Tiny PC is Size of USB Stick, Offers 1080p, Costs $25 USD

[DaGooN]

Source
DailyTech - For the Kids: Tiny PC is Size of USB Stick, Offers 1080p, Costs $25 USD

 

[DragonPoet]

That is amazing. Where can I go to keep up tabs on this technology?

 

[DaGooN]

Raspberry Pi Foundation
maybe there is another place?
Tech is moving in the right direction now i think.

 

[Ciara]

Source
DailyTech - For the Kids: Tiny PC is Size of USB Stick, Offers 1080p, Costs $25 USD

Now that is something I would like to see in production ...

 

[strollin]

The $25 cost is misleading since you need to attach a display (TV), USB hub, mouse & keyboard. The OLPC group has been trying to develop a $100 laptop for years but seems to be stuck at the $200 price point. Hopefully, one of these groups will eventually produce a true, low cost computer.

 

[Britton30]

That is interesting. I have all that stuff connected to my PC but it cost ~ $1000.

 

[seekermeister]

I really didn't understand exactly what components that unit was comprised of. As small as it is, it seems to me that all that it could be is a CPU with a USB connector. What about a hard drive, or did that include an SSD. That seems unlikely with the cost of even low end SSDs. If a person had access to all of the other components needed, How significant would this be, if it were only a CPU?

 

[Britton30]

Yes anyone could make a piece of electronics super-glued together and say it is a computer. No demo of it in action makes me skeptical.

 

[Layback Bear]

Holding a little something in you had and telling me it will replace a P/C is not good enough. Show us a demo under the eyes of the proper experts.

 

[MadSupra354]

HDMI? If there aim is for poorer kids to have it, HDMI is a bad choice.

 

[MacGyvr]

HDMI? If there aim is for poorer kids to have it, HDMI is a bad choice.

I think you meant "their."

 

[MadSupra354]

HDMI? If there aim is for poorer kids to have it, HDMI is a bad choice.

I think you meant "their."

Yea, I did. Didn't notice that.
Anyway, where is the USB port going to plug into? Because there has to be power, and the only way this could work is if you got a HDMI monitor with USB ports (Which cost allot).

 

[burtie]

HDMI? If there aim is for poorer kids to have it, HDMI is a bad choice.

LOL Exactly what I was thinking!

 

[Layback Bear]

Very good point on that HDMI. We just have to also give away 40 in. HDMI flat screen with the little $25.00 computer. Problem solved.

 

[alphanumeric]

I really didn't understand exactly what components that unit was comprised of. As small as it is, it seems to me that all that it could be is a CPU with a USB connector. What about a hard drive, or did that include an SSD. That seems unlikely with the cost of even low end SSDs. If a person had access to all of the other components needed, How significant would this be, if it were only a CPU?

It has a 700 MHz ARM 11 processor, 128 MB of on-board memory, and an SD card slot for extra storage, an HDMI port which can display 1080p video on any compatible screen, along with a USB port for input peripherals.

You supply the USB keyboard, USB mouse and USB hub, along with an SD card and HDMI monitor/TV.

 

[alphanumeric]

HDMI? If there aim is for poorer kids to have it, HDMI is a bad choice.

My guess as to why HDMI was selected is that the connector size is small. Its only a little bigger than the USB port on the other end. VGA would likely require a lot more components on-board and a DVI connector is just to big. HDMI also has "audio and video" versus just Video for the other two I mentioned. If you're trying to keep the size and component count down, it seems like a good choice to me.

 

[FredeGail]

Nice, really nice. But can we see him trying it?

 

[strollin]

Raspberry Pi Foundation
maybe there is another place?
Tech is moving in the right direction now i think.

Those of you asking to see it working should go to the above link DaGoon posted. No video, but there is a picture of it running Ubuntu 9.04.

I bought one of the OLPC laptops back in 2007. It was a neat little laptop that was fully functional straight out of the box. For $200 it had 256M RAM, 1G SSD, 1024x768 display, wifi, camera, touchpad, sound & speakers, etc... It was pretty much the original netbook. I eventually replaced it with an Acer Aspire One netbook but still think the OLPC is a pretty cool device.

This Raspberry device is cool but it needs too many additional items to make it really useful.

 

[SinlessViper]

Just from the title it sounds to me like an external gpu unit only. I mean for it to be a full blown 1080p HD output pc surely even one of them dual core cpu units they have in the latest phones won't cut it. Nor the intel Atom cpu would. Then as a few others have said there's the memory to include, unless its just like the 64gb flash memory from a normal hdd its gonna be expensive to manufacture such a tiny machine. In my own view its pointless even producing such a thing due to the fact the average human looses about 20 keys in there entire life, n look how many have lost USB sticks by leaving them in a machine... At 25 usd do that 8 times n u might aswell have bought a low end netbook in the 1st place!

 

[strollin]

Instead of marketing it as a low cost computer for kids, maybe they should market it for other applications. It might be perfect for an automobile computer or other application that needs a compact, low power computer.