Raspberry Pi Shipments Delayed A Bit, But Boards Are Coming In
Raspberry Pi is one of the biggest little names of 2012, promising a Linux-based micro PC for as little as $35. A $35 PC could obviously do wonders for the world at large, in developing nations and beyond, but there's just one problem: shipping. It's turning out to be fairly tough for a company to create a Linux-based PC en masse for as little as $35, but at least the company is keeping people informed. After missing initial shipping estimates, they've now stated that a delay is inevitable. Here's the quote: "We have spoken with BIS this morning, and they have confirmed that, given the volumes involved and the demographic mix of likely users, any development board exemption is not applicable to us; as a result, even the first uncased developer units of Raspberry Pi will require a CE mark prior to sale in the EU. As we mention below, we are working with RS Components and element14/Premier Farnell to bring Raspberry Pi into a compliant state as soon as is humanly possible.
The good news is that our first 2,000 boards arrived in the UK on Monday and that we are working to get them CE marked as soon as is humanly possible, in parallel with bringing the remainder of our initial batch into the country. Pete and Eben have been burning the midnight oil – literally; I only exchanged about three words with Eben yesterday, and those were when he got back in from a long day’s hacking at two in the morning. On the basis of preliminary measurements, we expect emissions from the uncased product to meet category A requirements comfortably without modification, and possibly to meet the more stringent category B requirements which we had originally expected would require a metalised case."
The good news is that the company is clearly making progress, and shipments will occur; it'll just take a little longer than expected.
The good news is that our first 2,000 boards arrived in the UK on Monday and that we are working to get them CE marked as soon as is humanly possible, in parallel with bringing the remainder of our initial batch into the country. Pete and Eben have been burning the midnight oil – literally; I only exchanged about three words with Eben yesterday, and those were when he got back in from a long day’s hacking at two in the morning. On the basis of preliminary measurements, we expect emissions from the uncased product to meet category A requirements comfortably without modification, and possibly to meet the more stringent category B requirements which we had originally expected would require a metalised case."
The good news is that the company is clearly making progress, and shipments will occur; it'll just take a little longer than expected.
