Month: February 2022

Enlarge (credit: Raspberry Pi Foundation)

The Raspberry Pi hardware has included a 64-bit processor since the Pi 3 launched in early 2016, but the Raspberry Pi OS (formerly known as Raspbian) has remained primarily 32-bit. The Raspberry Pi Foundation has been testing a 64-bit version of the OS since 2020, though, and today the organization announced that the 64-bit version is leaving beta and is now a fully supported OS option on all 64-bit Pi hardware. This includes the Pi 3, Pi 4, Pi Zero 2 W, and all variants thereof.

The most significant benefit of the 64-bit switch will be software compatibility, since as the Pi Foundation notes, “many closed-source applications are only available for ARM64,” and open source apps aren’t always fully optimized for the instruction set that the 32-bit Pi OS uses.

The Pi Foundation’s post also talks about the performance benefits of 64-bit ARM processors and the underlying ARMv8 instruction set while noting that these benefits “are most visible in benchmarks” at the moment. It also mentions the ability for single processes to address more than 4GB of RAM, though the Large Physical Address Extension (LPAE) feature already allows each individual process in the 32-bit Pi OS to access up to 3GB of memory.

Enlarge / Starlink Premium antenna. (credit: Starlink)

Starlink has started taking orders for a premium service with a bigger antenna that delivers download speeds of up to 500Mbps, and it costs five times as much as the standard service: $2,500 for the hardware and $500 per month for Internet access.

“Starlink Premium has more than double the antenna capability of Starlink,” the product’s website says. More specifically, the higher-performance user terminal has “twice the area of our standard phased array with broader scan angle,” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote on Twitter. It’s intended for small offices, stores, and residences. The exact physical dimensions of the new user terminal don’t seem to be available.

Ordering Starlink Premium requires a $500 deposit, and deliveries are scheduled to start in Q2 2022. It will be the latter part of Q2, as an FAQ says, “We expect to begin fulfilling Starlink Premium orders mid-2022.” But the timing still means that people who order Starlink Premium could get service before people who have been waiting many months for a shipment of regular Starlink equipment.

Enlarge / UVeye’s technology uses scanners and AI to diagnose defects. (credit: UVeye)

Can you train an AI to take a breath, wince, and remark, “Well, it’s going to cost you”?

That’s probably easier than teaching one to diagnose problems with your car after a visual scan of its undercarriage, and yet the latter is what an Israeli company called UVeye has done. The company has developed what you might think of as a car scanner that can diagnose problems in just a few seconds. Drive past it, and it will image your car’s panels, tires, or underbody, spotting dings, oil leaks, foreign objects, or other problems, flagging them for remedy.

It’s another intriguing example of the civilian spinoffs that have emerged from Israel’s national security sector over the last couple of decades as sensors and algorithms find new life on civvy streets.

Enlarge / Joe Rogan on July 9, 2021, in Las Vegas, NV. (credit: Getty | Icon Sportswire)

Long before the pandemic took the lives of more than 5.6 million people and created a lucrative market for COVID grifts, misinformation, and snake oil, there was Goop.

The aspirational lifestyle brand and its lustrous “contextual commerce” products are helmed by actor Gwyneth Paltrow, who has used her fame, wealth, and enviable genetics to peddle all manner of wellness pseudoscience and quackery. With the manipulative mantra of “empowering” women to seize control of their health and destinies, Paltrow’s Goop has touted extremely questionable—if not downright dangerous—products. Perhaps the most notorious is the jade egg, a $66 egg-shaped rock Goop advised women to shove up their vaginas while claiming it could treat medical conditions, “detox” lady bits, and invigorate mystical life forces (of course).

But let’s not forget the $135 “Implant O’Rama” enema device intended to squirt scalding coffee into your colon, the $90 luxury vitamins that almost certainly do nothing, or the $85 “medicine bag” of small, polished rocks that Goop suggests have magical wellness properties. Then there was the bee-sting therapy—no, not therapy for bee stings but therapy imparted from bee stings. Paltrow personally endorsed the practice, which was blamed for the death of a 55-year-old Spanish woman in 2018.