RaspberryPi
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3D hand scanner could give you custom braces
Many 3D scanners are built to scan whole objects, but that doesn't necessarily cut it if you're trying to scan a specific part. Ever try to map your own hand? Yeah, that doesn't work very well. However, recent graduate Pieter Smakman has a better way. His custom-built Curatio scanner creates a detailed 3D model of your hand simply by putting your hand inside a ring -- you don't have to wave a device around. It uses relatively off-the-shelf parts for the capture process, too, including Raspberry Pi mini-PCs, 32 (!) cameras and laser pointers.
Ben Heck's Raspberry Pi Bitscope mod
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-929136{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-929136, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-929136{width:100%;display:block;} try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-929136").style.display="none";}catch(e){} If you need to troubleshoot or design electronic hardware, an oscilloscope is a useful bit of kit. This week Ben and Felix put together a Raspberry Pi-based Bitscope Micro Oscilloscope with a 7-inch touchscreen. Using Autodesk Fusion 360 to design a case for 3D printing in combination with a laser cut back and stand, Ben guides us through case design considerations to ensure everything is a good fit (especially with the insanity of the metric system). There's also a sneak insight into a future project! Remember you can watch behind the scenes footage, get the build files for this project and interact with the cast on the element14 community, home of The Ben Heck Show.
Comcast customer's Raspberry Pi bot tweets when speeds are lousy
No one likes complaining to an internet service provider, but it's especially frustrating when you're not getting the performance you're paying for. Many ISPs refuse to do anything unless your speeds are truly glacial, even if the slowdowns create serious problems. Well, Comcast customer AlekseyP has devised a clever way to make his voice heard: he created a Raspberry Pi-powered Twitter bot. The machine automatically tweets his speeds to Comcast whenever the downstream rate falls below 50Mbps, or a third of the 150Mbps he's supposed to be getting. The approach saves him the trouble of calling out Comcast himself, and catches those speed drops even when the house is empty.
Firefox OS may live on in a TV stick and Pi-powered keyboard
Shortly after Mozilla said that it was done with Firefox OS smartphones, it confirmed that the OS would live on in connected devices. We might now have a better idea of what that means, thanks to a leak from Hipertextual. The Spanish site unearthed several internal Mozilla documents showing a Firefox keyboard, stick, hub and, most unusually, a Raspberry Pi powered keyboard. When queried by Venture Beat, Mozilla confirmed that the devices were "early product concept work by one of our developers," but wouldn't say if they were still under development.
PINE A64 is a $15, 'high-performance' take on the Raspberry Pi
Thanks to boards like the Raspberry Pi, DIY computing projects are no longer reserved for enthusiasts who can afford to sink hundreds of dollars into them. As the new $5 Pi Zero demonstrates, picking up on a new project now costs the same as a cup of coffee. It also means that if a new entrant wants to make an impact, it needs to include a better range of components or beat its competition on price. Or both. And that's exactly what PINE64 Inc. is looking to do.
Raspberry Pi's latest computer costs just $5
Over the years, the Raspberry Pi Foundation has enabled universities and hobbyists to create their own DIY computing projects with its affordable boards. But that doesn't mean it's stopping there. Today, the company unveiled its latest programmable computing board, the Raspberry Pi Zero, and it costs just $5 (£4). With its Broadcom BCM2835 application processor (1GHz ARM11 core), 512MB of RAM, a microSD card slot, a mini-HDMI socket supporting 1080p (at 60 frames per second), micro-USB sockets and an identical pin layout to its larger Pi siblings, the Zero can do plenty of heavy lifting, despite its tiny size. For context: at 65mm x 30mm, it's smaller than a credit card and has 40-percent faster chip than the first ever Pi.
This Raspberry Pi handheld wants to be every gadget in the world
Chances are, you've already got a versatile computer in your pocket -- smartphones play music, record video, play games and more -- but what if it was smaller, open source and completely hackable? Then you'd have something like the Poco "supercomputer," a portable media device with the footprint of a credit card and the heart of a Raspberry Pi.
