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

June 30, 2013June 30, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Lollybot is a $10 Robot Made with a USB Gamepad and Chupa Chups

I attended Barcamp Chiang Mai 6 yesterday, and sessions dealt with a wide range of subjects ranging from SEO and web development to things like nuclear energy, VMAT2 God gene, or Edward Snowden. There were just four talks somewhat related to the subjects I usually write about in this blog: Project Manhattan – An interactive TV infrastructure project for TV operators based on open source libraries (but not open source itself). They provide both back-end software and a mobile app (Android or iOS) for smartphones and set-top boxes. They had an Android set-top box, but unfortunately there was no time for demo. There’s no project website, but the solution is said to be used by horizon-tv.tv (in Russian). A Raspberry Pi session which I could not attend Firefox OS – Keng is the owner of a mobile and web development company called opendream, but he’s also one of the 4 […]

June 29, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

JW-11 Android or Linux Media Player Supports Internal 2.5″ Hard Drive

If you’re not simply watching movie streamed from the Internet, one way to store your media files is in a NAS, and another way is to store directly into your media player with an Hard drive. Unless you run a SAMBA or NFS server within your media player, you may lose the ability to access your files from several devices, but by playing directly from the hard drive, you are sure any video will be played smoothly. There are few low cost set-top box that support SATA, and the ones that do, such as Mele A1000 and its successors, simply offer an external SATA connector leaving your hard drive without protection from dust. I’ve just noticed there’s a low cost solution with an internal HDD enclosure thanks to an Android set-top box powered by Amlogic AML8726-M3 called either JW-11 or Slav, and maybe some other names I’ve missed. Here are […]

June 28, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

FossilShale FS-DM385-SOM Features TI DaVinci SoC for HD Media applications

FossilShale, an embedded company based in Bangalore, has announced a system-on-module based on Texas Instruments Davinci TMS320DM385 SoC that targets applications high-definition decoding and encoding (up to 1080p60) such as IP Cameras, HD video conferencing endpoints, digital signage, portable medical imaging and diagnostics, or camcorders. It can be used standalone for evaluation, or with a carrier board. FS-DM385-SOM Specifications: SoC – Texas Instruments TMS320DM385F ARM Cortex A8 core @ 1GHz with HDVICP v2 video core handling H.264 BP/MP/HP, MPEG2, VC1, MPEG4 SP/ASP, JPEG/MJPEG encoding and decoding. Memory – 1GB DDR3 Storage – 512MB NAND flash +1x Micro SD/MMC connector (up to 32GB) Audio / Video: 1x HDMI Out (Micro) 1x LCD TFT Interface (24 Bit RGB) 1x Camera Interface (MIPI) 1x Integrated Composite Video In & Audio Line In(Stereo Jack) 1x Integrated Composite Video Out & Audio Line Out(Stereo Jack) Other Interfaces: 1x USB OTG 1x IrDA Accelerometer 1x I2C, 1x SPI […]

June 28, 2013June 28, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

Snowball Board Phased Out, and Offered at a Discount

Snowball is a mobile development board based on ST Ericsson Nova A9500 dual core ARM Cortex A9 SoC , which was officially supported by Linaro (they still released Android and Ubuntu images), and designed by Calao Systems, but since ST-Ericsson venture fell apart, support for the board has been discontinued, and the developer’s community (igloocommunity) has recently been closed down. The last message of the mailing list (now not accessible) reads as follows: A small team of passionate ST-Ericsson people have dreamed about Snowball and they makes it possible. Since December 2011 after a management change, it has been difficult to maintain the program, but with your support, we succeed until this time. Nevertheless, you have been able to demonstrate the pertinence of this program, and its great potential with impressive realizations. In December 2012, STMicroelectronics announced a new strategic plan, where STM takes the decision to exit ST-Ericsson. Then […]

June 28, 2013July 31, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Linaro 13.06 Release With Linux Kernel 3.10 and Android 4.2.2

