Forgot your password?

Close
typodupeerror

Comment: Re:Pi is the new wok (Score 1) 213

by PReDiToR (#40208635) Attached to: First Steps With the Raspberry Pi
A wok is intended to be heated beyond the temperature at which some non-stick coatings flake off.
Stir fry cooking is intended to use small pieces of food flash fried so they retain their texture and nutrients.
People who care about their diet recognise that woks are a healthy way to prepare food and use them regularly.

The RasPi has got too much publicity for all the wrong reasons. Everyone here who is talking about media centres and file servers is kind of missing the point that these things are made by a charity for kids, so they can get into computers rather than websites. If you want something to run Android, buy an Android phone/tablet, or look at Android x86, if you want a file server get a SLUG and if you're after a microcontroller by all means, have at a large pile of Arduinos with a soldering iron. This device isn't for everyone and was never intended to be.
I for one welcome the flood of Model Bs hitting eBay so that kids can get their hands on them, or being able to break dad's RasPi without getting into trouble. That's why they are so cheap, so they can be replaced after they have been busted by inquisitive, experimenting kids.

Curiously, my RasPi is working fine with the "poorly documented, incomplete" Arch Linux distro I have on it. I find that the features I need all seem to be present and correct.
A lot of people can't be bothered to trawl GOOG for answers to "how do I make this Linux thing work" and so your point is correct, for those people. But if the media hadn't been all over this like a rash maybe these people wouldn't have thought "I must have one of those ... Ooh Shiny".

Comment: Re:A more important question... (Score 1) 213

by PReDiToR (#40208431) Attached to: First Steps With the Raspberry Pi
Because some of us want to use Arch Linux and they already had a distro compiled for ARM.

Arch comes up for the first time with a CLI and a lot of people using this device (me included) won't be bothering to install a GUI. I never even considered installing FedoraRemix or Debian.

Another thing to remember is that the Foundation didn't make the distros, the community and the distros themselves developed the OSs to run on these things.

FedoraRemix was scheduled to be the OS of choice, but you know how deadlines are ...

Comment: Re:The point? (Score 1) 213

by PReDiToR (#40208145) Attached to: First Steps With the Raspberry Pi

You boot it from the USB, so who cares

Initial boot is from the SD card, but after that you can go to the USB/Ethernet(Model B only) for /

You probably wouldn't want to bitbang to some random IC you wanted to talk to with R-Pi

Actually, this is pretty much why the RasPi was made. Getting kids to plug stuff into their computer and make it work. Gert Van Loo has made an extension board to help, taking care of buffering the IOs so that the RasPi doesn't pop a fuse or the SoC.
The RasPi has built in CSI for cameras, directly into the GPU so cameras aren't going to need much in the way of connecting and learning. They will just be used and programmed around. There is already a fairly good idea at the Foundation of which camera module will be supported.

Come over to the forums and have a look. If you order one now you won't have to wait too long for delivery.

Education

First Steps With the Raspberry Pi 213

Posted by timothy
from the free-in-cracker-jacks dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Raspberry Pi received an extraordinary amount of pre-launch coverage. It truly went viral with major news corporations such as the BBC giving extensive coverage. Not without reason, it is groundbreaking to have a small, capable computer retailing at less than the price of a new console game. There have been a number of ventures that have tried to produce a cheap computer such as a laptop and a tablet but which never materialised at these price points. Nothing comes close to the Raspberry Pi in terms of affordability, which is even more important in the current economic climate. Producing a PC capable of running Linux, Quake III-quality games, and 1080p video is worthy of praise." Beyond praise, though, this article details the hooking-up and mucking-about phases, and offers some ideas of what it's useful for.
Education

Speech Recognition Using the Raspberry Pi 74

Posted by timothy
from the cheaper-than-my-watch-and-more-versatile dept.
aonsquared writes "In a previous Slashdot story, I demonstrated a voice-controlled robotic arm using the open-source speech decoder Julius. This time, I have managed to port the system to a Raspberry Pi to control the same robotic arm, and as usual, posted the tutorial and source code. Some negative reviews of the Raspberry Pi are starting to appear, and they're missing the educational point of this device — I'm hoping this will counter the naysayers, and help inspire a new generation of hackers, as well as also bring open-source speech recognition the same attention as proprietary solutions (i.e Siri) are getting!"
Piracy

Rights Holders See Little Point Creating Legal Content Sources 395

Posted by timothy
from the regulatory-capture-has-only-just-begun dept.
aesoteric writes "Six weeks after Hollywood lost a landmark internet piracy case in Australia, it appears the film studios have gone cold on the idea of helping develop legal avenues to access copyrighted content as a way to combat piracy. Instead, they've produced research to show people will continue pirating even if there are legitimate content sources available. The results appear to support the studios' policy position that legislation is a preferable way of dealing with the issue." The industry-controlled kill switch is a popular idea all over the world.
Image

Fox News Ties 'Flame' Malware To Angry Birds 177

Posted by Soulskill
from the there's-bad-men-in-our-internets dept.
eldavojohn writes "The title of this hard-hitting piece of journalism reads 'Powerful 'Flame' cyberweapon tied to popular Angry Birds game,' and opens with, 'The most sophisticated and powerful cyberweapon uncovered to date was written in the LUA computer language, cyber security experts tell Fox News — the same one used to make the incredibly popular Angry Birds game.' The rest of the details that are actually pertinent to the story follow that important message. The graphic for this story? Perhaps a map of Iran, or the LUA logo, or maybe the stereotyped evil hacker in a ski mask? Nope, all Angry Birds. Describing LUA as 'Gamer Code,' Fox for some reason (popularity?) selects Angry Birds from an insanely long list in their article implying guilt-by-shared-development-language. I'm not sure if explaining machine language to them would alleviate the perceived problem or cause them to burn their desktops in the streets and launch a new crusade to protect the children."

You won't skid if you stay in a rut. -- Frank Hubbard