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Official, Customized Raspberry Pi Versions Coming Soon (linuxgizmos.com) 93

DeviceGuru writes: The immensely popular Raspberry Pi will soon be offered in customized versions, through an exclusive arrangement between Raspberry Pi Trading and Element14. According to the companies' announcement, Element14 will provide design and manufacturing services to OEM customers to create 'bespoke designs' based upon the Raspberry Pi technology platform. That's weird U.K. English for saying that contracts for creating customized Raspberry Pi SBCs will entail substantial NRE fees and 3,000 to 5,000 unit orders, depending on the nature of the customization. The tweaked Pi's are likely to have revised board layouts, additional or alternative functions, interfaces, connectors, and memory configurations, and more. A handful of unsanctioned Raspberry Pi knock-offs have already appeared over the past couple of years, including various Orange Pi and Banana Pi flavors, which certainly didn't involve any 'bespeaking.' More info is at Element14's CustomPi page.
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Official, Customized Raspberry Pi Versions Coming Soon

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  • by JaredOfEuropa ( 526365 ) on Tuesday October 27, 2015 @09:10AM (#50809035) Journal
    Bespoke is not "weird UK English". It's common English and used in the USA as well, I've heard and seen American colleagues use it regularly.

    • It is weird, Like that commercial with the pig that gives you bacon.

      Anyhoos I talk English real good. So there, that'll learn ya.
    • much more british than american. I hear indians (who speak something closer to british english) say that word; but I never hear US born folks saying that. I'm over 50 and the first time I heard that word was just a few years ago. its just not common here and its quite a dated old fashioned word.

      • And what do you call it when you go to your tailor to have a shirt made? Next you'll say you don't have a valet!

      • I hear indians (who speak something closer to british english)

        My bloody arse they do, mate.

        Some of them *write* better than you, though. Uppercase for names of countries & their derivatives.

      • Ever consider that it's not a word you hear a lot due to not being exposed to it? That doesn't mean it's in common use. Someone why buys cheap shit from China may never hear it, yet someone who buys every suit with a custom fit and is on first name basis with their tailor probably uses it daily.

        Don't confuse "dated and old fashioned" with "rare outside my circle of influence."

    • Bespoke is not "weird UK English". It's common English and used in the USA as well, I've heard and seen American colleagues use it regularly.

      Yeah, especially since the substitute phrase contains two obscure three-letter-acronyms that I had to look up... and I couldn't actually find what "SBC" means.

    • It is definitely weird in the Americas. Here in Canada if you used it, nobody would know what the hell you were talking about - even though we know that Brits use boot is a car trunk and bonnet for a car hood, and a lorry is a large delivery truck.
      • by dmoen ( 88623 )

        Here in Canada, "bespoke" is used by businesses to mean custom designed solutions and products. That's how I know the word. This is is the first I heard that the word is only used in Britain.

        www.bespokedesign.ca
        bespokesuits.ca
        www.bespokedecor.ca

        • So, a suit place uses "bespoke" in their name because they want to invoke the aura of the fabrics they import from the UK ... not really ...

          It is NOT used in Canadian literature, not in any newspaper or magazine or book I've ever seen. I've never heard anyone use it in conversation. Or on Canadian TV or radio. The only place I've encountered it is the BOfH, a UK entity. Definitely not North American. Only poseurs, as well as Brits and Indians looking for coding contracts on software bidding sites use "besp

          • So, a suit place uses "bespoke" in their name because they want to invoke the aura of the fabrics they import from the UK ... not really ...

            No a suit place uses bespoke in their name because "customised" ahem sorry ... "customized" just sounds like a Chinese vendor offering you a suit with a choice of 3 different coloured pocket handkerchiefs. The word you'll find is commonly used by every high-end bespoke product provider, not only tailors.

            I'm going to assume you don't own a made-to-order suit? (And I'm not talking about buying one off the shelf and then having a tailor making adjustments).

            • First, why in the world would *I* own a suit? Seriously?

              Second, nobody in Canada asks for a developer to write "bespoke software" - not once in the last 30 years have I had a customer or co-worker use the term.

              Custom software, custom hardware, custom cars, custom itineraries, custom furniture, custom-built homes, bridges, subway cars, meal and exercise plans, in-ground swimming pools, golf courses, landscaping, skyscrapers, parks, public-commissioned artworks, etc. Not "bespoke." "Bespoke" sounds like

              • Second, nobody in Canada asks for a developer to write "bespoke software" - not once in the last 30 years have I had a customer or co-worker use the term.

                Thankyou you proved my point perfectly. You (and I, and everyone else) have a bubble of influence, a reality that is defined by who you are, what you do and who you do it with. In your reality "bespoke" is some weird pretentious upper class UK vendor marketing speak. For other's it's common language.

