We all know that the price of RAM and storage has shot up due to demand from the AI industry and other factors. In most cases that means we grumble about the price, but if we really need the part we can fork out for it. [CNX Software] are reporting that rather than continue to push up their prices, Pine64 are responding to the crisis by halting production of their Linux boards for the time being.

We’ve seen online comment over the now-exorbitant cost of other boards such as a fully-loaded Raspberry Pi, and this follows in that vein. If we had to guess we’d speculate that the high process have resulted in too little in the way of sales, which considering the knock-on impact on our community if other vendors follow suit, could be concerning.

If there’s one bright spot in the current situation, it’s that for many applications where a single-board computer might be used, a microcontroller might now be a better choice for the job than something running Linux. We’re in a very different situation from that we were in when cheap Linux boards appeared, the current generation of high-power microcontrollers have significantly closed the gap between the two. Given that microcontrollers have onboard memory and storage, their immunity from the price hikes makes them even more attractive. As to Pine64, we hope that sales of their other products make up for it.

Header image: BasilicumTree, CC0.

Quite a few in our community make a bit of cash on the side by selling our creations, and it’s not uncommon to find that a project which catches your eye can be picked up as a kit for a few of your preferred currency units. But there’s a problem facing such tiny producers in the form of regulations intended for large businesses which are beyond their ability to comply with. [Alain Pannetrat] writes for the Lectronz marketplace about one of them, the new European Union packaging waste regulations.

At face value it sounds like a good idea, that suppliers should be responsible in some way for the disposal of their packaging. It discourages excessive packaging and encourages recycling, indeed the EU even describe the scheme as boosting business. The problem is that its administration is left to individual member states, and someone selling across the whole bloc would have to join multiple schemes. The hefty price is nothing to a large enterprise, but impossible for a tiny one. He makes a very good point, that it’s difficult to claim to champion innovation, while also imposing something like this on grass-roots innovators. Going by the experiences of our acquaintances in this space an extra burden on top of that presented by the current unstable tariff and customs situation involved in selling to the USA would likely be the straw which broke the camel’s back.

In practice we suspect that many are simply doing the same as they have with compliance marking and waste electronic equipment regulations, simply not bothering and hoping they fly under the radar and never get caught. We hope we won’t end up reporting on any future crackdown, the landscape has definitely changed since we tried our hand in this business.