I don't get it. The site (www.tonidoplug.com) touts all sorts of ways one can share his desktop computer with the world. Presuming that the desktop computer is on the network, why would a software-only solution not be sufficient? I understand the home NAS use case, but that's a well-solved problem already. The author of the zdnet article touts how great the "plug" would be for education, but why wouldn't someone's old PC running Ubuntu be better (or at least good enough)?

Oh, look! It's a computer IN A PLUG!