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I just want to give a shout about a Kickstarter project that I think deserve some attention.

Basically a well established hardware chip design firm, want's to make a $99 parallel "super" computer and needs help financing mass production to lower the cost of chip production. In return for our support they promise full disclosure for all hardware and dedicated open source development tools.

So for a $99 Kickstarter pledge you get:

• Dual-core ARM A9 CPU
• Epiphany Multicore Accelerator (16 or 64 cores)
• 1GB RAM 
• MicroSD Card
• USB 2.0 (two) 
• Two general purpose expansion connectors
• Ethernet 10/100/1000
• HDMI connection
• Ships with Ubuntu OS
• Ships with free open source Epiphany development tools that include C compiler, multicore debugger, Eclipse IDE, OpenCL SDK/compiler, and run time libraries. 
• Dimensions are 3.4'' x 2.1''  

The reason I am so excited about this, is that this thing is more or less made for next generation autopilots.

- Full blown extended Kalman filter with all the bells and whistles? Would not even break a sweat doing that.

- Real-time visual navigation and object detection? You bet!

- Generate aerial maps on the fly. Be my guest!

You get the idea, and all this would be possible using a 86x54mm board consuming 5W on average. Needless to say I am a bit excited. :)

The $99 pledge is for a 16 core version, but there is talk about a $199 64-core version if they get enough to ramp up the production.

For more information visit the kickstarter here:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/adapteva/parallella-a-supercomputer-for-everyone