Intel CEO vows to make Edison platform even smaller and run on 3V battery

Computers no bigger than coat buttons coming next year
Computers no bigger than coat buttons coming next year

Intel will launch a new version of Edison, one that is likely to be much smaller than the current version and may be unveiled by the end of next year.

Speaking at the company's "Make It Wearable challenge" in San Francisco, Brian Krzanich, the company's CEO, stated that "We'll have a better Edison in 2015 that will be smaller," before adding "I still have the vision that we can take all of the functionality we have on Edison today and put it in something that's roughly the size of your coat button".

The new Edison, Krzanich reckons, will run on a battery about the same size for a coupole of days, which means, he continued, that you will be able to run a computer in your coat button.

Now a coat button (not a shirt button) is about the size of a 3V CR2016 battery, a 20mm model that's 1.5mm thick and has a typical capacity of 90mAh. The current Edison PC was originally supposed to be the size of a SD card but ended up being a tad bigger..

Krzanich also revealed that Intel is working on two different ways of improving battery life on wearable devices, with devices based on these coming out in 2015. He stated "You can have an analogue part that's always listening and always sensing, that's very low power. Then if it sees something, whatever your sensor is monitoring, then this turns the digital side on."

Via Stuff

Desire Athow
Managing Editor, TechRadar Pro

Désiré has been musing and writing about technology during a career spanning four decades. He dabbled in website builders and web hosting when DHTML and frames were in vogue and started narrating about the impact of technology on society just before the start of the Y2K hysteria at the turn of the last millennium.