Hardware Category - Page 922 of 1132 - CNX Software

April 3, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

ESP8266 Wi-Fi Module is Now Supported in Arduino IDE

ESP8266 revolutionized the IoT world by offering an ultra low cost Wi-Fi solution either standalone or connected to a micro-controller board via SPI or UART. There are plenty of tutorials on the web to play with the Wi-Fi module, but it’s only recently an Arduino IDE has added support for ESP8266. If you want to try it, you can download the binary for Linux, Windows, or Mac OS X. Since my computer is running Ubuntu 14.04, I download and extracted arduino-1.6.1-linux64.tar.xz to install it in my PC. Now simply run the arduino script to start the IDE, and select to Tools->Board->Generic ESP8266 board. I don’t own an ESP8266 module myself, but Olimex tried it on their ESP8266-EVB: They connected a serial debug board and selected Tools->Port->/dev/ttyUSB0 in the IDE Selected Tools-> Programmer->esptool Loaded Blink example, and modified it to turn on and off the relay on their evaluation board. If […]

April 2, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 30 Comments

Xiaomi Mi Box Mini Unboxing

Xiaomi Mi Box Mini is probably the smallest Android media player available so far. It integrates a 100-240V power supply, and only features a single HDMI output port, no micro SD slot, and no USB ports. Although the device is primarily targeting the Chinese market, with a Chinese user interface and CCC certification only, several Chinese e-retailers have started to offer it for $50 or less. GearBest sells it for $42.98 with coupon MIBOX, and they’ve sent me a sample for review. Today, I’ll post some pictures of the device, before doing a review, including trying to switch to a user interface in English. Mi Box Mini Unboxing I’ve received the package via DHL, and for once I did not have pay custom duty or other tax. On the back of the package, they listed some key features in Chinese, such as H.265 1080p video playback, quad core processor, hexa […]

April 2, 2015September 2, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Scaleway Provides Dedicated ARM Servers for 10 Euros per Month, 0.02 Euro per Hour

Earlier this year, Online Labs launched a beta hosting program using custom-designed C1 dedicated servers powered by Marvell Armada 370/XP quad core processor. The company has now launched a commercial service called Scaleway providing hosting service on these baremetal servers for 9.99 Euros per month, or 0.02 Euro per hour, as well as a “Infinite Storage” service with 1GB data for 0.02 Euros per month. Here are the details of the 10 Euros plan: Server based on Marvell Armada 370/XP quad core ARMv7 processor Memory – 2GB Memory Storage – 50GB SSD Disk 1x Reserved public IPv4 200Mbit/s – Unmetered bandwith Operating Systems – Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, ArchLinux ARM. Docker supported. That’s not a VPS, but a dedicated server. For reference, I currently pay around $20 per month (Linode) for a server with an Intel Xeon E5-2680 dual core processor with 2 GB RAM and 50 GB SSD storage, and 3 […]

April 2, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

ActDuino S500 Development Board Features Actions Semi S500 Quad Core Processor

Actions Technology is a subsidiary of Actions Semiconductor SoC vendor, that makes solutions based on Actions Semi SoCs, and recently joined Linaro. The company is said to focus on “focuses on solutions for smart handheld and smart home devices. Its main products are tablet, over-the-Top (“OTT”) set-top boxes and Bluetooth enabled boombox solutions, along with total product and technology solutions based on the Android platform”. We already know it will soon release a 96Boards compliant board, but in the meantime, the company has officially launched Actduino S500 development board powered by a new S500 quad core Cortex A9 processor. I actually found out about this board on ARMDevices.net last October, and sent an email asking for information to the company, but I have not received an email yet after 6 months… At the time, the processor was called ATM7059, but now it’s S500, and it’s unclear if they just renamed […]

April 2, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Acer Chromebase Runs Chrome OS on Nvidia Tegra K1 Processor

