Hardware Category - Page 525 of 1132 - CNX Software

June 3, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Bye Bye Camera Notch, Hello Under Display Camera

As phone manufacturers tried to stretch the screen to body to the theoretical limit of 100%, some not-always-broadly popular design choices had to be made. And so the camera notch was born to expand the screen, which resulted into an ultra-thin top bezel, combined with a small cut-out for the front-facing camera that many people dislike. If you are one of those people, I have good news: the death of the camera notch could be near thanks to under display cameras. Xiaomi was the first company to release a demo this morning through a tweet by Alvin Tse, Head of Pocophone Global for Xiaomi. Check this out from our R&D team! @Xiaomi continues to innovate and we have some exciting tech up our sleeves. RT if you love under display camera! #xiaomi pic.twitter.com/4Rlzt9uRAd — Alvin T (@atytse) June 3, 2019 We can see two nearly identical poco phones above, except […]

June 3, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 14 Comments

Silicon Motion SM3282 is a Single Chip Solution for Portable USB SSD Sticks

Portable USB SSD drives are nothing new, but they are usually implemented using a stand-alone SSD with its own SSD controller combined with a USB to SATA or PCIe bridge chip in order to interface the SSD drive with the host computer or board. Silicon Motion has recently unveiled SM3282 SSD controller that also comes with an on-chip USB 3.2 Gen 1 interface providing a complete single-chip hardware and software solution for portable USB SSD sticks. This should enable smaller and cheaper USB SSD drives. Some of the key features of the SM3282 controller include: Peak sequential read and write transfer speeds of over 400MB/sec Supports USB 3.2 Gen 1 type A and type C Crystal-less design for bill-of-materials cost savings Built-in 3.3V/2.5V/1.8V/1.2V voltage regulators Supports LED for indicating access status 68-pin QFN package Compatible with Windows 10, Mac OS 10.x and Linux kernel v2.4 and greater The chip also […]

June 3, 2019June 3, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Silicon Labs Demonstrates Bluetooth 5.1 Location Technology (Video)

Recently there are been advancements related to precise indoor positioning with the announcement for Bluetooth 5.1 and 802.15.4z. Both can provide 1 to 10 centimeters accuracy with minimal lag, and Bluetooth 5.1 achieves this through Angle of Arrival (AoA) and Angle of Departure (AoD) features and an antenna array. I had never seen the new feature in action, but Silicon Labs recently demonstrated Bluetooth 5.1 location technology at Arrow IoT summit with a DMX-512 connected light following a person carrying a Bluetooth 5.1 tag. It looks fairly accurate, and it does not have a 3-6 seconds lag like previous solutions based on earlier versions of Bluetooth? So what does one need to enable Bluetooth 5.1 location finding? First, we’ll need a Bluetooth 5.1 base station with an antenna array, The one used above includes a 16 antenna array (4×4 grid) used to calculated angles of departure and arrival and ultimately […]

June 2, 2019June 3, 2019 by Karl Johnson - 17 Comments

Review of Zonestar Z6 Low-cost 3D Printer

Ugh…I don’t like calling these reviews. I like to say that I am sharing my experiences with the products. I have a fair bit of experience under my belt using 3D printers now but still don’t consider myself an “expert”. I think that I have had about a dozen come through here. Anyway on with the show. Today we are going to look at a very economical 3D printer: the Zonestar Z6. I have to say I wasn’t expecting much. I read/ watch a lot of reviews about 3D printers and sub $100 printers aren’t typically very good. Gearbest recently had the Zonestar Z6 on sale for $99 that Jean-Luc recently posted here on CNX Software but is currently $120. Let’s see how it prints. Some assembly required I designed a spool holder but not very good. The whole printer rocks when the full spool is on it. The tiny […]

June 1, 2019February 16, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Shuttle EN01J is a Tiny Apollo Lake Mini PC Topped with a Large Heatsink

