Raspberry Pi, the bestselling single-board computer, gets a new launch with a reformulated recipe. Katie Wright has a taste

THE next generation of Raspberry Pi, the hugely popular single-board computer, is now on sale, boasting a reformulated recipe and some delicious new ingredients. Haven’t tasted the Raspberry Pi before? The diminutive device (it’s as big as a credit card) was designed in the UK with the aim of making programming cheap and easy for kids to learn.

Three million units have been sold since February 2012, when kids – and big kids – started using Model A to learn programming languages like C++ and Java, experiment with electronics, build robots, make music and much more. Third party companies have jumped on the berry bandwagon too, creating add-ons, such as cameras and touchscreens, and a host of books, blogs and meet-ups allow Pi makers to trade tips and show off their wares.

What will the millions of makers think of the latest batch? So far they’re lapping it up. Based on the same Broadcom BCM2835 chipset and with the same 512MB of RAM, Model B+ is a real chip off the old block, but with many improvements.

There are now four USB ports instead of two, so you can attach a mouse, keyboard and Wi-Fi dongle (a common combination) without needing an extra USB hub. The number of pins, used to connect things like LEDS and sensors, has also jumped, from 26 to 40, making room for more complex projects. The SD memory card slot has been slimmed down to micro-SD format and sound quality has been boosted, thanks to an improved audio circuit.

It looks better too. The layout has been rejigged and the corners rounded, making this a sleek, pimped up Pi, but for the same price as before – £28 for the board, plus NOOBS installation software, from raspberrypi.org.

So why the redesign now? According to founder Eben Upton, the changes are designed to “incorporate the numerous small improvements people have been asking for”. There’s also speculation that the new launch has been timed to coincide with a change that’s coming to UK schools; starting next term, all primary pupils will learn coding as part of the rebranded computing (previously ICT) curriculum, a task the B+ is perfectly positioned to help with.

DIGGING DEEP FOR BROADBAND IN the early 1800s, Dolphinholme in Lancashire was one of the first places in the country to get gas street lights. Two hundred years later, the tiny village has scored another technological triumph – one of the fastest broadband networks in the UK. And it’s all thanks to local volunteers.

After BT told residents they wouldn’t bring broadband to the area because it was too remote and expensive, Dolphinholmers took matters into their own hands. With the help of Broadband 4 Rural North, villagers dug trenches and laid superfast cables between houses themselves, and now they’ve got net speeds of up to one gigabit per second, which far outstrips BT’s normal two megabits per second offering for rural areas.

TWIT-LIT WHILE big-name authors and self-publishers are locked in a battle over Amazon’s ebook sales, award-winning novelist David Mitchell has gone down another route, publishing a new short story on Twitter. The 280-tweet tale, called The Right Sort, was posted over seven days last week. It’s the story of a boy called Nathan who sets off with his mother to find harp-playing Lady Brigg and it just so happens to be set in the same universe as Mitchell’s new novel, due out in September.

Which begs the question, is this microblogged story a beautiful work of Twitter-ature, or just a crafty PR stunt? Decide for yourself at Twitter.

com/david_mitchell.

CORTANA SCORES WHAT was the most important result of the World Cup? Germany’s triumph over Argentina?

Judging by an excitable blog post from Microsoft, it was actually Cortana’s victory over Siri in predicting the outcome of matches. Cortana, Microsoft’s digital assistant, correctly predicted 15 of the final 16 results, using Bing search engine algorithms to assess teams’ previous performance, as well as factors like home side advantage. Cortana’s only error was in picking Brazil for third place over the Netherlands.

Apple’s Siri, meanwhile, reckoned Argentina would take home the winner’s trophy. Siri shouldn’t feel bad though – the iPhone assistant still performed better than 2010’s Paul the Octopus.