Yeah, but the one of sparkfun has "Gold" in the name!

check the Pi wiki. Although not many people own one yet, there are a hand full of hardware extensions in the works or already available. I find it amazing how a small eco system around the Pi is already evolving:

- Expansion Boards
- Peripherals
- GPIO Documentation

Sparkfun has these BlueSMIRF BT modules which can be connected to one of the uarts of the Pi.

Some people think Desktop with shiny windows if they hear the word computer.

The Pi has (for example) GPIO ports along with SPI, I2C, UART and more. If this is not enough, or you don't want to design your own PCB you might add a gert board and you get motor drivers without any knowledge of electronics. Now you have a robotics platform. Since it is running Linux one has a plethora of programming languages at hand to do something useful with these features (for example robotics).

Or you may just want to build an appliance which can be controlled via http, IR whatever (media center any one?).

Of course, it can also be used as very cheap desktop or server of some sort. But for people with an imagination beyond the Desktop this little computer is a big deal.

2 millions ordered in that short time without millions of marketing budget tells me that some people might have a vision beyond the Desktop. And that for only $35.

Cheers,
-S

Do you know what the purpose of the Pi is? An educational computer for children (like the amiga or the atari back when we were young).

It has a TV out and an HDMI Port. I live in Europe, I don't know any family without a TV (well very few, but they don't have a TV by choice and not because they can't afford one, however they have a computer and therefore a computer display). RasPi is a UK Company. The European community is regulating cellphone chargers. They must use an USB Micro-B connector (with 800-1000 mA output). Guess what? This is also the sort of power supply the RasPi needs. Since most Europeans get a new cellphone every 1-2 years, these chargers are disposable (every new phone comes with a new charger even though the old one is still working perfectly).

So display available, check. Power supply available, check.

Now all we need is an SD card, a Keyboard and a mouse (USB). I live in one of the most expensive places in the world. But a cheap keyboard and a cheap mouse would not cost more than 15 us dollars. And if I were a smart kid, I'd ask family and friends if I could buy used ones (which I probably would get donated). NEarly all families already have a mac or windows pc (but might not want their children to break it while experimenting) mouse and keyboard could be used from the already available computer.

Well, now we have only one item left that is missing, the SD card. Many digital cameras are replaced here with smart phones. It's not the same but I see those aging cameras laying around in many house holds. Guess what, they often use SD cards. But since the SD card needs to be reformatted and somewhat inserted permanently into the device, it might be reasonable to buy a separate one.

This leaves us with one extra expense: a new SD card for $20-30, big deal!

I personally think the RasPi team has a very neat design there, don't you?

Cheers,
-S

If I had mod points ...

Are you aware, that iran is constructing and building fighter jets? I am always amazed by the broad underestimation of iran, just because they are the bad "towel-head" terrerists (for some people).

Bah, looks like they haven't had time to create a good ending before the Release date. Doesn't matter here you can buy it for some additional $ as DLC.

Also swiss here, I spend roughly $5-10K a year on holidays. I like the USA but, unfortunately, it is also on my no fly list for some years.

As an interesting fact, domestic flights in the US have been increasing up until 2006-2007, since then they are decreasing (per person and per number of flights).

http://www.bts.gov/xml/air_traffic/src/index.xml#CustomizeTable

Cheers,
-S

We are currently migrating 4500 seats from Office 2003 to Office 2010. You will certainly not be surprised to hear that this migration costs us a lot and the next migration is coming, windows 7, and outlook, and, and, and, and.

Good luck with your 6ft pole for touch screen control on the 60" display.

Google Cache Link: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?bih=966&sclient=psy-ab&q=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fthreatpost.com%2Fen_us%2Fblogs%2Fmask-gone-anonymous-leaders-left-big-footprint-online-030912&oq=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fthreatpost.com%2Fen_us%2Fblogs%2Fmask-gone-anonymous-leaders-left-big-footprint-online-030912&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=3&gs_upl=4796l8893l1l9242l8l6l1l0l0l0l158l652l4.2l7l0&gs_l=serp.3...4796l8893l1l9242l8l6l1l0l0l0l158l652l4j2l7l0&pbx=1

I use puppetmaster on more than 10 machines. I guess these prices are for the "enterprise* Version which offers VMWare management, GUI and many more features. All unneeded for me.

Cheers,
-S

PS: try # apt-get install puppetmaster

Tesla would love this shit!

just undoing misplaced mod points.