Many people don’t want heatsink, but in some case fanless designs do not allow for maximum sustained performance. This should not be a problem for Shuttle EN01J mini PC with a choice of 10W Apollo Lake processors, and a rugged design completed with a large heatsink topping the enclosure used to make sure the processor runs optimally for the target applications, which include digital signage, industrial automation, and visual recognition applications as reported by FanlessTech. Shuttle EN01J specifications: SoC (One or the other) – Intel Celeron J3355 dual core, Celeron J3455 quad core, or Pentium J4200 quad core processor with Intel HD graphic; 10W TDP System Memory – Up to 8GB LPDDR4 2,400 MHz Storage – Up to 64GB eMMC flash, microSD card slot Video Output – HDMI 1.4 up to 3840z2160 @ 30 Hz Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet (Intel) with optional POE-PD or POE-PSE, nano SIM slot for M.2 […]

May 31, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

ATTO is the Smallest Arduino Board Ever

We already have some really tiny Arduino compatible boards with for example OLIMEXINO-85S or μduino, with the latter holding the world’s smallest Arduino board crown for a couple of years at just 12×12 mm. But there’s a new “champion” in town now with ATTO board measuring just 11.5 x 10.4mm, and powered by Microchip ATmega32U4 microcontroller. ATTO board specifications: MCU – Microchip (Atmel) ATmega32U4 8-bit AVR microcontroller @ 16 MHz with 32KB flash pre-loaded with Arduino Leonardo bootloader (~4KB footprint), 2.5KB SRAM, 1KB EEPROM Expansion – 2x 8-pin 1.27mm pitch through holes for 12 digital I/Os, 4x PWM, and 4x analog input channels. UART, SPI, I2C/TWI, and ISP interfaces are also supported USB – Micro USB port for power and programming Misc – RGB LED via 3x PWM, Reset push-button Power Supply – Input: 4-13V DC via Vin, 5V via micro USB port; 3.3V operating voltage Dimensions – 11.5mm […]

May 31, 2019May 31, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Intel NUC Compute Element Merges Compute Card and Computer-on-Module Benefits

Intel unveils the Compute Card at CES 2017. The business-card-sized module was supposed to allow for easy upgrades or repairs of modular computers by inserting the Computer Card in a proprietary socket without having to open the computer or device. Linuxium posted a review of the Compute Card and dock back in 2018, and noted that while performance was good, the price was really excessive for most applications. The Intel Compute Card was eventually discontinued, and an article on PCMag does confirm one of the reasons was price: According to the Intel rep we spoke with, that sealed design and extra durability added nominally to the card cost but about $50 to each unit on the OEM side to incorporate the module, which stunted its adoption. The Compute Card was easy to insert and replace, but OEM’s have long had another option for upgrades: Computer-on-Modules. In x86’s world, this often […]

May 31, 2019May 31, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 16 Comments

ASUS Tinker Edge R Pico-ITX Board to Feature Rockchip RK3399Pro SoC

Just a few days ago, we wrote about ASUS Tinker Edge T board and other products from ASUS featuring Google Coral Edge TPU which were showcased at Computex 2019. It turns out the company is working on another Tinker with a processor featuring an neural network accelerator. Meet ASUS Tinker Edge R Pico-ITX SBC powered by Rockchip RK3399Pro hexa-core processor equipped with a 3.0 TOPS NPU. One of the reasons it did not get noticed is that ASUS may not have had a sample for display at the event, but instead only described the board in a brochure. [Update: ASUS Tinker Edge R was also showcased at Computex 2019] ASUS Tinker Edge R SBC preliminary specifications: SoC – Rochchip RK3399Pro hexa-core big.LITTLE processor with 2x Cortex A72 cores up to 1.8 GHz, 4x Cortex A53 cores @ 1.4 GHz, an Arm Mali-T860 MP4 GPU up to 800 MHz with OpenGL […]