                But hey today you learn't something and I got a real laugh. Like a really good laugh. Your joke about the constitution making everyone equal, that was great. I'm going to use that at the next open mic night at t

                • No, because I also pointed out that it has never been used on any local or national TV or local or national print media that I've seen (and I've seen a lot of that), nor on anything from the US. YOU are the one living in a bubble - or in India or the UK. As I pointed out, North Americans do not advertise offering to make "bespoke software" on coding sites on the cheap.
                  • Claiming that someone is living in a bubble while the other's are not shows another bubble you're in. The bubble of ignorance.

                    Now let me guess your national TV and local media are targeted at you, since you are the one reading them, and you don't read any fashion magazines, or architecture magazines, investment magazines, or news papers targeted at the kind of people who can not only afford a bespoke suit but actually prefer wearing one.

                    But hey you only know what you know right? We all live in bubbles.

                    • Claiming that someone is living in a bubble while the other's are not shows another bubble you're in. The bubble of ignorance.

                      Now let me guess your national TV and local media are targeted at you, since you are the one reading them, and you don't read any fashion magazines, or architecture magazines, investment magazines, or news papers targeted at the kind of people who can not only afford a bespoke suit but actually prefer wearing one.

                      But hey you only know what you know right? We all live in bubbles.

                      Of course the national media is targeted to Canadians. The vast majority of Canadians. And they have never used "bespoked", not in their programming, not in their ads. But the American media next door is targeted to Americans and they don't use it either.

                      And of course I wouldn't read fashion magazines targeted at selling me a suit. This is the second time [slashdot.org] you bring that up, and it shows you are working off of wrong assumptions that are actually insulting. I don't give a damn if it's custom fitted - why wou

        • In the US, the words "custom" or "tailor-made" tend to be used instead.

          Then again, you can't get those good Lower Prices Everyday[TM] if you actually get something customized to fit your own personal needs and preferences.

    • There's a bunch of speculation going on in this thread based on personal anecdote... let's have a look at some data shall we?

      Let's compare the ngrams of the words 'bespoke' 'customized' and 'customised' between the USA and UK:

      USA: http://tinyurl.com/usabespoke [tinyurl.com]
      UK: http://tinyurl.com/ukbespoke [tinyurl.com]

      You can see that in both cases bespoke had its primetime in the first half of the nineteenth century, falling off and hitting its nadir at around 1980, with a resurgence in usage since then.

      However, it's also clear that


  • News for nerds, stuff that matters!

    Still waiting on eSATA with gigabit ethernet...*sigh*
    • by Anonymous Coward

      Or how about plain old sata and more than one nic? A networking asic add on would be nice too

      • Or how about plain old sata and more than one nic? A networking asic add on would be nice too

        I'd like a pony, too.

      • Re: Finally! (Score:4, Interesting)

        by spire3661 ( 1038968 ) on Tuesday October 27, 2015 @11:35AM (#50810311) Journal
        Buy an Intel NUC if you want that. The latest 14nm NUCs are $140 on amazon right now. I have one setup using just bare OpenElec running 2 GB of Ram for $160 total. To get an RPi to that point i would need the PI, a NICE case, a power supply, SD card, IR receiver, Bluetooth and Wifi modules. Best case scenario for the PI is $30+15+7+10+8+10+10=$90 for a vastly inferior machine. Dont get me wrong i LOVE the PI 2 i have. I have 3 of them with the official Pi touchscreens, i jsut understand its limitations. They are for making terminals, not servers (for the record i ran a static website with a year uptime on an Pi no problem), For $70 more a NUC makes a VASTLY better choice.
        • by e r ( 2847683 )
          First, the RPi2 is lower power compared even to a very new NUC. The entire RPi2 uses [raspi.tv] at maximum 420mA * 5V = 2.1W. The NUC uses [anandtech.com] between 6W and 30W.

          Second, according to the summary it should be possible to add a couple of cheap chips to the RPi2 and have Gb Ethernet + SATA for a very modest increase in price. WiFi, Bluetooth, IR, etc. are totally unnecessary if all you want is a NAS or a small/cheap server. It'd be more like $60 for the mutant RPi2 vs $140 for the NUC you mentioned.

          Clearly a NUC will cu
    • Still waiting on eSATA with gigabit ethernet...*sigh*

      Have you used one? There isn't really enough CPU power to handle 100base, let alone 1000...

      And if you want eSATA - I think actually what you're looking for is a completely different device!

      • Re:Finally! (Score:5, Informative)

        by washu_k ( 1628007 ) on Tuesday October 27, 2015 @10:11AM (#50809527)
        The RPi is slow, but not that slow. The issue with using the full 100 mbit is the shitty NIC on the shitty USB bus. I've used 100base-T at full speed on far slower machines than an RPi, but they had proper NICs.

        The RPi 2 would have a good chance of handling gigabit if it had a proper NIC.

        • Ah, fair enough. Still, nearly always when someone points out the (many) shortcomings of the RPi they seem to be pointing out that it's not a full machine. Which it's not. It's built to a price.

