Gregory's ServerFirst they hired a cop, now they're embedding AI. I'm calling it now(again), Raspberry Pi is dead. Pick a new platform folks.
https://www.extremetech.com/computing/new-raspberry-pi-devices-will-have-sony-ai-platform-built-in
 65 comments
@hicksca You would think so, but moments ago I just saw somebody posting about 4's being in stock, but then not and being sad about it. People don't care. @miah Iโve been using cheap mini intel pc but if I find a good option might start giving ARM or RISC-V Been think about: Tinker Board S R2.0 Single Board Computer RK3288 SoC 1.8GHz Quad Core CPU, 600MHz Mali-T764 GPU, 2GB LPDDR3 & 16GB eMMC Motherboard https://a.co/d/fHU1JiE @Bitplumber @meuon @miah this definitely looks more like the specs Iโd be aiming for Orange Pi 5 16GB Rockchip RK3588S 8 Core 64 Bit Single Board Computer, 2.4GHz Frequency Open Source Development Board Mini PC Desktop Run Orange Pi OS,Android12,Debian11 (Pi 5 16GB+5V4A TypeC Supply) https://a.co/d/eQZIfAE @hicksca @Bitplumber @meuon @miah I just got that exact Orange Pi 5 and combined with an NVMe drive it is ridiculously faster for write i/o than rPi 4. @hicksca @Bitplumber @meuon @miah It's kind of ridiculous how much compute you can get for ~ $200 today. The OPi5 + 512GB NVMe drive were only $225. If I was willing to settle for 128GB I could have gotten that under $200. @unixorn @Bitplumber @meuon @miah Ya I was just mentioning that the other day: @Bitplumber @hicksca @meuon @miah Agreed. That you can run something like #ESPresence on a $2 part is amazing @Bitplumber @meuon @hicksca @miah I really want an orange pi 5! Have not had chance to pick one up, but really want one.  @miah@hachyderm.io Pi alternatives ARM: Olimex. Libre hardware. Pine64 quartz64 and other boards. Libre hardware. Some very small boards too iirc. Beaglebone: I think libre hardware. The above have RISCV boards out or forthcoming too. Odroid has a few ARM boards. AMD64 IoT, or smaller systems: LattePanda Protectli -- bigger, but these are great, use coreboot, etc. Any of course anything from Sparkfun or Adafruit! :) Going even smaller: Arduino Going bigger, like laptop, workstation server: System76 Purism Starting with silicon: Rapid Silicon @miah Popular chipset.. the "AI" isn't built in, but the ability to run it is a good idea. Lots of similarities with OpenCV and other compute intensive uses of these chips.   @miah
> Only metadata is exported to the internet. Meaning that all data that is machine-understood can end up being used. And given Sony I guess the whole thing is deeply proprietary.  @miah @RadicalEdward โSony says its Aitrios platform is ideal for inventory analysis, smart building management, **and license plate recognition.**โ ๐ง @miah I don't inherently take issue with this specifically. Not all machine-learning is evil and you're probably not going to be able to do that kind on a SBC anytime soon anyway. That said, I do take issue with Sony providing it and with the Pis being partially proprietary (and I assume this is deffo going to be proprietary too), I don't like this. @miah Interesting. It does say they plan to build multiple new projects with this chip--it stands to reason that they may continue to make boards without it. One of the main selling points of the Pi is it's low cost, and this would certainly drive that up a bit. I anticipate there will be "AI" models that are a bit pricier and base models without Sony's platform. They may make different tiers for different kinds of projects. But that's just speculation, we'll see what they end up doing.  @miah I still have this article bookmarked and I'm considering these for future projects. The Orange Pi 5 has specs that'll eat the Raspberry Pi alive. https://jamesachambers.com/best-2023-raspberry-pi-alternatives/ Even if it's specs were nothing at all to write home about, I would love the Rock 5 for no other reason than ALL THE PORTS ON ONE SIDE, holy shit, what an "innovation". @alex_02 Same, when the 1b came out, their prices were fantastic, I grabbed a few. Fun little devices! Better than hacking on my FreeAgent Dockstar that I had been using before Pi! The prices lately, and the companies many terrible decisions have made me really dislike them though. @miah I feel like it started going down hill with the release of the RPi4. I got one when it first released and Idk, but it just didn't "feel" right. Something was always off about it for some reason. I liked my RPi 3 B a lot more. It's difficult to explain. I do want a compute model, but I can't really find any and I don't think there will be much in stock for a while. @versed_perception @alex_02 Those are cool but.. When the PI first came out the price point was <$30. For $150 I can buy a NUC. @miah @alex_02 yes you can, but it wont be Arm. The purpose of the jetson was to stay in the arm ecosystem. The only real redeeming factor of the Jetson is the Nvidia graphics. Have you seen the libre RPi alts? https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Potato+ARM+libre&crid=15NICJJ8IJ95O&sprefix=potato+arm+libr%2Caps%2C117&ref=nb_sb_noss