[OT] Intel debuts SD card-sized computer

[Richard Gaskin]

Paul Looney wrote:

 > On Jan 8, 2014, at 12:46 PM, Richard Gaskin wrote:
 >>
 >> Move over, Raspberry Pi: Intel debuts SD card-sized computer
 >> <http://bgr.com/2014/01/07/intel-edison-sd-card-computer/>
 >
 > Looks like Intel really is getting serious about power consumption!

They predicted a couple years ago that they could match, and eventually 
beat, ARM in power consumption by late 2013, and with Broadwell they did.

They've always had an upper hand on ARM in terms of performance, so now 
the question is whether they can become competitive on price.

Historically Intel's chips have been much more expensive than ARM's, but 
they've been putting a lot R&D into shrinking the die and increasing the 
wafer size, so if this pans out their yields will be higher than those 
of the contracted ARM fabs, and hence lower at retail.

If that happens we can expect the current trend, in which device types 
are already overlapping in capabilities as form factors diversify, to 
continue to the point where the current bifurcation between so-called 
"desktop" and so-called "mobile" systems becomes self-evidently silly.

And then the cool gadgets arrive, with development accelerated by an 
ecosystem based around a single instruction set.

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World
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