ARM vs x86 Servers Benchmark – Calxeda EnergyCore ECX-1000 vs Intel Xeon E3-1240

Calxeda has released the results of ApacheBench benchmark comparing their ARM-based EnergyCore solution to an Intel Xeon server in order to showcase the performance and the much lower power consumption of their servers. Here’s the setup: Hardware: Single Calxeda EnergyCore ECX-1000 @ 1.1 GHz, 4 GB of DDR3L-1066 memory, 1Gb Ethernet network port and 250 GB SATA 7200rpm HDD Intel Xeon E3-1240 @ 3.3 GHz, 16 GB memory and 1Gb Ethernet network port. No info on hard drive provided Software: Ubuntu Server v12.04 Apache Server v2.4.2 ApacheBench v2.3 (16k request size) They performed power measurements every 2 seconds and averaged the results. Power supply overhead and hard drive power consumption were not excluded in the measurement, but the entire SoC and DDR memory power consumption were included together. For the Intel server however, they could not measure directly, so they used published TDP values for the CPU (80 W) and I/O […]

Getting Started with Emcraft Systems Cortex M3/M4 Starter Kits Running uCLinux

A few months ago, I wrote a post about running uCLinux on Cortex M3/M4. Since then I’ve had the opportunity to play a with Cortex M3  & M4 boards capable of running Linux, as last week, I received Emcraft Systems Freescale K70 Starter Kit together with their MicroSemi (previously known as Actel) Smartfusion SoM. Today, I’ll show some pictures of the baseboard and modules I received in the kit, and some details about the documentation and how to get started with the modules. Unboxing Pictures Here’s the baseboard with Ethernet, USB interface using USB-UART bridge connected to the UART0, JTAG connectors (P3 and P5), two push-buttons and a breadboard for easy access to unused signals (ADC, I2C, SPI, UART and GPIOs). P4 and P6 are the sockets to plug in the SoM. There is a lithium-ion battery (CR2016) at the back of the board for the RTC clock. As previously […]

MK802 Android 4.0 mini PC Factory Video

Nicolas Charbonnier, better known as charbax, has shot yet another cool video in one of the small factories where MK802 is assembled, showing the different steps they follow to build a complete device. The PCB assembly is probably done in another factory, and they just assemble the device in this factory, or I should probably call it a workshop… The place appears to be rather small and everything is done by hand, but that’s what makes the video very interesting. This is the company that sells it on Amazon under the brand “OEM Systems Company”. The first five minutes shows a tour of the factory, and in the rest of the video, Charbax interviews the sales manager and the owner of the factory who both dodge sensitive questions about pricing, BOM costs and quantities manufactured monthly… But hey, you’ve got to try. Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 […]

WM8850-MID Android 4.0 Tablet Unboxing and Review

I recently bought an Android 4.0 tablet with a 7″ capacitive touchscreen based on the new WonderMedia WM8850 processor (Cortex A9 + Mali-400). In my first post, I called this tablet UGoos UG-LMW70, but I just received a no brand package with nothing mentioning Ugoos or the model number UG-LMW70 anywhere. Android settings just show WW8850-mid for the model number. The tablet comes with a 5V power supply, a miniUSB to USB cable, a short miniUSB to USB female adapter, headphones and a user manual in English explaining how to use Android, but nothing about the tablet itself. The tablet has vol-/+ buttons and a power button (left side below), and a power jack, microSD slot, headphones jack, a USB host port, a mini HDMI port, a miniUSB port and a microphone (right to left). They did not include a mini HDMI to HDMI cable, so I did not try HDMI […]

Deeper Smart FishFinder: A Sonar For Android and iOS Mobile Devices

Friday Lab has designed and developed Deeper Smart Fishfinder, a Sonar that communicates with your smartphone or tablet via Bluetooth in order to help you locate the best location for fishing (i.e. where the fish are…). Deeper works with Android 2.2 or greater devices as well as iPhones and iPADs running iOS 4.0 or greater. The device, about the size of a tennis ball, is made of high-impact polycarbonate shell. This smart sonar is waterproof and can handle small shocks. You can use the Deeper for up to 6 hours on a battery charge and Bluetooth range is up to 50 meters. You’ll be able to see the bed of the pond, lake or river on your device, know where and how big the fish are as well as the temperature and depth of water. You can watch the video to see how the device was designed and how it […]

52.99 USD CX-01 Mini Android 4.0 TV Box Powered by TeleChips TCC8925 (Cortex A5)

If you thought the 74 USD MK802 Android mini PC was cheap, think again. One of my reader informed me that Pandawill started selling a similar product for 52.99 USD (inc shipping). The “CS-01 Mini Android TV Box” features a Telechips TCC8923 dual TCC8925 Cortex A5 processor clocked at 1 GHz 800 MHz with 512 MB RAM and 4GB NAND Flash, and runs Android 4.0.4. Here are the specifications of the device: SoC –  Telechips TCC8923 (dual core Cortex A5) TCC8925 @ 1GHz 800 MHz with Mali-400 GPU System Memory – 512MB RAM Storage – 4GB NAND flash Video output – HDMI (Up to 1080p60) Video formats – AVI, RMVB, MKV & FLV (1080P) Audio formats – MP3, WMA, WAV, APE, AAC, FLAC, OGG Connectivity – Wi-Fi  802.11 b/g/n USB – 1 x USB 2.0 port + 1 x micro USB port Dimensions – 90 x 40 x 29mm Weight […]

Adafruit mbed and NFC/RFID Starter Pack with µNFC stack & NFC Mood Lamp Demo

If you are looking for a (relatively) low cost NFC development kit, you may interested in Adafruit mbed and NFC/RFID Starter Pack that sells for 134.99 USD. The kit contains the following items: mbed LPC1768 (Cortex M3) development board with mini-B USB cable and reference cards NFC/RFID breakout board based on PN532 NFC transceiver MiFare RFID card with 1K programmable EEPROM Full-sized breadboard 40 x 3″ (75mm) long male/male jumper wires Standard blue & white 16×2 character LCD + contrast potentiometer + header Diffused 5mm RGB LED + 3 x 560 ohm resistors Analog temperature sensor (TMP36) Piezo buzzer 2 x 10K trim potentiometer 5 x Tactile Pushbuttons On the software side, you can use AppNearMe µNFC stack written in C++ that allows you to use a user interface on NFC-enabled smartphone, removing the need for knobs, buttons, screens on your embedded device. During the initial pairing, the NFC board can […]

Texas Instruments Launchpad MSP-EXP430G2 & Capacitive Touch Booster

This is a guest post about the low cost Launchpad MCU devkit. This kit was unveiled in 2010, but since I’d never written about this $4.30 development kit previously, I’ve accepted to publish the post below with slight modifications and amendments. You may be itching to get started with a micro-controller based project but held back because of the high cost of the development boards, and the complex nature of tools required. The good news is that Texas Instruments have come up with a development kit – including a board and the required development software tools. This tool is intended for beginners as well as experienced users. In fact, at under $5, the Texas Instruments’ LaunchPad gives you a complete environment in which you can get started with your projects. This LaunchPad Development Kit is a part of the Texas Instruments MSP430 Value Line series of micro-controllers. You can program, […]

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