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

August 1, 2013August 1, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

HDMI to VGA Adapters Now Cost About $10

I remember when the Raspberry Pi first got out, many people wanted to connected it to a VGA display, and at the time, a cheap HDMI to VGA adapter would have cost $30, about the same price of the low-cost ARM11 board. Since then things have changed since it’s possible to find HDMI to VGA adapters for less than $10, and even less than $7 on Aliexpress. The one linked and pictured above has an HDMI male connector and a VGA female connector, and the following features listed in buyincoins: Support 1080p and 720p. Built-in chipset. No external power required, power supply from HDMI signal. Don’t support audio output. Can use for connecting devices with VGA port to HDTV. HDMI – standard type A port male. VGA – VGA video port, female. The title seems to imply it’s an HDMI to VGA adapter, but the description tells you it’s for […]

July 31, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Panasonic Unveils KX-PRX120 Android 4.0 DECT Phone

Panasonic has just introduced KW-PRX120 a cordless phone (DECT) running Android 4.0 on a 3.5″ display. It just looks like your smartphone, but you can only use it within your home. KW-PRX120 specifications and features: Display – 3.5 inch TFT colour LCD (HVGA) with capacitive multi touch screen Connectivity – Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS Camera – 0.3M pixel Front Camera Battery – 1450mAh Li-ion Battery Storage – microSD / microSDHC Card Slot on Handset USB – micro USB Charging Port Phone features: Incoming/Outgoing Call Barring to help minimise unwanted or nuisance calls Caller ID, Caller ID memory Answering Machine (40min) Key Finder accessory (Optional) Up to 6 handsets (Optional handset or GAP supported DECT handset) can be registered The company did not mention details about the processor, RAM, or storage in the device, but it comes with Google Play, so you’ll be able to install (most of) the apps you’re alreading […]

July 31, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

$219 Kwikset Kevo Bluetooth Low Energy Dead Bolt

With RFDuino, BLEDuino, SensorTag, etc…, we know have several low cost Bluetooth Low Energy development boards / kits, however there are just a few Bluetooth SMART peripherals available right now, although many are currently being developed. One application of BLE will be the ability to use your phone to interact with objects around you, and Kwikset has just done that with its Kevo BLE Deadbolt that can be pre-ordered for $219 on Amazon with delivery scheduled by the end of October 2013. All you need to do is to load Kevo mobile app unto your iOS or Android smartphone to turn it into an electronic key (eKey), and unlock the deadbolt by simply touching it with your finger without having to remove the phone from your pocket or purse. That looks highly practical, but at the same time very unsafe, so let’s have a look at some others features of […]

July 31, 2013September 28, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 18 Comments

Freescale i.MX6 Based Server Systems – Cornfed CONSERVER and Ventana Network Processing Boards

I usually spend most of my time writing about low cost hardware in this blog, but in this post, I’ll deal with higher-end and more expensive devices based on Freescale i.MX6 with Cornfed CONSERVER Server System and corresponding CONSERVER motherboard, as well as Ventana Network Processing Boards. Cornfed CONSERVER Conserver is a low power high-performance ARM processor server system based on Freescale i.MX6 with 4GB RAM, Gigabit Ethernet, and SATA. The hardware specifications are as follows: SoC – Freescale i.MX6Q Quad Core ARM Cortex A9 processor @ 1.2 GHz System Memory – 4 GB DDR3 RAM Storage – ?? GB NAND Flash + 1x SATA2 connector for HDD/SSD Connectivity – 1x Gb Ethernet port USB – 4x USB Host ports Video Output – 1x HDMI port Misc – RS-232 Serial port Power Supply – 35W Internal AC Power Supply Dimensions – Mini-ITX form factor The system is preloaded with Ubuntu, and […]

July 31, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Linaro 13.07 Release With Linux Kernel 3.10.1 and Android 4.2.2

