Orange Pi Lite Quad Core ARM Linux Development Board with WiFi is Now Available for $12

Shenzhen Xunlong Launched Orange Pi One Allwinner H3 board with Ethernet for $9.99 a couple of months ago, and the company has now started to sell Orange Pi Lite featuring a WiFi module, two full-size USB ports, an IR receiver, and an on-board microphone for $12 + shipping. Orange Pi Lite specifications: SoC – Allwinner H3 quad core Cortex A7 @ 1.2 GHz with an ARM Mali-400MP2 GPU up to 600 MHz System Memory – 512 MB DDR3 Storage – micro SD card slot up to 64GB Video & Audio Output – HDMI with CEC support Audio Input – Built-in microphone (not part of the listed specs, but clearly on the board) Connectivity – 802.11 b/g/n WiFi via Realtek WiFi module with u.FL connector USB – 2x USB 2.0 host ports, 1x micro USB OTG port Camera – CSI Interface Expansions – 40-pin Raspberry Pi compatible header Debugging – 3-pin […]

Xiaomi Yi 4K Action Camera 2 Offers an Alternative to GoPro HERO4 Black Camera

[Update: While Xiaomi is a minority investor of YI in China, and YI products are sold in Xiaomi stores, Xiaomi does not own YI Technology nor does it own, produce or design any of its products. Therefore any mentions of Xiaomi in the article should be read instead as “YI Technology.”] Xiaomi is about to launch a new 4K sports camera with Xiaomi Yi 4K powered by Ambarella A9SE dual core Cortex A9 processor and supporting video recording up to 4K @ 30 fps. The specs of the new camera is actually pretty similar to what you’ve got on GoPro HERO4 Black camera, plus some improvements as the comparison table below shows. I found the data on GeekBuying blog, so it could not be entirely unbiased, but it still gives an idea. Yi 4K Action Camera GoPro HERO4 Black Processor Ambarella A9SE Ambarella A9 Image Sensor Sony IMX377 12MP ½ […]

Olimex iCE40HX1K-EVB Open Source Hardware Lattice FPGA Development Board To Sell for 22 Euros

Olimex has showcased a prototype of their small (5×5 cm) iCE40HX1K-EVB development board powered by Lattice Semi iCE40 FPGA, programmable with OLinuXino development boards via the UEXT interface, and compatible with Project Icestorm open source toolchain for Lattice iCE40. iCE40HX1K-EVB specifications: FPGA – Lattice Semi iCE40HX1K-VQ100 FPGA @ up to 533 MHz with 1280 gates, 160 Logic Array Blocks, and 64 kbit memory System Memory – 256Kx16 SRAM (Samsung K6R4016V1D-TC10 ) Storage – 2MB serial flash Expansion UEXT connector for programming 34-pin header to access FPGA I/Os Misc – 2x user buttons, reset button, 2x user LEDs Power Supply – 5V via power jack Dimensions – 5×5 cm (4-layer PCB) The company has also made four stackable add-on boards to connect to the 34-pin expansion header: iCE40-ADC fast 100Mhz ADC with BNC input connector for Digital Storage Oscilloscope (DSO) with up to 512 KB buffer iCE40-DAC fast 100Mhz DAC with […]

Moly PcPhone Runs Windows 10 Continuum on Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 Processor, Costs Less than $400

Mobile and PC convergence is slowly happening both on Ubuntu with devices like BQ Aquaris M10 Ubuntu Edition tablet, and various Windows 10 Continuum smartphones. The most affordable offering is likely to come from mainland China vendors, such as Moly PcPhone 6″ smartphone based on Qualcomm 617 octa-core Cortex A53 processor with 3GB RAM, and running Windows 10 Continuum. Moly PcPhone specifications: SoC – Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 Octa core Coretex A53 processor @ 1.5 GHz with Adreno 405 GPU System Memory – 3 GB RAM Storage – 32 GB flash + micreo SD slot up to 200 GB Display – 6″ Full HD (1920×1080) LTPS display; Gorilla Glass 3 Cellular Connectivity Dual SIM Dual Standby, Adaptive SIM Slot 2G GSM: Band 2/3/5/8 3G WCDMA: Band 1/6/8/9/19 4G FDD-LTE: Band 1/2/3/4/7/8/9/19/26/28B 4G TDD-LTE: Band 38/40/41 Wireless Connectivity – Wi-Fi: 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.0, and NFC Camera – 13MP auto-focus rear camera […]

