British game designer David Braben has created a pocket PC called Raspberry Pi for around $25 USD. The device isn’t any bigger than the standard USB memory stick, and even sports an HDMI output connector on one end for displaying 1080p content on an HDTV or PC monitor.
David Braben is a well-known game developer who runs the UK development studio Frontier Developments and the co-developer of Elite.
Raspberry Pi Prototype
Children will be able to use the device as a computer to learn program, to be able to run Twitter, Facebook, whatever,” Braben said. “But also to be able to understand the whole process of programming. A lot of things have been obfuscated these days in the sense that you can’t get at them. There’s so much between you and doing something interesting or creative that it gets in the way. And hopefully this device will be one of the pieces that helps change that.”
Ubuntu on Raspberry Pi
Raspberry Pi: Tech Specs
- Processor: 700MHz ARM11
- Memory: 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)
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Braben has launched a UK-based charity called the Raspberry Pi Foundation for continued support of the device and its goals. The device revealed is still a rough prototype and it needs some refining and the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s goal is to get the systems into the hands of children in both the developed and developing world, however, the release date haven’t been confirmed yet.