A guide to Raspberry Pi in 60 seconds
The potential of this fully functional, ridiculously inexpensive little computer is limited only by your imagination. It’s not too late to join the Raspberry Pi bandwagon.
Google is now ready to release its Coral developer board globally after completing improvements throughout its six-month beta period.
Google unveiled its Coral edge kit in March, offering developers a Raspberry Pi-like board with an attachable Google Edge TPU machine-learning accelerator. The kit is aimed at engineers and researchers who want to run TensorFlow models at the edge of a network, outside the data center.
The Coral Dev Board itself costs $149, which includes a detachable Coral system-on-module (SoM) that can now be bought as a standalone product for $114. The SoM includes Google’s Edge TPU with the NXP IMX8M SoC, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, memory, and storage.
SEE: Six in-demand programming languages: Getting started (free PDF)
Google is selling its Coral line of products through Mouser “globally”. However, it is also planning to expand distribution of the developer board and SoM to Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, India, Thailand, Singapore, Oman, Ghana, and the Philippines by the end of the year.
Additionally, it will soon release a new version of Mendel OS, a lightweight ‘derivative’ of Debian Linux designed for Coral dev boards and the Coral Edge TPU. The new version of Mendel OS will be based on Debian Buster.
Google is also offering three new accelerators for production workloads, each of which features the Edge TPU and connects to other devices via PCIe slots. These include the Mini PCIe, M.2 A+E key, and M.2 B+M key.
Along with the global release, Google has updated the Coral website with new documentation, customer success stories, and pages for different industries that could use the kit, such as manufacturing, healthcare, automotive, and smart cities where these edge devices running AI models locally could be of use.
Google highlights the startup Care.ai, which has used Coral and computer vision to detect falls by the elderly at places like nursing homes. Another company, Olea Edge, is using a Coral accelerator to accurately measure water usage at commercial buildings.
The Coral developer board itself costs $149, which includes a detachable Coral system-on-module.
Image: Google
Olea Edge is using a Coral board in a monitoring device to accurately measure water usage.
Image: Google
More on Raspberry Pi and single-board computers
Google’s Raspberry Pi-like Coral board lands: Turbo-charged AI on a tiny computer
Raspberry Pi alternative: Khadas pitches $50 VIM3L as 4K home theater PC
Raspberry Pi gets MIT’s Scratch 3 programming language for RaspbianRaspberry Pi 4 won’t work with some power cables due to its USB-C design flawRaspberry Pi 4 Model B is out: Faster CPU, GPU, dual-screen 4K, up to 4GB for $55Raspberry Pi users: You got Pi 4, now new Raspbian takes Windows 10, iOS design cuesWhat are the best Raspberry Pi alternatives? Everything you need to know about Pi rivalsWhat is the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B? A closer look at the new board and what it can do TechRepublicRaspberry Pi 4 Model B review: This board really can replace your PC TechRepublicRaspberry Pi 4 : This thing is a PC, says board’s creator Eben Upton TechRepublicNew Raspberry Pi add-on: Now you can monitor air pollution indoors and outRaspberry Pi: A cheat sheet TechRepublic Google includes a Raspberry Pi in a DIY smart speaker kit CNET
Related Topics:
Data Centers
Digital Transformation
CXO
Internet of Things
Innovation
Enterprise Software