On Wednesday April 13 2016 the UDOO Team launched UDOO X86 on Kickstarter with a goal of $100,000 for a 55 days campaign. But it took just 7 hours for UDOO X86 to exceed its goal, and it’s now over $350,000 after just a week.
The UDOO Team’s latest creation is an Intel®-based x86 maker board coupled with an onboard Intel® Curie™ Arduino™ 101-compatible micro-controller. It is based on Intel®’s new-generation Quad Core 64-bit x86 processors, designed for the PC domain.
“Once again we wanted to raise the bar, launching the most powerful maker board ever” explains Daniele Conti, cofounder of UDOO, CEO of SECO and UDOO X86’s lead hardware designer.
But power isn’t the only benefit from the x86 architecture: “Not only is it the only maker board capable of running Windows, Android and Linux, it also can run all the software available for the PC world, from gaming to video streaming, from graphical editors to professional development platforms” remarks Maurizio Caporali, cofounder and Product Manager.
The application scenarios for UDOO X86 vary from pure multimedia, allowing for example to stream Netflix in 4K, to desktop replacement and workstation purposes or even as a retrogaming and game-streaming machine.
On top of that, UDOO X86 is no ordinary PC: its Arduino capabilities enable turning it into an Internet of Things device, a robot or a physical computing playground. This feature makes it also ideal in educational applications: “The coexistence of Windows, Android, Linux and Arduino gives teachers, students and designers the widest choice for learning and rapid prototyping” points out Antonio Rizzo, UDOO’s Scientific Director.
The Kickstarter campaign will last 55 days, the lowest pledge is $89 for UDOO X86 BASIC while the most powerful variant, UDOO X86 ULTRA, based on an Intel Pentium N3710 with 8 GB of RAM and up to 2.56 GHz CPU, starts at $209.
The 1st Stretch Goal, set at $500K, has been unveiled and consists in PCI Express support for M.2 SATA port given for free to all backers that has picked a reward that includes UDOO X86.
Campaign Link: bit.ly/udoox86ks
