Skip to main content

Raspberry Pi goes on sale, online Pi stalls collapse

By


The Raspberry Pi went on sale just hours ago through UK electronics companies vendors Premier Farnell and RS Components, the latter quoting a price of GBP21.60 (US$34.43) for the enhanced-spec, credit card-sized Model B - the only one available for purchase today. I say "available" - unfortunately the websites of both vendors went down due to a high volume of traffic from hopefuls clamoring for their piece of the tiny Linux home computer.
"Been trying every 10 minutes from 6 am this morning [UK time] until now," said one disgruntled customer on the element14 forum, a community associated with Premier Farnell. However, not everyone was so unlucky, with users on the same forum reporting success in placing orders at the same website. The vendors are not alone in feeling the launch-day pressure, with the official Raspberry Pi Foundation website switching with a low-bandwidth static website while interest remains high.
Though widely reported as a product launch, some lucky Pi customers are reporting receipt of confirmation emails suggesting deliveries at the end of March. The Raspberry Pi Foundation admits that it has not yet received units from China. In view of this, "launch" sounds rather a strong word considering these are merely pre-orders.
At the time of writing both the Farnell and the RS Componenets websites seemed only to be allowing would-be Pi-owners to register interest, shelving (if only temporarily) the ability to purchase online. Though early batches will merely be sold through the two companies, it sounds as though they are soon to take over manufacturing as well as distribution (we previously reported on the financial difficulties faced by the Foundation in manufacturing the Raspberry Pi within the UK). The deal is good news for international customers, as both vendors have international supply chains, enabling overseas customers to (eventually) order from a local supplier.

Features
  • Broadcom BCM2835 700MHz ARM1176JZFS processor with FPU and Videocore 4 GPU
  • GPU provides Open GL ES 2.0, hardware-accelerated OpenVG, and 1080p30 H.264 high-profile decode
  • GPU is capable of 1Gpixel/s, 1.5Gtexel/s or 24GFLOPs with texture filtering and DMA infrastructure
  • 256MB RAM
  • Boots from SD card, running the Fedora version of Linux
  • 10/100 BaseT Ethernet socket
  • HDMI socket
  • USB 2.0 socket
  • RCA video socket
  • SD card socket
  • Powered from microUSB socket
  • 3.5mm audio out jack
  • Header footprint for camera connection
  • Size: 85.6 x 53.98 x 17mm
Today's "launch" had looked likely earlier in the week when the Raspberry Pi Foundation had warned interested parties to look out for a big announcement at 6 a.m. UK-time on the morning of February 29.
Those interested in obtaining a Raspberry Pi are possibly best advised to keep on eye on the Raspberry Pi Foundation's website, who will doubtless update vendor information as required. For now, sales are limited to a maximum of one per customer.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

New record energy efficiency for artificial photosynthesis

By
As the world moves towards developing new avenues of renewable energy, the efficiencies of producing fuels such as hydrogen must increase to the point that they rival or exceed those of conventional energy sources to make them a viable alternative. Now researchers at Monash University in Melbourne claim to have created a solar-powered device that produces hydrogen at a world-record 22 percent efficiency, which is a significant step towards making cheap, efficient hydrogen production a reality. Efficiency records for solar-powered hydrogen production have continued to rise over the years, and much more rapidly as the technology and techniques improve. Even as late as December last year  Gizmag reported  a solar-driven hydrogen record efficiency at the time of just 12.3 percent, so this new record shows a very healthy 10 percent improvement on that and beats out the previous record of 18 percent. Splitting water using electricity to produce hydrogen and oxygen has been a...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Japanese skateboard

By
A Japanese engineer just invented a nifty new way to travel: A transporter called a “WalkCar” that’s small, light and apparently easy to use. The product is battery powered and is about the size of a laptop. And although it looks like it can hold much weight and is made from aluminum, it can apparently have as much as 265 lbs on board. VentureBeat  reported  that it can go up to 6.2 miles per hour for up to 7.4 miles. It needs three hours to charge.
Post a Comment
Read more

Water purification: Running fuel cells on bacteria to purify water

By
Researchers in Norway have succeeded in getting bacteria to power a fuel cell. The "fuel" used is wastewater, and the products of the process are purified water droplets and electricity. This is an environmentally-friendly process for the purification of water derived from industrial processes and suchlike. It also generates small amounts of electricity -- in practice enough to drive a small fan, a sensor or a light-emitting diode. In the future, the researchers hope to scale up this energy generation to enable the same energy to be used to power the water purification process , which commonly consists of many stages, often involving mechanical and energy-demanding decontamination steps at its outset. Nature's own generator The biological fuel cell is powered by entirely natural processes -- with the help of living microorganisms. "In simple terms, this type of fuel cell works because the bacteria consume the waste materials found in the water," explains SINTEF...
1 comment
Read more