licenses: Entry, Value and High-End. These depend on the built-in CPU.
