It's taken us a while to sort through the hundreds of entries to our VIA Eden competition, in which we gave readers the opportunity to win one of three VIA Eden™ EPIA Mini-ITX boards.

To recap, all you had to do was outline an ingenious use for this small and silent piece of kit. As is traditional with Reg competitions, some tried to impress the judges with their poetic prowess:

The eden project, to give it a name,
The specs, to put you in the frame...
Mp3 (that's a no-brainer),
and DVD (the ogle player).
A port to interface with every system,
My HiFi, Video and TV,
The right display is all i need.
Oh and one thing really figures, a photo frame for digital pictures
Linux on board, and the USB, will interface my NJB
No keyboards, mice, just an IR remote
(I'll just sit, watch, listen and gloat)
And, the holy grail of the PC
Something very dear to me
*silence* (other than that which I choose)
So it can sit in the lounge, and I can still snooze.
(and to tie it all together: perl, perl, perl, perl, perl.)

Thanks very much to Dan Gray for that stunner. Actually, his proposed use proved very popular, but more of that later.

Then, of course, we had to have one of these:

What I would do with the VIA EdenT EPIA Mini-ITX:

-duct tape VIA EdenT EPIA Mini-ITX to my chest. beat captain cyborg at his own game

-wage crime-fighting spree. use sharp edges to foil would-be monopolists

-use as portable entertaining table. entice 'stuart little' look-alikes with breadcrumbs, play chess

-sell lemonade online. hypnotize consumers with 10 MB flash intro

-join intel. perform leadership coup, show masses the way with VIA C3T 800 MHz processor

-john henry vs. VIA EdenT EPIA Mini-ITX. attempt to count toothpicks faster than motherboard. subsequently challenge to a pie-eating contest.

-create robotic companion with VIA C3 brain. attempt 'relations'

-loop USB cable to monitor port, sell fashionable circuit bag to Armani

-form cult with remaining two VIA winners. send application letter to UN summit

-three words: automated doorstop

-interview VIA Eden. prove through befuddled questioning that motherboard had an affair with tom cruise

That about covers it.

Very good, Mr David Indech. Speaking of Captain Cyborg, Tony Howat would implant an Eden in Kevin Warwick's face. Fair enough, but where are you going to stick the HDD? Food for thought...

We digress. What we need are some practical applications. Try this out from Michel Perreault:

I would install the Eden into my grandmother's electric wheelchair using the battery as power source. I hook the parallel port to the wheelchair's controls, install a wireless LAN hub and plug everything together. A small RTOS loaded into the built-in FLASH would drive the parallel port using a custom scooter server utility. A microphone, speaker and a USB webcam would also be installed and would all be transmitting through the wireless LAN.

There you have it! Your very own Earth exploration module. Using any computer terminal with a wireless LAN you can explore around town!

And if you feel like it you can just watch what is going on around the wheelchair when grandma is driving and you got your own personnal "Golden Girls" show.

The plan's got legs, as it were. But what about this from Brad Harvey. Will it fly?:

What about integrating one into a high-tech whizz-bang kamikaze frisbee? With the value-added options of killing or maiming several different body locations (nads included), a simple 800mhz processor could easily calculate real-time path-of-flight and wind compensation whilst being flung towards the victim. Although product life would be ultimately under 10 seconds per unit, high-profile deaths are often seen as priceless by the media.

Maybe not. Last of the crazies is Tim Payne, who we reckon is a cheeky, cheeky monkey:

I'd hardwire the boards directly into the brains of monkeys, creating super intelligent monkeys running at 800Mhz, but very quietly, that can be easily controlled by some software running off a small hard-drive attached to the boards. I'll program the monkeys to build a vast subterranean network of tubes, so that I can create the world's first monkey and tube based computing network. This 'Information Chimp Superhighway' will enable me to send monkeys over vast distances to perform tasks and send information. The resulting system will create thousands of jobs in industry, creating an increased demand for chimp breeders, handlers and trainers, as well as tube architects and analysts to keep the network up and running. Eventually the monkeys will grow tired of their role (probably due to bad programming, or ropey software) and will arise as one form the depths of the tube network, overthrowing their human masters in an orgy of blood and violence. The small groups of surviving humans will form small pockets of resistance spending the next few years fighting a losing battle and pondering why I couldn't have thought of something better to do with those VIA EdenT EPIA Mini-ITX boards.

