The Raspberry Pi Foundation recently announced the Raspberry Pi 4. The little, single-board computer has been an incredible development from the beginning, but the newest edition has now crossed what I believe to be an important threshold. For starters, the Raspberry Pi 4 now runs at 1.5 gigahertz instead of 1.4. This is nothing to sniff at, but other feature improvements such as more memory, the USB upgrade, and faster Ethernet are even more significant.
The new Raspberry Pi 4 and key new features
For example, the maximum memory available on previous versions was 1 GB, but 1 GB, 2 GB, and 4 GB configurations will be available. The Raspi 4 maintains the same form factor and its layout is quite similar, with four USB ports still available. Two of those are USB 3.0, thus increasing data input and output by a factor of 10. That improvement, along with the full-speed gigabit network connection, turns the little unit into a more than adequate core of a network-attached storage (NAS) system.
The graphics processor not only supports 4K output, it can drive two monitors through its two mini-HDMI ports. It supports one 4K monitor at 60 frames per second (FPS) and two and two at 40 FPS.
The basic price point of $35 still applies, but increased memory size will understandably increase the price to $55 for the 4 GB version.
I retired as a professor at Brigham Young University (BYU) in 2016 where I was Associate Professor of French and Instructional Pyschology & Technology. I arrived there in 1992 after my retirement as a Lieutenant Colonel from a 20-year career in the US Air Force. Most of that time was spent on the faculty at the US Air Force Academy (USAFA), during what I call my first career. For over forty years I have been creating interactive video applications for supporting language. The lab at the Language Learning Center at USAFA engaged in ground-breaking efforts conducted within a mentored learning setting. The lab’s work involved the development of technologies and instructional design strategies for the use of video in the language acquisition process as well as with architectures that support online learning and facilitate learning about learning.
I have a BA in Political Science from BYU, an MBA from the University of Missouri, and a PhD in Foreign Language Education and Computer Science from The Ohio State University. At the Air Force Academy I was a key member of the team that designed what was then the largest interactive videodisc-based learning center on a college campus. When I retired from BYU I directed the ARCLITE Lab, which was involved in the creation of online learning materials for language learning as well as video and interactive technologies for learning.
