Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft), Author at CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

February 20, 2015March 20, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 14 Comments

SoundMate WM201 Wi-Fi Music Streamer (EZMusic) Review

Last year I reviewed SoundMate M2 Wi-Fi audio streamer, and Uyesee has sent me a sample of their new SoundMate WM201 powered by Actions Semi AM8253, and based on EZCast app for audio calld EZMusic (EZCast Music). SoundMate WM201 Unboxing Pictures That’s the package for the device. The device comes with two audio cables, a micro USB to USB cable for power, and “SoundMate WiFi Music Streamer” user manual. Let’s have a closer look at the tiny box. Two LEDs are located on the front for power and connection, a micro SD slot can be found on the side, and the rear panel has most of the connection: micro USB port for power, reset pinhole, optical SPDIF, 3.5mm stereo jack, and USB 2.0 host for mass storage. SoundMate WM210 Teardown Take out of four sticky rubber pad on the bottom of the case, and loosen four screws to remove the […]

February 20, 2015February 20, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Blacksmith Genesis is an Affordable 3-in-1 3D Printer, Scanner, and Copier

Multifunction printers have been commonplace for many years, and allow you to print, scan, or copy any document with or without your computer, but when it comes to 3D is a little more complicated. First, it’s usually quite harder to design a 3D object than typing some text into a word processor, although 3D objects online database like thingiverse do help. If you want to copy a 3D object, you may have to buy a 3D scanner such as MakerBot Digitizer, and a 3D printer such as Makerbot Replicator 2 which takes space and costs about $3,000 in total. Multifunction 3D printer are slowly coming to market with for example AIO Robotics Zeus which recently shipped to backers, and is now available for $2,500. An other option is Singapore made BlackSmith Genesis, a compact multifunction 3D printer that can print, scan, and copy objects based on a rotary design, that […]

February 20, 2015May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

pcDuino3B Development Board Adds Gigabit Ethernet Support

pcDuino3 development board features Allwinner A20 dual core Cortex A7 SoC with support for SATA, HDMI, LVDS, Wi-Fi, Fast Ethernet, and Arduino compatible headers. Linksprite has now an updated version of the board that adds Gigabit Ethernet, while leaving the rest of the specs unmodified. pcDuino3B (aka pcDuino V3B) specifications: SoC – AllWinner A20 dual core ARM Cortex A7 @ 1.0 GHz, with Mali 400MP2 GPU System Memory – 1GB DRAM Storage – 4GB NAND Flash, SATA connector, and microSD card slot (up to 32GB) Video Output – HDMI 1.4 with HDCP support, LVDS header Audio Out – 3.5mm analog audio interface, I2S stereo digital audio interface Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi USB – 1x USB host, 1x USB OTG Expansion Headers – Arduino UNO extension interface with 14xGPIO, 2xPWM, 6xADC, 1xUART, 1xSPI, 1xI2C. Camera – MIPI camera support Misc – IR receiver Power – 5V, 2000mA, support […]

February 20, 2015December 17, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Qualcomm Unveils Snapdragon 650 and 652 ARM Cortex A72 / A53 Processors

[Update: Title updated to reflect the new names of the processors. Snapdragon 618 is now Snapdragon 650, and 620 is now 652 to reflect the better Cortex A72 cores used in those processors] Qualcomm has announced four new processors including Snapdragon 415 and 425 octa-core Cortex A53 processor, as well a Snapdragon 618 and 620 big.LITTLE processor with the latest Cortex A72 cores coupled with four Cortex A53 little cores. Snapdragon 618 is the hexa-core version with 2 Cortex A72 cores, while Snapdragon 620 comes with eight cores including 4 Cortex A72, but apart from the difference in number of cores, both share the same technical specifications: CPU Snapdragon 618 – 64-bit dual-core ARM Cortex A72 @ 1.8GHz and quad-core Cortex A53 @ 1.2GHz Snapdragon 620 – 64-bit quad-core ARM Cortex A72 @ 1.8GHz and quad-core Cortex A53 @ 1.2GHz GPU – Next generation Qualcomm Adreno GPU with support for […]

February 19, 2015February 19, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Nvidia Tegra X1 Gets About 75,000 Points in Antutu

