Tuesday 18 December 2012

Raspberry Pi launches Pi Store


Interesting news up for Raspberry Pi enthusiasts! In an official blog post , folks at Raspberry Pi have made the launch of the Pi Store official. The store will enable developers of all ages to share their games, application, tools and tutorials with the rest of the community. "The Pi Store will, we hope, become a one-stop shop for all your Raspberry Pi needs; it’s also an easier way into the Raspberry Pi experience for total beginners, who will find everything they need to get going in one place, for free," the post adds further.

The Pi store runs as an X application under Raspbian, using which users can download content and upload their own for moderation and release. Currently, the store houses 23 free titles across categories like utilities (LibreOffice, for eg) to classic games like Freeciv and OpenTTD, as also the Raspberry Pi exclusive Iridium Rising. Interestingly, at the outset, folks at Raspberry Pi will be urging winners of their Summer Programming Contest to upload their entries to the store. The store, however, is open to entries for moderation and release from anyone.

The post goes on to add, “We hope that the Pi Store will provide young people with a way to share their creations with a wider audience, and maybe to a make a little pocket money along the way; as well as offering commercial developers an easy way to get their software seen by the Raspberry Pi community.”

Interestingly, users can choose whether to make their content available for free or paid. In fact, the Pi store it is learnt comes with a tip jar mechanism. Simply put, even if a user is offering his or her content for free, they will still have the chance of making some money from their development work, if people take a liking to their work. Users can submit binaries, raw Python code, images, audio or video; and soon you’ll be able to submit Scratch content too. The Pi Store will also house media of all kinds related to Raspberry Pi. Going further, the post adds that they are carrying the MagPi, following which they hope they will be able to host as many of user tutorials as possible.

Further, the Pi store comes with a recommendation engine that is made to suit a user and his preferences. This means, the recommendations offered to them will get better as the reviews increase. Interestingly, if users rate and review constructively, the content will move to the top – for everyone to see. The post elaborates, “If Liz rates games I hate highly (and believe me, she does: most of her favourite PC games have customisable half-elves in them), that’s no problem: the engine reflects your personal taste, and will learn that, displaying a different selection of recommendations for everyone, once enough ratings are in. We’ll also be adding achievements and leaderboards shortly.”

To view the store in a browser, go to - http://store.raspberrypi.com/. More details here.

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