Linaro 13.07 has been released with Linux Kernel 3.10.1 (both baseline and stable versions), and Android 4.2.2. It’s summer time, so activity seems to have slowdown a bit, yet improvements have done to LAVA with the first LAVA Multi-purpose Prove (LMP) setup, and Linaro has released build with Linux 3.10.1, Ubuntu Raring, OpenEmbedded (ARMv8), and Android. For the very first time, there’s even an Android 4.2.2 community build for HiSilicon K3V2 hardware (HiSilicon Hi4511 development platform). Here are the highlights of this release: LAVA LAVA Core VExpress A9 test images no longer use the master image’s boot loader Support added for interactive bootloader commands. Support for OpenID / Crowd added for LAVA. LAVA Master images updated on images.validation.linaro.org LAVA Multi-node – Multi-Node support has an initial implementation which can support communication between nodes under test via the use of a GroupDispatcher. LAVA Lab Capabilities – LMP (LAVA Multi-purpose Probe) prototypes […]

July 30, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

BeagleBone GamingCape Transforms your BeagleBone Black into an Hand-held Gaming Console

The BeagleBone GamingCape is an open source project featuring the BeagleBone Black together with extra hardware such as a Cape, LCD display, and enclosure that turns your Beablebone board into a battery powered hand-held gaming console. The gaming console, which has been designed within 6 weeks by Max Thrun, has the following key hardware features: 320×240 16Bit Color TFT LCD Analog joystick + 2 Thumb Buttons 3D Gyro, 3D Accelerometer, 3D Magnetometer Headphone Out + Mic In and it can emulate NES, GameBoy, GameBoy Color, GameBoy Advance, Sega Master System, Sega Game Gear, and also run Doom. It will not be mass produced, but the whole design is open source, and the necessary files are available for: The Cape: Schematics, layout, and CadSoft EAGLE file can be found Bill of Materials The Case composed of 11 laser cut pieces of Delrin – 3D files Emulators: Osmose – Sega Master System / […]

July 30, 2013July 30, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Texas Instruments Releases Android App for SensorTag and Publishes Bluetooth Low Energy Training Videos

Texas Instruments Sensortag is a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) development kit with 6 sensors (IR temperature, humidity, pressure, accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer) mainly destined at mobile application, which I recently tried in Linux. Until now, only it was only officially supported in iOS and Windows, but a few days after the release of Android 4.3 which adds Bluetooth Low Energy support, Texas Instruments quickly worked to release an Android App for their BLE devkit. The annoying part is that the Android app is only available as a Windows executable (SensorTagAndroidApp-0_9_0-windows-installer_2.exe), so you’ll have not choice but to use Windows to uncompress the files. Yet the installation goes as follows: Copy the SensorTag.apk file (SensorTag_0_9_0.apk) to your Android 4.3 device Enable installation of apps from unknown sources (Settings -> Security -> Device Administration -> Unknown Sources) Open file manager and launch, locate the .apk file and install the app by clicking the […]

July 30, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Hardkernel is Working on ODROID-XU Development Board Based on Exynos 5410 Octa Core Processor

Hardkernel have already done a good job at bringing low cost, high performance development boards based on Exynos 4 Quad processor with boards such as ODROID-X, ODROID-U2, or ODROID-X2. But it appears they are not stopping here, and have recently committed code to support ODROID-XU development board based on Exynos 5410, the 8-core big.LITTLE SoC from Samsung, used in devices such as Galaxy S4. The committed code linked above point the device tree files in arch/arm/boot/dts/ (exynos5410-odroidxu.dts and exynos5410-pinctrl.dtsi) where we can see the board will have 2 GB RAM, and the Cortex A15 cores with be clocked at 1.6 GHz. Exynos5410-odroidxu.dts has been removed from 3.11 branch, so the link above points to an earlier commit. Exynos 5410 might have been the first big.LITTLE processor ever available, but it comes with a major flaw, as it only supports cluster migration (all 4 Cortex A15 or all 4 Cortex A7 […]