Take Back Your Clound in Raspberry Pi Official Magazine 165

We’re all-too accustomed to the feling of being watched on the internet. A search for any product leads to adverts, emails, and goodness knows how many bots tracking you. It feels weird and intrusive, and we aren’t being paranoid – they really are watching us. Luckily you don’t have to reply on online services that sell your data (or allow AI companies to trawl through your data); with Raspberry Pi and Ben Everard’s guide, you can set up your own cloud services and take back your online privacy. We wish we’d done it sooner.

How’s this for an antidote to our always-on, data-driven lifestyle? The Paper Console, by Travis Miller, uses a Raspberry Zero 2W to grab the information you need with none of the distractions that your brain craves. It then prints the weather forecast, news headlines and more on to a pice of paper, leaving you informed but not glued to a screen. And it’s beautiful!

Which is the better film: Alien, or Aliens? It’s a debate that will last as long as humans have the attention span to watch movies. What we do know is that both films have a particular aesthetic that has influenced the look and feel of science fiction ever since they were released: worn, faded, a bit battered. Maker Jeff Merrick has taken the Alien look and run with it, building a Raspberry Pi cyberdeck that looks like it would at home on the USCSS Nostromo.

If you’re thinking about robotics but don’t know where to start, start with Jo Hinchliffe’s beginner-friendly, Raspberry Pi Pico-powered robot. It’s affordable, customisable, and once you’ve mastered it you’ll have the knowledge to move on to bigger, better things.

Long shadows, blue skies, green grass – it must be summer. At last! We’ve rounded up a few of our favourite summer projects to help even the most ardent claustrophobe get out into the fresh air.

And last but not least in this whistle-stop tour of Raspberry Pi Official Magazine issue 165, we have a word clock by Rob Miles. With a little 3D printing and a lot of Python, anyone can semi-automate the process to build a unique, personalised device that tells the time and improves your vocabulary.

There’s loads more – of course there is! – in the new issue of Official Raspberry Pi Magazine. Get yours here, or subscribe to never miss an issue.