ASUS and Google are currently working on a new project dubbed Tinker Board’. According to reports, the single-board computers (SBCs) are about the size of a credit card. This system focuses on AI inference applications like image recognition. Concerning this “small computer”, AnandTech said
“The systems in question are the Tinker Edge T and Tinker Edge R. The former is based on the NXP i.MX8M with an Edge TPU chip that accelerates TensorFlow Lite, whereas the Tinker Edge R is powered by the Rockchip RK3399 Pro processor with an NPU for 4K machine learning. The SBCs officially support Android and Debian operating system, though nothing prevents them from running Linux or other OSes”.
Gizchina News of the week
Asus and Google will probably position the Tinker Edge T and Tinker Edge R for various edge AI applications. Of course, these systems have to be compact and very energy efficient.
Both Tinker Edge T and Tinker Edge R feature active cooling modules and mainstream I/O interfaces including GbE, USB 3.0 and HDMI. ASUS plans to showcase its Tinker Edge T and Tinker Edge R at the 2019 IoT Technology Conference in Japan on November 20. As of now, there is no information on the prices. However, it will probably depend on volumes and other factors.