Crowdfunding A Little $9 Computer
CHIP is a proposed $9 computer that officially beats the famed Raspberry Pi as one of the world’s cheapest and smallest computers, at only 1.5-by-2.3 inches. A Kickstarter campaign recently was launched and already has gone well above its $50,000 goal (at more than $1.4 million as I write this).
There is a Kickstarter campaign happening now for the proposed $9 CHIP computer PHOTO COURTESY NEXT THING CO.
The small wonder runs on a Debian Linux-based OS CHIP, is fully open source and is powered with a 3,000 mAH battery. It has a 1GHz Allwinner A13 processor, 512 MB of DDR3 RAM, 4GB of built-in eMMC NAND Flash storage, a fullsized USB 2.0 port, a micro USB port with OTG (also used as the 5V DC power input for battery charging) and supports 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0. There is a 1/8- inch audio jack with a microphone that doubles as a composite video-out. It also has an output for composite monitors, but you’ll need to use an adapter if you want to use VGA or HDMI.
With CHIP, you can access the Internet with the Chromium browser, do your work in LibreOffice (including Word documents, spreadsheets and presentations), listen to music and play compatible games. Plus, if you want to learn to code, it comes preloaded with Scratch, an easy-to-learn language that teaches the basics of programming by making stories, games and animations. In comparison, the similar and latest Raspberry Pi 2 released earlier this year costs $35. Visit Kickstarter.com to see the reality of CHIP.
Adobe Photoshop Express brings Photoshop to your smartphone or tablet. PHOTO COURTESY ADOBE
Click Chick’s Mobile App of the Week: Adobe Photoshop Express
Editing your photos to exact precision is probably best done from your computer, but in reality, most photos are taken with smartphones/tablets these days. As I’ve mentioned before, there are numerous mobile photo-editing apps, so where do you begin?
Why not start at the king of all photo editors, Adobe Photoshop? Formerly known as Photoshop.com Mobile, Adobe recently released its newly branded app called Adobe Photoshop Express.
I prefer using Adobe Photoshop on my computer to edit photos, so it makes perfect sense to have it on my iPhone as well. This app does just that: It brings the quality of Adobe Photoshop to your mobile device and packs quite a punch. For a mobile app, it does a good job at light photo edits while getting rid of those extraneous particles that show up on your photos, blemish removal, redeye reduction, noise reduction and more. You can fix your photos very quickly with the slider controls to adjust hue, brightness and white balance, as well as quickly crop, rotate, straighten, flip and adjust color. On top of that, you instantly can share your photos to Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter and email, or SMS it to your friends and family.
I appreciate the various options it offers, which is much more than other photo-editing apps. Best of all, it’s free and available for your iOS, Android and Windows devices.