Linaro 13.06 has been released with Linux Kernel 3.10-rc6 and Android 4.2.2. Linux Linaro Stable (LSK) preview is based on kernel 3.9.6. There seems to have been a lot of activity for the LAVA and Builds and Integration teams, with LAVA support for new SoC such as Huawei K3V2 and Broadcom Capri from 2 companies which have recently joined Linaro as members, and well as continuous build for Linaro Stable Kernel. On the kernel side, more work has been done for multi-platform support (unified kernel), uprobes, eMMC power mamangement, and more. Here are the highlights of this release: LAVA LAVA Core As part of the effort to improve the developer experience with LAVA, the different client tools were consolidated into a single package, which simplifies the process of updating the tools and makes it easier for the team to provide new features for LAVA users. LAVA now supports KVM devices, […]

June 27, 2013June 27, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 19 Comments

MINIX MINI HD PC Based on Intel Atom D2550 Sells for $119

MINIX MINI HD PC is a barebone x86 computer without RAM or hard disk that has been announced last year, and it has just come to my attention that the system sells for just $119 on Geekbuying (excluding shipping), so once you add (up to 4GB) DDR3 RAM, and a SATA hard drive, you may have a basic x86 Linux or Windows system for about $200. MINIX MINI HD PC specifications: CPU – Intel dual-core (4 threads) D2550 processor @ 1.86GHz Chipset – Intel NM10 GPU – Intel GMA 3600 Series System Memory – 2x 1.5V DDR3 @ 800/1066MHz SO-DIMM sockets supporting up to 4GB of system memory (GeekBuying reports that “8GB (4GB x 2) memory is supported unofficially, stability will not be guaranteed by Intel”) BIOS – 1 x 16Mbit flash with AMI BIOS. Supports Plug & Play, Advanced Power Management ACPI, STR, CPU temperature, Fan speed, System Voltage […]

June 27, 2013June 27, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 14 Comments

$199 Minnowboard is an Open Source Embedded Board Powered By Intel Atom E640 Processor

Minnowboard is a development board designed by Intel’s Open Source Technology Center, powered by Intel Atom E640 processor @ 1GHz with 1GB RAM, SATA2 and Gigabit Ethernet support, and several embedded I/O such as SPI, I2C and CAN, and that ships with Angstrom Linux distribution. Minnoboard Specifications: Processor – Intel Atom E640 @ 1GHz (32bit) Chipset – EG20T Intel Platform Controller Hub GPU – Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 600 System Memory – 1 GB DDR2 RAM Storage – 4 MB SPI Flash (for Firmware), micro SD card slot and SATA Video Output – SDVO to DVI (over HDMI connector) Audio – 1/8″ (3.5mm??) jack line Input and Output I/O: 1x SATA2 3Gb/sec 2x USB host ports + 1x micro USB device 1x Serial debug via Serial (UART 0) to USB conversion (mini-USB-B port) 10/100/1000 Ethernet PCI Express Expansions: 8x Buffered GPIO pins 2x GPIO controlled LEDs 4x GPIO […]

June 27, 2013June 27, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Imagination Technologies Unveils MIPS “Warrior” 32 and 64 Bit CPU Cores

Last year, MIPS announced Aptiv Cores, but since then, the company has been bought by Imagination Technologies, and they’ve recently announced updates to the family, as well as new MIPS Series5 ‘Warrior’ CPU cores during Imagination Summit in Asia. Before I write about the update to Aptiv cores, let me remind you of the 3 Aptiv families: proAptiv – High performance cores (3.5DMIPS/Mhz) to be used in SoC for smartphone, tablets, …. 1 to 6 cores. Roughly equivalent to ARM Cortex A15. interAptiv – Medium performance core (1.7DMIPS/MHz) for mainstream STB, digital cameras, mid-range smartphones. 1 to 4 cores. Equivalent to ARM Cortex A5 microAptiv – Low power MCU and MPU cores Imagination has added a small-footprint single-core version to the interAptiv family without the extra logic associated with multi-core coherency and L2 cache controller, as well as a floating point version to the microAptiv family for applications such as […]