10 coolest uses for the Raspberry Pi

As the $40 Raspberry Pi computer ships we round up the 10 projects to try on your new Pi. The $40 Raspberry Pi computer has finally shipped, and if you were lucky enough to get one, what exactly should you do with it? Hackers are buzzing with ideas from Pi-powered arcade machines and drones to the home automation and low-cost tablets. TechRepublic has delved into the Raspbery Pi's developer forums, and here's our round-up of the best ideas so far, ranging from the eminently achievable to the massively ambitious. 1. Media streamer Setting up a media centre using the Raspberry Pi is a popular choice, perhaps unsurprisingly given how easy it is to connect the board to a TV via composite or HDMI. Setting up a Pi-based streamer will be relatively straightforward using the free open source media centre software XBMC. The team behind XBMC has a video of it playing 1080p video without any difficulty. 2. 3. 4. Too lazy to press a light switch? 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.