Operating systems

New Raspberry Pi operating system for seniors

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A maker/programmer called Gerald decided that the Raspberry Pi was the perfect computer for senior citizens (a term I’m not totally sure I like all that much, but heigh-ho). He has created a new operating system distro called “Senior Pi” which is a stripped-down affair with basic utilities such as email, an internet radio and things like that. It is designed to be used with a large HDMI touchscreen (although I daresay someone could get it working with the new Raspberry Pi display. It is designed to be a two-user system: one is the senior user, the other is a support user who sets-up and maintains the software. For more information, and to download and try it out, head over to the creator’s wiki website.

Thanks to the Raspberry Pi Foundation for finding this one.

Crowdfunding, GPIO boards

New LED display add-on slips over the GPIO on the Raspberry Pi – Kickstarter

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David Meiklejohn from Gooligum Electronics has just launched a Kickstarter for their new add-on board called the Joey. The Joey slips over the GPIO pins (without a header – it’s all done with friction, similar to the Ryanteck Debug Clip) and sticks out to the side and provides you with an I2C-controlled 8-segment, 4-digit display. This has many uses, from displaying your IP address to providing sensor readings. Earlybirds are currently available at $11 which is great value for something so useful. Take a look at the Kickstarter here or watch their video below:

DSI display, Nature, Science, Sensors

Weather station using the Raspberry Pi touchscreen and Kivy

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Alan Pullen is currently working on a weather station project which will bring together a Pi with an Arduino to take readings and display them onto a Raspberry Pi touchscreen. He wants to measure temperature, pressure, humidity, rainfall and, very excitingly lightning strikes! The interface will be written in Kivy which has previously been shown to be a great way of doing touchscreen control panels. He wrote about the start of his project on his blog and he is maintaining a project page here.

Interview, Programming

GPIO Zero for the Raspberry Pi – more details

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Alex Eames has scored a great interview with Ben Nuttall about his new GPIO library, GPIO Zero. Zero, which is written on top of Ben Croston’s great RPi.GPIO library, aims to abstract some of the more difficult or long-winded concepts and is aimed at education and developers who want to do their code in a more object-orientated and neater way. Read the interview and Alex’s initial thoughts here.

Pictured: a Raspberry Pi and the RasPiO portsplus board (credit: Alex Eames)

Arduino, Art, Graphics, Making, Video, Wearable

Wearable guerilla video projection device made out of a Raspberry Pi

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Artist R▲has created the VIDEOBLAST_R which is a wrist-mounted device which allows the wearer to project pre-prepared artistic imagery on any surface. Animation is triggered by a Wii nunchuck controller and the whole thing is mounted on a rollerblade armguard. An Arduino holds the imagery and transmits them to a Raspberry Pi which then handles the output via a tiny projector. Sounds are also included and the unit is powered by a powerbank (which is the thing hidden up his sleeve). You can read more about the project at the artist’s website.