The Raspberry Pi Foundation has announced that its credit card-sized flagship device has become generally available, and that strict order caps - which had limited the small computer's usage - have been lifted.
 
"As of this morning, you'll be able to buy as many Raspberry Pis as you want from both RS Components and element14/Premier Farnell," wrote the Foundation's Liz Upton in a blog post, adding that 4000 devices are being made every day.
 
Customers ordering from the latter supplier should expect a four- to six-week lead time on their delivery, while RS Components says that general orders would reach consumers "by the end of September."
 
For businesses and schools looking to use the Raspberry Pi as part of their computing infrastructure, the announcement means that the wait is over. The small size and low price of Raspberry Pi make it attractive for a host of small-scale computing projects.
 
Despite having already been used in everything from drones to playing vintage video games like "Quake 3" and even exploring space, the applications for the Raspberry Pi continue to get more diverse as developers create more peripherals and software for the device.
 
The foundation announced on Saturday at a "Raspberry Jam" event in Cambridge that an official camera board for the Pi is on its way, and that a 5-megapixel device should be released within the next few months. About 300 fans, according to the group, came out to hear about projects like the London Zoo's planned animal recognition system -- to be powered by Raspberry Pi, of course -- as well as educational applications like the University of Manchester's Pi Face plan.  http://pi.cs.man.ac.uk/interface.htm


Published by Computerworld, By Jon Gold | Framingham | Wednesday, 18 July, 2012
Link to article:  By Jon Gold | Framingham | Wednesday, 18 July, 2012