          Everybody want a different thing added, and if they got their way it wouldn't be a small cheap device anymore.

        • But does the SoC actually have any busses other than USB to hang a 'proper NIC' from? Messing around with a goofy USB NIC would not have been the cheapest option if the SoC had an integrated NIC(or even a MAC that just needed an external PHY); but I don't think that that one does; nor does it implement a PCIe controller, so that's off the table.
          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            Indeed, it does not seem to have anything of the sort. [farnell.com]
            I'm guessing the target devices (smartphones, etc) wouldn't need anything resembling high speed networking.
            For what it's worth, the Banana Pro (half the cores, higher clock, same A7) has a gigabit NIC, and I've gotten >500Mbps with it.

            • If I remember the history right, (aside from the fact that the project lead works for Broadcomm, so they were the obvious first-choice as cooperative corporate partner), the original rPi mostly predated(at least during design, not necessarily by the time it started shipping in volume) the really intense knife-fighting that has broken out on ARM application processor pricing. They were available, but with tray prices approaching the target retail price of the rPi; so the rPi ended up being built around what

      • I hear some devices have CPU off-loading...and hardware decoding and well...trust me gigabit is very plausible.

        I do however actually use a different device for that. I just want things that have not been created yet.
    • by Anonymous Coward

      Then buy beaglebone or another. Why you guys that really dont do shit with anything pine for things that are completely useless on the Pi, I'll never understand.

      I'll give you 100 gigiabit ethernet, it's still not going to give you anything as it's still a USB ethernet interface. Do you know nothing at all about the mobile phone chipsets this stuff is built upon?

    • by JazzLad ( 935151 )
      Sounds like you want the new Orange Pi (not the $15 one - I bought that one & like it, but those two features take the board all the way up to $40-50 :)).
    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Get a converter from SATA and a Banana-Pi. The Raspberry Pi is designed by incompetents with huge egos and is basically the worst choice on the market.

    • The SoC used doesn't support either interface, so it would have to be a USB 2.0 connection. Like the 10/100 Ethernet port already is.
      MY old cubietruck board isn't too bad, it's a dual core A7 with gigabit and sata. Although the ethernet maxes out around 470mbit due to the SoC's internal bus limitations.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Don't forget the imminent $9 C.H.I.P computer [kickstarter.com], which has 4GB flash storage, pre-installed O/S, wifi and bluetooth built in for the price. Crazy cheap.

  • Their element14 custom pi web site needs to move to the 21st century - it's absolute crap on mobile, and the majority of people on the web use mobile devices.

    Q. What's the difference between an "Official" customized Raspberry Pi and any other customized Raspberry Pi?
    A1. Price.
    A2. Who gives a damn.
    A3. An "Official T-Shirt"?

    • Q. What's the difference between an "Official" customized Raspberry Pi and any other customized Raspberry Pi?

      It seems the difference is that they have the design files and the authorisation to do customisation at the pre-manufacturing level. Anyone else who wants to customise has to work with the completed boards.

    • Their element14 custom pi web site needs to move to the 21st century - it's absolute crap on mobile, and the majority of people on the web use mobile devices.

      I can guarantee you the majority of people using element14's website do so with the biggest monitor they can afford and do so while having multiple products open in multiple tabs while comparing multiple datasheets and a CAD program in the background.

      This is a classic example of a well function website that definitely does NOT need a mobile friendly page.

      • So some engineer sends a link to their boss to show them what they are proposing and ask for a P.O., and the boss clicks on a mobile tablet/smartphone - approval denied because it looks like a cheap scam site on mobile devices.
        • Yeah right, because an engineer's boss who approves purchase orders has never heard of the distribution arm of a multi national electronics company with $2bn+ in revenues, and bases their entire world view on a link from an iPad.

          Or down here on planet earth (which is what we call this place, welcome by the way) you get told to do something and given a budget, procurement provides you a common vendor list and you just go for it. Any interaction is done by procurement who unlikely use a website anyway favouri

          • Go look at the mobile site. There's no excuse having something THAT bad, and that non-functional. What are you going to do in a meeting - decamp everyone to their various cubbies to look at the site when they need to check something that comes up in the meeting?
            • Meeting? You mean you have meetings with tablets? Are you working for some hip start-up? How quickly can your mobile phone access large files on your corporate network or display complicated car drawings, documents, etc?

              What happens in meetings is that whoever is presenting opens the website. In a browser. On their laptop. If no one is presenting chances are half the people in the meeting have theirs with them. In the worst case scenario at least the scribe will.

              I get the feeling the places you've worked ar

              • The places I worked for, I never bothered going to the meetings because they were boring wastes of time. Never missed anything either,but I *did* drive the bosses nuts. One-on-one conversations, making coffee in the morning and going around and talking to the other devs individually, got more done. The bosses couldn't say much because (1) I was the go-to person for all the programmers when they had problems, (2) I was the top dev, (3) I produced results, and (4) we eventually just stopped having meetings as

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