MYiR Introduces Z-Turn Lite Board Powered by Xilinx Zynq-7007S/Zynq-7010 SoC for $69 and Up

Xilinx launched a cost down version of their Zynq-7000 series with Zynq-7000S series SoC combining a single ARM Cortex A9 core with Artix FPGA fabric last year. We’ve already seen sub 100 Euros/Dollars board based on the new SoCs with ZynqBerry and MiniZed boards. MYiR Tech has now launched their own version, a cost-down version of their Z-Turn board, with Z-Turn Lite board featuring either the new cost-down Zynq-7007S or the “good old” Zynq-7010 SoC. Z-Turn Lite specifications: SoC Xilinx XC7Z007S-1CLG400C (Zynq-7007S) with a single ARM Cortex A9 core @ 667 MHz, Artix-7 FPGA fabric with with 23K logic cells, 14,400 LUTs, 66 DSP slices OR Xilinx XC7Z010-1CLG400C (Zynq-7010) with two ARM Cortex A9 cores @ 667 MHz, Artix-7 FPGA fabric with 28K logic cells, 17,600 LUTs, 80 DSP slices. System Memory – 512 MB DDR3 SDRAM (2 x 256MB, 32-bit) Storage – 4GB eMMC flash, 16MB QSPI flash, and […]

NanoPi K2 Board Gets Ubuntu Core Firmware Image

FriendlyELEC NanoPi K2 is a board powered by Amlogic S905 processor, just like ODROID-C2 board, so while only the Android image was available at launch, it was expected to also support Ubuntu or other Linux distribution shortly after. This was put in doubt by comments on the company’s forums claiming the board would not get Debian images, and only Android was supported. One alternative would be Armbian, but right now they only have ODROID-C2 images for download, no other Amlogic S905 hardware platform is supported either through stable or experimental builds. One user did manage to run Armbian on K2 with balbes150 help, but I’m not sure what’s the status of those firmware. Balbes150 also have a list of image for Amlogic platform in Github, which may be adapted to most hardware by using your board’s device tree binary (DTB) file. The good news today is that FriendyELEC did not give […]

$99 Mira Prism Augmented Reality Headset Works with your Phone

We’ve seen many virtual reality headsets launched in the last year or so, even through the technology and ecosystem still needs to be improved to offer an acceptable user experience, but so far I have not seen augmented reality headset that combines 3D real and virtual worlds into a single screen. I was pretty enthusiastic about augmented reality technology when I first heard about in 2010,  but fast forward to 2017, I’m not using any such apps myself, with the most popular AR app possibly being Pokemon Go game launched last year, and apps like the upcoming AR Measure look quite useful. Augmented reality normally works by holding your phone into your hands and the camera, but Mira Prism will change that it’s meant to be worn like a virtual reality headset and relies on a phone (iPhone only for now) to mix both worlds right in front of your […]

ModBerry Industrial Automation Controllers Leverage Raspberry Pi, FriendlyELEC, and AAEON Boards and Modules

TECHBASE’s ModBerry Linux based industrial controllers have been around since 2014 with their first model being ModBerry 500 powered by a Raspberry Pi compute module. Over the years, the company has kept adding new ModBerry controllers with now an interesting choice of Raspberry Pi 3 board or compute module, FriendlyELEC’s NanoPi M1 Plus board, or Intel Atom x5 based AAEON’s UP board. All programmable automation controllers (PAC) runs Linux 4.0 or greater, with Debian or Ubuntu Core rootfs including ready tools and pre-compiled packs including C/C++, JAVA, SQL, PHP, SSH, and VPN support. The firmware is upgradeable over the air, and the controllers can run the company’s iMod control software and interface with iModCloud cloud computing service for telemetry, remote control and data sharing. Typical uses include C-L-V functions with conversion to collect and transmit data over communication interfaces, logging via iModCloud or a SCADA, and visualization via a web […]

Having Old Floppy Disks Around? You Can Still Buy a USB Floppy Disk Drive to Read Them

If you are young enough, you may never have heard about floppy disks. They were the equivalent of “micro SD card” in the 1970’s to 2000’s , in the sense they were portable mass storage device, but the comparison stops there, as the size and capacity were quite different, and they relied on magnetic storage technology. The first 8-inch floppy drives appeared in 1971/1972 and the best models could eventually store 1.2 MB, they were following by 5¼-inch drives later the same decade with 360KB being the most common capacity, and finally 3.5-inch floppy drives coming with either 720 KB or 1.44 MB capacity in the 80’s. The latter were used until the early 2000’s, and I can remember Windows 3.1 being sold with 7 or so floppy drives. They were eventually replaced by CD ROMs, and USB flash drives. I’m writing about this, because I found out that Aliexpress […]

PROBOX2 AVA 4K TV Box, NAS, and HDMI IN DVR Sells with an Optional Air Mouse

We’ve recently come across several TV boxes based on Realtek RTD1295 SoC which offers not only typical 4K Android TV box features like H.265 & VP9 video playback, and HDR support, but acts like a NAS function thanks to a SATA interface and OpenWrt, and provides an HDMI input port that allows for DVR, PiP, and UDP broadcasting functions. PROBOX2 AVA is another one of those device with the hardware extremely similar to Beelink SEA I model, but with an external antenna, and a different user interface. The box can also ship with an optional Remote+ air mouse, which could allow you to turn on the device without using the IR remote control (TBC), as I have to do with other boxes. PROBOX2 AVA specifications: SoC – Realtek RTD1295DD quad core ARM Cortex-A53 processor @ 1.4 GHz with ARM Mali-T820MP3 GPU System Memory – 2 GB DDR4 Storage – 16 […]

MeLE PCG35 Apo mini PC is Powered by Intel Celeron J3455 “Desktop” Processor, Supports 2.5″ SATA Drives

Many Apollo Lake mini PCs have come to market recently, but most of those are based on N-series such as Celeron N3450 or Pentium N4200, which are normally designed for what the company’s refer to as “Mobile” devices referring to regular or 2-in-1 hybrid laptops, while the company also offer J-Series specifically designed for Desktop application with a higher TDP and CPU and GPU clocks. I’ve just completed my review of MeLE PCG03 Apo mini PC based on Celeron N3450 processor, but MeLE is about to launch a similarly spec’d PCG35 Apo model with a faster Celeron J3455 desktop processor instead, and support for 2.5″ SATA drives. MeLE PCG03 Apo specifications (bold highlights show differences with PCG03 Apo): SoC – Intel Celeron J3455 quad core “Apollo Lake” processor @ 1.50 / 2.30 GHz with a 12 EU Intel HD Graphics 500 @ 250/750 MHz (10W TDP) System Memory – 4GB […]

Le Potato Development Board Review – Part 1: Hardware and Accessories

Libre Computer launched AML-S905X-CC “Le Potato” board on Kickstarter last month, and since then there have been some updates such as worldwide shipping, so the board will now ship to most countries, not only in Europe or the US, and various designs of the case have been proposed. You can check the updates on Kickstarter for details. Libre Computer Le Potato Kit Unboxing The company also sent me a Le Potato board, but not only, as I received a complete kit… … similar to the $99 “2GB eMMC kit” reward on KS with a board with 2GB RAM, a 64GB eMMC flash module, a HDMI cable, and a 5V/2.5A power supply with on/off switch, but a different case, cooling fan, and corresponding rubber pad and screws. The case exposes all external ports, and has holes on top for the fan. The other side includes the micro SD slot, plenty of […]

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