Valve co-founder Gabe Newell recently reignited talk of a Stream Box during a keynote at LinuxCon 2013. As part of his speech, Newell promised to offer more information about the hardware opportunities Valve sees for bringing Linux into the living room as early as next week.

It's no secret that Valve has been working with hardware partners to build a television-friendly gaming PC for the living room and we were told back in the spring that we would see the fruits of this labor during the summer. They may have fallen a bit behind schedule but it appears that time is now upon us.

The gaming specialist is seemingly taking the Microsoft approach here as the Steam Box project is more of a blueprint on how to build a device - much like how the Surface tablet started life. As Newell explained during the keynote, there are thermal issues, sound issues and even input issues to consider when building hardware. The next step in Valve's contribution is to release some work they have done on the hardware side, he said.

In addition to Steam Box hardware, we may very well see what the company has been up to in terms of controllers as well. It was just three months ago that Valve was experimenting with biofeedback that could be used to determine how a player is reacting to a game on a physiological level.

We'll keep an eye on this one over the coming weeks and see what Valve actually brings to the table.