Hardware Category - Page 796 of 1133 - CNX Software

August 4, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

Ubuntu 16.04.1 ISO Images Released for Intel Atom Bay Trail & Cherry Trail Compute Sticks

Canonical has recently released Ubuntu 16.04.1, which is now considered stable enough to update from Ubuntu 14.04.04 LTS, and while I could do that easily on my main machine using update-manager, upgrading to Ubuntu 16.04 on Intel Atom “Bay Trail” and “Cherry Trail” devices is a bit more complicated if you need audio & wireless networking (WiFi/Bluetooth) support since the kernel needs to be patched, and on top of that recent Linux kernels are not stable on such platforms without some extra hacks. Linuxium has done all the hard work, and created Ubuntu 16.04.1 ISO images for Intel Atom Compute Sticks with working audio, WiFi, Bluetooth, and “C-state” patchsets to avoid freezes. The images may also work on other devices, but this has not been tested so far. If you want to give it a try, you can download ubuntu-16.04.1-desktop-linuxium-ics.iso, and flash it to a USB drive with Rufus (Windows) […]

August 3, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

SolidRun ClearFog Base is a $90 Router/Networking Board with USB 3.0, M.2, mSATA, and Gigabit Ethernet Support

SolidRun introduced ClearFog Pro and Base board based on Marvell Armada 380/388 processor at the end of last year, but at the time, only the higher-end ClearFog Pro board was available for $170 and up. Now the company has officially launched the cheaper ClearFog Base board based on the same processor, two Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 ports, one SFP cage, a USB 3.0 port, an M.2 slot, mPCIe expansion slot, and more. ClearFog Base board specifications: Processor – Marvell ARMADA 388 (88F6828) dual core ARMv7 processor (Cortex A9 class) @ up to 1.6 GHz with 1MB L2 cache, NEON and FPU System Memory – 1GB RAM by default (2GB optional) Storage – 1x micro SD slot, optional 4GB eMMC flash, 1x M.2 slot, 1x mSATA/mPCIE Connectivity – 2x dedicated Gigabit Ethernet ports, 1x SFP cage USB – 1x USB 3.0 port Expansions 1x mini PCI Express slots (shared with mSATA ) 1x […]

August 3, 2016January 17, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments

What’s the Cheapest MCU? My Try: Holtek HT48R002 8-bit MCU Selling for $0.085

Somebody asked what was the cheapest MCU (Microcontroller) available on Google+, so I thought it would be fun to find the cheapest one regardless of specifications. It turns out there an older thread with this very question on StackExchange, and at the time (2011) Microchip PIC10F200 8-bit MCU with 256B RAM in SOP-23 package was the cheapest one among the answer, and somehow the price has not changed as it’s still $0.32 per unit for 1k orders. Not a bad price, but back in the days when I wrote on CD and DVD players, we had some price pressure from customers, so we looked for a cheaper microcontroller, and ended up using Holtek because of the competitive pricing. We suffered a bit during development due to incomplete documentation but eventually did the job. Anyway, I went to the Holtek website and found a “cost-effective I/O MCU” category, and HT48R002 appears […]

August 3, 2016August 3, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Ipega PG-9057 is a Bluetooth Gaming Gun for Android & iOS Smartphones, TV Boxes, Computers, etc…

I first came across Ipega brand when I reviewed E-Box T8-4 TV box which included Ipega PG-9028 Bluetooth game controller, which also serves as an handle for your smartphone, so that you can easily play game on your Android smartphone while holding the gamepad. That kind of controller is now pretty common, but Ipega 9057 might be a little less common as instead of a gamepad, a gun carries your smartphone instead making it suitable for first person games such as Dead Trigger, Shadowgun, or Modern Combat. PG-9057 gun specifications: Connectivity – Bluetooth 3.0; 8 meters range Stand – 45 to 95mm for smartphones with up to 6″ displays USB – 1x micro USB for charging Controls – Various buttons and joysticks (See graph below) Misc – LED for battery level, vibration motor, reset pinhole Battery – Built-in Lithium 600mAh; up to 25 hours play time; up to 2 hours […]

