Netbook on a stamp? Meet Intel's Edison

 

Think of it as a barebones netbook shrunk down to the size of a stamp.

 

Meet Edison, Intel's new platform for wearable computing devices, consumer electronics and Internet of Things (IoT) that uses the company's low-power Atom processor.

 

Intel describes Edison as a "low-cost, product-ready and general purpose" system-on-a-chip (SoC) module that can connect to the Internet and to other devices.

 

"(Edison) is the first in a series of low-cost, product-ready, general purpose compute platforms that help lower the barriers to entry for entrepreneurs of all sizes—from pro makers to consumer electronics and companies working in the Internet of Things (IoT)," Intel said.

 

Specs

 

At the heart of Edison is a 22-nanometer Intel Atom SoC (formerly Silvermont) that includes a dual core, dual threaded CPU at 500 MHz and a 32-bit Intel® Quark™ processor MCU at 100 MHz.

 

It has about 1 GB RAM, 4 GB EMMC, and dual-band WiFi and Bluetooth Low Energy, and will initially support development with Arduino and C/C++.

 

Support for other languages like Node.JS, Python, RTOS, and Visual Programming support are coming soon.

 

"The Intel Edison module includes a device-to-device and device-to-cloud connectivity framework to enable cross-device communication and a cloud-based, multi-tenant, time-series analytics service," Intel said.

 

Linux

 

A separate article on HackADay.com said the Edison will support Yocto Linux 1.6 out of the box, but its x86 architecture may support other versions of Linux.

 

"It might be theoretically possible to run a version of Windows natively on this module, but this raises the question of why anyone would want to," it added. — Joel Locsin/TJD, GMA News