Raspberry Pi is a $25 Linux computer running Ubuntu 9.04 on a 700MHz......

A lot of schools in the US and abroad have such a tight budget that things for kids to learn with like computers are hard to come by. When I was a kid, we learned some basic computer programming in school, but today many schools simply tech a child how to use basic things on the computer like word processing and general computer skills. Some schools don’t have enough computers for the students to use and having enough machines for each student to take on home to learn on is generally out of the question.

David Braben from the UK has been working on an interesting project that is aimed at making a very cheap computer that schools can give to children and allow them to take home for use in learning computer science and how hardware works. Braben thinks that the state of education about computers in school today leaves a lot to be desired and even the little laptops like the XO from the OLPC are more expensive than many schools can afford.

The cool computer that Braben has developed is very small and looks more like a flash drive than a computer. The device uses a stick design with an HDMI port on one end and a USB port on the other. The HDMI port is used to shoot video out to a TV or display and the USB port on the other end is for connecting the computer. The hardware on the stick computer is a 700MHz ARM11 processor coupled with 128MB of RAM. The small stick computer has OpenGL ES 2.0 compatible graphics, and storage is taken care of by a SD card slot. The computer can also have accessories attached to it. In the photo, a 12MP camera is attached and the device runs Linux. The price for the hardware is only about $25 making this very affordable.

The computer has a USB port on one end and an HDMI port on the other to connect a keyboard and display, respectively. The device will also support touchscreens to create a tablet device, says the foundation. The Ubuntu 9.04-based device lacks Wi-Fi or Ethernet, but web connections can presumably be made via the USB port, with the help of a USB hub.

Raspberry Pi prototype bringing up the web, apparently with the help of a USB hub



Accroding to the Raspberry Pi website, provisional specs for the prototype include:

Processor -- 700MHz ARM11 with OpenGL ES 2.0
Memory -- 128MB SDRAM
Memory expansion -- SD/MMC/SDIO slot
Display:
1080p30 H.264 high-profile decode
composite output
HDMI output
I/O -- USB 2.0; GPIO
Software -- Ubuntu 9.04, Iceweasel, KOffice, Python

The goal of Raspberry Pi is to encourage direct hands-on experimentation in computer education, something missing from most current curricula, says Braben.

The $25 price may be possible because the device is not only missing a keyboard -- like the upcoming XO-3 and the still vaporish $35 tablet being developed by the Indian government -- but also omits the display. Still, one would assume that a considerable degree of charitable subsidization might be necessary to push out a $25 ARM11 computer with this device's HD-ready ARM11 processor and other extras.

U.K. developer David Braben has launched an OLPC-like foundation called Raspberry Pi, a tiny ARM/Linux computer aimed at K12 computer education for as little as $25. Braben demonstrated a single board computer (SBC) prototype running Ubuntu 9.04 on a 700MHz, OpenGL-enabled ARM11 processor with 128MB SDRAM, HDMI, USB, and SD connectivity, supporting 1080p video.