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

August 18, 2012August 18, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments

$60 Rockchip RK2906 (Cortex A8) Android 4.0 Tablets

About 2 months ago, I received a 7″ capacitive tablet powered by WonderMedia WM8850 Cortex A9 processor and running Android 4.0. The WM8850-MID tablet cost me $76 at the time, and was available for as low as $72, which I found extremely cheap for a tablet with those specs. Since then AllWinner A13 processors have started to be used in tablets with similar specs – but without HDMI output – that sell for as low as $55. At the Hong Kong electronics Fair in April 2012, Rockchip announced several processors including the RK2906, which I was led to believe would be a cut-down version of ARM Cortex A8 RK2918 without HDMI, but it appears not to be the case. And today, I received a “Deal Alert” for an RK2906 Android 4.0 tablet that sells for $59.99 including shipping on Focalprice and could be an alternative to A13 tablets, especially if […]

August 16, 2012September 11, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 40 Comments

How to Upgrade Firmware for CX-01 mini PC

[WARNING: Although these instructions worked with my hardware (CX-01 bought via Pandawill), it appears to break some CX-01 devices (See comments section), so use these instructions with care] Pandawill finally managed to release CX-01 firmware (234 MB) about a week ago. This firmware can be used for devices with 4 or 8 GB flash memory (2 separate directories). You only need to update the firmware if your device has some serious problems, or if CX-01 gets a proper firmware update (we can always dream…). Once you’ve downloaded ROM for android TV CX-01.rar in a Windows PC, extract it and enter ROM for android TV CX-01 directory. You’ll find 1 file and 1 directory: V1.0-4096-8189_en – Directory for 4GB firmware V1.0-8192-8189_en – Directory for 8GB firmware FWDN_8923.zip – Telechips tools to burn the firmware to flash Extract FWDN_8923.zip, go to vtcdrv directory and install the driver corresponding to your operating system. […]

August 16, 2012August 16, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Firefox OS Running on the Raspberry Pi

Oleg Romashin, a Nokia engineer, has been working on porting Firefox OS (previously known as Boot 2 Gecko) to the Raspberry Pi, and has uploaded a YouTube video showing a Firefox OS running on the device, including a WebGL teapot demo running at 60 fps. This Firefox OS build is based on Debian Squeezy, with plain EGL rendering, no Widget Toolkit backends and no X11. Some parts do not look very smooth yet, but this demo looks promising. If you want to try it yourself, you can download the WebGL teapot build. Mozilla patches with LinuxGL widget backend are also available at http://hg.mozilla.org/users/romaxa_gmail.com/embedipc_queue/file/linuxglpure. If you have the N9 smartphone or Beagleboard, it looks like you can also try this. Check files in http://romaxa.info/b2g/. Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and […]

August 15, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Teradici Announces PCoIP Tera2 Host and Zero Client Processors

Earlier this year, I discovered PCoIP (PC over IP) , a remote desktop protocol that provides basically the same functionality as VNC or RDP, but promises better performance on low end hardware by using different compression methods depending on the content on the display. Teradici, the company behind this technology, has today announced its next-generation Tera2 processors specifically designed to handle PCoIP by hardware: TERA2220 dual display host processor – 150 Mpps (Megapixels per seconds), supports up to two displays at 1920×1200 resolution, or one at 2560×1600. TERA2240 quad display host processor – 300 Mpps, supports up to four displays at 1920×1200 resolution, or two at 2560×1600. TERA2321 dual display zero client processor TERA2140 quad display zero client processor Both Tera2 host processors include advanced security features such as AES-256 and NSA Suite B security protocols, and are capable of refreshing the full display at up to 60fps. Tera2 PCoIP zero client […]

August 15, 2012August 19, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 150 Comments

Dual Core Rockchip RK3066 mini PC Now Available for $88.88

Yesterday, I wrote about the first proper dual core Cortex A9 mini PC based on Rockchip RK3066, but it seemed only available to wholesalers, and I was not really sure it was ready for prime time. But today, one of my reader (Anders) pointed to a vendor selling the device on Aliexpress, and I found out it was sold for the lucky price of $88.88 + shipping. The picture above (Source: Aliexpress) is the first I’ve seen that looks real, and makes me feel a bit better about this device. The specs listed in Aliexpress are basically the same as I posted yesterday, except we learn that the Wi-Fi chip is Ralink Realtek 8188, more codecs are listed (but I would not read too much into that), and the casing has gone on a diet and shrunk to 8.8 * 3.5 * 1.2cm (vs 10.1 x 3.8 x 1.3cm yesterday). […]

August 15, 2012August 15, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Oracle releases JDK for Linux ARM (Soft-Float Only)

Oracle announced the availability of JDK 7 Update 6 which introduces a JDK for Linux on ARM v6 and v7 architecture. This JDK is aimed at “general purpose” ARM systems, such as ARM micro-servers and ARM development platforms. This new JDK for Linux on ARM is licensed under the Oracle Binary Code License, and can be downloaded at no cost for development and production use on general-purpose platforms. For embedded use such as an industrial controller or a kiosk appliance, a commercial license would be required. Here’s how Oracle summarizes the ARM Linux JDK features: This port provides 32-bit binary for ARMv6 and v7, with full support for Swing/AWT, both client (C1) and server (C2) compilers and runs on most Linux distributions. One caveat is that the current binary is softfloat ABI only, so it won’t work with (for example) the Raspbian distribution which uses the hardfloat ABI. We are […]

August 14, 2012August 15, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 23 Comments

$89 Rockchip RK3066 Dual Core Cortex A9 mini-PC Coming to Market

Liliputing has just reported that a $89 dual core Cortex A9 mini PC may be available soon from a South African company/individual. The SoC would be clocked at 1.6Ghz, come with 1GB RAM, 4GB flash, and destroy all other low cost mini PC in terms of performance. Here are the announced specifications: Operation System – Android 4.0.4 ICS SoC – Dual ARM Cortex-A9 processor up to 1.6GHZ with Mali-400MP4 Quad-core GPU RAM – 1GB DDR3 Storage – 4GB Nand Flash , microSD card slot (up to 32 GB) Connectivity – Built-in WiFi 802.11b/g/n USB – 1 x USB 2.0 Host, 1 X micro usb host Video out – HDMI Video Codecs – Mpeg1/2/4.H.264,VC-1,Divx,Xvid,RM8/9/10,VP6 Video Containers – MKV,TS,TP,M2TS,RM/RMVB,BD-ISO,AVI,MPG,VOB,DAT,ASF,TRP,FLV etc full formats Audio Codec – DTS,AC3,LPCM,FLAC,HE-AAC Audio Formats – MP3,OGG,WMA,WMAPRO Power – 90-230V, 50/60Hz input, max. power: 30W, Output: 5V/2A Dimensions – 10.1 x 3.8 x 1.3cm Weight – 38g The device […]

August 14, 2012August 15, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

XBMC For Android on ODroid-X Development Board (Video)

I’ve tried one the latest nightly builds for XBMC on Android on the ODroid-X development board based on Exynos 4412 quad core Cortex A9 processor, and more exactly that file. Currently XBMC only supports 2 cores, so it’s still not optimized for this platform, but there has been a lot of progress since last month, when I tried XBMC on the Mele A1000, and it appears to be fairly stable. The UI is very smooth (about 55 fps) and responsive on the ODroid-X board. 1080p video playback is not perfect yet, but once XBMC can make use of four cores, it should be possible to handle 1080p software video decoding. Most of the things I tried work almost perfectly: video playback, picture display, audio playback, weather… There are still some bugs however, such as the lack of timezone support as you can see on the picture above, and the plugins […]