Machine Learning on a Raspberry Pi

It looks like Google is catching up to the idea of machine learning on a Raspberry Pi! Someone put RapidMiner on a Pi back in 2013 but it was slow because the Pi was underpowered.

The Pi has been a great thin client and a small, but capable server. I’ve used it for my Personal Weather Station project and as an FTP server. Based on the news, things are about to get interesting for both Google and Raspberry Pi.

I don’t know what Google is planning to release to the Pi and Maker community but based on the survey I filled out, they haven’t decided yet. They’re looking at C#, Javascript, Go, Swift, Python, and all the other usual suspects.

Raspberry PiRaspberry Pi

The problem is optimizing the machine learning libraries for the Pi and having enough available to make it worthwhile for the community.  My guess is that they’ll go with Python, TensorFlow, and Go (Grumpy).

Whatever they decide, I consider this big news for Tinkerers and Makers everywhere. There will be an explosion of innovation if the Google toolkit is comprehensive. The Startup barrier to entry has been lowered, all you need is Pi ($40), a domain, some sweat equity, and a dream.



Date
January 27, 2017