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.
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.
Comments
I’m hoping this develops into something amazing.
By CaptainAnywho on 01.06.14 10:03pm
Agreed. This has a LOT of potential!
By Kirielson on 01.06.14 10:05pm
THIS IS BIG.
It’s a capable Linux machine you can connect to using Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, just like that.
Now, everything boild down to pricing. If they make it as competitive as Raspberry PI, we are really IN for connected everything. Exciting times for tinkerers!
By harshal on 01.07.14 1:51am
Except they wont sell this to consumers. This is a device built to market their quark platform to OEMs. Maybe one of those builts a rpi competitor out of it but i doubt it would be much smaller
By dubdng on 01.07.14 4:46am
From the Pres Kit,
That sounds like it may be not as closed as some of intel’s previous boards, if not directly to consumers.
By harshal on 01.08.14 3:11am
£25? No chance!
By Kevin Partner on 01.07.14 9:03am
First thing I though of.
By AnalProbe on 01.06.14 10:29pm
From what is that frame taken?
By Fri13 on 01.07.14 6:57am
YouTube really needs to integrate Search by Image. Now that would be awesome.
By deV14nt on 01.07.14 7:21am
Spy Kids
By BlueSquared on 01.07.14 8:54am
From this movie.
By AnalProbe on 01.07.14 10:25am
Does this count as amazing?
By tassyguy on 01.07.14 1:15am
Action figures are going to be awesome in the future.
By runewell on 01.07.14 3:14am
Small soldiers?
By chrishind10 on 01.07.14 4:26am
I was hoping someone would bring that up!
By Philphunk on 01.07.14 9:53am
If it’s x86 (which I assume it is from the ‘Pentium-class’ statement), it should make a great retro gaming machine. Quake III ftw!
By Corbin Davenport on 01.06.14 10:07pm
And combine several in a small hub adapter thing to increase the power!
By jtaylor991 on 01.06.14 10:10pm
Would have to be a Xeon class processor for that. Could do network clustering but that’s not of much benefit because each one would have to run its own OS execution. If they did make a Xeon type version it would be sick, because it would be able to support direct link between multiple processors.
By dilan.gilluly on 01.06.14 10:26pm
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of those…
By kdesltd on 01.06.14 10:56pm
The hardware required for memory sharing is VERY complex. The size of the chip would without a doubt improve. And with the small cache size these chips must have, performance wouldn’t be optimal: you would constantly be accessing the RAM on the other devices, which already takes several tens/hundreds of clock cycles on the machine itself.
By lewis82 on 01.07.14 10:16am
But can it run Crysis?
By ecaslak on 01.06.14 10:50pm
I think not but boy will it run Quake!
By Alexandr on 01.07.14 4:17am
But can it mine doge?
By Mustalainen on 01.07.14 9:31am
Leave it to Verge commenters to turn a potentially revolutionary computing device into your next gaming rig.
By RubenCodes on 01.07.14 12:04am
Why do you say that?
By Tyler-Intek on 01.07.14 12:07am