[m463]

I'm confused. Weren't they sort of started as an educational/charity/open sort of organization?

It seems to me like if Richard Stallman announced an IPO.

I think this will affect users of the raspberry pi. When it becomes for-profit, we will see prices go up, "open" disappear, decisions become more self-serving.

[hulitu]

> When it becomes for-profit, we will see prices go up

The prices already went up. The latest version is expensive.

[logicprog]

I mean they already plan to have a Sony-made closed black box "AI" chip that sends telemetry to Sony, and they unapologetically work with ex-surveillance people, they're already there imo.

[xyx0826]

Can you provide sources on this? I’ve never heard of their AI chip.

[logicprog]

Yup: https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/raspberry-pi-a...

This article also mentions transferring metadata to the cloud.

[gruturo]

That article seems beyond awful, consistently misspelling raspberry, claiming the 4 is the latest model, and the sentence "According to Sony, it protects privacy by simply transferring metadata to the cloud and conducting all data analysis entirely on-chip" is quite contradictory.

Also, the Sony press release they reference as a source (https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/raspberry-pi-receiv...) has 0 mentions of cloud.

[logicprog]

> claiming the 4 is the latest model,

It was at the time I believe, since that's a detail Engadget also mentions. In fact here, since you don't like that article: https://www.engadget.com/sony-investment-will-put-ai-chips-i...

> the sentence "According to Sony, it protects privacy by simply transferring metadata to the cloud and conducting all data analysis entirely on-chip" is quite contradictory.

How is that contradictory at all? The chip will indeed be more private than doing AI work in the cloud like most people do, because the actual data work stays on the chip, and only metadata is sent to the cloud. Obviously a really privacy conscious person won't be okay with sending only metadata to the cloud either, but the claim makes perfect sense from the perspective of a big company. It's not clearly written in the original article I provided, but the Engadget article backs up the core claim and phrases it more clearly, so here:

"Sony says it preserves privacy by analyzing data strictly on-chip and only sending metadata to the cloud."

> Also, the Sony press release they reference as a source (https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/raspberry-pi-receiv...) has 0 mentions of cloud.

Yes but the [literal official website](https://aitrios-promo.wpp.developer.sony.com/en/services/edg...) for the product Sony is pushing says it:

> Build a privacy conscious system by utilizing edge side analysis of data and images and sending only the metadata output to the cloud.

I probably should've led with better sources for sure, but it was late when I responded and I was tired. I did my research on this thoroughly last year when all this came out originally and I was just trying to pull up something without thinking about it too hard. After all the facts of the case are literally an internet search away for those not too lazy.