Rasberry Pi
Meet Raspberry PI (rasberry pie), the US $35 credit-card sized computer board. This piece of technology has been developed by educational centric organisations with the intention of providing affordable computers to school students for the purpose of learning computer programming.
The device is a low-spec computer board that comes without storage, a screen or case, the idea being, most of these accessories are things people have lying around already, or are inexpensive to acquire.
The Pi, based on an Arm CPU architecture, boasting a small amount of memory including 128MB on Model A units, or 256MB on Model B units, powered by USB, and including 1080P video output capabilities over HDMI. Education purposes aside, this little device that can run linux, and can make a great little home server, and some pundits have considered turning it into a media centre.
Currently the device has been sold in the UK via two exclusive distributors, with the initial 10,000 units sold out.
Rasberry PI Computer Board
The device currently has no case, so we’re sure there will be after-market cases flooding ebay in the near future, and the device has no storage or wi-fi, so an SD Card needs to be purchased to run an operating system, and can be connected via Ethernet to a network, or large storage via external USB hard drive. If WiFi is required, a USB device can be connected.
The unit is not currently available through retail in Australia, but we’re sure they can be imported via third parties. The organisation is also in talks with many regional distributors worldwide, and production of new units is under way, so we are sure units will be available in Australia in the near future.
We look forward to seeing the potential of this tiny little device that packs a punch.
For more information, see raspberrypi.org
ONEmobile
Our sister company ONEmobile launched with a lot of fanfare last month, with Freakin’ Awesome Prepaid Plans and great promos for our cool customers.
If you missed all the action, here’s a quick re-cap:
ONEmobile launch party was held November 30th, and the crew got it on with KissFM and some local celebs.
The ONEmobile team hit the road in our Toyota Cruiser giving out heaps of freebees and prepaid starter kits.
The team will coming to a Melbourne location near you soon, so if you don’t see the big pink cruiser rolling down your street, you can follow ONEmobile on Facebook or Twitter to find out where we’ll be and when.
On December 13th the ONEmobile app was launched on the Android market place, a first of it’s kind in Australia. Download the ONEmobile app here.
We partied at Summadayze on New Years Day, and some lucky winners who entered our competition got to meet Snoop Dogg backstage and in person.
Check our photos here.
2012 is going to be a big year for ONEmobile, so what are you waiting for? Let’s get it on!
Steve Jobs steps down as CEO of Apple
Today marks a historical day in the world of computing and technology, as Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple has stepped down from his role as the leader of the tech-Goliath.
The announcement followed the news that an iphone 5 was due for release in the near future.
Jobs, who co-founded the company, has been plagued with medical issues of recent years, including his bout with pancreatic cancer which he beat. Steve has been on a medical leave of absence in the past few months, only to briefly return for an announcement of the new Max OSX Lion at a conference.
He has been a driving force at Apple, and only time will tell if the company will continue to be innovative and maintain it’s strength without their leader. One thing is for certain, Apple’s share price dipped 7% on the announcement, and had a tendency to drop on previous announcements of his leave from work. The company almost fell over during the 90s while he was away, and only started to recover when Steve took the reins and introduced the iMac personal computer, and announced a partnership with Microsoft to run MS Office on their machines.
Apples rise and rise since his return has been attributed to the slow but steady growth of the OSX Platform, and most notably the introduction of the iPod music player, and more recently, the highly sought after Apple Iphone smart phone, and iPad tablet devices.
Steve has indicated he will be staying on as Chairman of the board at Apple, should he receive share holder approval.
We hope Steve recovers to health and continues contributing to the things he is passionate about.
A Sign of the times: Fairfax Newspapers Online
Fairfax media, the owner of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspapers has today taken it’s online presence further, by launching a mobile application to view it’s news content via Apple’s very popular iPad.
The media conglomorate has said the application will provide users a new way of reading news, and help the company pay for it’s reporting expenses.
In a changing digital world, people are heading online more than ever to keep abreast of news and current affairs, and make informed purchasing decisions, or buy direct from an online store to enjoy cost savings. Fairfax has embraced this change by now entering this space, despite possibly being a little late off the mark.
The Fairfax online app will be free during the initial 6 month launch period, but will move to a paid subsrciption of $8.99 per month from December this year, possibly signalling a move for it’s remaining online presence to move online, like News Corp’s publishing houses, however Jake Mathews, Chief Executive at Fairfax seems to deny that the website will move to a fully-paid subscription model.
The Fairfax application for Apple iPad is available today from the Apple App store, with an Android application coming soon.
More information, see the Fairfax website