Amazon's new PC is disguised as a Fire TV Cube

When you think of a computer you think of something like an all-in-one, like an iMac, or a laptop like the countless models that are on the market today. But there is a third type of computer that technically isn't a computer at all. That's a thin client, and it's a device that acts as a go-between between the user and a remote computer somewhere in the cloud. Now Amazon has a new one on offer, and it looks very familiar indeed.

That's because it looks like an Amazon Fire TV Cube, a little box that was designed to be like a Fire TV Stick but offers more capabilities. Now, TechCrunch reports that Amazon has leveraged what it did with the Fire TV Cube to create new $195 devices that can connect to virtual desktop environments over the internet - like AMazon's own Amazon WorkSpaces.

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The new thin client has USB and HDMI ports for connecting to monitors and input accessories like keyboards and pointing devices. You can even plug a headset and other things into it, too. The whole thing is designed to be installed and managed by an IT department in a business of course, something that makes the similarities to the Fire TV Cube all the more fun. Because this looks nothing like the IBM computers you're used to seeing litter offices around the globe.

These thin clients will be sold via Amazon's B2B marketplace, we're told, and they can be preconfigured to ensure that installation takes just minutes. If you're in charge of a large IT installation at a company that uses thin clients, now might be the time to take a look at what Amazon's been working on.