A British non-profit organization Raspberry Pi Foundation has the answer, in the form of a computer the size of a USB key priced at $25 – which could arguably be the cheapest computer on the block.

The computer is designed to plug into a TV or a touch screen. The USB sized computer runs on Linux and has a 700MHz ARM11 processor and 128 MB RAM. Other specifications include OpenGL ES 2.0, 1080p30 H.264 high-profile decode, Composite and HDMI video output, USB 2.0, SD/MMC/SDIO memory card slot, General-purpose I/O and Open software (Ubuntu, Iceweasel, KOffice, Python)

Basically, the computer is like a Linux box which offers video playback of 1080p via HDMI output and has a memory card slot for storage. It can be connected to any TV and keyboard or touch screen to have a fully functional computer.

The purpose of crafting an ultra-small and ultra-cheap computer is explained on the Raspberry Pi Foundation website: “We plan to develop, manufacture and distribute an ultra-low-cost computer, for use in teaching computer programming to children. We expect this computer to have many other applications both in the developed and the developing world.”


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Don't expect to see Raspberry Pi on store shelves anytime soon--although I think it'd do pretty well in the check-out line in between the tabloid mags and packs of Trident--because the rough prototype still needs some refining and the Raspberry Pi Foundation's goal is to get the systems into the hands of children in both the developed and developing world.

The mission recalls other projects that have attempted to make low-cost computers available to kids, like the One Laptop per Child initiative's dream of $100 Internet-ready laptops worldwide, or a $35 tablet from India. OLPC has had some notable successes in places like Uruguay, but has run into problems delivering on its low-cost promises, a challenge Raspberry Pi will also face, and with even fewer resources.

The computer is essentially an ARM processor, USB port, and HDMI connection. Connect it to a keyboard and a television or monitor and you have a fully functional Linux system. Here are the provisional specs:

700MHz ARM11
128MB of SDRAM
OpenGL ES 2.0
1080p30 H.264 high-profile decode
Composite and HDMI video output
USB 2.0
SD/MMC/SDIO memory card slot
General-purpose I/O
Open software (Ubuntu, Iceweasel, KOffice, Python)


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Many think that a return to the days where simpler computers filled the classroom could change things. When all computers were basic, children could understand them more easily and mess around with them from a very early age.

"Even 20 years ago, the BBC Micro was in schools and was the cornerstone of computing in the classroom and when people went home from school or work, they also had their Spectrum so could also do programming," says Livingstone.

One foundation in particular is looking to bring on that change. A tiny device called the Raspberry Pi is a whole computer squeezed onto a single circuit board, about the same size as a USB disc.

Computer games in the past required a lot less code that modern games

It costs around £15 and can be plugged into a TV with the aim of making a computer cheap and simple enough to allow anyone to write programmes.

"Hopefully it will bring a solution to a generation of kids who can have the advantages that I had as a kid so they can learn to program and do great things," says David Braben of the Raspberry Pi Foundation.

Although computer programming is not on the national curriculum, many schools have taken the decision themselves to bring it back into the classroom.

"A lot of the children don't sort of understand the world of Commodores and Ataris back in the 80s," says Ian Addison, of St John the Baptist Primary School in Hampshire.

"What we're trying to do with our game design is show them that you can teach them games, you can make some games and you can create them and share them with other people.

"Some of the children get into computers and they're getting interested in how games work. They're only young - our eldest are 11 - but if we can inspire a few of them, then we've done a good job."


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The Raspberry Pi is a new ultra-low-cost computing solution that’s making waves — especially now that it’s running Quake 3!

Read all about it here.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation, a UK-registered charity that is developing two models of an ultra-low-cost computer, posted a video this past weekend of Quake 3 running on one of the miniature devices. See the video below:

Raspberry Pi: Primary school children get coding


The Raspberry Pi, a credit card-sized computer designed to encourage children to learn programming, caught the imagination of millions when it was unveiled.

Pi evangelists are now busy trying to encourage children to start using the computer, to get to grips with programming. But how old do you have to be to get started?

Seven to nine-year-olds at St Matthew's Church of England Primary School in Surbiton, Surrey, have been given the chance to try out the kit.

As part of a wider technology event organised by the GoTo Foundation in partnership with Intellect, they tried basic coding in the Python language.


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Designed in Cambridge and manufactured in Wales, the Raspberry Pi is looking to be a catalyst towards solving the world’s computing issues by educating and empowering today’s youth about programming. The Raspberry Pi Foundation is a Non-Profit Organization that spent 6 years developing their first Raspberry Pi. Raspberry Pi is a computer the size of a credit card, at a price of $25, designed to activate mainly kids into coding computers. According to an article by the BBC, they are able to keep the costs down due to the goodwill toward the project. The software is open-source, chip manufacturers have kept their prices low, and the majority of the profits are funneled towards improving the devices and creating incentives to get children programming.

The success since their launch has been immense due to their careful and perfectionist approach. When their second model was launched February 29, 2012, the 10 thousand units they put on sale were sold out in a matter of hours. During a TEDX talk, Jack Lang explained that Raspberry Pi had become the fastest growing computer company in the world. 1 million Raspberry Pi’s were sold globally in 2012 alone.

What’s more amazing is that Raspberry Pi actively encourages other companies to clone what they’re doing, with the goal that owning a truly personal computer will be normal for children and that the next generation thinks about coding and building in the computer universe. If we want the young generation to design the future in the digital age we need to make them computer-literate. We are going from being informed by computers to informing computing in an open source environment. Raspberry Pi is the possibility for people and especially kids to inform and get informed on the knowledge flow in society and thereby be an active player in the evolution and articulation of how democracy will be able to function in the future.


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