I must admit Apple has taken quite a great leap towards world domination with all their new technology and gadgets. It’s like everything they do is perfectly manufactured to fit into everyone’s lives. It’s quite an enormous achievement really, and where it will end only the future will tell. However, there is that little thing about the PC that keeps us clinging onto the previously dominating household computer technology. I am of course talking about the superior personal customization of the internal as well as the external things. You can build your very own PC for really cheap if you know what you’re doing. Sure, you can do that with the Mac too, but the result comes out a little less impressive and the components aren’t as cheap.
We haven’t heard anything new from the ring side of the PC for a while, and personally, I think that is a little disturbing to tell you the truth. There’s been no real news to speak of. They have their yearly upgrade in graphics cards and whatnot, but nothing really that will peak the interest of the masses. That’s what Apple focuses on, and they do it well. However, I think there is something on the horizon that will make Apple just a little bit worried, or maybe even make those guys shake in their boots.
It’s the world’s smallest fully working PC that’s been developed by the brilliant guys over at Frontier Developments called the Raspberry Pi. It’s basically a flash memory that has been customized into a PC which has a USB port and a HDMI video port output. What this means is that as long as you have a TV and a USB keyboard, you will always have yourself a computer. However, there is of course a little catch. The thing doesn’t run any of the common operating systems, and there is a reason for that. Just as chairman David Braben explained, they want children to get back into computer science and programming, something he feels has been taken away from them with all of these plug and play gadgets Apple and other companies continuously release.
The stick PC will cost between $10-$25, and will most likely be available in 12 months. This is truly exciting news, and I think that we’ll soon see some competition from Apple as well. Did they choose the wrong path when deciding to take away the full usability of the operating system for their gadgets? You know what I mean, you can of course still program on OSX and Windows, but it doesn’t use the core machine language like the 70s generation was able to do. Back then, we could mess around in assembler and go straight to the machine’s core components. Those were the days… I still think I have a demo I created with a friend laying around somewhere in a box down in the basement. Hmm…
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