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Comment by robododo | Hacker News Reader

Too bad HDMI seems to only spec 5V @ 55mA.

I had dreams of just plugging this stick into an HDMI port (TV, monitor, whatever) and having an instant PC. Sadly, it needs external power.

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If your TV has a USB port (mine does, and is in no way state of the art) you should be able to power it from that. Not quite a zero cable solution, but it's close.

So on one end you plug in the HDMI, and the other end you need a female->male cable to power the USB? Just asking for clarification.

I think that's the idea, although you could do it either way:

-Plug it directly into the USB port and use cable+adapter to connect to HDMI.

-Plug it directly into the HDMI port and use cable+adapter to connect to USB.

Actually, a third way would be to use cables on both ends, but that just seems kind of silly.

Doesnt HDMI v1.4 have Ethernet built in? Surely you could figure out some PoE deal...

PoE explicitly only works over Cat5+ cable (although I think there's a low-power version for Cat3). HDMI obviously doesn't have the same physical-layer properties as Cat5, even if you're passing the same Ethernet frames on top.

Any reason it couldn't plug into this and then directly into the TV with an HDMI cable? http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB352LL/C

They can be bought for cheaper elsewhere online.

I dub it the "reach around pc" when it is plugged into TV on both ends, otherwise it's just like a guru/shiva/dream plug. http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com

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