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https://www.tomshardware.com/news/raspberry-pi-4bs-inside-spin-scooters
When things don't work out for scooter rental companies and they shut down or pull out of a city, they usually take spare stock with them. However, when Spin backed out of Seattle, many locals discovered unused scooters scattered throughout the city. Upon closer inspection of these abandoned devices, or should we say dissection, it was uncovered that they each have a Raspberry Pi 4B inside.
This discovery was recently shared on social media. Legally, if the scooters are abandoned then snagging one for the Pi inside is fair game but it's not clear if Spin has plans to recover their remaining assets.
The Seattle city government official website confirm that Spin originally arrived in 2021 as a fourth scooter rental option. However, the company did not renew its license for the most recent cycle. Because of this, you can find a few remaining Spin scooters around the city.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Freeman on Tuesday August 08 2023, @08:02PM (11 children)
Guess this is the real culprit for why we couldn't actually get a RPi4 at cost any time in the last year or so. Why design your own board, when you can pluck one off the shelf and build your product around that.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Frosty Piss on Tuesday August 08 2023, @08:23PM (10 children)
Indeed isn't this the primary purpose of the Raspberry Pi?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by ElizabethGreene on Tuesday August 08 2023, @09:20PM (3 children)
It is, and much to the chagrin of hobbyists, Raspberry Pi has been cooperating with and prioritizing industrial customers during their supply chain woes.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Reziac on Wednesday August 09 2023, @02:32AM (2 children)
I imagine they've discovered, as does everyone else producing tech anything, that your real customers are downstream industry, and that you can't make a living selling to hobbyists.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by GloomMower on Wednesday August 09 2023, @12:05PM (1 child)
According to interviews, they realized there was many jobs linked to it being available. Lots of small ~10 person shops. They could have just released them all to the market, but likely all those companies would have gone out of business and all those people loose their jobs. How true that is I don't know, but that is what is said in the interview that was posted here a couple months ago.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Reziac on Wednesday August 09 2023, @02:26PM
I missed that interview, but yeah, that's reasonable. Small shops are still downstream industry, who rely on their suppliers to stay in business.
And that small industry is still going to buy 'em by the hundreds or thousands, not by the each like someone who wants to build a media controller for the den.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 4, Informative) by epitaxial on Tuesday August 08 2023, @10:17PM (5 children)
The purpose of the Pi was to make an open hardware platform as cheaply as possible, mostly for students. Before the Pi you would be spending hundreds of dollars on a single board computer. https://web.archive.org/web/20120615040825/http://www.raspberrypi.org/about [archive.org]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Freeman on Tuesday August 08 2023, @11:33PM (4 children)
It's still relatively easy to spend hundreds of dollars on a single board computer. Though, there are other cheaper options. Unfortunately, the RaspberryPi 4 has been consistently running at scalper prices on ebay since shortly after the Pi4 launched. (With a near impossibility to get a RaspberryPi from a retailer at normal list price.) Possibly better prices than pre-RaspberryPi, but a far cry from the $15 computer that was praised when they launched RaspberryPi. The PiZero 2 W is still going for 3x the "$15" price point listed on retailers and RaspberryPi's site.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 4, Informative) by Kymation on Wednesday August 09 2023, @12:27AM (1 child)
(Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday August 09 2023, @01:19AM
Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W is a different model. Basically a low-clocked Raspberry Pi 3 (quad-core Cortex-A53) with 512 MB of RAM and wireless functionality in the Zero form factor. That launched at a $15 MSRP.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/new-raspberry-pi-zero-2-w-2/ [raspberrypi.com]
Raspberry Pi Zero W is a single-core that launched at a $10 MSRP.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/raspberry-pi-zero/ [raspberrypi.com]
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/raspberry-pi-zero-w-joins-family/ [raspberrypi.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Wednesday August 09 2023, @03:14AM (1 child)
It was never $15. Maybe you should read my link. They probably never imagined it would get this popular.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday August 09 2023, @02:41PM
The original RaspberryPi launched at a $15 price point. Sure, you still need the peripherals, and monitor, depending on what you want to do with it. There are headless uses for a RaspberryPi. The PiZero also launched at a $5 price point. Which put it in reach of $15 for it and the peripherals. The PiPico is essentially the only option that's available whenever you need it. That would probably have a lot to do with the fact that it's an overpriced microcontroller. I.E. Companies aren't going to spend $4 on a microcontroller, when they can spend $1 or less. Was sad to see the $5 price hike for PiZero and PiZeroW. Still, they're useful and $10 for a PiZero and $15 for PiZeroW isn't horrible. Though, at that point, a PiZero2W at $15 sounds much better.
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/raspberry-pi-adds-100000-units-to-supply-chain-back-to-pre-pandemic-levels-in-2023 [tomshardware.com] (Dec. 2022 article)
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"