August 2, 2016August 2, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

The Internet of Bridges? Connected and Solar Powered Systems for Rainfall and Stream Water Level Monitoring

We often drive on a bridge fitted with some solar powered equipment, and recently they added a solar powered camera pointing towards the river, so I became curious and decided it would be fun to have a look, and find out what it was all about. There are now 3 solar powered and connected systems. The first system has a larger solar panel connected to a Bosch camera, and a white box… The sticker on the box gives away the purpose of the system: “National Disaster Warning Center” If we look the other side of the system we’ll see an antenna (for 3G/LTE?) as well as a light pointing down to a scale to measure the water level… Probably not the most cost effective way of checking out the level, but it works, and they should have a live feed in case something goes very wrong, and it might be […]

August 2, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Embedded Linux Conference & IoT Summit Europe 2016 Schedule

Embedded Linux Conference & IoT summit 2016 first took place in the US in April, but the events are now also scheduled in Europe on October 11 – 13 in Berlin, Germany, and the schedule has now been published. Even if you are no going to attend, it’s always interesting to find out more about the topic covered in that type of events, so I had a look, and created my own virtual schedule with some of the sessions. Tuesday, October 11 10:40 – 11:30 – JerryScript: An Ultra-lightweight JavaScript Engine for the Internet of Things – Tilmann Scheller, Samsung Electronics JerryScript is a lightweight JavaScript engine designed to bring the success of JavaScript to small IoT devices like lamps, thermometers, switches and sensors. This class of devices tends to use resource-constrained microcontrollers which are too small to fit a large JavaScript engine like V8 or JavaScriptCore. JerryScript is heavily […]

August 1, 2016August 23, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 22 Comments

Development Resources for Realtek “Ameba” RTL8710, RTL8711, and RTL8195 WiFi SoCs

We were made aware of a potential ARM based ESP8266 competitor last week with Realtek RTL8710 WiFi modules selling for about $3.5 shipped per unit, and under $2 per unit for larger orders (100+ pieces). Hardware is good, but for a platform to be successful, or even just useful, you also need software support. So I started doing some research into IoT-Tech BBS and asked ICStation for an “SDK” for the module they sold. I ended up on this forum post providing an “Realtek RTL8710 SDK” via Baidu (password: brwp), which turned out to be about the same as the Google Drive link provided by ICStation, and only contain minimal documents, as well as cracked Windows IAR Embedded Workshop and JLink tools. There are also some more technical details in Chinese only in another forum post, and well as B&T RTL8710 module datasheet (PDF). However, if you don’t read Chinese […]

August 1, 2016August 1, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 20 Comments

QINTAIX Q912 Android TV Box is Powered by Amlogic S912 Octa-core SoC

I published pictures of Amlogic S912 TV box boards just over a month ago, and it appears companies have started to take orders from resellers for Amlogic S912 TV boxes with products such Videostrong KM8 Pro, or the one I’m going to cover in this post: QINTAIX Q912. QINTAIX Q912 specifications: SoC – Amlogic S912 octa-core ARM Cortex A53 processor @ up to 2.0GHz with ARM Mali-820MP3 @ up to 750MHz System Memory – 2GB DDR3 Storage – 8GB or 16GB eMMC flash + micro SD slot Video Output – HDMI 2.0 and AV ports Audio Output – HDMI, AV, and optical S/PDIF Video codecs – VP9 profile 2 up to 4K @ 60 fps, H.265 [email protected] up to 4K 60fps, H.264 AVC up to 4K @ 30 fps, H.264 MVC up to 1080p60, MPEG-4, WMV/VC-1 SP/MP/AP, AVS-P16(AVS+)/AVS-P2 JiZhun Profile, MPEG-2 MP/HL, MPEG-1 MP/HL, and RealVIDEO 8/9/10 all up to […]