A very, very good question. Onwards now with those entries which, for various reasons, merited instant rejection. Take it away Brian Code:

The project: Document over 5000 km of Canada digitally on a coast to coast road trip using time lapsed videography, a DV cam, Via's Eden Mini-ITX mainboard, a firewire card, and some large hard drives all stuffed into a semi-portable device or backpack.

Result: Something that has never been done before. Provide an instant
indexing access to any portion of Canada to view its beauty. Footage that would be priceless and meaningful, much like Ron Fricke's Baraka (1992) or Koyaanisqatsi (1983). All of this would be on the portable device, allowing for public playback or webcasting.

That's just what the world needs - thousands of hours of priceless and meaningful footage of Canada. Keyword search: Puffa jacket. Search result: Showing first 1,000 pictures of 100,000. Continue? You must be joking.

We're also tough on charity cases, as Bill Edevane is about to find out:

I would put the Eden board in a PC that I'm building for a friend. Why would I do this you ask? Well, this is because my friend recently gave me $500 USD to build him a PC. This would be no problem, but the next day my car decided to blow up and I had to use that $500 to help pay for car parts (damn cheap American cars).

Now I hardly have any money to build his PC and I don't have the heart (or balls) to tell him I spent the money and he now owns a nice, new axel, rack, and all kinds of belts and hoses.

And that, my friend, is what I would do with the VIA Eden EPIA Mini-ITX board, I would save my ass with it!

The moral of the story is: Take not thy friends PC money and spunk on automotive parts, and buy a proper German car - like a Rover.

Finally, we have William R Sowerbutts, who hardly needs charity:

My friend Gerard has embedded an 800x600 TFT LCD in the marble wall at the end of his new jacuzzi bath. I would use the Eden, running Debian GNU/Linux, to drive the video output to the LCD. His primary goal is to watch DVDs and live TV...

Hold on a minute, I think if Gerard can afford marble, he can buy his own mobo. You know, the gold and onyx type, to match the taps.

Mr Sowerbutts suggestion does, however, have merit. No less than 40 per cent of entries revolved around the idea of the Eden as part of a home entertainment set-up. Nigel Parker's concept was typical:

The biggest USP of the Eden mini-ITX motherboard is the lack of fans, so it may be used in a domestic entertainment environment. Using the board as the basis for a home music and video centre (with attached IDE-HDD for storage) capitalises on this advantage. Adding a CRrom drive provides a channel for loading media, and Internet connectivity through an attached DSL/Cable modem gives online media acquisition. Using the TV output in place of a monitor will allow the unit to fit into a domestic environment and using an IR keyboard would allow remote operation, with the option of a cut down keyboard providing a more traditional remote control. Line input allows using the unit for audio recording, and adding a USB radio receiver would give a full stereogram replacement.

PCI peripherals would allow (digital or analogue) TV reception and decoding (and recording), allowing it to perform the functions of a TIVO, and if the CD is RW (or rewritable DVD) the unit could replace a VCR. Speech recognition for voice control would be possible but a bad idea, especially if playing an advert demonstrating the function (Pump up the volume!)

Yes, fanless = silent, an advantage not lost on Mark Woolrich:

Our household is a networked household. We have five PCs happily connected to the net and each other. The only bijou problemette lies with our Server. It is on this workhorse that falls the responsibility for internet security, web, game, mail and print services, shared storage and domain management. All of these things it manages very well, especially the online games server which is oddly popular.

But... it stops me sleeping at night. The impressive array of fans that keep the server both cool and sounding like an army of approaching hover mowers do not in themselves keep me from my appointments with the sandman. No, it's the sharp pains I get in my side that keep me awake, (I swear my wife actually sharpens her elbows), until I switch the server off. This unfortunately denies our overseas game players their daily fill of gun toting mayhem - which in turn makes the world more dangerous.

So, my use for the cool running VIA Eden Mini-ATX would be to create a whisper quiet server that would afford me a good nights sleep whilst providing 24/7 service to it's users and allowing us all to rest easier in our beds.

Guillaume Proux goes further in outlining the potential life-enhancing benefits:

With Eden, my dream of realizing Eva ("Enhanced Virtual Assistance") can eventually be fulfilled. Eva coupled to a Wacom Cintiq screen is driven by its touchscreen or using the CIR facility via a universal remote control. A detachable USB camera enables a web-cam functionality and let us take photographs.. A microphone application captures audio commands and execute associated programs..

With a big HDD, the system will be the central repository of the whole house data: family calendar, mp3s, shopping list, digital photograph, bank account, library, and address books. Personal data and identification are kept on standard SD-Cards read through an USB adapter. Infrared ports are used for synchronisation with my old Revo and cellulars.

