Off topic-ish:

Is inventables actually just linkbait garbage which happens to also sell things? They never list the vendor of their products, the prices are always high (often twice that of retail), and they never have any technical details or volume pricing.

Oh, you're interested in this Sorghum based "Non-Toxic Decorative Wood Composite?" [1] Well, you can buy a 4"x3" sample for $15 but they won't tell you who makes it (Kieri USA [2] does) or the cost for boards.

The manufacturer is usually only a Google search away, and I'm willing to pay a premium for a small sample, but I'm not going to order even samples unless I can get more detailed information. Does Inventables actually serve any purpose other than to act as linkbait for a bunch of interesting products?

[1] http://www.inventables.com/technologies/non-toxic-decorative... [2] http://www.kireiusa.com

OK, it’s got an Ethernet jack and a Web server on one end. What’s on the other end? If I were designing a clothes dryer or coffee machine and wanted to Internet-enable it, how would I hook up the signals from the control panel to the jack? Is there some standard bus or serial protocol that appliance manufacturers use for their onboard computers?

Hmm. $200.

You can get an Arduino with an ethernet shield for about $75-80.

This does not appear to have any detailed tech specs on the linked page,detail on customisability/programmability or on the interconnects offered. But even if we allow it some leniency on that I figure an Arduino is still the no brainer choice :)

Certainly not new, I know digi.com sells a lot of these things since at least 2008. Look for the Digi Connect products. The interfaces on the other side can be as simple as RS-232.

That appears to be a Lantronics XPORT, been using them for over 7 years. Interesting they are selling them for over 200 we buy them for 70 each, Now that's markup....

I wish someone would design a firewall that is just an RJ-45 jack with a few dip switches to open/close commonly needed ports, the rest closed by default.

Interesting product. Doing a quick google search I have seen prices under $100. Unfortunately, it looks like it only has serial out.

I have been looking for a small single board linux computer (preferably open source) to use as a gateway and/or web server for embedded projects. I would like something in between an Arduino and Beagleboard.

Arduino is great for running simple web servers, but it would be nice to have a Linux OS with some familiar tools to be able to build more complex web apps. Products like the Beagleboard fill this need, but they are complex and expensive if you decide to bundle it with your product.

If you don't mind external hosting you can always send your data to the cloud, but I like the simplicity of a self contained product.

The closest I have found to these requirement is at Dangerous Prototypes (sill in development).

  Web Platform v2
  - 210MHz ARM926             - 2x SPI
  - Hopefully 2 layers!       - Linux 
  - 4x USART                  - 2x 10 bit a/d
  - ethernet                  - < $100? 
  

Wiki: http://dangerousprototypes.com/docs/Robert:_AT91SAM9260_Linu...

I sure hope its IPv6 if everyone is going to start putting web servers into their socks.

That's not RJ45, it's properly called 8P8C.

This is one of the smaller devices like this I've seen. I am really curious about the photographic opportunities that could be open with such a device. Footage could be directly streamed online via ethernet cable connected directly to the camera...

could this be used the same way those wall outlet/pluggable web connected computers were for hacking networks? i.e. you replace someone's existing ethernet wall jack with this one w/a server in it, and they would NEVER find your machine piggy backing off their internal network.

does it means that interface jacks have not advanced even a bit in the last few decades??