A few weeks ago, I posted a video about the Petabyte Pi Project—an experiment to see if a single Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 could directly address sixty 20TB hard drives, totaling 1.2 Petabytes.
And in that video, it did, but with a caveat: RAID was unstable. For some reason, after writing 2 or 3 GB of data at a time, one of the HBAs I was using would flake out and reset itself, due to PCI Express bus errors.
In today's video, I highlighted industrial Raspberry Pi computers. Specifically, the Lincoln-Binns CM4-Box Pro, the Onlogic Factor 201, and fieldcloud's Milü-X Industrial IoT Gateway.
And I asked Lincoln-Binns, Onlogic, and fieldcloud what makes an 'Industrial' Pi any different than a Pi and an enclosure like you could buy from a normal Pi retailer.
The NEC UHD Professional Display M551 pictured here is not a TV—it's a display. And it's powered by a Raspberry Pi.
Specifically, it's powered by a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4, and that is done using Sharp NEC's new MPI4E carrier board:
No stranger to rack-mounting Macs that were never meant for the task, I reached out to MyElectronics to see if they had a rackmount solution for the Mac Studio when I bought mine in March.
They said they were already working on a Mac Studio Rack Mount system, and they'd gladly send me one to review, since they knew how much I loved rackmounting my M1 Mac mini and all the Raspberry Pis I run in my homelab.
A few months ago, someone from the Raspberry Shake team got in touch, and asked if I'd like to try out a Shake at my home.
As someone who has spent a bit too much time nerding out over space and atmospheric weather, but never touched seismology, I decided it was time to dig deep and learn a bit more about the Earth.
And learn I did! They sent their simplest model, the Shake 1 RS1D, I placed it on my concrete basement floor, and then waited.
You can use the Dictation feature built into your Mac to transcribe audio files, and in my experience, it's been about 98-99% accurate, so it saves a lot of time if you want to index your audio files, or you need a transcript for some other purpose.
These instructions were last updated for macOS Monterey 12.4.
First, open up System Preferences, go to Keyboard, then the 'Dictation' tab:
Turn on Dictation, and when prompted, accept the terms for Apple's Dictation service. Also take note of the 'Shortcut' (e.g. 'press dictation key' or 'press control twice'. You'll use that to activate dictation later.
Raspberry Pi has two official camera modules: the 8 megapixel Pi Camera, and the 12 megapixel HQ Camera.
Third party camera solution provider ArduCam has supplemented the official cameras with a variety of options for all kinds of Pi-based projects. Just last year they introduced the first camera to bring autofocus to the Pi.
May 5th Update: this feature is now official, and is called "Portability." To enable it, you will need to pay an extra $25/month, though I haven't been charged yet despite using the feature. Starlink says mobility (using Dishy while in motion) is not yet supported and will void your kit's warranty.
I've logged into my Starlink.com account, and I now see a note that reads Click "Manage Service Options" to add Portability. — that screen leads to this Starlink Portability FAQ page with more details. I haven't signed up for it yet, and I'm waiting to see what happens next billing cycle... I still can't update the service address to my cousin's location.
...and yet I just bought a 2nd one!
Overall, I enjoy using Sony's current top-end APS-C model for my video work and occasional photography. But there are a few things that feel boneheaded and out of place that you should be aware of:
It's been a busy start to the year on my Raspberry Pi PCIe Devices website. Not only have we finally made some significant progress learning about the BCM2711's PCIe bus (both good and bad), I've also added a few dozen new Raspberry Pi CM4-based boards to the site.
In my YouTube video today, I go through four of them in depth, showing how they're built and what they're used for.
The four projects I cover in depth are:
And there are some other projects I'm watching closely as they journey down the road towards production: