Intel selling "hundreds of millions" of Linux PCs?

LXer is reporting what purports to be a leaked Intel document about the “Farmer PC”, a Celeron-powered Linux-based low cost PC already being sold in Chinese rural areas for USD$350 and slated to be sold in “hundreds of millions” of units there. Amongst other things, it has a one-button factory reset facility and seems to be integrated into a suitable network of facilities (on-line courses, for example).

If this is all genuine, then it would seem that Intel have decided that Microsoft are a bit of an albatross around the neck — at least as far as the Chinese market is concerned. Since Intel already manufacture at least CPUs, motherboards, cases, RAM and hard disks, a good slice of the revenue for this system will go back to them. If they’re also building the screens, mice and keyboards they’ve got a bit of a headlock on this particular band of the food chain.

This year’s Halloween Memo, perhaps? Are Microsoft learning to hate the sight of a pumpkin?

Comments

new life for an old (FTX) PSU, improved life for one human

the LEDs on this 5m strip happen to emit light centred on a red that does unexpectedly helpful things to (and surprisingly deeply within) a human routinely exposed to it. it has been soldered to a Molex connector, plugged into a TFX power supply from a (retired: the MoBo is cactus) Small Form Factor PC, the assorted PSU connectors (and loose end from the strip) have been taped over. the LED strip cost $10.24 including postage, the rest cost $0, the PSU is running at 12½% of capacity, consumes less power than a laptop plug-pack despite running a fan. trial runs begin today.

every-application-is-part-of-a-toolkit at work

I have a LibreOffice Impress slideshow that I wish to turn into a narrated video. 1. export the slideshow as PNG images (if that is partially broken — as at now — at higher resolutions, Export Directly as PDF then use ‘pdftoppm’ (from the poppler-utils package) to do the same). 2. write a small C program (63 lines including comments) to display those images one at a time, writing a config file entry for Imagination (default transition: ‘cross fade’) based on when the image-viewer application (‘display,’ from the GraphicsMagick suite) is closed on each one; run that, read each image aloud, then close each image in turn. 3. run ‘Imagination’ over the config file to produce a silent MP4 video with the correct timings. 4. run ‘Audacity’ to record speech while using ‘SMPlayer’ to display the silent video, then export that recording as a WAV file. 4a. optionally, use ‘TiMIDIty’ to convert a non-copyright-encumbered MIDI tune to WAV, then import that and blend it with the speech (as a quiet b...

boundaries

pushing the actual boundaries of the physical (not extremes, the boundaries themselves) can often remove barriers not otherwise perceived. one can then often resolve an issue itself, rather than merely stonewalling at the physical consequences of the issue.

Plantagenet Penguinista

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