Thinking about what new things to do with your Raspberry Pi? Why don’t you take up photography? The Pi Foundation recently released a camera board for the credit card-sized computer.

The new add on has a small lens on a chip the size of a postage stamp, and it can be connected into the camera port situated between the Ethernet and HDMI ports on the Pi. But be careful while handling the module as it is very sensitive to static electricity, and that flimsy ribbon should not be folded too much. The video posted below should help you to play with the thing safely.

After connecting, start the Pi and you will need to update the firmware after which boot into the configuration settings to enable the cam. But to use the camera you will have to use some commands such as “raspistill -o image.jpg” for snapping stills and “raspivid -o video.h264 -t 10000″ for ten seconds of soundless video recording. The camera can also stream video over the internet.

The 5MP camera, which can capture 1080p video, can be ordered from RS Components or Premier Farnell/Element14 in the UK for £16.56 plus postage. That’s around $25, the Model A Raspberry Pi’s price tag. Interested US customers might wanna keep an eye on Allied Electronics.

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If you’ve been enthusiastically following the progress of the Raspberry Pi and other projects involved with the cheap micro-PC, then you’ll be aware of Raspbmc already. For those that don’t know, Raspbmc is a minimal Linux distribution based on Debian that brings XBMC to Raspberry Pi.

The Raspbmc team has been going all out for a whole year now, and the software has now finally reached version 1.0, and the download is available to everybody over at their website.

The free and open source distro can be copied via an SD card from the website and booted on your Rasberry Pi with ease. You can also purchase licenses from the Raspberry Pi store for MPEG-2 and VC-1 hardware decoding for a small amount of money, allowing you to raise the full potential of XBMC’s media features.

You can learn more about Rasbmc on their website.

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Have a Raspberry Pi? Love Minecraft? If so, you are going to be happy to know that Minecraft: Pi Edition is now available for free from pi.minecraft.net. Why is it free for Pi when elsewhere it is paid? Mojang says they see it as a way of getting more folks interested in the hobbyist/programming board.

Although you have probably heard of the Raspberry Pi before – especially if you frequent our site – we will refresh your memory: the Raspberry Pi is an awesome credit-card sized PC that easily hooks up to your PC and is pretty open for programming, modding and anything you want to through at it.

Sure with its low-end processor and paltry amount of RAM (256MB for older versions, 512MB for model B) it isn’t a super-device, but it also generally comes in at under $40 so it is really pretty hard to complain. Check out the video below to get a better idea of what this “programming friendly” version of Minecraft is all about.

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In its current form, Siri can certainly be quite useful as a digital assistant, but what if you want something even more amazing out of Apple’s assistant, like the ability to control your smart house? That’s exactly what Youtube user “Elvis Impersonator” set out to do using his iPhone and a SiriProxy-loaded Raspberry Pi.

The results are that he can now control the thermostat at his home, shut off and dim lights, open/close the garage and even change TV channels, all from Siri.

Here’s a quote from the man behind this project:

I have been following the development of SiriProxy since its initial appearance in November 2011 and even got it installed and working on an Marvell SheevaPlug ARM based plug computer. I spent countless nights dreaming of the day I could use voice commands to control my home, but I was still under a long term contract on my existing iPhone. I already had been experimenting with IP2IR control in various forms, but the controller I use in the video seemed to offer the most features which the manufacturer added a REST API in March 2012.

Wishing you could do something like this yourself? You can. All of this user’s SiriProxy plugins are open sourced and available via his GitHub page. Pretty cool stuff, wouldn’t you say?

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Android mini-computers and HDMI-sticks have been a round for a little while now. Some of the most well known examples include the Raspberry Pi.

In the time since these types of computing devices first debuted, a lot has already changed. The earliest devices had processors under 1GHz and often as little as 256MB or 512MB of RAM.

While something with this kind of power is fun for a hobbyist device, if you truly want to use a HDMI Computer Stick to transform your TV into a smart device, you’ll want more power. That’s exactly what the new S21H has to offer.

The new stick computer has a Rockchip RK3066 dual-core processor, 2GB of RAM, and 8GB of storage built right in. Even more impressive, several online stores sell the stick for as little as $70.

With features like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, microSD expansion, and a full-sized USB port, this is truly a device that can bring entertainment, games and even productivity apps right to your big-screen.
As for the OS, you get Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean.

To purchase an S21H of your own, hit the source link below.

Do you have a mini-PC or stick computer? If so, what do you primarily use it for? Despite the lack of Android, I still have quite the love affair with my Raspberry Pi.

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When it comes to the Raspberry Pi, there are an abundant amount of uses for the $35 hobbyist board. Not too long ago, we covered how to use your Pi as an XBMC device for your living room. While that is cool way to use your Pi, it doesn’t even begin to compare to a brand new project described and put together by Nathan Morgan.

Morgan is a 10-year veteran in Dell PC repair and recently took to his business’ blog to bring would-be PC builders a detailed instructional guide on how to put together a Raspberry Pi mini-PC. While the total costs of such a device are probably going to be higher than your average netbook (at around $400), that’s not the point.

For us tinkerers, it’s just fun to show off what we were able to accomplish, more than anything.

The project utilizes a 3D printer for the case and other components like a low-resolution LCD screen, a QWERTY/touchpad mobile keyboard and a 64GB SSD drive. According to Morgan, the mini-laptop provides 10 hours of battery life and runs on the default Raspbian OS.

