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A $25 PC On a USB Stick
KPexEA writes with this excerpt from geek.com:
"[Game developer David] Braben has developed a tiny USB stick PC that has an HDMI port on one end and a USB port on the other. You plug it into an HDMI socket and then connect a keyboard via the USB port, giving you a fully functioning machine running a version of Linux. The cost? $25. The hardware being offered is no slouch either. It uses a 700MHz ARM11 processor coupled with 128MB of RAM and runs OpenGL ES 2.0, allowing for decent graphics performance with 1080p output confirmed. ... We can expect it to run a range of Linux distributions, but it looks like Ubuntu may be the distro it ships with. That means it will handle web browsing, run office applications, and give the user a fully functional computer to play with as soon as it's plugged in. All that and it can be carried in your pocket or on a key chain."
Look at the photo. There's a little USB/Ethernet bridge with a red/orange cable running to the left.
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
Here is some more info I got from a mail list I follow:
> > 1) How long do you think it will be before the boards become
> > available?
>
> I'd say three or four months. As you can see from the screenshots, we
> have usable Linux, but we're waiting to get final versions of the the
> chip from our supplier.
>
> > 2) Are there any plans for a version with onboard ethernet?
>
> I don't think we're likely to do onboard Ethernet; we will have an
> onboard 3-port USB hub so people can add an external adapter.
>
> > 3) Are there any plans for a version with onboard wifi?
>
> Yes. The final version (though maybe not the first distributables)
> will have onboard WiFi (probably 802.11n) in the price point.
>
> > 4) What are the power requirements, both under load and at rest?
>
> At rest I'd say 50mW (we could trim this if it was really important,
> but it gets a bit fiddly below this point), under serious load
> (original XBox class graphics or 1080p30 H.264), 700mW.