Items tagged with Raspberry Pi
It seems as though there is no shortage of alternatives to Raspberry Pi when it comes to single-board computers. A new entry makes its presence known every few months, but Raspberry Pi still has the most mindshare with the enthusiast/DIY community. Banana Pi is looking to change this with its latest fruity "Pi" offering: the BPI-M2S. The BPI-M2S is an impressive little device that fits into a compact 2.6" x 2.6" footprint. At the heart of the machine is a hexa-core Amlogic A311D SoC that features four Arm Cortex-A73 performance cores and two Cortex-A53 efficiency cores. Graphics duties are handled by an integrated Arm Mali-G52 MP4 GPU. The SoC is paired with 4GB of LPDDR4x memory, while 16GB...
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Many competitors to the Raspberry Pi family of single-board PCs have come and gone with varying levels of success. Pine64’s latest entry in this arena is now available for sale, and it’s called the Quartz64. The Quartz64 uses a Rockchip RK3566 SoC, a quad-core design that pairs an Arm Cortex-A55 CPU with a Mali-G52 2EE GPU. While this low-power SoC won’t win any performance battles against modern Arm chips found in smartphones and tablets, it’s plenty enough for the intended audience, capable of 4K video at 60 fps. When Pine64 first announced the Quartz64 back in February, it said that 2GB of RAM would come standard, with the option for 8GB. However, the Quartz64 is instead...
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One of the software options for running a Raspberry Pi module is Raspberry Pi OS (formerly Raspbian), the officially supported Debian-based operating system put out by The Raspberry Pi Foundation. It has been around since 2015 without too much complaint. However, a recent update has some Raspberry Pi OS users up in arms over a key change involving Microsoft. The latest update installs a Microsoft apt respository on all any machine running Raspberry Pi OS, and does it without any admin consent. As discovered by Reddit user fortysix_n_2, the official reason is an endorsement of Microsoft's integrated development environment (IDE), Visual Studio Code (VSCode), which is fine and dandy. However, it's...
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Whether it's a Nintendo Christmas ornament or an original Game Boy, we love seeing Raspberry Pi-based retro consoles stuffed into into nostalgic spaces. The ingenuity and effort required to make these contraptions that were not originally designed to do this sort of thing work is pretty astounding. The Game Boy in particular was pretty wild because it was a fully functional, playable machine. However, the mod we'll look at today takes the cake. Reddit user Josh0O0 showed off a retro console stuffed into the shell of Super Nintendo controller with not only a Raspberry Pi Zero running an SNES emulator, but also all the inner workings required for controlling games and displaying them on a...
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Single-board computers seemingly get more powerful by the day. The Raspberry Pi 4 gets all the attention and a lot of software support, but there are plenty of other alternatives out there that also deserve your attention. One new SBC will run x86 Windows 10 or most Linux distros without any need for platform-specific support, and promises to hit a low enough price point to give the Raspberry Pi serious competition. Not only that, but a Windows version for not a whole lot more money looks like a real winner. The Hackboard 2 is a newly-announced tiny x86 PC powered by an Intel Celeron N4020 processor. This is a dual-core CPU based on Intel's Gemini Lake Atom architecture with a base clock...
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As many suspected would eventually happen, the folks at the Raspberry Pi Foundation have taken its Raspberry Pi 4 Model B and are now offering it as a more compact Compute Module. The new Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4, as it is called, retains many of the same features and hardware as its bigger brother, but in smaller form with an attractive price tag. This is something the Raspberry Pi Foundation has been doing for several years, with Compute Module variants eventually following the launch of the Raspberry Pi 1, Raspberry Pi 3, Raspberry Pi 3+, and now the Raspberry Pi 4. Only the Raspberry Pi 2 never got an invite to the Compute Module party, because it only retained flagship status for 13...
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Scientists and researchers are hard at work trying to fully understand the deadly COVID-19 virus and slow its spread, as well as develop a vaccine. You don't have to be a scientist to help in the effort, though. Distributed computing projects like Folding@home and Rosetta@home have both joined in the fight against the virus, and both have gained support for 64-bit ARM through Neocortix's mobile app. I had never heard of Neocortix before today, but the outfit offers a distributed computing app for smartphones, called PhonePaycheck. What it does is tap into idle processing cycles to work on projects, and in exchange, users can earn a little bit of money. According to Neocortix, top earners can...