After RK3288 Chromebooks and Chromebit announcement yesterday, another Chrome OS device has been unveiled with Acer Chromebase, a 21.5″ All-in-one Chrome OS computer powered by Nvidia Tegra K1 quad core Cortex A15 processor. Acer Chromebase preliminary specifications: SoC – Nvidia Tegra K1 SoC with 4-Plus-1 quad-core ARM Cortex A15 CPU, and Kepler GPU with 192 CUDA cores System Memory – 4GB RAM Storage – 16GB internal storage + 100 GB on Google Drive storage (free for two years) Display – 21.5″ touch screen display (10 point touch); Resolution: 1920×1080; viewing angle: 178 deg. Video Output – HDMI port. Audio – HDMI, 3W audio speakers Connectivity – 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 USB – USB 3.0/ 2.0 ports Camera – Front facing HD camera Acer all-in-one computer is apparently only the second Chromebase product, after LG Chromebase, and the first to include a touchscreen. Acer Chromebase will available in North America […]

April 1, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

This Multi-function Capacitive Stylus Includes a USB Flash Drive

If you have fat fingers, or somehow capacitive touchs creens don’t work that well with your fingers, or you simply need more accuracy, you may have purchased one of those cheap capacitive stylus, many of which come with a real ball-point pen and/or a flash light. However, I’ve just noticed GeekBuying listed a few USB multi-functional 6-in-1 touch pens with 4 to 32GB internal flash with prices ranging from 8 to 19 dollars. Based on the picture above, you can open the stylus to take out a USB flash drive that you can insert into your computer, laptop or mobile’s micro USB OTG port via an OTG adapter. Specifications include: Use with touchscreen of smartphone or tablet PC Ball-point pen Files storage (USB flash drive) Money inspection (ultra-violet light) Pointer (red laser) Mini flash-light Dimensions – 143 x 12 mm Weight – 25 grams I find the USB drive-in-a-pen idea […]

April 1, 2015May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Cubieboard 4 Ubuntu Review – Setup, Usability, and Performance

Cubieboard4 is a development board powered by Allwinner A80 octa-core processor with 2GB RAM and 16GB eMMC. I’ve already shown how to get started with the board using the pre-installed Android 4.4 image, and run some benchmarks in Android, so now it’s time to check out the Ubuntu Linaro 14.04 image provided by CubieTech. I’ll show how to install and setup Ubuntu 14.04 on the board using a micro SD card, run desktop applications like Chromium, Libre Office, and son on on the board, and complete the review with some Linux benchmarks. Setting up Ubuntu on Cubieboard4 Firmware images for Cubiebord4 can be downloaded @ http://dl.cubieboard.org/model/cc-a80/Image/. Currently Android 4.4, Debian server, Ubuntu Linaro server, and Ubuntu Linaro desktop with LXDE desktop environment. That’s the latter I’ll use for the experiment, and two images are available: linaro-desktop-cb4-card-hdmi-v0.4.img.7z – Bootable image from micro SD card linaro-desktop-cb4-emmc-hdmi-v0.4.img.7z – Installation image to eMMC to […]

April 1, 2015April 1, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Asus Chromebit Chrome OS TV Stick to Sell for Less than $100

Google has just announced Rockchip RK3288 Chromebooks, and also quickly mentioned Chrombit Chrome OS dongle, but with very few details. However, several large US blogs like Engadget and Gizmodo got a sample (mock-up?), and shared more details. So now we have the technical specifications of the dongle, which unsurprisingly also feature RK3288 processor: SoC – Rockchip RK3288-C quad core Cortex A17 processor with ARM Mali-T764 GPU. System Memory – 2 GB DDR3L SDRAM Storage – 16 GB eMMC Flash Storage Video Output – HDMI Connectivity – Dual band Wi-Fi 802.11 2×2 (MIMO) a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.0 USB – 1x USB 2.0 host port, 1x micro USB OTG port Power – 5V via micro USB port Dimensions – N/A Weight – N/A It’s quite likely the Rockchip processor won’t run at full speed, at least not for a long period of time, as it’s likely to overheat in such small form factor, […]