Audio Category - Page 32 of 34 - CNX Software

June 4, 2014June 4, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Beken Bluetooth Audio Chip Features Beyond Semi BA22-RT RISC Core

I would normally not mention a Bluetooth audio chip in this blog, but you may remember my posts about Beyond Semi BA21 and BA25 RISC cores. The Slovene company’s IP cores are not found in many silicons right now, but one Chinese fabless semiconductor company called Beken Corporation, has chosen BA22-RT core instead of an ARM core for their latest Bluetooth audio chip. Beken required a system capable of supporting real-time audio decoding plus a Bluetooth stack with the A2DP (Advanced Audio Distribution Profile), AVRCP (Audio/Video Remote Control Profile), and HFP (Hands free Profile) protocols, and it also had to provide both a low cost and low power consumption solution. During their evaluation of several 32-bit IP cores, Beken engineers noticed their program code would fit into a 128KB memory using BA22-RT (Real Time) core, instead of 170 KB for a competing solution simply referred to as “the most obvious supplier”, which is likely to be […]

June 2, 2014June 2, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Meetion MT-WF910 Wi-Fi Player Streams Audio from your Mobile Device to your Hi-Fi System

There are several ways to play music wirelessly from your devices on decent speakers. One the best way might be one of the Sonos Wi-Fi speakers, but they costs a few hundred dollars. You could also use a ChromeCast or EZCast / Miracast / DLNA dongle, both of which are very cheap ($20 to $35), and would allow you to stream music to your TV from your Android or iOS mobile device, Windows PC or Mac OS computers, but these require you leave your TV on, unless you use a DLNA dongle with an AV port. Another option would be to use a dedicated Wi-Fi player such as Meetion MT-WF910 which can receive audio from mobile devices or computers via Wi-Fi, and output it to a 3.5 mm stereo jack or S/PDIF port. Meetion Wi-Fi player specifications and key features: SoC – Qualcomm Atheros AR9331 processor for Wi-Fi and audio […]

May 4, 2014May 5, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 17 Comments

XBMC 13 “Gotham” Released

After month of development, alpha releases, beta releases, RC releases, XBMC 13 “Gotham” is finally out. This is the first official release that supports hardware video decoding for ARM and x86 based Android 4.0+ devices. Support is not available for 100% of devices, as for instance, AllWinner A1X/A20 and Amlogic SoCs do not support the standard Android StrageFright or MediaCodec APIs, but most others should. There’s one XBMC Android version for ARM, one for x86. Android hardware video decoding is obviously not the only feature or improvement brought about by XBMC 13. Here are the key ones: Raspberry Pi and Android speed improvements – Overall system performance improvements, but optimizations are said to be particularly noticeable when opening and browsing libraries, loading images and starting videos. Stereoscopic 3D Rendering – SBS, TAB, anaglyph, and interlaced are supported. XBMC cannot yet support 3D blurays and cannot provide hardware acceleration for FullSBS/TAB […]

January 13, 2014January 13, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

CES 2014 Keynotes and Linux Conference Australia 2014 Videos

The Consumer Electronics Show and LinuxConf Australia are completely different events, the former targets consumers and takes place in the US, and the latter is for Linux users, developers & systems administrators, and occurs in Australia. However, both happened at the same time this year, and video recording for CES 2014 keynotes, and LinuxConf Australia 2014 (LCA 2014) sessions for both events are now available. CES 2014 Keynote videos While the event took place, it was quite difficult, and sometimes just impossible, to find videos of the keynotes, either live or recordings, and I could only watch Intel, Nvidia, Samsung, and Sony keynotes at the time. I’ve been informed that at least some of CES 2014 keynote videos are now available online. I can access 9 videos from Intel, Yahoo, Audi, Cisco, Sony, etc… Thanks to Csilie for the link. Linux Conference Australia 2014 LCA 2014 took place on […]

January 8, 2014January 8, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

DENKO MP-12 Mutual Induction Speaker “Magically” Amplifies Your Phone’s Speaker

Have you ever heard about “mutual induction speakers”? I had not, but I’ve just seen one on W2COMP blog, and all your have to do is to place your mobile device on the speaker, and it will amplify the audio vibrations, without any connection or setup required. It should work with any phones or tablets, no need to have a smartphone with Bluetooth or Wi-Fi connectivity. Here are some of the key features and specifications of the device: Audio – 2x 2W speakers Ports – MiniUSB Port Support audio input (Mini USB) and DC input (data) jack Power – Rechargeable BL-5C, or AA batteries. About 8 hours of audio on a charge. You can also use a power adapter. Dimensions – 55 x 250 x 150 mm Weight – 500g The phone/tablet speakers must faced the surface of the speaker, but if you have a CD player, you can still […]

December 7, 2013July 10, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Opus Open Source and License-free Audio Codec Decreases Latency over VoIP Codecs, (Slightly) Betters MP3 and AAC Quality

I’ve just stumbled upon Opus, a relatively new audio codec, with the release of version 1.1 implementation which improves encoding quality for VBR audio, automatically detect audio or speech to select the best encoding mode, and improved 5.1 surround quality/compression ratio. The new release also bring speed improvements for all architectures, and specifically for ARM, where decoding uses around 40% less CPU and encoding uses around 30% less CPU thanks to the use of NEON compared to an earlier version. You can go to the online demo page to find more about the latest released, and try some of the latest improvements. This all looks fun, but I wanted to know more about Opus, and especially how it compares against MP3 or AAC. It turns out Opus was not originally designed to compete against MP3/AAC which are used to store audio, but instead it was meant to be used for […]

November 2, 2013November 3, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Google Announces LG Nexus 5 Smartphone with Android 4.4 KitKat

Google has partnered with LG and Nestle to bring to market the latest Nexus 5 smartphone featuring Android 4.4 “Kitkat”, the latest, and brand new, release of Android. Let’s first have a look at the device, and then we’ll go through the new features and improvement brought by Android 4.4. LG Nexus 5 Nexus 5 has the following technical specifications: SoC – Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 @ 2.26GHz with Adreno 330 GPU @ 450MHz System Memory – 2GB RAM Storage – 16 to 32 GB flash, but no microSD slot Display – 4.95″ touchscreen display with 1920×1080 resolution, Gorilla Glass 3 Connectivity – Dual band 802.11a/b/g/n/ac WiFi (2.4G/5G), Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, and GPS Celullar Networks – 2G/3G/4G LTE. GSM, CDMA, WCDMA, and LTE in North America, and GSM, WCDMA, and LTE for the rest of the world. Camera – 8MP rear camera with Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) and 1.3MP front camera […]

May 2, 2013December 24, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

DroneShield – Raspberry Pi Powered Drone Detector

In case you are wary of having drones, such as RC helicopters, quadrotors…, flying around your house and invading your privacy, DroneShield can help you detect consumers’ drones by using a Raspberry Pi, a microphone and FFTW library, a C library for computing the discrete Fourier transform. The device will capture the audio with the microphone, analyze the noise spectrum of the drone flying around, and search for an entry in a signature database, and if a match is found the device will then send an email or SMS to inform you of the “invader”. There are complex challenges to overcome, or limitations, with this method, as any background noise will affect the detection, and drone emitting little noise or flying at high altitude won’t be detected. Spectrum analyses should however help avoid false positives such as a loanmowers and leafblowers as those emit a different kind of noise.They also […]