22-04-13 For your robot-building needs, the $45 BeagleBone Linux PC goes on sale | Ars Technica arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/04/for-your-robot-building-needs-the-45-beaglebone-linux-pc-goes-on-sale/ 1/4 For your robot-building needs, the $45 BeagleBone Linux PC goes on sale New BeagleBone gets 50% price cut, comes with 1GHz ARM Cortex-A8 processor. The brand-new BeagleBone Black. BeagleBoard.org The market for cheap single-board computers is becoming one of the most surprisingly competitive spaces in the tech industry. On the heels of the million-selling Raspberry Pi, a variety of companies and small groups started creating their own tiny computers for programmers and hobbyists. Today we have a new entrant that may provide the best bang for the buck for many types of users. It's called the BeagleBone Black and it's the latest in the line of "Beagle" devices that first appeared in 2008, courtesy of Texas Instruments. On sale now for $45, BeagleBone Black sports a 1GHz Sitara AM335x ARM Cortex-A8 processor from Texas Instruments, up from the 720MHz processor used in the previous $90 BeagleBone released in 2011. Beagle's "open" hardware philosophy means all of the chips and designs are available to the public, so anyone with the right equipment and knowledge could make their own. Using an ARMv7 processor instead of the Pi's ARMv6 one, BeagleBone can run Ubuntu or other Linux distributions as well as Android. It also provides more inputs and outputs than the Pi for connecting to sensors and other devices needed to build robots and electronics projects. The BeagleBone Black has more I/O capability than an Arduino Uno, though not quite as much as the newer Arduino Due. "This has a lot more I/Os than an Arduino Uno would have," BeagleBoard.org co-founder Jason Kridner told Ars. "It's a full gigaherz Linux desktop computer, but it has all the I/O capabilities you'd have in a typical microcontroller. It really bridges that gap, combining those two worlds together." Beagle has a thriving development community. There are more than 30 "capes," or plug-in boards compatible with the BeagleBone Black. These allow the device to connect to 3D printers, DMX lighting controllers, a Geiger counter, a telerobotic submarine, LCD touch screens, and more. Beagle runs semi-independently of Texas Instruments, which sponsors the project with technology and its employees' time. Kridner is a TI employee, but spends nearly all of his time on Beagle projects. 100,000 boards will be made in the first production run of BeagleBone Black. The previous TOP FEATURE STORY STAY IN THE KNOW WITH LATEST NEWS Key vote on “Internet sales tax” looms, this time with Amazon’s support Applications open for Mars One, the first human space colony WHY DON'T YOU JUST GOOGLE IT? Google Now may actually be the iGoogle replacement you’ve been waiting for Prenda Law: EFF has “the same goals” as “terrorist group Wikileaks” A NEW HOM E FOR HOM EWORLD Going once, going twice! Gearbox picks up Homeworld in THQ auction FIXING THE POTHOLES EA rolling out major SimCity simulation changes today TECHNOLOGY LAB / INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY by Jon Brodkin - Apr 22 2013, 11:30pm WEDT DEVELOPMENT OPEN SOURCE 1 FEATURE STORY (3 PAGES) The rise and fall of AMD: How an underdog stuck it to Intel Remember when AMD could compete with Intel in both speed and price? 139 Main Menu ▼ My Stories: 24 ▼ Forums Subscribe Video Log In Search
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22-04-13 For your robot-building needs, the $45 BeagleBone Linux PC goes on sale | Ars Technica