"We've shrunk a 30-foot base station into a three-inch Raspberry Pi and created our own mobile phone network, " said PA's Frazer Bennett.

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Researchers at the University of Southampton have followed their instincts and built Iridis-Pi, a tiny 64-node cluster based on the Raspberry Pi's usual Debian Wheezy distribution and linked through Ethernet.

ENGADGET: Supercomputer built from Raspberry Pi and Lego, managed by humans rather than Minifigs

Carrying a 4 x 4-inch form factor between a Raspberry Pi and mini-ITX board, it'll be equipped with a Core i3 Ivy Bridge processor, HD 4000 graphics, two SoDIMM sockets, an mSATA slot for an SSD drive, three USB ports, one HDMI port and a mini-PCI slot for wireless connectivity.

ENGADGET: Intel's Core i3 NUC mini-boards set to hit market in October, power up hobbyists and OEMs