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

February 26, 2025February 23, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

ELEGOO Centauri Carbon Review – An affordable CoreXY 3D printer suitable for beginners

ELEGOO Centauri Carbon CoreXY 3D printer review

CNXSoft: When ELEGOO offered us the Centauri Carbon CoreXY for review, Kajornsak was already busy with the review of the Saturn 4 Ultra 16K resin 3D printer, and I was busy (and still is) with other reviews. However, after learning it was suitable for beginners, I asked Kuljira, a high school student learning IT, whether she was interested in reviewing a 3D printer. She accepted and ELEGOO sent a sample for review. I did not provide much support apart from links to my review of the Creality Ender-3 S1 Pro 2-in-1 3D printer (in English) and Kajornsak’s review of the Twotrees SK1 CoreXY 3D printer (in Thai). Apart from that, I did not provide any support except once I told her she might need to add support after a print with spaghetti, and Suthinee helped her take pictures and handle writing a review in WordPress. The review below is a […]

February 25, 2025February 25, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Imagination DXTP GPU promises 20% higher power efficiency compared to DXT GPU for mobile devices and laptops

Imagination has announced the DXTP GPU for mobile and power-constrained devices with up to 20% greater power efficiency than its predecessor, the D-Series DXT GPU for longer battery life for AI applications or complex games. The company says the GPU is suitable for gaming, user interfaces, graphics-rich applications, computer vision, generative AI, and other AI applications designed to run on smartphones, tablets, laptops, desktops, or non-safety automotive products. Imagination DXTP highlights: Two off-the-shelf configurations: DXTP-48-1536 48 GPixel/s 1.5 TFLOPS FP32 (1536 FLOPs/Clock) 3 TFLOPS FP16 6 TOPS INT8 48 ppc Bilinear 3D Textured Up to 96 ppc 2D Dual Rate Mode DXTP-64-2048 64 GPixel/s 2 TFLOPS FP32 (2048 FLOPs/Clock) 4 TFLOPS FP16 8 TOPS INT8 64 ppc Bilinear 3D Textured Up to 128 ppc 2D Dual Rate Mode Bus Interface – AXI, ACE-Lite Compression PVRIC5 Lossless and Lossy Framebuffer Compression ETC and ASTC LDR and HDR Support Microarchitecture improvement – […]

February 25, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

AAEON BOXER-6647-MTH Meteor Lake embedded Box PC features screwless SATA and M.2 M-key trays

AAEON BOXER-6647-MTH is an embedded Box PC powered by Intel Core Ultra 7 155H or Core Ultra 5 125H Meteor Lake processor, and mainly designed for advanced industrial robotics solutions such as AGV (Automated Guided Vehicle) and AMR (Autonomous Mobile Robot). The rugged computer supports up to 64GB DDR5 RAM, is equipped with screwless external SATA and M.2 M-Key trays, offers 2.5GbE networking, four USB 3.2 interfaces, RS-232/422/485 & DIO for cameras, sensors (LIDAR, IMUs, etc…), and actuators for robotics, as well as wireless and cellular expansion via additional M.2 sockets. AAEON BOXER-6647-MTH specifications: Meteor Lake-H SoC (one or the other) Intel Core Ultra 5 125H 14-core (4P+8E+2LPE) processor @ 1.2 / 4.9 GHz with 18MB cache, Intel 7Xe LPG graphics @ 2.2 GHz, Intel AI Boost NPU; TDP: 28W Intel Core Ultra 7 155H 16-core (6P+8E+2LPE) processor @ 1.4 / 4.8 GHz with 24MB cache, Intel 8Xe LPG graphics […]

February 25, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 28 Comments

Armbian v25.2 and DietPi v9.11 released with updated Ubuntu and Debian-based Linux images for single board computers

Vendor-provided Linux images for single board computers are not always working optimally, so this post is a regular reminder that users may want to check out Armbian and DietPi projects mostly supported by the community but also backed by some of the vendors who offload some (repackaging) software work to them. Armbian and DietPi are separate projects, but this month, Armbian v25.2 and DietPi v9.11 were almost released simultaneously. I don’t report on each release (should I?), but they release an update every few months. The last time we had a look at both projects was in September 2024 for the releases of DietPi 9.7 and Armbian 24.8. Let’s see what the new releases have to bring. Armbian v25.2 Main changes: New Boards – Rock 2A and 2F, NanoPi R3S, Retroid Pocket RP5, RPMini, Rock 5T, GenBook, MKS-PI, SKIPR, Armsom CM5, NextThing C.H.I.P, Magicsee C400 Plus Rockchip 3588 Improvements – […]

