Camera module, Raspberry Pi Foundation, Shopping

New cameras released for the Raspberry Pi – 8 megapixels!

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picamera_27_web

This morning, two new cameras for the Raspberry Pi were released. These cameras, which are direct drop-in replacements for the old ones (i.e. they have the same ribbon cable connector) feature new Sony IMX219 sensors. They still have fixed-focus lenses, but this time they are capable of taking still pictures at 3280 x 2464 pixel resolution. They also support 1080p30, 720p60 and 640x480p90 video recording. The cameras are available in two flavours:

Standard.

NoIR – a “night-vision” camera which has no IR filter on the lens.

They’re available from all good Pi resellers for around £21-£25 including The Pi Hut, Pimoroni, Pi Supply and Element 14.

Alex Eames at RasPi.TV has taken a look at the standard camera and his video can be found here.

This is great news for those who like the camera – a simple upgrade from the end-of-line original that you can ‘just use’.

Books, Shopping

Packt Publishing running a 50% sale on some Raspberry Pi titles today

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Packt is doing a 50% off deal on selected Raspberry Pi books today. The books are as follows:

  • Building a Media Center with Raspberry Pi
  • Raspberry Pi Computer Architecture Essentials
  • Raspberry Pi Home Automation with Arduino (2nd edition)
  • Building a Home Security System with Raspberry Pi

The deal ends at midnight (UK time) tonight.

Visit the Deal of the Day page here.

Games, Programming, Software

Game creation software available for free to Raspberry Pi users

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The Game Creators have just announced that they have released their AppGameKit software for the Raspberry Pi free-of-charge.

CEO Lee Bamber said:

“It’s the full AppGameKit BASIC, which has the IDE, can compile and broadcast (includes broadcasting to iOS and Android devices that have the player app on them) and allows access to the GPIO pins so you can code input and output to external add-ons (LEDs, devices etc).”

According to the blurb on their website, you create “games using AppGameKit’s powerful & easy to code syntax, combined with additional features for the Raspberry Pi such as reading & writing to the digital GPIO pins”.

Sounds very interesting, and anything which gives more options for programming on the Pi can only be a good thing!

Take a look at the software here.

Programming, Raspberry Pi Foundation, Software

GPIO Zero v1.2 for the Raspberry Pi hits Raspbian

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GPIO Zero, the easy-to-use Python library for the Raspberry Pi’s GPIO pins has just had an update on the Raspbian repository. It’s been available for a couple of weeks now via a slightly convoluted route, but is now available with a simple:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install python3-gpiozero

The update includes the following new features:

  • An interface for the Energenie GPIO add-on board (and therefore the RF plug sockets it controls)
  • A generic object for line sensors.
  • A generic object for ultrasonic distance sensors.
  • An object for the SnowPi add-on board.
  • An idea of a ‘holdable button’ so you can specify different actions to occur if a button is pressed momentarily and when it is pressed and held.
  • A pulsable LED (which could be done before, but this makes it simpler)
  • More support for Analog to Digital converter chips.
  • Various bells-and-whistles.

A blog post from the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s Ben Nuttall, who manages the project, is available here with much more detail as to what the update includes.

A big shout out to Dave Jones who did most of the work on the actual code. It’s fantastic how the community at large is contributing, too!

Events, Raspberry Jams

South London Raspberry Jam – 14th May

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JamLogo

Grace Owolade-Coombes is holding a Raspberry Jam for children aged between 5 and 15 years old on Saturday 14th May. The event is being held at Kano HQ on Mile End Road near Docklands and runs from 1.30-4.30pm. Here’s how she describes it on Eventbrite:

An exciting Computer Coding event will be taking place at Kano’s HQ in the afternoon of Saturday 14th May, to celebrate World Scratch Day. If you’re between the age of 5 and 15  – come and find out about building the Kano computer kit and exploring their coding applications, hacking with Minecraft, video game design in Scratch, building a robot with the Crumble or Raspberry Pi and get their hands on a BBC micro:bit. Children will also have the opportunity to do some soldering, making cool circuit-board badges that light up, in our open maker space. Parents get the chance to code with the BBC micro:bit  and experience the joys of Minecraft. This is a ‘ticket only’ event. Children must be accompanied by a parent/carer.

The event is Autism & Tourette’s Syndrome friendly and Grace and her team welcome children from all backgrounds.

Free tickets are available here.