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Intel Puts a PC Into an SD Card-Sized Casing

Posted by Soulskill on from the just-small-enough-to-fit-inside-your-eye dept.

New submitter mpicpp points out that Intel has unveiled a PC called Edison, which fits into a casing the size of an SD card. "Edison is based on Intel’s Quark chip, which it launched last year as its attempt to muscle in on that other flavour-of-the-month market: the so-called Internet of Things. It also reflects the company’s new-found keenness on the 'maker' community. Quark, a 22nm low-power x86 processor with two cores, sits inside Intel’s Arduino-compatible Raspberry Pi-alike Galileo board computer. Edison takes the same chip, connects it to a wee bit of LPDDR2 memory and Flash storage, and plugs in Bluetooth 4.0 Smart — aka LE — and Wi-Fi for broader connectivity."

5 of 219 comments (clear)

  1. Re:So, can it play Crysis at full framerates, or.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yes it can. But the freaking monitor is so small that I can't see anything.

  2. Re:so why would i want to wear a computer? by Hatta · · Score: 5, Funny

    I think there is a world market for maybe five wearable computers

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    Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
  3. Yes, it DOES run Linux by CajunArson · · Score: 5, Informative

    Summary didn't mention it, but it does run Linux, and having access to standard Linux on a device this small is actually a very big deal. We're talking a physical/power profile that's down at high-end Arduino levels but with vastly more powerful software capabilities.

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    AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
  4. More accurately, for ubiquitous governance by FreeUser · · Score: 5, Interesting

    These particular devices are not meant for human interfacing or running a UI, but for the Internet of Things(really hate that name) and ubiquitous computing.

    I share your loathing for that name. The fact is, these are intended for ubiquitious governance, where everything from a baby rattle to your keychain is a governance device designed to monitor, track, and someday soon record your every action and movement.

    The price at which we'll all be willing to sell out to this level of surveillance and control? The convinience of being able to find our car keys whenever we lose them, and monitor our babies without a baby monitor. Do it for the children, and to protect yourself from terrorists! Welcome to the future, where we are all chattel of the state, and there is no getting away.

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    The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
  5. External encryption unit? (Not yet) by gnoshi · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Having a sub-computer separated from the main system could be very useful for when you want to be able to perform operations without some of the data required to perform them being on the host machine. The main example I can think of for that would be password management or encryption, where you don't necessarily want either your password database or your encryption keys on the host computer but you want to be able to easily retrieve passwords or perform encryption.

    If you really wanted to, then you could use a trusted connection over the Bluetooth to require a phone to approve/deny encryption operations and/or password requests. That way, a bad app on your computer couldn't steal all your passwords without you knowing.

    Of course, this particular computer is not going to be powerful enough to perform encryption/decryption but it is an interesting direction.