remix

[Biff383]

  I don't see any way to post the link on my phone. But if you go to KS and put in remix I'm sure you will see it.

Cheap new os.

  It's funded with 30+ days to go,and it appears that they are not new to the game.

[edy]

Are you talking about this:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1123481999/remix-mini-the-worlds-first-true-android-pc?ref=nav_search

[tom66]

Raspberry Pi 2 has a quad-core ARM chipset and 1GB RAM. It costs $35 and is sold in the millions with Broadcom partially subsidising the chipset price.

Will they be able to hit $30? Including delivery? Somehow, I doubt it. Not with 27,000 units sold so far.

OK, presuming that's possible with the remaining bux they have to finish the OS design (it looks like some kind of multi-tasking version of Android allowing overlapping windows...) Does Android even natively support multiple active applications? I thought it pauses all applications not currently active to save power. Also, I do wonder if they can achieve compatibility with apps if they try and control things like full screen mode.

Do they have any hardware ready yet or is it all concept?

One thing in their favour is they do all appear to be qualified software engineers from Google, the hardware is what would worry me here the most. I think the price will be a challenge to hit.

[Towger]

Deliver by October.... 

[Biff383]

I will let you all know. The 30 dollar price point ain't gonna happen. Shipping seems to be a bit of a problem , they say that they are working on it.  Looks like the total cost for 2 units is $105 USD.

[tszaboo]

Do they have any hardware ready yet or is it all concept?

Probably yes. It is very likely a china "mini android pc tv buzzword bingo" with a custom android. Also, can someone explain to me what is the whole point of these mini "PC"s?

[ElektroQuark]

Low power comsumption?
But it is pointless to me.

[unitedatoms]

May be this happened: AllWinner made x64 ARM chipset and decided to put everything possible on the chip including HDMI. Too many features broke the power budget for tablet/phone, so the only solution left is to stay constantly AC power connected. One possible uses is home theater, but this requires to talk to middlemen in media streaming, and those do not need x64 bitness that bad.

So I think that it is home theater chip being marketed as PC. May be it is result of some early x64 project by Google+ARM+AllWinner to have more x64+ARM+HDMI for TV platform, and later chip was finally made, but nothing happened around TV/Home theater direction.

I think so, because TV does not need powerful graphics. If graphics was powerful the guys would have some game demoes for it.

Or even may be the chip is general purpose server farm kind.

[janekm]

May be this happened: AllWinner made x64 ARM chipset and decided to put everything possible on the chip including HDMI. Too many features broke the power budget for tablet/phone, so the only solution left is to stay constantly AC power connected. One possible uses is home theater, but this requires to talk to middlemen in media streaming, and those do not need x64 bitness that bad.

So I think that it is home theater chip being marketed as PC. May be it is result of some early x64 project by Google+ARM+AllWinner to have more x64+ARM+HDMI for TV platform, and later chip was finally made, but nothing happened around TV/Home theater direction.

I think so, because TV does not need powerful graphics. If graphics was powerful the guys would have some game demoes for it.

Or even may be the chip is general purpose server farm kind.

Kind of... The SoC manufacturers release different versions of their chips with slightly different feature set, number of cores, power optimisation for different markets. AllWinner do make models specifically targeting set-top boxes like this.
Set-top boxes similar to this were very popular in China until recently because you could watch a lot of TV shows and movies on them for free. The rules have changed slightly (at least for western shows) recently so it may be that the generic type of set-top box is less popular now. Anyway this "Remix" box is clearly one of those set-top boxes (looks like a clone of the Xiaomi box, actually) with a new firmware image. The pricing doesn't look bad but I think they're cheating a little by pushing their profit margin into the shipping costs... Seems to be a popular trick on Kickstarter these days.

[unitedatoms]

Good to know what large Design/FAB houses do. This is always an advantage for smaller designers, when economy of scale makes some powerful stuff available.

I don't think that anyone is cheating in this project. The price is compressed to nearly no margin in my estimate. Kickstarter possibly has a good background check for complex technical products like this.

Software wise, I sympathize to the idea of repurposing Android into desktop OS. I'd even sympathize less, if it was Google themselves trying to make an OS. What I like exactly is an evolutionary path of simplifications:

Multix-> chopping off stuff >Unix-> chopping off stuff -> Linux> chopping off stuff -> Android for phones > chopping off stuff -> Desktop Android