The price of a PC could fall to as low as $23 next year following the invention of a USB version.The new PC which is the size of a USB stick has a USB port at one end and a HDMI port at the other.
 Due in 2012 |
Set to be launched in 2012 the device was invented by veteran computer games developer David Braben and manufactured by Raspberry Pi which is a brand new technology company.
Provisional specification of the new reveal that it will have a 700MHz ARM11 processor, 128MB of SDRAM, openGL ES 2.0, 1080p30 H.264 high-profile decode, composite and HDMI video output.
Other features include USB 2.0, SD/MMC/SDIO memory card slot, general-purpose I/O.
The Raspberry Pi Foundation is a charity set up to “promote the study of computer science and related topics, especially at school level, and to put the fun back into learning computing”, according to its website. Mr Braben has said that he hopes the new computer will encourage children in particular to think about programming and electronics.
“We plan to develop, manufacture and distribute an ultra-low-cost computer, for use in teaching computer programming to children. We expect this computer to have many other applications both in the developed and the developing world,” the charity says.
The computer includes a USB port on one end and an HDMI port on the other. This allows, for instance, a keyboard and a monitor to be connected respectively.
Although the specifications for the device are limited, running open-source software it is able to browse the web and run Office-style applications with relative ease. It also includes 1080p HD video. Braben says he hopes to be distributing the first Raspberry Pi device within the next 12 months, after work has continued to develop the product into a production version.
