$9 Computer Designed In Oakland Makes Waves
OAKLAND (CBS SF) - It's a tiny piece of technology with the power to change the world.
Designed in Oakland, made in China, it's a small but mighty computer with four gigs of storage, Bluetooth and WiFi. It's capable of turning a television into a desktop computer and of powering a talking toy.
Created by Next Thing Co, the computer is called Chip. And incredibly, it costs just $9.
Originally, the goal was to design a cheaper computer for a toy camera, but the result was one of the cheapest computers in the world.
Dave Rauchwerk, the CEO of Next Thing Co. said the possibilities are endless. Add a few wires and a television allows you to surf the web or use a word processor, or play music or videos.
The Chip computers have just started shipping and they're going quickly. 50,000 were sold in a month and 10,000 more were pre-ordered in a single day.
Rauchwerk says a big chunk of the customers are teachers.
"People all over the world...have reached out and said, hey this is cheap enough for every one of my students to have one."
The chip has its limits, it's no MacBook. But if you want to use it for a single purpose, if you just want to surf the web or work on homework, it's ideal.
"Knowing that what we built is gonna be used by real people, every day to just do regular things is really exciting for us," Rauchwerk said.
