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

July 26, 2013July 26, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 18 Comments

Rikomagic Announces MK802III LE and MK802IV LE mini PCs Preloaded with Linux (Picuntu)

If you’ve been following the ARM based mini PC space, you may already know about Rikomagic MK802 III and MK802 IV HDMI TV Sticks, respectively based on Rockchip RK3066 and RK3188, running Android Jelly Bean. Rikomagic and Cloudsto Electronics have just announced they will launch a “Linux Edition” (LE) for those two devices called MK802III LE and MK802IV LE Quad Core, running Picuntu (Ubuntu) Linux. Since Linux on RK3188 is still work on progress, Cloudsto MK802III LE will be available first, with the following specs: SoC – Rockchip RK3066 dual core Cortex A9 @ 1.6Ghz + Mali-400 MP4 GPU System Memory – 1GB RAM Storage – 16GB Micro SD card preloaded with PicUntu, but no word about NAND flash Video Output – HDMI (1080p) Connectivity – Wifi 802.11 b/g/n USB – 2 x USB ports It’s not very clear if the hardware will be slightly tweaked (e.g. smaller NAND flash, […]

July 25, 2013December 24, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 29 Comments

Borderless Electronics Sells $9 Arduino Compatible Starter Kit

The Raspberry Pi fundation, a nonprofit organization, has brought a low cost ARM Linux platform to the masses, and Arduino already did that with electronics, but Harold Timmis, an engineer, found out it was still not cheap enough as he worked as a volunteer teaching electronics at his library. So he (and others) decided to clone Arduino Leonardo, setup a website called Borderless Electronics, and sell it without profit via Indiegogo for just $9 ($12 including shipping). The board is indeed the same as Arduino Leonardo with different color, logo, and name: Microcontroller – Atmel ATmega32u4 @ 16 MHz SRAM – 2.5 KB onchip (ATmega32u4) Flash Memory – 32 KB onchip (ATmega32u4) of which 4 KB used by bootloader EEPROM – 1 KB onchip (ATmega32u4) Operating Voltage – 5V Input Voltage – (recommended) 7-12V | (limits) 6-20V Digital I/O – 20 pins PWM – 7 channels Analog Input – 12 […]

July 25, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 53 Comments

Wandboard Quad Unboxing, Getting Started with Android and Linux (via The Yocto Project)

After my review of the Wandboard Dual in February, I’ve now received Wanboard Quad development board powered by Freescale i.MX6 Quad Cortex A9 processor, with 2 GB RAM, HDMI output, Gigabit Ethernet, and SATA. The board is available from several distributors including Mouser ($139), DigiKey ($144.38) and FutureElectronics ($125). I’ll start by showing some unboxing pictures of the board, as well as pictures of Wandboard Dual and Quad side-by-side. Then I’ll explain how to install Android and Linux on the board, build the images from source, run some benchmarks, and test different features. Wandboard Quad Unboxing Ive received the board via UPS in a large box that contained the package below. This is exactly the same as Wandboard Dual, except for the sticker. There’s just the board inside the package, and it would just look like Wandboard Dual with all connectors on the top, and the EDM module at the back, […]

July 25, 2013December 15, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

$55 Phytec Cosmic Boards Feature Freescale Vybrid SoCs

Freescale Vybrid SoC family has been announced at the beginning of last year, with the low-end VF3xx and mid-end VF4xx featuring a single Cortex A5 CPU, and the higher-end VF6xx and VF7xx providing a multi-core processor with Cortex A5 and Cortex M4 cores, for respectively performance, and real-time/low power tasks. Phytec has just announced the Cosmic board featuring Freescale Vybrid VF6xx single core Cortex A5 processor, and Cosmic+ board with Vybrid VF6xx Cortex A5 + Cortex M4 processor. Both boards are comprised of a baseboard coupled with a Phytec phyCORE-Vybrid system-on-module (SoM), and can be used for Linux and MQX (Freescale RTOS) development. Cosmic / Cosmic+ boards specifications: Processor VF5xx ARM Cortex-A5 @ 500MHz (Cosmic) VF6xx ARM Cortex-A5 @ 500MHz + ARM Cortex-M4 @ 167 MHz (Cosmic+) System Memory – 512 MB DDR3 Storage – 512 MB NAND + micro SD slot USB – HS USB OTG / HS USB […]

