Thank you for this- I have a handful of completely unmarked boards that appear to be this module. Who knew they might be so capable? I hope someone translates the instruction set document linked. This is definitely the direction that things are going, at least more than an odd $50 Intel mongrel.

Intel wants us to pay for something that industry won't buy with the Edison. Contrast to Arduino and rPi, which are providing affordable access to something only available otherwise to industry:

AVR: High volume microcontroller- let's make it accessible and useful outside of heavy industry == Arduino.

ARM: Exploding in popularity due to mobile devices- let's make it accessible outside of device manufacturers == rPi.

Atom: No one is using these in industry- let's palm it off on hobbyists and see if they can drive demand == Edison.

Hard to find the point of the Edison. Too anemic and dull next to true next-gen SoC solutions like the Zynq [http://zedboard.org/], and too overpowered for most microcontroller applications. Weird price point. No GPU or vidout. There's many SoMs and SoCs to try before this one.

Intel has had to give away Atoms to get them used in any volume, this HN comment on a contemporaneous article has links on the subject: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8294864

If Intel wants to hit the hobbyist embedded market running, they could sell Edisons for $10. By giving them away to heavy industry, yet selling them to hobbyists, they aren't garnering interest, they're patronizing.