PCWorld reviews the Raspberry Pi 5 #RaspberryPi @PCWorld

PCWorld today reviewed the Raspberry Pi which came out late last year. Their conclusions:

With Model 5 and the new Raspberry Pi OS, the Raspberry Pi Foundation does almost everything right: even demanding program such as Firefox, Chromium, and VS Code run absolutely smoothly on the desktop. Working is simply fun. In normal use, the mini computer is still silent. If a fan is installed, it only starts during longer CPU-intensive work. The Pi 5 is ideal for server use (NAS), as a media center, for home automation, or as a desktop.

The biggest disadvantage is its price. While an impulse purchase for experimentation was still conceivable with earlier models, a clear purpose is now required to justify the cost. The predecessor models are better suited to hobbyists and makers. They are sufficiently fast, less fussy about the power supply, don’t run as hot, are cheaper, and are currently more readily available.

See the full review in the article here.

How to install CircuitPython 9.0.0-beta.0 on a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W

YouTube user and blogger coXXect shows the steps to install CircuitPython 9.0.0-beta.0 on a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W. The installation is “bare metal” and not using Raspberry Pi OS (which can run CircuitPython with the Blinka compatibility layer for Python).

See the video below and step by step in a blog post here.

Raspberry Pi and Python powers first driverless car in Formula SAE Brazil competition #Python #RaspberryPi #ML

A Raspberry Pi running Python powers the first driverless car in Formula SAE Brazil competition. Team Ampera pushed through various prototypes before creating a Raspberry Pi-powered car capable of navigating the Formula SAE Brazil track completely autonomously.

“Python algorithms (are used) to build a map of the track. These algorithms don’t just calculate the best path to follow; they also determine control actions, such as steering and acceleration, and send these suggestions to the car’s electronic control unit (ECU).”

See the video below and more via Raspberry Pi News.

Robert Tinney computer art (other than in Byte Magazine) #ArtTuesday #VintageComputing

Robert Tinney is an artist best known for his monthly cover art for Byte Magazine. Starting in 1975, he created over 100 pieces of art for Byte, done by hand, consisting of drawn illustrations with tissue paper, oil painting, and designer wash and airbrush.

Robert Tinney was in great demand to do covers for companies other than Byte. Galactic Studios has a collection of other art on their website here which should be checked out.

You can read more about Tinney on his website and on Wikipedia.

A huge update for TensorFlow Lite for Microcontrollers on Raspberry Pi Pico #RaspberryPi #ML #AI @Raspberry_Pi

It’s been three years since the RP2040 port of TensorFlow Lite for Microcontrollers. The work was done by Pete Warden, who at that point headed up the TensorFlow mobile team at Google. Since, the RP2040 port has been languishing. But a couple of weeks ago, that all changed. Raspberry Pi News reports:

Now at Useful Sensors, Pete has been doing some interesting things with RP2040. He has just upstreamed the last three years of changes — after all, as he puts it, “We all love pull requests with 1,129 changed files, right?” — and he’s taking on maintenance of the port on a best-effort basis.

The code now uses both cores of the RP2040 microcontroller.

The upshot? These updates and changes reduce the time for the person detection benchmark code from 824ms to 588ms. That’s a ×1.4 speed increase!

Read more on Raspberry Pi News here and see the pull request on GitHub.

Making a tiny Raspberry Pi based Cyberdeck #RaspberryPi @Raspberry_Pi

Michael Klements posts a detailed build of a tiny Cyberdeck using a Raspberry Pi. The device combines a Raspberry Pi 4B with a Pimoroni HyperPixel display and a Solder Party Blackberry Keyboard breakout.

When Atomstack reached out and asked me if I would like to try out their new Atomstack X30 Pro laser engraving and cutting machine, I thought that this would be a great project to build with it.

I’m going to make up the Cyberdeck in a clamshell design with the display mounted directly onto the Raspberry Pi in the top half and then a small keyboard in the bottom half.

See the video below and details on The DIY Life here.

MIDI-Controllable Synth Built From a Raspberry Pi Pico @Raspberry_Pi #PiDay #RaspberryPi

Cornell University hosts a class humbly titled ECE 4760. It’s a class on microcontrollers. As you might imagine, these Cornell students make some pretty cool stuff. Recently, Pelham built a MIDI-controllable synthesizer out of a Raspberry Pi Pico. Here’s more from Hackaday:

[Pelham] coded a library to parse MIDI messages on the Pico, with the microcontroller’s UART charged with receiving the input data. MIDI is basically just serial at a baud rate of 31.25k, with a set message structure, after all. From there, the Pico takes the note data and plays the relevant frequencies by synthesizing square waves using a PWM output. A second PWM channel can also be blended with the first to generate more complex tones.  The synthesizer is designed to be used with a source of MIDI note data such as a keyboard controller; [Pelham] demonstrates the project in use with a Roland JD-XI. It’s a fairly basic synthesizer, but [Pelham] does a good job of explaining all the steps required to get this far. If you’ve never done an audio or MIDI project before, you might find his guide very helpful for the way it steps through the basics.

See more!