The issue with Rpi today is the price point, even the Nano's are insane (I have used them for IPMI BMC). So I have left most ARM work behind myself. @versed_perception @alex_02 True True, ARM isn't a "requirement" for my work/usage. More 'low power' and 'small size'. I've looked at the IPMI BMC (pikvm) stuff for Pi and it looks cool, but almost as expensive as a standalone BMC with the way PI is pricing. Were you doing something else with your IPMI BMC? @miah @alex_02 Basically ""PiKVM"" on a Zero and using internal system board off the 5v rail (USB header) to make sure the Zero had power when the target system was not powered on. Works really well for systems with no IPMI. But those RPis are just too expensive now. It is cheaper to buy a X470D4U for IPMI then it is to adopt IPMI after the fact right now. I thought about libre but they dont have anything small enough(like the zero) yet. @versed_perception @miah you can prolly get something small with an openwrt router but those usually run mips not arm. only other board that i know of that is as small as the rpi0 is something like the usb armory, but the price point might be an issue for most. it has some nice features. i did buy the bash bunny which runs arm and debian.  @miah "Only metadata is exported to the internet." Curious. I'm sure they wouldn't mind if I read those or block them. @Natanox Ya, also what do they define as metadata? At this point I have a hard time trusting. @miah Less dead and more irrelevant to hobbyists like us. They're just targeting industry now. I do think the kinds of cores that help with "ML"/"neural network" (worst terms ever) loads are awesome because there are a lot of genuinely useful things they can do that aren't the kinds of shit in the news (local object recognition for an NVR, better image upscaling, among other things) but we both know it's entirely targeting this bandwagon-y zeitgeist @ceralor Right! I'd _love_ a local compute system that I can do voice recognition through _without_ relying on 'The Internet' or 'A 3rd party API'. I have a few things I'd love to build, and Espressif is making gear that targets that right now but I worry that there is something I don't know about them too! @miah I think they're like weirdly just making things and undercutting competition because they're I believe primarily based in China, not just MFG there. The worst you could say is Tuya buys from them but they also buy from others. It's wild when you can even find knockoff ESP32s that aren't from Espressif. @ceralor Ya, I love the embedded world of STM/Espressif because its actually very inexpensive to get into, and there are clones of everything! Even like logic analyzers are only $12. For the price of a single Pi4 I can buy multiple esp32's, components, etc. Of course the... learning/implementation curve is a bit different on embedded vs 'install a Linux image on Pi'.  @amberage @miah i mean this itself isn't necessarily bad, it's just an asic from the looks of it, what worries me if they're going to have documentation for the chip and compatibility with existing software, it's very far fetched to assume they would do anything directly harmful with it given the kind of device it is, at most it would be unusable without closed source vendor software which does suck majorly still
@miah @jason0x21 While I agree that Pi is pretty much dead to me, I've moved on to OrangePi and Libre, etc. I don't see this as 'a step to evil'. It isn't "AI", it's just ML-offloading support for local ML use (object-tracking, etc), which, Sony aside, is plus-good because if you're doing such things this can remove 3rd party cloud dependency and shipping your live data out to them, keeping everything local to the device. @miah @jason0x21 mea culpa. I stand corrected. Sony Altrios sends metadata 'to the cloud'. So fuck that, fuck Pi, and fuck them forever into the sun. This is not helping.  @miah @BetoOnSecurity to be fair, the ability to do my own modest ML on edge devices is legitimately interesting! But selling that as โships with AI!โ Is gross. @miah Having an official hat for AI work, I'm fine with that. There are certainly common pi projects where it would be useful. But yeah, it really doesn't need to be built in. I always thought the Pi was meant to be minimalist, with GPIO to give it great flexibility with connecting other shit for specific applications. @miah And I'm really concerned iwth the direction of the industry if a good argument could be made that a minimalist computer needs special purpose AI hardware.  @miah I've been building on single-board fanless x86_64 since the covert surveillance cop thing. Cheaper, more available, more performant, lower power, runs the same Debian I already run elsewhere. I've been burned by Arm boards needing custom kernels and quickly going out of support so nobody's porting the special code for the custom kernels any more.. |
@miah Havenโt most people moved on just due to how hard it is to get your hands on Piโs