The future is embedded – or so we're being told. From AMD to Intel, the word on the street is that everything should have some kind of computer in it – and all of them should be connected. If the entire globe is part of the ‘computing continuum', then – surely – there must be some cash in it, right?  KitGuru ponders a career as an embedded guru and wonders what kind of outlay is needed to begin.

With the launch of the AMD Gizmo Explorer Kit, you can begin an embedded development business from as little as $199.

Nice.

But what do you get from your money, is it worthwhile doing and will it be popular?

The basis of the kit is The Gizmo Board, which is a 4″ square mainboard that comes complete with an integrated G-Series APU. With this alone, you already have access to SATA, USB, Display Port, PCIe, SPI, I2C, GPIO, PWM, ADC Input, DAC Output, Reset, JTAG header, VGA video output, Audio input/output and Ethernet. Enough to be starting with you might think?

But the kit also includes something called an ‘Explorer Board‘, which – the promotional literature says – comes with a ‘sea of holes for prototyping'. It also has a neat little LCD display – your embedded baby's first ‘voice' to communicate with the outside world. You will be so proud.

Your money also gets you 20 hours of free access to the JTAG development tool from SAGE, after which – presumably – there will be a small charge.

There's also a 30-day license for the SAGE EDK – which will help you build software – and you'll get a quick start DVD etc.

KitGuru says: We likes the ‘Pi' concept and we like this Embedded starter kit. Low price of entry should make it accessible and – according to the site – they sold through the first batch in no time. Seems like a lot of people are preparing for a better, more embedded, tomorrow.

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