{"id":68546,"date":"2013-01-17T12:04:09","date_gmt":"2013-01-17T10:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=68546"},"modified":"2013-01-17T12:06:50","modified_gmt":"2013-01-17T10:06:50","slug":"taking-a-bite-from-the-raspberry-pi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/columns\/68546-taking-a-bite-from-the-raspberry-pi.html","title":{"rendered":"Taking a bite from the Raspberry Pi"},"content":{"rendered":"

While titans like Apple<\/a>, Microsoft<\/a> and Google<\/a> are grappling for global dominance, ordinary people around the world have begun tinkering with gadgets again.<\/p>\n

Just look at the\u00a0Raspberry Pi<\/a>. It’s barely bigger than a credit card and costs less than R250, but the Pi is a fully fledged computer. Hook it up to your TV and a keyboard and you can use it for everything from word processing to playing high-definition videos.<\/p>\n

But the point is not to offer people affordable computing \u2013 it’s to get them thinking about computers as being more than just appliances. Created by an educational foundation, the Raspberry Pi intends to get a new generation excited about how computers work and what they can do.<\/p>\n

On the way to that goal the little device has attracted an army of hobbyist and tinkerers, intrigued by the possibilities offered by this tiny, cheap computer. These backyard inventors have already created hundreds of applications for the Pi \u2013 from baby monitors to remote control LEGO cars and music synthesisers. To add to that a\u00a0Parisian non-profit organisation\u00a0is using Raspberry Pis to monitor airborne pollution in their city.<\/p>\n

The possibilities are literally endless.<\/p>\n

And the enthusiasm seems equally bottomless. The Pi went on sale for the first time on February 29 2012. Last week the foundation\u00a0announced\u00a0that their distributors have sold over a million of the devices.<\/p>\n

So why are people getting so excited about a computer that’s less powerful than a standard desktop PC was a decade ago?<\/p>\n

The answer hints at a broader movement in both culture and innovation.<\/p>\n

\"Raspberry<\/a>

Raspberry Pi<\/p><\/div>\n

People, young and old, want to get their hands dirty again. After decades of being cut off from the simple joy of making things, people are returning to brewing their own beer, baking their own bread and sewing their own clothes.<\/p>\n

This DIY ethos has always suited technology.<\/p>\n

The fathers of the personal computer revolution \u2013 men like Steve Wozniak<\/a> and Bill Gates<\/a> \u2013 started out as hobbyists. We see the same pattern a generation before them in Bill Hewlett<\/a> and Dave Packard<\/a> who founded Hewlett Packard<\/a> in a garage, and a generation after them in Mark Zuckerberg<\/a> who founded Facebook<\/a> in his dorm room.<\/p>\n

The Raspberry Pi Foundation is attempting to kick-start another wave of that powerful innovative force. And they are by no means alone. The Italian-born\u00a0Arduino\u00a0is even simpler and cheaper than the Raspberry Pi; and is a “microcontroller” rather than a fully fledged computer.<\/p>\n

This stripped-down device is the perfect way to lend intelligence to a simple electronic device like a toy or an appliance.<\/p>\n

The Arduino’s hardware is entirely open source, so it encourages not just programming software but tinkering with physical electronics. Like the Raspberry Pi, people have found hundreds of applications for the Arduino.\u00a0Some, like a chess-playing robot, defy belief.<\/p>\n

But there’s yet another trend underlying and complementing this movement: low-power computing.<\/p>\n

Because they are small and simple, the Raspberry Pi and Arduino are both extremely energy efficient and are able to run on small batteries for days or weeks at a time. Connected to the internet wirelessly, they become not so much computers as intelligent sensors.<\/p>\n

As they become cheaper and smaller, so will they become ubiquitous.<\/p>\n

\"Raspberry<\/a>

Raspberry Pi Layout<\/p><\/div>\n

Combine this idea with cloud computing, and we have the seeds of what Kevin Ashton dubbed “The Internet of Things” \u2013 a future in which even ordinary objects are connected to the internet.<\/p>\n

The sensors themselves need only be connected to this vast collective computing intelligence and the objects will immediately be part of that intelligence.<\/p>\n

Imagine one day being able to Google<\/a> your lost running shoe and the internet telling you which couch its behind. It seems like science fiction, but that’s where this next wave may be heading.<\/p>\n

In fact, the\u00a0Pinnocio microcontroller\u00a0project has just received funding to do exactly this.<\/p>\n

No matter what comes out of this new breed of DIY computer nerds, it’s exciting that ordinary people are playing with technology again.<\/p>\n

The technology industry, which has become monolithic, stale and lethargic \u2013 just like it was in the late 1960s \u2013 needs a few young punks to shake things up again, just like Steve Jobs<\/a> and Bill Gates did in the 1970s. At the very least it’s going to be fun to watch.<\/p>\n

Source: Mail & Guardian<\/a><\/p>\n

More Raspberry Pi articles<\/h3>\n

Raspberry Pi begins shipping<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

R360 PC: Raspberry Pi pricing changed, possibly delayed<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Raspberry Pi delayed again<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Raspberry Pi, the real cost<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s a quiet revolution taking place in the world of electronics and it’s being led by ordinary people, writes Alistair Fairweather.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":44703,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[4870,35,8043,8211],"class_list":["post-68546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","tag-bill-gates","tag-headline","tag-raspberry-pi","tag-steve-wozniak"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68546"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68546"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68636,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68546\/revisions\/68636"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}