What you are seeing above is the '21 Bitcoin Computer'. Although it doesn't look pretty, the device will be marketed and sold to consumers this fall and will allow users to mine Bitcoin and also provide a means to buy and sell goods using the digital currency.
The 21 Bitcoin Computer was created by 21 Inc. and works a little differently than your typical Bitcoin mining machine. Instead of profiting from the actual mined currency, 21 Inc. states that most will profit off the sale of the services and products purchased using Bitcoin.
Yes, you can indeed make a profit with the 21 Bitcoin Computer. However, you would do so not by directly selling bitcoin, but by selling digital goods for bitcoin. That is, you are not going to get rich by immediately selling the bitcoin mined by the device for offline currency, but you can potentially do very well by selling digital goods and services to others for their bitcoin. This should make sense: Bitcoin mining for the purpose of selling BTC on an exchange has the economics of a commodity business, while your globally accessible Bitcoin-payable API can have the economics of a software business. If you do want to pursue the commodity business of mining-to-sell-for-dollars, you can certainly try to use the 21 Bitcoin Computer for that purpose as it does have a highly energy efficient chip— but that is not the intended use.
While it sounds well and good, it does sound a bit convoluted. For more details about the product, it is recommended to read the full FAQ.
The 21 Bitcoin Computer will ship with the Raspberry Pi 2 chassis, power adapter, 128 GB SD card, a WiFi adapter and a USB-to-laptop cable. The product will be released on November 16th, 2015 and is now available for pre-order for $399 USD.
Source: 21 Inc via TechCrunch / Amazon
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