A rainy day project idea - VIA style

Looking back at this old Mini-ITX mod, it has occurred to me how simple it would be to adapt it to VIA's latest offerings. This log cabin case mod featured a VIA Mini-ITX motherboard. This could so easily be adapted to feature a VIA APC Rock motherboard.

As always, VIA gets an award

Taiwan's well-known golden company of the tech boom once again got an award at Computex and like many, many years prior it was for innovation. The VIA APC Paper embedded computer won the Computex 2013 d&i (design and innovation) award presented by the Taiwan External Trade Council (TAITRA) in cooperation with the International Forum Design Hannover (iF).

Which one is the PC?

"APC Paper was awarded this prestigious honor for its groundbreaking use of new types of materials and form factor which pushes the boundaries of PC design in new directions. With special attention to an organic design, the cardboard encased APC Paper blends seamlessly into any home or office environment." - more.

The cardboard box PC is back

I thought this was old news but apparently it was new news for some people when it was spotted at the recent Computex trade show in Taiwan. It's VIA's APC Paper Rock, first announced in January this year, but not arriving until Q3 2013.

Tom's Hardware has done a short write-up on the upcoming embedded delight.

"VIA has revealed the APC Paper. The APC Paper is basically an APC Rock board in a cardboard and aluminum box, which opens up like a book to show off the APC Rock board. When closed, it measures 204 x 98 x 28 mm."

VIA's new APC Paper offers compelling value against Intel's Raspberry Pi

The UK's PC Pro website has pointed out that the VIA APC paper computer - a tiny full system running in a cardboard box - stands up brilliantly against the popular Intel Raspberry Pi.

VIA's solution runs Android, offering the consumer a vast array of easy to install apps. The Pi instead runs Linux, which may give it more flexibility, but also requires more skill to manipulate. The APC paper also uses SDD storage which, although it's more expensive, it's faster.

"The VIA APC runs Android 4 on an ARM Cortex-A processor with 512MB of RAM, features HDMI, VGA (Rock only), USB and microUSB ports, and supports 1080p. Its specs are similar to the Raspberry Pi, which runs a Linux variant and is less than half the price, but relies on SD cards for storage."

VIA APC 3D Boot Camp: Web Server team

The VIA APC Boot Camp was held over the weekend of the 19th and 20th January. It brought together a bunch of techie and DIY computer enthusiasts, popped them in groups and asked them to design ideas around the new VIA APC Paper computer - the VIA APC board presented in a carboard and aluminium box the size of a paperback. Write-ups about the weekend are just starting to roll in and here's one from "Avenger Mojo" who was posted to the web server team.

"I was assigned to mentor the Web Service team. We go thought the ideation process, about 8 different web services came up. And the team vote for the a karaoke platform for old people at the end. The platform is online service for old people to sing directly with APC without any other needs. The online subscription freemium and premium, professional signer can sell their air time on our platform. We are trying to resolve the problem of old people can't get to each other physically and not able to find people sing with them. We are still looking for graphic and interface designer and software developers, if you are interested please let me know! Total of 4 ideas were created this weekend. BioGuard to use APC to monitor your fish! Arts Presentation control system. Mood lighting control center."

Meanwhile, the weekend also included a "3D printing jam" and look at all the stuff they created: