Engadget - The ledgers of history are littered with the rotting corpses of well intentioned, but ultimately unsuccessful, attempts to put computers in the hands of the young, underprivileged or severely impoverished. Some, like Intel's Classmate wanted to put cheap, durable Wintel machines in every American classroom, while others, like the OLPC program, focused their efforts on developing nations. Okay, perhaps it's a bit hyperbolic to compare those initiatives to decomposing bodies, but there's no denying they haven't exactly flooded the world with low-cost PCs the way they were envisioned. So, here comes the Raspberry Pi, another effort with lofty goals, both in terms of purpose and price.
Microsoft is throwing its weight behind the newly announced Raspberry Pi 2 today. The Raspberry Pi Foundation's low-cost computer was an instant hit when it first debuted in 2012, and the new Raspberry Pi 2 now includes a more powerful processor and twice as much RAM. While you’ve never been able to officially run copies of Windows on the Raspberry Pi without resorting to an old version or tricks and hacks, Microsoft says it’s "delivering a version of Windows 10 that supports Raspberry Pi 2."
Coming under increased pressure from the likes of the BeagleBone and the HummingBoard in the battle of the micro-computers, the Raspberry Pi Foundation has launched a refreshed model dubbed the “Model B+”.
Dave Akerman- Back in March I built a lightweight Raspberry Pi tracker comprising a model A Pi and a pre-production Pi camera built into a foam replica of the Raspberry Pi logo. The aim was to send images from higher than my record of just under 40km, so the tracker was pretty much as light as I could make it. A launch was planned in April but but the wind predictions back then were poor for such a flight with a “landing” out to sea. That was the flight with Eben and Liz from the Raspberry Pi foundation, so rather than lose a precious slot in their over-full diaries I decided to launch a “floater” which was eventually lost over Switzerland and is probably still in hiding somewhere in France. For that I made a more suitable payload box, keeping the original for a later date.