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Martin Thomas is an NVIDIA engineer, and he has concocted something very cool that fans of retro games and tiny single board PCs will really appreciate. He has taken an inexpensive Raspberry Pi 3B+ and transformed it into a machine that is capable of running a version of Quake3 at over 100 fps. To get the game to run at that frame rate on the basic Pi hardware, Thomas created a new low-level Vulkan-based RPi-VK-Driver for the RPi platform and used it to power VkQuake3 on the Raspberry Pi. Quake 3 fans and Raspberry Pi tinkerers who want to build a machine to run the game themselves can do so since the driver used is publicly available on GitHub. The RPi-VK-Driver v1.0 can now also be downloaded...
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Rather than go stir crazy while social distancing, some people are busying themselves with fun and unique projects involving the Raspberry Pi. Eben Kouao is one of those folks. He took a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B (2GB) and built himself a smart mirror, which is exactly what it sounds like—a mirror with smart capabilities and touch support. It also features facial recognition capabilities, giving his Smart Mirror AI (SMAI) project some added depth and usability. "With SMAI, you can now keep track of your daily tasks, control your home appliances through its touch interface. With its facial recognition, you can now load up your personalized information—ranging from your daily commute to...
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There are a million and one potential projects for the Raspberry Pi (like retro gaming), the affordable little PC that fits in the palm of your hand. One of them is to make your own digital camera. If that is the goal, you may want to look into the new 'Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera' accessory, which works with every Raspberry Pi dating back to the original Raspberry Pi 1 Model B. The tiny add-on consists of a 12.3-megapixel Sony IMX477 camera sensor. It has a 1.55μm × 1.55μm pixel size (double the pixel area of the IMX219), a back illuminate sensor architecture, and an integrated back-focus adjustment ring and tripod mount. It runs $50 at the usual Raspberry Pi retailers, such...
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We've seen several cool projects during the coronavirus pandemic that people have designed using the Raspberry Pi platform. Over on reddit, another very cool project has turned up from someone going by balmy-summer, and the project is called the Pi MixMakr. The project has five bottles of liquor on top along with five dispensers inside the cabinet. The drink glass is set on a sliding platform that moves under the bottles to mix a cocktail and inject cola or other flavorings as desired. The whole point of the machine is to mix a drink without the drinker actually having to do it themselves. The parts list for the project includes: Raspberry Pi 3B FSR406 (FSR sensor, checks glass is on platform)...
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One of the most in-demand pieces of medical equipment during the coronavirus pandemic around the world is the ventilator. For some with COVID-19, respiratory distress is a problem, and ventilatory support is required to keep patients alive. The problem that many hospitals and medical staff around the world are facing is a shortage of these ventilators. This has led to homegrown designs like this ventilator that uses a Raspberry Pi as the brains. The ventilator was designed by a team in Columbia to test a home-built machine using easy-to-source parts. The team used a design and computer code posted online in March by a man from California who had no prior experience creating medical equipment....
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Are you going stir crazy yet? Depending on what field you are in, you might find yourself on a leave of absence. Even if not, many parts of the country are on quarantine as social distancing takes hold due to the coronavirus. What's a person to do when suddenly stuck at home? Well, one option is to build your own virtual reality headset, as an industrious user on Reddit did. Reddit user Dungeon_Master_Dan (just "Dan" from here on out) posted a neat work log of how he built a set of "Pi Goggles" using an Raspberry Pi 2 Model B, Yuneec Skyview FPV headset, 4,000 mAh battery pack, Raspberry Pi IR camera module, Logitech Wireless Keyboard, SD card loaded with Raspbian, a short USB male to micro-USB...
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Taiwanese firm DFI has just unveiled its latest single board computer (SBC), and it looks to pack quite a punch thanks to its chosen processor. The DFI GHF51 compares favorably to the Raspberry Pi 4 in size, but instead of an ARM-based processor, it includes an AMD Ryzen Embedded R1000 Series APU. DFI says that the processor features a 12W TDP, which means that customers should be able to choose from the Ryzen Embedded R1606G (2-core/4-thread, 3.5GHz boost) or the Ryzen Embedded R1505G (2-core/4-thread, 3.3GHz boost). Both feature a TDP range of 12 to 25 watts and integrated Vega 3 graphics. The board itself measures 84mm x 55mm and manages to incorporate up to 8GB of single-channel...
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There are so many things that can be done with a little spare time and a Raspberry Pi that it boggles the mind how versatile the tiny single board computer can be. This all-in-one mini computer can be made to do just about anything builders can dream up. One of the more recent projects we've seen using the Pi turned up on Reddit from a person called jul-bruegger who combined the Raspberry Pi Zero with some maker know-how, a little elbow grease and a small display to show a record of the number of coronavirus cases identified, in real-time. The data on its display shows coronavirus cases in real-time, broken out by country and global statistics on different lines. The design has the Pi pull...
