The Average Man continues his series on the camera module with a tutorial on using the raspistill and raspivid commands to take stills and video.
Create your own J.A.R.V.I.S. with Jasper and the #RaspberryPi
If you’ve ever wanted to replicate Tony Stark’s J.A.R.V.I.S., you can be well on your way with this project.
Shubhro Saha and Charlie Marsh from Princeton University have developed an always-on voice-recognition-and-response system called Jasper. It recognises it’s own name and commands you give to it verbally and then speaks aloud a response.
They’ve created a lovely website for it at http://jasperproject.github.io/ where you can find out how to build your own Jasper and download the code. There is even documentation for how you can extend Jasper for your own uses – it’s all written in Python so it would be pretty simple to modify.
Find out more about Jasper here or watch their video below:
How to set-up wireless networking on your #RaspberryPi
Christian Cawley over at MakeUseOf.com has written a tutorial on wireless networking. This tutorial is basic stuff for those of you who want to use a wifi dongle to connect to your home or work network. Interestingly, he recommends using a cheap wifi dongle from The Pi Hut.
New #RaspberryPi Camera Module tutorial series
The Southend-on-Sea based “Average Man” is doing a new tutorial series on the operation of the Raspberry Pi camera module. His first tutorial is all about connecting the camera to the Pi and is ideal for anyone who has just got, or is thinking of getting, the camera. He’s even done a video of the operation (see below). You can start reading his tutorial series here
Great review of the FUZE – #RaspberryPi in a keyboard case
Drew Buddie is head of computing at the Royal Masonic School for Girls in Hertfordshire, UK.
He’s been loaned a FUZE – the black-and-red keyboard/case for the Raspberry Pi. As I’ve previously said, I’ve got a lot of time for the FUZE as it’s retro-styled and functional and gives teachers a real alternative to plugging everything in to the Pi when they want to use it.
Drew has written a glowing review of the FUZE (and has since bought one himself) so go here to read it.
#RaspberryPi Compute Module announced
This must be the ultimate in well-kept secrets.
The Raspberry Pi Foundation has today announced the launch of the Raspberry Pi Compute Module. Aimed at commerce/industry, rather than education or hobbyists, the Compute aims to give users the Raspberry Pi package of memory and main processor in a smaller form factor that can be embedded into systems rather than used standalone. Instead of an SD card, the operating system can be flashed to a 4GB eMMC that is embedded on the board.
They have also announced the (open source) Compute Module I/O Board which contains the DDR2 SODIMM socket to house the Compute module and breaks out all the pins to handy headers and ribbon cable slots. It also exposes the HDMI socket and single USB port.
What this means for hobbyists I don’t know. Clearly hobbyists will buy them, because we’re geeks and we love new tech, but I doubt it will replace the Pi in the short-medium term. For industry, there are clear benefits – form factor is small but the power of the platform is still available. What will also be interesting to see is how much of a side-industry is created for the board – more cases, I/O boards are obviously all on the cards. For existing Pi owners, it doesn’t mean anything very much as the two can’t be used together (at least not in an obvious way like the CSI camera or DSI screen) but for hobbyists it could open up a new world in experimentation with more I/O pins to latch onto.
In terms of getting hold of the new board(s), RS and Element 14 are expecting them in stock in June. They will initially be sold in batches of 100 at $30 each but I expect this will soon drift outwards to individual resellers sometime soon after at a higher price.