S3 could show a Transmeta-based Linux appliance as early as next month, at Europe's CeBIT show. The company yesterday announced that it was working with Transmeta to produce a Crusoe-powered Linux Internet appliance. But yesterday's announcement wasn't exactly heavy on detail. It's to be part of "a larger family of planned Internet appliances from S3", which suggests that Transmeta is by no means the only partner the company has in the wings, and that maybe there's an element of me-too in S3's decision to go not very public now. It'll be "targeted at consumers looking for an x86 compatible, Linux-based Internet computing solution" which, pace our Linux readers, is something of an undefined market as yet. And it'll be "one of the first true Linux-based Internet devices", which is a pretty modest ambition, really. It, and the broader range of appliances planned, will however take S3 further into the own-brand area it's been expanding via Diamond and the Rio, and it's probably a reasonable guess that one of the things the company wants to/ought to do is to sever the need for a link between portable appliance and PC with Internet connection. Music's an obvious primary application, but there are others. And what about the next stage, wireless? ® Transmeta launch coverage A Linux, Transmeta Web-enabled Diamond Rio for CeBIT? Transmeta could face Intel legal challenge No home for Rambus at Transmeta Transmeta OS tweaking auction Transmeta chips to run Linux, Windows, attack Intel x86