With its PCI BlueTooth card, it gateways my connection to Internet I listen to music streamed from Eva on my Bluetooth headset. A DVD+CD-RW combo enables overlayed smooth DVD reading and my children easily author SVCD with music, video and pictures mixed. The S/PDIF port connects into the AV amp for the best result. The software running on Linux, visually scriptable and written in Python using pygame api, assists all family members in making life an Eden on Earth

That's it sorted then. The mention of mp3s leads us neatly on to the second most popular proposal. 20 per cent of entries were less concerned with how quiet the Eden is, rather how much noise it could make. Rob Smith explains:

My idea for an Eden is to build an in-car entertainment/satellite navigation system using the eden because of its low power comsumption with the display will be handled by a 4 or 5 inch colour LCD screen mounted at from of car, connected to the Eden's TV-Out.

Satellite nagivation will be provided by a USB connected GPS receiver and software like AutoRoute with real-time traffic jam information provided by a serial connected nokia mobile phone.

Audio features will included a WinAmp powered MP3 collection on HDD with audio out routed through the car stereo with track selections controlled by a winamp plugin and the car stereo's CD change connector.

DVD playback (via DVD-Rom) or TV (via a Hauppauge WinTV card) will also be possible again through the car stereo and the LCD screen.

System control will be handled by an infrared mouse trackerball with keyboard input from the "On-Screen Keyboard" windows accessibility utility.

The onboard LAN port will be used to upload new MP3 tracks to the system from a laptop and power supplied by an inverter (converting 12V DC to 240V AC) with quick power on/off from window's hibernation feature.

That idea proved hugely popular. A variation was the ocean-going PC, favoured by B. Hill:

My Eden will be used in the quest to find Eden - by sailboat. The incredibly small form factor of Via's Eden, coupled with the low heat dissipation and ultra-low power usage makes the Eden the ideal motherboard to build into a ruggedized sea-going PC. Such a PC will not heat up an already hot cabin while in the tropics, nor will it run down the boat's batteries quickly, nor will it require much room. Such a computer will be even better than the notebook models many sailors carry, as it can be built in to the navigation station in a sealed chassis, with only the display and a wireless keyboard and mouse need to be exposed.

So what will it DO? Firstly, communications with those ashore, mainly email and still pictures, with video clips at a future point. It will also be tied into the Nav station, so that it can used to display map information, overlay it with weather data, and show current and plotted course information. Lastly, equipped with a DVD/CD+RW drive, it can be used as an entertainment center in the cabin, burning music CDs and playing back DVDs.

Incredible. Whatever happened to the days when the most entertainment you could expect atop the high seas was rum, sodomy and the lash? Ah, those were the days.

And if you don't have a vehicle? No problem, says Corey Kent:

I would use the Eden as the perfect transportable system. Taking it from college to work and to lan parties. It is a great device and i would carry it everywhere i go. pluging it into whatever monitor i find closet. read for everything from school work. to gameing. Its size make sit the perfect transportable box. Also the thing to brag about everywhere you go. I would go on a non-stop bragging session.

So, we've had small, silent and portable. Now what about those ideas with just a little bit extra? Well, we decided to award a Reg black logo shirt to three runners-up. How about this for the ultimate home entertainment concept, courtesy of Jeremy McClintock?:

VIA's "Eden" is just what I have been looking for. Imagine this...

The "complete" entertainment center. Full sized arcade cabinet, 27" screen, with enough joysticks, buttons, and trackball's for four people. Over 3000 original arcade roms in one box running MAME, all controls interfaced through one keyboard encoder in the PCI slot. DVD, and CD courtesy of one of Eden's ATA ports, and a 40GB hard-drive on the other. A hacked Apple I-pod on one USB port, for all of my portable music needs, and surround sound using the available SPDIF connection. DSL, using the LAN port, for high speed surfing and streaming video off of my main system. And just for good measure, the bottom half of the arcade cabinet is a mini-fridge converted to a keg-a-rator. The spout comes out the front, right were the coin slot would be, below the shelf holding the PS2, Dreamcast, and XBox.

The parallel port will be hacked to control the keg's pressure, temperature, and a liquid feed valve; you won't have to pull any taps, just push the "fire" button and pull back on the joystick!

This is only the start... I'm half-way there, I just need a quick, cool, integrated motherboard to pull it all together.

