This article 1st appeared on our sister Site – Digital World Native.
By: Anand Subramanium
These days, it is not unusual to find palm-sized computers..you may heard of the Raspberry Pi by now. Now there’s Kano, a DIY computer kit using which you can put together a functional computer.
It’s not your usually computer assembling process. This is more like playing with legos or putting together a mail order piece of furniture. There is no tech or geek knowledge required. The brain of the computer is a Raspberry Pi, Model B.
It’s a system-on-a-chip that includes an ARM 700MHz CPU & 512MB RAM. The Kano computer kit comes with illustrated drawings & an easy-to-follow how-to manual. You can throw in a DIY speaker, & the colorful keyboard includes an integrated touchpad with independent click buttons. You also get cables that you can use to connect it to an HDMI screen, if you want.
Connectivity includes a Bluetooth connection to other devices & a USB RF for the Kano itself. Plug in a USB dongle & you have Wi-Fi instantly, with seamless configuration & no fuss. The operating system is a custom-made open source platform called the Kano OS which you can fiddle with using command line codes.
Its memory storage is an SD card that comes pre-loaded with the OS. It is a Sandisk Ultra 8GB Class 10 micro SD card & SD card adapter.
The transparent clip-on case & the stickers you get further enhance the lego feel of a child’s toy. The whole thing comes as a kit that neatly fits into a box no bigger than your standard desktop PC keyboard case.
Check out this video:
Just so you know, Kano shattered records with a highly successful crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter a couple of years ago. They started out with a goal of raising US $100,000, & ended up with more than $1.52 million from 13,387 backers.
You can buy the Kano computer kit on their website for$149.99.
This kit was developed & launched by London, U.K.-based Kano Computing Ltd. The company was founded in Jan 2013 by Yonatan Raz-Fridman, Alex Klein & Saul Klein.
Image Credit: Kano
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