

Watch out, Raspberry Pi: Intel unveils ultra-small Next Unit of Computing PC - palmar
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/127903-watch-out-raspberry-pi-intel-unveils-ultra-small-next-unit-of-computing-pc

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phren0logy
I don't really see that this has much to do with the Raspberry Pi. If the
board without the (much more powerful) CPU alone is $100, it's not really
comparable other than being relatively small.

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jws
30 times the power consumption.

7 times the cost (you probably wanted a CPU and RAM to go with the
motherboard).

No programmable pins for controlling the world.

Closed design.

It's just a tiny PC motherboard. Nothing to do with a Raspberry Pi other than
the hook Sebastian Anthony chose for his title.

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theBobMcCormick
Isn't Raspberry Pi also pretty much a proprietary design? Certainly the
Broadcom chipset they use isn't available to the general public, nor is
information about the chipset available without an NDA.

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jws
The Broadcom chip documentation is not generally available. Beyond that, you
probably can't even buy the Broadcom chip.

The GPU (the bulk of the chip's compute power) is a black box with a binary
library that works with some versions of Linux for the time being but will
eventually be abandoned by whoever is wrote it. That is just the current state
of the world for embedded GPUs.

But looking outward…

The Raspberry Pi Foundation commits to documenting the exposed hardware of the
SoC in their FAQ. (Think GPIOs, analogs, serials, etc).

The computer itself is has published schematics:
[http://www.raspberrypi.org/wp-
content/uploads/2012/04/Raspbe...](http://www.raspberrypi.org/wp-
content/uploads/2012/04/Raspberry-Pi-Schematics-R1.0.pdf)

I got the impression that the Raspberry Pi Foundation was thinking about how
to license the design, perhaps a CC, but I don't see that they have made a
decision. It is in many ways it is moot. They could give you the Gerber files,
but you wouldn't be able to get a BCM2835.

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octotoad
The author of this article clearly has no idea about what a system like
Raspberry Pi is aiming for. The lack of Windows compatibility is one of its
most important features. It's about kids learning to do fun, interesting,
challenging things with a computer. It's not about using an office suite or
playing TF2.

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mrsebastian
You could install Linux on the NUC, too. x86 support isn't inherently a bad
thing, surely.

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octotoad
No, not at all. It's just that statements like "and likewise, developing for
the NUC will be as easy as developing for a standard, Windows-based x86 PC;
two perks the Raspberry Pi will not enjoy." makes it seem like a lack of x86
support is a bad thing in the Pi's case, which it's not, since ARM is fine for
what it's meant to do.

As for the part about development being as easy as a Windows x86 box; the same
could be said about Linux on the Raspberry Pi. It's the same OS you'd run on
an x86 box.

Just seems like an apples/oranges comparison. Like others have commented,
seems like a lot of 'tech journalists' seem to assume small form factor ==
Raspberry Pi competitor/alternative.

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malkia
Besides the price of Windows would be too high for it.

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jroseattle
That's great, although they're not a competitor to Raspberry. Speculation on
the author's part aside, I can't imagine Intel offering this anywhere near a
$100 price point. But without the comparison offered up by the author, it's
just another tiny-motherboard-from-Intel article -- and who's going to read
that?

But hey, I hope they try to compete with Raspberry Pi, because that causes a
race to the bottom of the price point. Since Raspberry is already there,
anyone else who wants to join the party just adds more options to those
interested in these devices.

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polshaw
Although in no way a competitor to the rPi, this is pretty awesome.

It could easily become a main system with surprisingly few compromises--
(given thunderbolt and the reasonable iGPU)... and i really doubt the board
alone will be available for < $200.

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angersock
there is nothing reasonable about igpu

tell me about opengl drivers

tellll meeeeeeeee

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mrbill
Bigger size, 3x the price (at least), requires fan.. not in the same league as
the RPi at all. I wish tech writers would stop thinking "SMALL COMPUTER = RPI
COMPETITOR!".

Get down to that same ~$35 price point, and we'll talk.

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pilom
" It almost certainly won’t be as cheap as the $25 Raspberry Pi, but a price
point around $100 would be realistic."

I call BS on it costing close to $100. There is no way given the cost of the
processor alone.

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Khao
I think this is only for the casing and motherboard, without RAM, storage or
CPU. At least it's what I understand from the article.

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btian
I reckon that too, then all the more it's not even a competitor with RPi. RPi
is a complete system with processor and RAM.

Say a mobile i5 costs $150 and a RAM that costs $20. We're looking at a $300
system that consumes 10x the power of RPi. I think this is a useful system on
its own, but it's not a competitor of RPi.

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alexchamberlain
* developing for the NUC will be as easy as developing for a standard, Windows-based x86 PC*

Conversely, it will be as _hard_ as developing for a standard, Windows-based
x86 PC.

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kenrikm
The big draw for the pi is the price at around $30 it's a very feature rich
machine. The pi would actually do better in the market that intel is targeting
(kiosks and digital displays) do to its size and ability to run off USB power.
You could strap it to the back of a HDTV and piggyback on one of the USB ports
most flat screens ship with these days.

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vyrotek
Personally, I'm actually more excited about this than the Raspberry Pi. Yes it
consumes more power and is basically just a small PC, but that's actually what
I'm more interested in for pc-tv development. The fact that it could run
Windows too is actually a plus.

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bitwize
Geez, this looks a lot like the PC104 boards we drop into our robots.

It's bigger, more juice-intensive, and probably a lot more expensive than the
RPi. It's not even in the same market league.

Headline fail.

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DiabloD3
Why do I think its going to leave another bad taste in my mouth like
overpriced Atom's lackluster performance did?

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specialp
Watch out Hyundai! Ferarri just made a compact sports car that is 5-10x the
cost of yours, and gets 5 MPG.

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joezydeco
Maybe Intel can buy XScale/PXA back. This is just sad.

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excuse-me
"x86 Windows software ecosystem"

That's the whole point of the RaspberryPi.

The current UK IT curriculum:

Boot up Windows XP/Vista/7 (or whatever the school kept up with)

Login as restricted user, wait for virus scan to finish

Type some text into MS-Office

Don't change any of the settings because that might affect another user and we
would have to get an outside IT contractor in to fix the 'problem'

The whole point of RPi is to have a turn it on and it's ready, one machine per
student, system with an OS image that can be reflashed by the student in
minutes if they do too much damage. Just like a 1980s 8bit micro

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drzaiusapelord
Is this really a problem? Schools have long solved this problem with imaging
software like deepfreeze or steadystate. Not to mention, they might not be too
fond of emacs or or write a term paper on gedit. You can piss on Word all you
like, but it gets used for a reason.

Its weird to see the rpi shoehorned into some poor-mans deepfreeze solution.
Its really a hobbyists platform like the beagleboard. Its going to go into
some cool embedded projects and power some cool toys. Its not another desktop
PC. We're well served in that are.

