The Raspberry Pi and Uganda’s Digital TV Migration Update
A raspberry pi kit just got delivered to the labs for testing. I’m looking forward to see what sorts of things a raspberry pi can do for us here in our Uganda.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock; the biggest news this past year in IT hardware has been the raspberry pi. Initially meant to help school kids learn how things work. This project has been a wild success, but mostly with the adult kids. Most appealing is the very small form factor and the $35.00 cost. With all these features, this little board gives you all the computing power you need to do your work plus some pretty cool stuff. Some of the interesting projects out there using the raspberry pi include: a web server to store all you files, a router, a webcam server, a weather station controller, a game arcade system, etc.. You can read more about the Pi here
Meanwhile, Uganda continues to struggle with the Digital TV migration process. After failing to meet the December 2012 regional deadline to switch from analogue to digital TV, the Uganda Communications Commission has now set tentative dates with an assurance that by December 2013, all of Kampala, and major towns in the country will have switched. In my opinion, the targets while attainable are still very ambitious considering that there has been very little done so far to prepare Ugandans for this change. It is hoped that testing of digital TV transmission will begin in May this year. Lets wait and see.