Raspberry Pi (Trading) Ltd. finally announced

I'm having a go at the fact that despite being in production for around 18 months, and having very clearly stated aims of being to improve education, there is nothing from the Foundation to support any sort of curriculum in schools. Why spend time on improving Multimedia performance and suchlike, when your main stated aim is Education - what does that do to help?

My hat is off to all the people around the world that spend time to create tutorials, videos, websites et al dedicated to helping people learn with the pi, because everyone's time is precious and to give it up to help others is a great thing to do. They are filling a massive vacuum that should have been spearheaded by the Foundation, not lead from the back, which is what they are currently doing.

I'd have completely no problem with them if their line had been 'We've made a neat box that you can do tons of things with, including Mediaboxes and all other kinds of fun stuff' and sold it on that basis - made a ton of money and go off to live on a desert island, hard work deserves to be rewarded. What I object to is 'we are all about education', using that to get a shed load of publicity and free coverage (especially on the BBC, you can't buy that) and then segue into a limited for profit company on the back of that. Don't leverage a charitable status, and then turn your back on that side of things.

Things may be going swimmingly in the gilded towers of Cambridge, but they need to have a bit of a reality check for how educational aims are gonig in the real worls

I'm happy to be proved wrong, so please point me in the direction of some decent, well thought out Educational material created by the foundation and I'm happy to stand corrected. Can't be too hard, they've had 18 months or so to do something.

Or have you been completely assimilated into the Pi collective Cian ?

Why spend time on improving Multimedia performance and suchlike, when your main stated aim is Education - what does that do to help?

That was truly a mystery for the last 18 months or so.  But I think the answer is

pretty clear now.  The Trading company, not the Foundation per se, has apparently

been working on non-educational improvements such as Multimedia performance,

with the intent of selling lots of XBMC, digital signage, and other non-educational

applications, because the Trading company isn't bound in any way by the educational

charter of the Foundation.   Instead, they're apparently just trying to sell as many units

as possible.

The Foundation per se, on the other hand is apparently no longer in the business of

engineering, making or selling the RPi, or determining what improvements should be

made to it.  They no longer even need to defend the original claim that the RPi is an

ideal educational device.  Instead they can and I suspect probably will do govt lobbying

and development of educational materials that has a much broader scope than just the RPi.

I was going to write that RPIF isn't helping with preparing any educational material, and that their website isn't helping either (many people are creating their own blogs or websites - sometimes with no comments section so there is no visible review by anyone - and some of the material is great but other content is incorrect, and some is dangerous (and we've had to highlight it in the past), which makes it harder for people to identify the good material that some will have posted - and it could have been easily fixed by having a more open site.

But, you're right, it is not the RPIF, but the trading body, so none of the above necessarily applies any more to the same extent as before.

and that their website isn't helping either

It will be interesting to see what they do with the website.

It isn't clear now whether the website is for the Foundation or for

the Trading company, or both.

Reasonably balanced piece from Rory Cellan-Jones at the BBC on the Pi and the lack of traction in the educational market.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24435809

"But there isn't an awful lot of evidence that a computer designed for children is in the hands of many at the moment. Upton admits that this is a concern"

Steve Read wrote:

 

"Upton admits that this is a concern"

He'd better be careful.  People who express concerns tend to get banned by RPF.

I've just snorted coffee over my screen ! Who'da thunk it, Eben is a concern troll !

Reasonably balanced piece from Rory Cellan-Jones at the BBC on the Pi and the lack of traction in the educational market.

There seems to be a lot unsaid in that piece.

It says "Since then, they've been churning out as many as 12,000 a day",

but leaves unsaid how many are made on an average day. The UK factory has

made about 1M in about 1yr, so that works out to an average of under 3K per

calendar day.  This average sales rate seems to be quite stable, as about 1M

were sold in the first calendar year as well.

It says:  "But before talking to Upton, we had filmed an inspiring lesson at the

nearby St John's College School, to see an example of what can be done."

Left unsaid is whether this was a "photo op" of what "can" be done, or an

example of what is actually being done on a regular basis.  I think the BBC's

previous filmings of RPi lessons have been of the "photo op" variety.

It says: "But making this experience available much more widely will be a challenge."

and "But there isn't an awful lot of evidence that a computer designed for children is in

the hands of many at the moment. Upton admits that this is a concern - and the focus

must now be on education."   But left unsaid is "whose" focus should now be on education.

Eben resigned from the RPF last December, which is left unsaid, so it's odd that the BBC

should report on his concern for the focus of the RPF.  Shouldn't they report on the concerns

of the current RPF CEO instead?  If the Trading company's concern should now be on education,

it's odd that the Trading company appears to be deliberately focused on non-educational features

such as XBMC and digital signage, etc.

It's a bit puzzling that there have been no journalists that I have seen who have mentioned the new RPF CEO,

including this latest BBC article. Eben's announcement at RPI.org didn't give any specifics, such as when 

Mr. Howarth left ARM, or when he joined RPF.  Nor have I seen any announcements  from ARM about the

loss of an Executive Marketing VP. 

I've seen some public announcements of Mr. Howarth's ARM stock sales,

Feb 12, 2011:  75,816 shares sold

Feb 14, 2012:  122,651 shares sold at 570 pence each, leaving 85,000 shares

Mar 13, 2012: 1,663 shares sold at a price of 575 pence per share

Mar 14, 2012: 48,337 shares sold at a price of 573.88 pence per share, leaving 35,000 shares. 

On June 12, 2012 he is listed as an ARM PDMR (Persons Discharging Managerial Responsibilities),

but on October 31, 2012, he is not on that list.   So it appears that he may have left ARM sometime

between June and October of 2012.

Edited to add: ARM's current Chief Marketing Officer, Ian Drew, was appointed to that position

in July, 2012, which would be consistent with Mr. Howarth perhaps leaving the EVP Marketing

position at around that time.

Not sure if you've seen "Adam Curtis - the rise and fall of the TV journalist" but sadly in the UK for tech news at least it seems TV journalists rely on what they are fed, because they don't understand the technology (generally speaking - not speaking about Rory C-J specifically, I've not read much of his material). Over the years, excellent science shows like Horizon disappeared and were dumbed-down.. :-(

Some innovative material was produced for commercial channels in the UK (like 'Secret Life of Machines' - worth checking out on youtube) in the past but today no channel would attempt anything remotely like that :-(