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

July 13, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Juice Extreme 2 Android TV Home Gateway Features 4 DVB Tuners for Multiscreen Support

Antik Technology, a Slovakia based company, has developed a Android set-top-box powered by STMicro StiH416 SoC. I wrote about the StiH416 development platform previously, and although it’s just a dual core Cortex A9 SoC, its video capabilities are impressive as it supports multiple simultaneous video decoding streams. The set-top box called Juice Extreme 2 leverages those capabilities with 4 DVB tuners (DVB-T or DVB-S2) that provide four different streams, and transcode them, to all video playback devices around your home such as TV, PC, tablet and smartphones, or record them to an internal SATA drive. JUICE EXTREME 2 key features: SoC – STMicro STiH416 (Orly) dual core Cortex A9 @ 1.2 GHz + ARM Mali 400MP4 GPU System Memory – 2 GB DDR3 Storage – 1 GB Flash + internal SATA connector + SD card slot Video: Quadruple DVB Tunner CVBS/Y Pb Pr (3.5mm jack) Tuner board connector RF IN/OUT […]

July 12, 2013May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Reko QT800 mini PC Based on AllWinner A20 Comes with Dual Band 300Mbps Wi-Fi (Maybe)

In an HDMI TV stick market now dominated by Rockchip RK3066 and RK3188 based devices, Reko QT800 is one of the rare AllWinner A20 mini PCs. It comes with 1 GB RAM, 4 to 8 GB flash, as well as dual band Wi-Fi (2.4/5.0Ghz) that is said to support up a Wi-Fi connection up to 300Mbps. Reko QT800 Specifications: SoC – Allwinner A20 dual core Cortex A7 @ 1.5GHz (yeah, right… 1GHz is more like it) with Mali-400 MP2 GPU System Memory – 1GB DDR3 Storage – 4 to 8 GB Nand Flash + micro SD slot (up to 32 GB) Connectivity – Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n (2.4/5.0 GHz – 300 Mbps) Video Output – HDMI 1.4 (1080p) USB – 1x micro USB OTG port, 1x micro USB port for power, and 1x USB 2.0 Host port Button – Recovery button Dimensions – 106*33*14mm Weight – 34g The devices runs Google […]

July 12, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 32 Comments

Linux-Rockchip Developers Community Up, Rockchip Development Boards Coming Soon?

Companies like Freescale and Texas Instruments provide good software support, and documentation, which is why they can be found in many embedded devices, because without documentation or source code low-level customization is nearly impossible or extremely time consuming. They also usually open most of the documentation and code, because they understand this can foster the use of their chips. On the other hand, Chinese-based SoC manufacturers focus on high-volume platforms such as tablets and smartphones, and usually management don’t understand the advantage to make documentation and GPL source code available, or even may consider it bad for business. Some individuals and small companies do not see it that way however, and they either want to access to the source code to improve existing mobiles devices, or use low cost Chinese SoCs to provide highly customizable hardware and software solutions. So source code and documentation have started to leak, and tools […]

July 11, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Systena Tizen Tablet Hands-on Video

Systena, a Japanese company, is currently developing a Tizen tablet with a quad core Cortex A9 processor at 1.4Ghz, 2GB of RAM, and 32GB of storage. The tablet features a 10.1″display (1920×1080), supports 802.11b/g/n WiFi, and comes with a microSD card slot, as well as a 2MP rear camera and 0.3Mp front camera. Tizen Indonesia got a prototype of the tablet, and give it a try in the video below (no audio). We can see the boot, lock screen and gallery application. The system does not seem very fluid at this stage of development, but hopefully Tizen will be optimized for better performance before the final release. The system currently runs Tizen 2.0, but the company plans to upgrade to Tizen 2.1 for the developer version of the device, before selling the device to the general public. Via Liliputing and Tizen Experts Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 […]

July 11, 2013May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

Firmware Update for CS868 mini PC Version 2.06 (Android 4.1.1)

If you’ve got a Rockchip RK3188 mini PC, there’s usually no issue with finding firmware updates, or even custom ROMs. But if you’ve bought an AllWinner A31 mini PC, such as CS868, you may feel everybody dropped the ball, as the system is not stable, and it seemed there would never be any upgrade. I’ve recently been made aware that there’s some activity on a Chinese bulletin board, and a new firmware is available for CS868: V2.06-4.1.1-20130610. As the name implied, the firmware is based on Android 4.1.1, and has been release on the 10th of June 2013. Here’s the Changelog against V2.05: Add video color brightness, contrast and saturation settings Output to HDMI output by default Other systems optimization and the Changelog against V2.04 (22nd of May): Reduce DDR frequency to improve system stability. Fixed potential sound failure. Optimize USB OTG interface to fix issues with Air mice. Increase […]

July 11, 2013July 11, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

big.LITTLE Processing Update – In-Kernel Switcher vs Global Task Scheduling

big.LITTLE processing is a new technology announced by ARM in 2011 that allows an SoC to feature low power cores (e.g. Cortex A7) together with high performance cores (e.g. Cortex A15) in order to optimize power consumption. I’ve previously detailed two big.LITTLE software implementation methods: In-kernel switcher which runs tasks on either Cortex A7 or Cortex A15 depending on the load, but both processors can not run simultaneously. Heterogeneous multiprocessing (now called Global Task Scheduling) that assigns tasks to relevant Cortex A7 or Cortex A15 cores, and if needed, allows all cores to run at the same time. Linaro has just provided a update for the big.LITTLE software implementation. There are currently only two SoCs that ship in products with Linaro b.L kernel support: ARM’s reference Test Chip 2 (TC2) tile for the Versatile Express development platform, configured as an SoC with 2 Cortex-A15 cores and 3 Cortex-A7 cores. Samsung-LSI’s […]

July 11, 2013July 11, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Control your DSLR Camera via Wi-Fi using an Android mini PC and a Tablet

DSLR Controller is a paid Android app (beta) that uses your Canon EOS DSLR camera USB port in order to control it and access the camera live view with a tablet or smartphone. That may be useful, but it’s much better if you can roam a bit, and are not limited by the USB cable length. That’s why the application has been improved some time ago in order to use 2 Android devices, usually smartphones or tablets. One device is connected via USB to the DSLR camera, and act as a Wi-Fi access point, and the other device connects via Wi-Fi to allow full control of the camera. However, you don’t really need a screen on a Wi-Fi access point, so instead of using mobile devices, the developers decided to use an Android mini PC, specifically CX-919, which is just one of the many RK3188 mini PC available today, coupled […]