Nvidia Tegra X1 was expected to outperform the competition, but based on Antutu results provided by Mydrivers, the performance leap might be greater than expected, as Nvidia Tegra X1 reference tablet gets 74,997 points in Antutu 5.6.1. As usual caution is warranted with Antutu results, as the benchmark is easily cheated, which explains why Allwinner A80T devices can get over 140,000 points. But let’s assume Tegra X1 result is representative and compare it to its predecessor the Tegra K1. Surprisingly I struggled to find a detailed Antutu 5.x score for the Nexus 9, and I had to get the scores from that video with Antutu 5.2.0. Nexus 9 (Tegra K1 64-bit) Tegra X1 Reference Platform Ratio Antutu 57040 74977 1.31x Multitask 11817 9217 0.78x Runtime 4146 4758 1.15x CPU integer 3038 11295 3.72x CPU float-point 1939 7274 3.75x Single-thread integer 2920 3206 1.10x Single-thread float-point 2831 2878 1.02x RAM operations […]

February 19, 2015February 19, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

HPH NT-V6 Firmware V1.4.4 (Rockchip RK3288) Fixes Ethernet Performance, Adds Smartphone App

When I first started to review Rockchip RK3288 based TV boxes I noticed several had critical issues with Ethernet including Nagrace HPH NT-V6 and Kingnovel K-R6. The main cons of the Nagrace media player included: XBMC has too many issues: VC1 not supported, H.265 support only partial, audio/video sync issue, some MPEG-2 and XVID videos are skipping frames, some of the 4K videos I used could play properly, etc… Some MPEG-2 file won’t play smooth in either XBMC or MX Player Potential Ethernet issues, confirmed with my Gigabit switch (D-Link DSG-1005A) and 10/100Mbps D-Link router (configured as a switch). Since then SPMC and Kodi must have improved video playback issues, but as late as last month I still got feedback from one person (Mr. B.) complaining about Ethernet on HPH NT-V6, but he finally got an email with a new firmware that is said to fix the Ethernet issues and […]

February 19, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Olimex Announces Availability of TI AM3352 and Rockchip RK3188 SoM and Evaluation Boards

Olimex showcased prototypes for both Texas Instruments Sitara AM3352 and Rockchip RK3188 system-on-modules and evaluation boards in May 2014. However, development and production took a bit longer than expected, and the company has just announced availability of the platforms now. Rockchip RK3188 CPU Modules and Kit RK3188-SOM-EVB kit specifications: RK3188-SOM-4GB System-on-Module with the following key features: SoC – Rockchip RK3188 quad core Cortex A9 processor @ 1.6GHz with Mali-400MP4 GPU System Memory – 1GB DDR3 Storage – 4GB Flash + micro SD slot Debugging – 4-pin UART connector Misc – Reset and Recovery buttons, 3x status LEDs Dimensions – 55.88 x 81.28 mm Video Output – HDMI output + LCD output Connectivity – 10/100Mbps Ethernet USB – 4x USB Hosts, 1x micro USB OTG Expansion Connectors LCD connector for LCD-OLinuXino-XX LCDs 2x UEXT connectors 2x 40 pin GPIO connectors Misc – RTC with backup battery Power Supply – 6-16 V via […]

February 18, 2015February 18, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments

Android 4.1 vs Android 5.0 Performance Comparison

Most of the time people compare the performance of different hardware platforms, but since Wandboard released an Android 5.0 image in the last few days, I wondered what difference two years of software development may make by comparing benchmark results. So I ran both Antutu 5.6.1 and Vellamo 3.1 on Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean (android-4.1.2-wand-dual-20130411.zip) and the latest Android 5.0 Lollipop firmware for Wandboard Dual (Freescale i.MX6 Dual) development board. Android 4.1.2 Benchmark Results Antutu 5.6.1 Vellamo 3.1 You’ll notice the yellow triangle on the top right corner of the multicore and browser results due to some warning related to missing CPU frequency information, and a DOM timeout. Android 5.0 Benchmark Results Antutu 5.6.1 The 2D graphics looked weird at some point as it zoomed out on1/4 of the display. The screenshot did not show the total score, so I added it manually to the picture above. Vellamo 3.1 Vellamo […]