There was an attempt to create a three-way alliance to develop a European Schools Computer between Ing C Olivetti & Co SpA, its 80%-owned affiliate Acorn Computers Plc and Thomson SA five of six years ago, and now Acorn is to be a co-ordinating partner in a new effort under the European Community’s Esprit research programme in which no dominant names are involved. This time, Acorn is teamed with its Advanced RISC Machines Ltd affiliate, also in Cambridge, Opsis SA and Idate SA of France, and Pluricom Ltda in Portugal, with Etnoteam SpA of Italy, Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products SA in Belgium and the University of Aveiro in Portugal providing input. Called Power, for Portable Workstation for Education in Europe, the project sets out to design and prototype a low-cost, high-performance portable computer for education and training, using the ARM600 RISC. The project is funded for 36 months, and the first 18 months are to be devoted to identifying market trends and user requirements and assessing exactly what is available at the right price, before the project moves forward to a rnage of prototypes. The ARM RISC will be optimised for the application and the project will keep an eye on the next generation of the chip family, which is being developed in collaboration with Europe’s Open Microprocessor Initiative. Speech input and audio compression technologies will be developed for ease of use and data capture, and new display and communications technologies will be developed for the project by Opsis – which has developed a low-power, thin graphic screen for credit card-sized pagers, and Pluricom, which works in telecommunications software and wireless communications development and consultancy.