Marvellous stuff. e-beer? We love it. Another shirt to John Staneff, who's got the portability covered:

Lightweight and portable, low power requirements allow this device, coupled with LCD monitor, keyboard, mouse, laptop-sized hard disk, CD/DVD-ROM, and fully charged UPS to serve in tent-based field operations. Initial applications include business requirements for Wood Badge training in Scouts, subsequent applications include registration and tracking for Leader Training, Camporees, Jamborees, and such.

Solar cell power generation allows recharge when UPS not in use. Interface (USB) to GPS allows field use in mapping and orienteering. Interface (USB/serial) to mobile phone allows field connection to Internet, WAP/WML or HTML based, and SMS communications to base station(s). All components built into easily portable, hardened, rubberized field case, including fold-out keyboard, LCD, and micro-mouse. Win2K or Linux OS used.

Business applications seen for use in outdoor-based leadership retreats, field training exercises for police, fire, and outdoor rescue personnel. Use in extreme environments (e.g., over 1K ft elevation snowfields) valuable for tracking/controlling ongoing rescues. Incorporation with electronic mapping software allows GPS-enabled units to provide accurate navigation assistance in planes, and water borne vessels. Fully enabled device assists scientists in on-site management for expeditions such as field-archaeology, where local and remote (e.g., university server) access is required.

Well, you can't argue with that. If it's good enough for the Scouts, it's good enough for us. Our final runner-up is Göran Eggers, who has designs on a autonomous mobile robot "Brain":

My current mobile robot consists of a rectangular box with three wheels and differential steering. Several tactile, infrared and ultrasonic sensors and a motor controller equipped with tiny 8-Bit-controllers are connected to each other using an I2C network and via RS-232 to a central controller. This one currently consists of an old 486 Baby-AT mainboard running realtime Linux (RTLinux). The system is powered by lead-acid batteries connected to a custom build switching regulator providing 12V and 5V.

Since I would like to add a camera (webcam) and do some image processing, I am searching for a tiny more powerful mainboard with nevertheless moderate power consumption. Here, the VIA Eden mainboard would fit perfectly.

One USB connector would be used for the webcam and another one probably for a bluetooth adapter for remote monitoring and control. As boot device I would use a CF-card connected to an IDE-channel. I would have to add a 3V regulator which is probably rather simple as the maximum current is just 1.5A (according to spec).

Future applications for my robot include automated vacuum cleaning and fire and intrusion detection.

Interesting, although we reckon we'll be seeing a functioning robot vacuum cleaner right about the time when our flying car gets delivered...

Now the winners. Take a bow Eric Smith, who's a student at the University of New Orleans:

I'm planning a project to help the notoriously off-schedule New Orleans public transit system, and the VIA Eden board is perfect for it.

The project will allow the Transit Authority to monitor the location of buses along their routes and modify the amount of time they spend at the bus’ last stop to keep the buses flowing on a regular schedule. Done by using an off-the-shelf GPS unit and a small computer to encode the GPS coordinates into a radio recognizable code that will then be broadcast over the standard radio equipment already on the bus. This will be decoded at the Transit Authority and monitored by a human dispatcher. The VIA Eden board's small size, coupled with the great power and cooling requirements of the C3 chip make it perfect for this project.

If the test project goes well, this will be implemented throughout the transit system. Eventually, transit passengers will be able to visit the Transit Authority web site to see if the route they are taking is running on-schedule, able to make any changes to plans that might be necessary.

Splendid. A good, solid, practical application. We wish you well with your project. Next up to the podium is Dylan Hayes. This idea is without doubt the most cunning we received:

My plan to take advantage of Eden's small size and low consumption is to use it to build a wireless repeater station. Where I live is hopelessly beyond the range of ADSL, however I know somebody that does have ADSL. Between us is a large hill with a building on top.

Using the www.consume.net software we aim to build a small repeater station and position it so as to be able to beam 802.11b signals around using Pringles can Yagi antennas. Of course any PC could run this software but as the plan is to site it on somebody else's premises so low power consumption and small size are essential to gaining permission.

The whole "micro PC&" will can built into a small waterproof unit that can be mounted on the roof next to the antennas. My goal would be to run the system off a solar array to make it totally autonomous. The repeater can be left in place indefinitely so long as the antennas are working. Any software upgrades or administration can of course be done remotely and hardware failure is less likely in a simple, cool running system with no fans.

Lovely. We conclude with one Nikolay. This solution is so simple, that we're amazed that no-one else thought of it:

And there you have it - the silent under-desk mounted mini-PC. Nice one.

Thanks to all those who entered. It's a shame we couldn't hand out boards to the lot of you, you clever devils.®