July 25, 2013July 25, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Google Releases Android 4.3 Jelly Bean, Unveils New Nexus 7 Tablet

Yesterday was a big day for Google with several important announcements, including the Chromecast HDMI TV dongle, an updated version of Nexus 7 tablet, and the release of Android 4.3, still codenamed Jelly Bean. In this post, I’ll start with the hardware, and move to explain what’s new with Android 4.3, and where you can download source and images for your device. New Nexus 7 The new Nexus 7 tablet will run Android 4.3 on the following hardware: SoC – Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 quad-core processor @ 1.5GHz with Adreno 320 GPU @ 400MHz System Memory – 2GB RAM Storage – 16GB to 32GB of storage Display – 7″ IPS display (1920 x 1200) Connectivity – Dual band 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi (2.4G/5G), Bluetooth 4.0, and NFC Camera – 5MP rear camera and 1.2MP front camera Video Output – HDMI output (via SlimPort) Audio – Stereo speakers, 3.5mm headphone jack, microphone USB – […]

July 25, 2013July 26, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 21 Comments

Google Unveils $35 Chromecast HDMI TV Stick

For over a year now, we’ve seen many Android HDMI TV Sticks (which I often call mini PCs), a few Linux ones, but Google has just announced its own stick based on a strip down version of Chrome OS. It’s not as versatile as others as it only streams video and music, but it make sharing media easy, and is controlled via your Android or iOS mobile device, or your Windows PC or Mac via Chrome web browser. The connection is just the same as other HDMI dongles. Connect it to the HDMI port of your TV, power it via USB, and setup Wi-Fi. When I first saw the demonstration, I was disappointed as it just seemed like you could do the same thing with a DLNA dongle, but it’s actually quite different. First, Chromekey only works with online services such as YouTube, Netflix, Google Play Movie & TV and […]

July 24, 2013July 24, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

$359 Red Pitaya Board Combines an Oscilloscope, a Spectrum Analyser, a Waveform Generator and More

If you need to setup an electronics lab, the cost of equipment such as an oscilloscope, spectrum analyzer, can quickly add up and become expensive. There are already some attempts at low cost measurement devices such as the $35 ExpEyes Junior or pocket size digital storage oscilloscopes (~$200), but those are far from the performance achieved with regular measurement devices. Red Pitaya measurement board brings the performance level and flexibility a bit higher, and stays relatively low cost at $359, with a Linux-based solution based on Xilinx Zynq dual Cortex A9 + FPGA SoC. Hardware Specifications: SoC – Xilinx Zynq Z7010 dual core Cortex A9 CPU + FPGA System Memory – 1GB DDR2 RAM Storage – microSD card slot (For system and FPGA images, and data) Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet USB – 2x micro USB ports (1 for power, 1 for console), and 1x USB 2.0 Host port Signals: 2x […]

July 23, 2013July 23, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

Samsung Unveils a New Exynos 5 Octa (5420) With Greater CPU and GPU Processing Power

Samsung announced the first Octo-core ARM processor, and the first using big.LITTLE technolocy at CES 2013 in January, and today the company has announced a new Exynos 5 Octa (Exynos 5420) with a six-core ARM Mali-T628 MP6 GPU (interestingly ditching PowerVR SGX544MP3 in the process), as well as 4 ARM Cortex-A15 cores at 1.8GHz, and 4 Cortex-A7 cores at 1.3GHz. Samsung claims Mali-T628 MP6 boosts 3D graphic processing capabilities by over two times compared to the PowerVR SGX544MP3 GPU used in Exynos 5410. The ARM GPU also supports General-Purpose computing on Graphics Processing Units (GPGPU) to accelerate complex and computationally intensive algorithms or operations, with API such as OpenCL 1.1. This product also supports OpenGL ES 3.0 to enable the processing powered requires by high-end, complex games. Even it’s still using 4x Cortex-A15, 4x Cortex-A7 big.LITTLE processing configuration, the company claims CPU processing capability has been improved by about 20 percent […]