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Intel announces Edison, a computer the size of an SD card

Intel announces Edison, a computer the size of an SD card

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intel edison quark 1020 stock press
intel edison quark 1020 stock press

Intel built a processor for wearable computing, and now it has a tiny computer where that processor can live. At CES 2014, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich announced Edison, "a full Pentium-class PC" that's the size and shape of the SD card you might otherwise put in your camera. It's powered by a dual-core Quark SOC, runs Linux, and has built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, according to the company. Intel even has a specific app store designed for Edison, and a special version of Wolfram that will come to the tiny computer.

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To demonstrate the potential for Edison, Intel showed a concept for a "Nursery 2.0." In the concept, a baby was wearing a Mimo onesie outfitted with sensors tracking things like temperature, and Edison was used to display that information on, of all things, a coffee mug. When the baby was comfortable, blinking lights on the mug show a happy green smiling face, but when something is wrong that face turns red. A much more useful application, however, involved using Edison to switch on a bottle warmer when your baby starts to stir, that way it's ready come feeding time.

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