The team at Next Thing Co was frustrated with the lack of small powerful computers. There weren't enough options for a computer that was small enough to fit into maker projects, inexpensive enough to keep with the projects, and packed enough power to be functional. They invented C.H.I.P. the $9 computer to be small and robust.
C.H.I.P. holds a 1 GHz processor, 512 MB of RAM, and 4 GB of storage. 802.111B/G/N wifi connections and Bluetooth 4.0 are also built into the system. A major selling point for the system is that it works with any screen. A composite cable is included in the $9 selling price but VGA and HDMI adapters are available.
Thousands of open source apps are available right now to use with C.H.I.P. and the team stresses that the computer is open source and wants everyone to be able to develop more apps specific to the device. LibreOffice acts as a presentation, report and spreadsheet manager. Chromium is the open source browser, and Scratch teaches the basics of programming.
PocketC.H.I.P. is an option that can be added to give a screen to the smaller computer. The 4.3 inch touchscreen has a keyboard and a five hour battery, while the case is small enough to fit in a pocket. A 3000 milliAmp hour batter and GPIO pins are also included in the case.
As early as September 2015 alpha funders can get their first prototypes but the rest of the world will wait until February 2016. The funding level for this Kickstarter is incredibly high, with $1.7 million raised already and ten more days to go before funding is closed.
This is an incredibly ambitious project and I'm excited to see how well the team can execute. Building a small inexpensive pocket computer isn't necessarily new but this scale is huge and watching the full process unfold will be very interesting.