Raspberry Pi offers custom-made, mass-produced boards
It's one thing to buy a Raspberry Pi for your own tinkering, but it's another when you need to buy a lot of them for your company -- you aren't going to tweak thousands of boards by hand. Thankfully, you don't have to. Raspberry Pi is teaming up with Element14 on a customization service that lets organizations order 3,000 or more specially-made boards at once. You can use the service to add or remove connections, rejigger the layout and otherwise get the exact mini computer you want. This is helpful if you're going to sell a Raspberry Pi-powered device (particularly important for appliances and other connected gadgets), but it should also be handy for education and other fields where an off-the-shelf board might not cut the mustard. It'll take up to three weeks before Element14 starts designing your custom board, let alone shipping it, but that could be a small price to pay if you're determined to get the right mix of circuitry.
Listen to a 'CD' made from fool's gold, powered by a Raspberry Pi
What's music to some is noise to others. And that's perhaps most apparent with Ra the latest piece from the creator of an 8-bit camera gun, ::vtol::. As the artist writes in the demo's Vimeo description, the project uses a laser to scan the irregularities on the surface of a pyrite disc. The artist, real-name Dimitry Morozov, says that this disc was a gift from a mineral seller and that all of the tech present was centered around the idea of making a laser sound reader that'd "be able to produce sound from various uneven surfaces." Oh, and Morozov wanted to use the bare minimum tools to make it. What do those include? A Raspberry Pi, Arduino Nano, a homemade laser pickup, stepper motor, servo motor and a three watt mono sound system. If you want to see it in action, you're going to have to hit the Sound Museum in St. Petersburg.
Microsoft kit helps you run Windows 10 on a Raspberry Pi
Sure, it's no secret that you can run Windows 10 on a tiny Raspberry Pi 2, but actually doing that could prove to be a challenge. What parts do you need? And what do you do with it when you're ready? That's where Microsoft and Adafruit think they can help. They've released a Windows IoT Core Starter Kit that gives you everything you need to get going, including an SD card preloaded with Windows 10 IoT Core and the tools you need (both hardware and software) to start on some projects. It'll cost you $115 if you need a Raspberry Pi 2 at the same time, and $75 if you already have one sitting around. That's a lot of money to spend on such a modest device, but it might pay off if you'd like to spend more time creating clever machines than searching forums for help.
21's Bitcoin Computer is a Raspberry Pi-powered mining tool
If you've been searching for a non-DIY Bitcoin mining machine, there's now a device that could meet all your needs. Announced earlier today, the 21 Bitcoin Computer is a pocketable, Raspberry Pi-powered tool with native hardware and software support for the open-source, peer-to-peer money protocol. 21.co, the startup behind the new product, says you can use it to seamlessly buy or sell digital goods and services from a custom command line interface. What's more, thanks to a built-in payments system, you can also set up the Bitcoin Computer to sell your own API calls (like language-to-language translations) and even create a personal store for virtual items.
ICYMI: Zero-G booze glass, exoskeleton walk of fame and more
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-703008{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-703008, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-703008{width:570px;display:block;} try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-703008").style.display="none";}catch(e){} Today on In Case You Missed It: The Open Space Agency designed a zero-G whiskey glass for Ballantine whiskey, aka enabling astronauts and other space travelers to swirl (but not sniff) with refinement no matter where their travels may take them. Raspberry Pi has a new touchscreen display that will let people make new uses for the credit card-sized programmable computer. A paralyzed man is walking around in an exoskeleton with ease after undergoing a spinal cord stimulation program at UCLA. He's the first paralyzed person to regain enough feeling in his legs to walk confidently in an exoskeleton and we are all in awe.
Raspberry Pi gets an official touchscreen display
Although it's pretty easy to hook up a Raspberry Pi to a screen using its HDMI port, it's not exactly the most portable of solutions (especially if there isn't a TV or monitor around). The Raspberry Pi Foundation recognized this, so it set about finding a "simple, embeddable display" capable of giving Pi owners a screen from which to work from, but that also embodies the DIY spirit of the board that it connects to. It's taken almost a year, but the official Raspberry Pi touch display has gone on sale today, offering tinkerers a 7-inch capacitive 800 x 480 touchscreen display that supports 10-finger touch.
Raspberry Pi transforms upright piano into a retro loop player
Upright piano's don't exactly scream "high-tech," since everyone's weird aunt has one. A pair of hackers from a company called MajorMega may change your mind, however as they've modified one to give you and your friends a fun way to create multi-part compositions. The "Quaver" upright piano is equipped with a Raspberry pie board that makes it act like a 4-track recorder and loop sampler. All you have to do is sit down, punch the big "record" button and bang out your part of the song. When you hit the button again, the piano will instantly play back your creation in a loop.
