Reply to: Your new computer: a few inches long, $25

[Sysman]

Which again makes the HDMI option look ridiculous.

Don't you just love incomplete reporting?

This gizmo has Composite as well as HDMI video output

More info:

700MHz ARM11
128MB of SDRAM
OpenGL ES 2.0
1080p30 H.264 high-profile decode
Composite and HDMI video output
USB 2.0
SD/MMC/SDIO memory card slot
General-purpose I/O
Open software (Ubuntu, Iceweasel, KOffice, Python)

[SueEllen]

Which again makes the HDMI option look ridiculous.

No doubt there will be a campaign which means the likes of us in the rich West will have to fund the HDMI cable, converter and/or the keyboard there as the recipient will just have to pay for the PC.

I'm not being cynical btw as quite a few charitable projects in the developing world do this.

They have found that if you make people give a contribution to the item/service they want they tend to use it properly and value it.

Plus this would have been better than the Labour project in the UK of giving "poor" families laptops.

[NickFitz]

Reminds me of that $100 laptop. How succesful is/was that?

Over 1,800,000 of them shipped so far.

Wouldn't suprise me if this is a stunt to raise investment capital and the 'good cause' becomes just a sideline while all the money raised is pissed away on other less humanitarian stuff, such as Bollinger.

Sometimes, being cynical makes one look insightful. Other times, it just makes one look an arse.

[Sysman]

Yeah, feels more like a marketing/publicity exercise than something we'll actually see 'out in the wild' doing what is intended.

Reminds me of that $100 laptop. How succesful is/was that?

Wouldn't suprise me if this is a stunt to raise investment capital and the 'good cause' becomes just a sideline while all the money raised is pissed away on other less humanitarian stuff, such as Bollinger.

Yep. A bit like some of the "Green" technology.

IPO's, Government grants and subsidies you say?

Yep. A lot like some of the "Green" technology.

That's why I find this one a bit disappointing. I am sure there are a lot of uses many of us could put it to if it hit the market at that $25 price.

[PAH]

Which again makes the HDMI option look ridiculous.

Yeah, feels more like a marketing/publicity exercise than something we'll actually see 'out in the wild' doing what is intended.

Reminds me of that $100 laptop. How succesful is/was that?

Wouldn't suprise me if this is a stunt to raise investment capital and the 'good cause' becomes just a sideline while all the money raised is pissed away on other less humanitarian stuff, such as Bollinger.

[Sysman]

Because $25 is equal to six months' income where you live?

Which again makes the HDMI option look ridiculous.

[Sysman]

How about this then? A paper thin flexible phone.

BBC News - Flexible phone made from electronic paper to debut

Mayeb one will be able tyo get a phone tattooed on soon.

Tattoo on the bum!

Invented specially for those who talk out of their arse all the time.

[Old Greg]

Your new computer: a few inches long, $25

It sounds like something festering down the front of MF's trousers

[d000hg]

Because $25 is equal to six months' income where you live?

It won't last several years, a piece of cheap tat like that. And in several years something like this will cost the equivalent of about $1 and effectively be free.

[DaveB]

The only barrier being that the lucky recipient must have an HDMI enabled TV (cost circa £399) and an HDMI cable (cost circa £15).

Yeah, they should have put an old VGA connector on the end, then all those CRT monitors that are going to landfill could be offered for free with these.

I've often thought that the desktop computer would end this sort of size anyway. Just a small box that communicates via wireless to kvm and optical drive, or a universal connector to a hub in the interim.

Maybe the evolution of mobile phones will take us to that point anyway pretty soon.

I was thinking the same thing. Great idea undermined by "let them eat cake" syndrome.

£15 for a cable, they saw you coming.

Also, can't you get HDMI->VGA converters for a fiver? I agree that HDMI is a bit of boo-boo though.

I don't see VGA going anytime soon. And why would you keep a $25 computer for several years...

HDMI is there to power it. HDMI devices can provide a 5v feed to external devices. Originally intended to be used by "Smart" HDMI devices to provide power to read data back from unpowered external devices.

[NickFitz]

I don't see VGA going anytime soon. And why would you keep a $25 computer for several years...

Because $25 is equal to six months' income where you live?

[d000hg]

I don't see VGA going anytime soon. And why would you keep a $25 computer for several years...

[NickFitz]

The only barrier being that the lucky recipient must have an HDMI enabled TV (cost circa £399) and an HDMI cable (cost circa £15).

He's probably betting on the fact that hardware prices fall at such a rate that by next year, when this device becomes widely available, either HDMI will be a viable option, or HDMI-to-VGA will be an adequate stopgap and mean the computer itself will still be usable several years down the line when VGA is dead even in poorer parts of the world, which by then will be flooded with cast-off HDMI appliances that the citizens of more highly developed nations have replaced with the Next Big Thing.

[xoggoth]

How about this then? A paper thin flexible phone.

BBC News - Flexible phone made from electronic paper to debut

Mayeb one will be able tyo get a phone tattooed on soon.

[russell]

I don't see why they don't just build in this sort of thing to all TV's. All cloud based storage with a full Linux distro running.