Such a project takes a reasonable level of knowledge to build, and probably is best suited for the veteran tinkerer. Still, if you want to give it a shot for yourself, head to the source link for more information on what is needed to put the laptop together.

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App Stores are where it is at. Google has one, Apple has two, so does Microsoft. Even Firefox has a marketplace. Now the ultra-small Raspberry Pi motherboard kit has one too.

The Pi Store is accessible both from the web or as a special app for Raspbian. At the moment there isn’t much there, with just 23 free apps. The team behind the Store effort is hoping it will grow as a resource for developers and consumers in order to make the already extremely flexible ARM computer even more useful.

For developers, there is even a way to charge for apps via the store, and there is a “tip jar” ability that lets users donate money towards developer’s app efforts even if they are technically marked as free.

Newer builds of Raspbian will have the Pi Store included, but those rocking an older version will need to manually install the Pi Store application.

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Considering purchasing a Raspberry Pi? At around $35, it is quite an exceptional value for a device that can be used for a lot of general computing tasks. So what exactly CAN you do with the Raspberry Pi? Honestly, it really depends on how much work you are willing to put into it and how wide your imagination extends.

If you want to do something simple yet quite fun, the Raspberry Pi can easily transform into a very capable media center device using the XBMC video player.

How well does the Pi work as a media playing device? Considering it is only a 700MHz processor with 256MB of RAM– not bad at all. It might run even better if I overclocked it, but I haven’t messed around with that yet.

The only downside to the Raspberry Pi is that it is in such high demand that you will probably wait a few months after purchasing before it actually ships to you.

If you have your Pi now and want to see how it works as a media center, follow the instructions I’ve listed below.

I’ve posted a short video that shows Raspberry Pi running XBMC, I apologize if the video is a bit bright but it at least gives you an idea of what to expect if you want to use the Pi as a media center device.

Getting Started

There are several ways to go about getting XBMC up and running. What I’m going to do is use something called openElec. This basically is a simple installation of XBMC that takes under a minute to boot.

Alright, so what do you need to get started? Let’s talk about hardware and components, first:

• HDMI or AV cable
• SD Card
• micro-USB charger
• a Rasberry Pi
• USB keyboard and mouse
• (optional) a media center remote

Alright once you get all the hardware together we’re ready to start downloading the necessary files. Here is what you’ll need:

• A copy of SDFormatter
• Win32diskimager
• The most recent copy of OpenELEC

Formatting the Memory Card

Once you’ve downloaded the SD Formatter program, install it and start it up. You’ll see an option to choose your device– make sure you have the right card chosen. Next you’ll press ‘format’. You’re now ready for the direct installation of openELEC.

Installing OpenELEC

Remember the Win32 Disk Imager I had you download? Now it’s time to install it and run it. You’ll see an area where it asks for the image file. You’ll want to navigate the folder that you downloaded OpenELEC to.

Once you’ve selected it, press “WRITE”. It will load up and that’s basically it. You now have your SD card ready for the Rasbperry Pi.

Additional Media Files and Add-Ons

This gives you a stock experience of XBMC running through OpenElec. Now it is up to you to expand its capabilities. You can hook the Pi up to your network through Ethernet or a compatible Wi-Fi card to get full access to your media files.

This will also give you access to the “Add-On” option inside of XBMC.

Want to bring your local media files directly to the device? You can add files to the memory card or in my case I brought along a Flash Stick that had extra movies right on it. XBMC easily can connect with external HDD as well. If you want to use the Raspberry Pi as a permanent media center, you’ll probably want to add on a case as well.

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Devices like the Raspberry Pi create an excellent mini-computer experience that requires a little bit of DIY knowledge to add things like cases, the SD card and other components. What if you want a similar experience without all the fuss? The Hiapad Hi-802 might be of particular interest to you.

This mini-stick PC is equipped with a quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor and has 1GB of RAM. It also has Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and micro-SD for expansion. There is an HDMI port for directly plugging into your TV and there is a USB 2.0 port for your keyboard/mouse and other accessories.

Unlike the Raspberry Pi, you get an Android 4.0 OS experience right out the box. Sound expensive? Actually importers like armdevices.net will offer it for as low as $89 when it becomes officially available later next month.

For those looking to add SmartTV-like functionality to your regular HDTV, this could be a cheap and easy way to do it. Imagine playing some of your favorite Android games and using some of the best entertainment programs all from the big screen. This isn’t the first device to offer this type of experience, but it is certainly a powerful device (quad core) and is still really low priced.

What do you think, interested or not?

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Raspberry Pi has quickly become a popular tinkering toy. A full PC motherboard kit for under $50? Yah, not surprising it’s been successful. Those that have been thinking about the Pi but haven’t picked one up, you may have the opportunity to get a significantly upgraded version.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation is touting it as the “Turbo Mode” Pi. This version will feature a 1GHz Turbo Mode upgrade that allows overclocking to 1GHz.

Those who already have the Pi, this isn’t new hardware. It’s more of a software change and it sounds like it will make it to many of the Raspberry Pi boards. There is one catch- depending on your power supply and the version of the Raspberry Pi you have, the overclock to 1GHz may or may not work.

Overclocking is always a bit experimental and can actually cause your computer not to boot at all. Luckily, the Pi has a fail-safe. If you overclock to high and it won’t start, you can hold down the shift key during boot and it will disable the overclock temporarily. This gives you time to lower the level and get it working again.

Just another way that the Raspberry Pi is becoming even more useful. Sure, this isn’t strong enough to replace your home PC. That being said, it’s a great media player or hobbyist device- and it’s cheap.

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