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Many tech companies are investing heavily in artificial intelligence (AI). These kinds of programs and products can be rather expensive, but there are a few that are more accessible to the public and small companies. Google’s Coral AI board has just come out of beta and has been released on a wider scale. Coral is a complete AI toolkit that helps researchers to “bring new models out of the data center and onto devices, running TensorFlow models efficiently at the edge.” The toolkit has allowed a variety of institutions to incorporate AI into new solutions. For example, Virgo Surgical Video Solutions has used Coral to improve the accuracy of endoscopies. This type of technology...
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Back in June, the Raspberry Pi Foundation announced their newest single-board computer, the Raspberry Pi 4. This tiny PC packs a quad-core Cortex A72 SoC from Broadcom and up to 4 GB of DDR4 memory at a very attractive price. While aimed at emerging markets for folks new to computers, the Pi really caught on with retro gamers and "makers" in general from the start. The latest Pi has a whole lot more computing horsepower than the last iteration, but software support hadn't quite caught up—until just now. The LibRetro team released Lakka version 2.3 with a ton of new features, a retro gaming focus, and perhaps the most important is official support for the Raspberry Pi 4. Raspberry...
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When it comes to single-board PCs, the Raspberry Pi is by far the most popular device on the market, and has found uses in a number of different market sectors. However, there are also plenty of competitors out there that try to compete with the Raspberry Pi on price, or outdo it with regards to outright performance. The latest challenger to the throne comes from Radxa, which is launching its new Rock Pi X single-board PC. Unlike the newly released Raspberry Pi 4, the Rock Pi X doesn't make use of a quad-core ARM SoC; instead, it uses one of Intel's legacy Atom x5-Z8300 processors (Cherry Trail). This quad-core SoC originally launched over four years ago and has base/boost frequencies...
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The Raspberry Pi 4 launched just a few months ago in late June, and represented the most powerful extension of the single-board PC concept to-date. The performance of the quad-core Broadcom BCM2711 Cortex-A72 SoC means that users can expect an increase in heat generated; especially when the system is overclocked. Although it seems a little comical to think of people overclocking a RPi, there are plenty of enthusiasts out there that need to eke out every last bit of performance for their applications. That's where the Blink Blink ICE Tower Fan comes into play. The cooler features a beefy radiator along with 5mm copper tubes and a 58mm fan. And in what is a bit of an overindulgence for...
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Pine64 has made a name for itself by producing single-board PCs that are competitive with the incredibly Raspberry Pi family. Single-board PCs are well-known not only for their relatively affordable prices, but also their versatility when it comes to empowering new form-factors. Pine64's latest venture is with what it is calling the Pinebook Pro, which is a Linux-based laptop. The Pinebook Pro is said to offer performance comparable to that of the newly released Raspberry Pi 4, and features a hexa-core Rockchip RX3399 ARM64 SoC, 4GB of RAM and a total of 64GB eMMC storage. Given that this is a laptop, we should point out that it has a 14.1-inch IPS display with a resolution of 1920x1080....
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Last November the refreshed Raspberry Pi 3 Model A+ developer board landed on the market with a price tag of $25. A new version of the developer board has debuted called the Raspberry Pi 4 starting at $35. The Raspberry Pi 4 brings with it improved performance and more connectivity along withdual Micro HDMI ports supporting up to two 4K displays. Raspberry Pi 4 is powered by a Broadcom BCM2711 quad-core Cortex-A72 64-bit unit running at 1.5GHz. The Pi 4 can be fitted with 1GB, 2GB, or 4GB of LPDDR4-2400 SDRAM. Both 2.4GHz and 5.0GHz 802.11ac WiFi is supported along with Bluetooth 5.0 BLE. Wired connectivity support includes a gigabit Ethernet port, and the board has a pair of USB 3.0 ports...
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Houston, we have a security issue (you thought we were going to say "problem," didn't you?). Actually, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has several security issues, according to an audit by the Office of Inspector General. Among other things, an examination of JPL's network security controls found that the division was the target of a cyberattack in April 2018, in which hackers exploited a Raspberry Pi computer to gain access to the network. Simply put, "the device should not have been permitted on the JPL network without the JPL Office of the Chief Information Officer's (OCIO) review and approval," the report states. Nevertheless, hackers leveraged a vulnerable Raspberry Pi to swipe 500...
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