Meet the Micro:bit, the BBC's tiny programmable computer for kids
The Raspberry Pi has been a huge success story for Britain, giving millions of people an affordable way to tinker and learn with pocket-sized hardware. Now, the BBC is hoping to make a similar impact with the "Micro:bit." Like the Raspberry Pi, this tiny computer has been created to help youngsters learn the fundamentals of programming and computer construction. Today in London, the broadcaster unveiled the Micro:bit's final design -- a rectangular, credit card-style board measuring 4cm by 5cm -- and some of the all-important hardware features. These include 25 red LEDs, which can show messages and facilitate games, two programmable buttons, an on-board accelerometer and magnetometer. The device also offers Bluetooth LE connectivity, a microUSB slot and five input and output (I/O) rings that can be hooked up with crocodile clips and 4mm banana plugs. It's been a while since the original BBC Micro was considered cutting edge, but even so -- this new device is roughly 18 times faster and 67 times lighter than its spiritual predecessor.
At last, the Raspberry Pi mini PC has an official case
There's no question that the Raspberry Pi is successful among the homebrew computing crowd. However, it's not what you'd call consumer-friendly -- the bare circuit board you normally get is clearly intended for tinkerers who plan to put the mini PC inside their own projects. Mercifully, you won't have to devise a shell for it (or run it exposed) for much longer. Raspberry Pi has released an official case that gives a home to either the Raspberry Pi 2 Model B or the original's Model B+. It's a fairly unassuming piece of plastic, but it'll both protect your gear and give you access to both the primary ports and the GPIO port often used for DIY creations. More importantly, this add-on costs just £6 ($9). At that price, it's a no-brainer if you're treating the Raspberry Pi as a tiny desktop, an ad blocker or some other kind of self-contained machine.
The old Raspberry Pi gets an overdue price cut
If you've ever toyed with the idea of starting a DIY-computing project, chances are you will have considered (or bought) the Raspberry Pi. You're not alone: more than five million of the boards have now been sold. It's prompted companies like Intel and Imagination to try to match their features, while devices like the $9 CHIP are hoping to outdo them on price. With so many competitors snapping at its heels, the Raspberry Pi Foundation has decided to take action. It announced today that it's cutting the cost of its former flagship board by reducing the Model B+ to $25/£16.
Get your Windows 10 preview for Raspberry Pi 2 while it's hot
Day one of Microsoft's Build 2015 conference is in the books, but that doesn't mean the news has stopped. The Windows 10 IoT Core Insider developer preview (phew!) has launched for small devices including the Raspberry Pi 2. Redmond admits that it's still pretty rough around the edges, but it's hoping that the maker community can provide feedback for how the platform's turning out along the road to a full release. What's more, the software giant is partnering with Arduino for a series of "Arduino Certified" products to bring the ubiquitous DIY boards into the Windows family and take advantage of all that the software has to offer. For example, cloud computing, a familiar user interface, image processing and a ton more. It follows the theme of bringing everything under one roof that Nadella and Co. have been so vocal about lately, and should hopefully help tinkerers develop some pretty powerful stuff in their garage.
Pack your Raspberry Pi into an underpowered laptop for $100
The Raspberry Pi has already found its way into a number of unusual applications from DIY cell phones to Gif-capturing cameras. Now, a recently launched IndieGoGo campaign aims to put it somewhere more familiar: your lap. The PiKasa is essentially a laptop shell. It doesn't sport a 3D-printed chasis like the Pi-Top but does feature a 7-inch LCD display over a ruggedized keyboard, a smattering of connectivity ports and charging cables -- basically, everything you'd need except the actual computer bits and power supply.
This is how Microsoft will unite your Windows 10 devices
Microsoft's big promise with Windows 10 is its ability to run apps across the entire platform. The framework for these universal apps hasn't been described in much detail, but a post on the Windows Blog gives a bit more insight under the hood. Redmond's calling these "mobile experiences," meaning apps you can use across a variety of different devices; the software is mobile, not the gizmo you're using it on. Cortana moving from smartphone to desktop and the Xbox One's Game DVR tool being available on your gaming PC are but a few examples. The idea is to offer a set of standards across the Windows 10 platform so everything remains familiar regardless of what piece of hardware you're accessing the application from. That means everything should have, in Microsoft's words, an adaptive user experience with natural inputs; calls for cloud-based services including Cortana integration and the action center and one design language across the board.
