Raspberry Pi cooking up $25 camera module for video antics

Raspberry Pi owners could be about to give their tiny desktop PCs a new lease of life, thanks to an add-on camera module that will be on sale soon.

Hot on the heels of the new Model A Pi, which trades pared-down power for a cheaper price and lower electricity consumption, the camera module could give Pi owners the option to build photography robots, spy drones or any number of quirky devices.

The camera hardware is complete, the charitable Pi Foundation explains, though apparently image quality still needs a little fine-tuning, and there's work to be done on the camera's drivers.

The tiny camera, which you can see in the snap above, is "probably at least a month away" from going on sale, so you'll need to sit tight for the time being. Comments on the Pi Foundation's blog suggest the spritely snapper will have a 5-megapixel resolution.

Last month the foundation boasted that it had flogged roughly 1 million of the micro computers, while other recent developments include a bespoke app store, and Google shovelling 15,000 of the tiny PCs into British schools, in a bid to improve the UK's programming scene.

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Baby monitors, security cameras, birdwatching and even astronomy are some of the possible uses that commenters have come up with so far. Can you think of any other uses for a Pi-eye? Let me know in the comments, or on our Facebook wall.