Qualcomm DragonBoard 600c 96Boards Development Board Includes Ethernet and SATA

A few weeks ago, I was informed that some code about DB600c board powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor (APQ8064T) was making it into mainline Linux, and more recently I found a website listing DragonBoard 600c with a low resolution picture of the board. While we don’t have the complete specifications yet, the form factor of the board is quite interesting, as we’ll find the typical 96Boards CE form factor on the right, and some extra interfaces on the left with Ethernet and SATA. It turns out, as we’ll see below, it’s perfectly compliant (hardware wise) with 96Boards CE “Extended Version” specifications. Preliminary specifications of DragonBoard 600c board: SoC- Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 (APQ8064 Fusion 3) quad-core Krait processor  @ 1.7 GHz with Adreno 320 GPU @ 400MHz System Memory – 1GB or more RAM (TBD) Storage – eMMC Flash + micro SD slot + SATA port Video Output – HDMI […]

SkinTrack Controls Your Smartwatch with Gestures on Your Skin or Clothes

A group of researchers of the Future Interface Group, Carnegie Mellon University in the US, has worked on SkinTrack technology which enables continuous touch tracking on the skin by using a ring emitting high frequency AC signal, and a sensing wristband with multiple electrodes. They’ve created sensor band and ring prototypes to demonstrate the technology. The ring includes an oscillator that generated a 80Mhz sine wave at 1.2Vpp. It consumes 7mA during operating meaning that they could get 15 hours out of the 100 mAh battery used in the prototype. The wristband features four pair of electrodes coupled with AD8302 RF/IF gain and phase comparator chips in order to derive X and Y coordinates from the phase of the signal. The sensing board produces eight analog values which are sampled by Atmel ATMega328 microcontroller’s 10-bit ADC inputs, and transmitted to the watch using a  Nordic NRF8001 Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) […]

Debian on DragonBoard 410c Development Board

I purchased Qualcomm DragonBoard 410c development board last year, and first tested it and run some benchmark on the 96Boards compliant hardware with Android. I found that it was still work-in-progress, and decided to wait before trying Debian on the board. I’ve now done so, and will report by experience installing Debian Linux, playing with the board, and running Phoronix benchmarks to compare it to other ARM Linux boards. Installing Debian on DragonBoard 410c The first challenge is to navigate through the documentation that is not always clear or up-to-date. I eventually ended up on DragonBoard 410c Wiki on Github. You then have to decided which image you want. While there are two official operating systems with Android and Debian, you can three “entities” releasiong their own images. For Debian specifically, you have the Linaro image, and Reference Platform Build (RPB) image. I could not find any changelog or known […]

BeagleBone Air is a BeagleBone Black & Green Compatible Development Board with WiFi, Bluetooth LE, and Zigbee Connectivity

So far, if you wanted to add wireless connectivity to BeagleBone Black or BeagleBone Green, you’d either use a USB dongle, or a wireless CAPE, but Neuromeka, a Korean company  has recently launched BeagleBone Air “IoT gateway” board, fully compatible with the two aforementioned boards (minus HDMI output), but adding on-board WiFi, Bluetooth LE, and Zigbee connectivity. BeagleBone Air specifications: SoC – Texas Instruments Sitara AM3358BZCZ100 Cortex A8 @ 1 GHz with NEON + PowerVR SGX530 GPU System Memory – 512 MB DDR3L @ 800 MHz Storage – 4GB eMMC + micro SD slot USB HS USB 2.0 client port (micro USB) HS USB 2.0 host poty (USB type -A) HS USB 2.0 host port on expansion header Connectivity 10/100M Ethernet (RJ45) WiFi 802.11 b/g/n via Realtek RTL8188US with SMA connector for antenna Bluetooth 4.0 LE via TI CC2541 with SMA connector for antenna Zigbee via TI CC2531 with SMA […]

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