February 24, 2025February 24, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

ESPNowCam library enables ESP32 video camera or data transmission with the ESP-NOW protocol

ESPNowCam ESP-Now library for ESP32 camera board

ESPNowCam is an open-source library for ESP32 camera boards that relies on the ESP-NOW protocol for efficient point-to-point, one-to-many, or many-to-one video or data transmission. ESP32 microcontrollers already support WiFi or Bluetooth connectivity, but the ESP-NOW offers an alternative in scenarios where low latency is required and/or access to a router is not feasible or practical. That’s why we’ve previously seen ESPNOW used in ESP32 drones. As its name implies, the ESPNowCam project leverages the ESP_NOW wireless protocol for ESP32 video cameras, but can also be used for data transmission. ESPNowCam highlights: Transmission modes One transmitter to multiple receivers using the internal ESPNow broadcasting feature (1:N mode) Peer-to-peer (P2P) connections utilizing MAC address targeting (1:1 mode) Multi-sender mode with one receiver (N:1 mode) No need for IPs, routers, or credentials The project was first released in January 2024, but I’ve only noticed it, and it had several iterations since then. […]

February 24, 2025February 25, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

The OpenVoiceOS Foundation aims to enable open-source privacy and customization for voice assistants

The OpenVoiceOS Foundation, or OVOS Foundation for shorts, is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing open-source voice assistant technology and offers an open-source privacy-focus alternative to voice assistant by large companies like Amazon, Google, and Apple. One of the founders, Peter Steenbergen (j1nx), explained to us it all started when he read an article on CNX Software about Mycroft Mark II voice assistant hardware in 2018. He ended up being involved and created “MycroftOS“, later renamed to “OpenVoiceOS – Mycroft Edition”, as a Just Enough OS utilizing Buildroot and working on the Mark II. There were some tensions with the open-source community at some point, and the Mycroft project went south from there and the company had to close in 2023. Eventually, OpenVoiceOS took over the codebase of Mycroft A.I. and managed to merge lingering PR from the open-source community. Together with NEON A.I., they took over the Mycroft A.I. community […]

February 22, 2025February 22, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

ELEGOO Saturn 4 Ultra 16K Review – A resin 3D printer tested with CHITUBOX slicer and ChituManager software

ELEGOO Saturn 4 Ultra 16K 3D Printer Review Mercury 3.0 Plus

ELEGOO sent us the Saturn 4 Ultra 16K Resin 3D printer for review. As its name implies, the 3D printer features a 10-inch LCD with a resolution of up to 16K (14112×7936 pixels) to print sharper and more detailed workpieces. The printer also offers WiFi and Ethernet connectivity, and an automatic print base detection and leveling system to increase accuracy and reduce errors while printing. We were also provided with the ELEGOO Mercury Plus 3.0 wash and cure station for the review. It is designed to be easy to use, supports both water and alcohol washing, and is equipped with a 405nm UV light to increase strength and reduce the stickiness of the workpiece. Unboxing and Key features of the ELEGOO Saturn 4 Ultra 16K resin 3D printer Smart Tank Heating System The ELEGOO Saturn 4 Ultra 16K resin 3D printer features a “smart tank heating system” that enables high-quality […]

February 21, 2025February 21, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Ubuntu 24.04.2 released with Linux 6.11 kernel and hardware enablement stack

Ubuntu 24.04.2 has just been released with Linux 6.11 kernel and hardware enablement (HWE) stack. I would typically not care too much about a point release, but our reviews of mini PCs have shown Ubuntu 24.04 with Linux 6.8 was not always well supported with recent mini PC, mostly due to issues with WiFi or Bluetooth, but sometimes it’s even worse. The most common problem I encountered was that MediaTek MT7922-based WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3 module would not support Bluetooth on Ubuntu 24.04 unless we updated the Linux kernel to version 6.10 or newer. Mini PCs with recent processors like the Khadas Mind 2 AI Maker Kit based on Intel Core Ultra 7 258V AI SoC required even more tweaks for HDMI audio, GPU, and WiFi + Bluetooth which is why I tested it with Ubuntu 24.10 instead. Ubuntu 24.04.2 should solve all of those issues. The announcement explains […]