Last March, Google introduced the Coral minicomputer, a Raspberry Piwith a customizable Google Edge TPU machine learning accelerator. The device is aimed at engineers and researchers who want to run TensorFlow.
The Coral Dev Board is priced at $149 and incorporates a detachable System-on-module (SoM) that can now be purchased as a standalone product for $114. The SoM includes Google's Edge TPU, along with an NXP IMX8M SoC, Wi-Fi , and Bluetooth.
Google is promoting its Coral product line globally through Mouser, and also plans to increase distribution of its new mini-computer for developers, as well as the SoM, to regions including Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, India, Thailand, Singapore, Oman, Ghana, and the Philippines within a year.
In addition to these actions, however, the company is soon going to make available a brand new model of Mendel OS, a light "byproduct" of Debian Linux, designed for Coral dev and Coral Edge TPU.
It is also reported that Google plans to offer 3 new accelerators for manufacturing workloads. Each of them will be available for the Edge TPU and will connect to different gadgets via PCIe slots, with Mini PCIe, M.2 A + E and M.2 B + M keys.
In addition to its global launch, Google has also updated the Coral website with new features, purchase stories, and pages for various industries that use the equipment, including manufacturing, healthcare, automotive, and "intuitive" cities.
Google also mentions the start-up Care.ai, which used Coral and its imagination and predictions to help seniors with accidents at home.
