Banana Pi BPI-R3 Mini – A low-profile 2.5GbE router board powered by MediaTek Filogic 830 SoC

Banana Pi BPI-R3 Mini SBC

Banana Pi BPI-R3 Mini router board is powered by MediaTek MT7986 (Filogic 830) quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor with 2GB DDR4, an 8GB eMMC flash, two low-profile 2.5GbE ports, and WiFi 6 support. It also comes with an M.2 PCIe socket that can be used with an NVMe SSD or a 5G cellular module. The BPI-R3 Mini is based on many of the same chips as found on the Banana Pi BPI-R3 board, but with a much more compact design that makes it suitable as a  2.5GbE firewall, wireless router or repeater, home security gateway, home automation gateway, NAS device, and more. Banana Pi BPI-R3 Mini specifications: SoC – MediaTek MT7986A (Filogic 830) quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor with hardware acceleration engines for Wi-Fi offloading and networking System Memory – 2GB DDR4 RAM Storage – 8GB eMMC flash, 128MB NAND flash, M.2 2230 NVMe SSD socket Networking 2x 2.5GbE RJ45 ports via […]

CZUR ET24 Pro book scanner review with Ubuntu 22.04 Linux

CZUR ET24 Pro book scanner Ubuntu review

The CZUR ET24 Pro is a professional book scanner that works with Windows, macOS, and Linux, so I decided to review it in Ubuntu 22.04 since we are fans of hardware that can interface with Linux at CNX Software.

If you haven’t already, I strongly recommended reading the unboxing part of the CZUR ET24 Pro review, as we go through the specifications, show the various interfaces of the scanner, showcase the various accessories, and also try it out with the HDMI interface in presentation/preview mode. It will help you better understand the second part of the review, where we’ll connect the CZUR ET24 Pro scanner to a Ubuntu 22.04 laptop using the provided USB cable.

Banana Pi BPI-KVM – A KVM over IP solution based on Rockchip RK3568 SoC

Banana Pi BPI-KVM

Banana Pi has started working on the BPI-KVM box based on a Rockchip RK3568 SoC, but it’s not a mini PC, and instead, it is a KVM over IP solution designed to remotely control another computer or device as if you were on-site with, for example, the ability to turn on and off the connected device, access the BIOS, and so on. Commercial KVM over IP solutions used to be expensive, but people have started to use Raspberry Pi SBCs with an expansion board such as the PiKVM v3, and more recently Raspberry Pi CM4-based KVM over IP solutions have been launched for under well $200. Seeing the popularity of these solutions, Banana Pi has decided to join the fray with its own BPI-KVM powered by an IO-rich Rockchip RK3568 processor that provides all interfaces needed for this type of application. Banana Pi BPI-KVM (preliminary) specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3568 […]

SolidWAN CN9131 is a compact SD-WAN appliance powered by a Marvell OCTEON CN9131 SoC

SolidWAN CN9131

SolidRun has just introduced the SolidWAN CN9131 SD-WAN appliance powered by a Marvell OCTEON CN9131 quad-core Cortex-A72 processor and with a compact form factor and features that makes it suitable for small offices. The Linux-based Software Defined-WAN appliance comes with 4GB to 8GB RAM, 8GB to 64GB eMMC flash storage, plus M.2 SATA and NVMe sockets, and offers four GIgabit Ethernet ports and two 10GbE SFP+ cages for networking connectivity, as well as two USB 3.0 ports. SolidWAN CN9131 specifications: System-on-Module – CN9130 SOM with SoC – Marvell OCTEON CN9131 quad-core Arm Cortex A72 clocked at up to 2.2GHz System Memory – 4GB – 8GB (4GB default) 64-bit DDR4 @ 2400MT/s Storage – 8GB eMMC flash with options up to 64GB, 8MB SPI NOR flash Storage M.2 SATA and/or NVMe SSD (See Expansion section) MicroSD card slot accessible from the outside  Networking 2x 10GbE SFP+ cages 4x Gigabit Ethenret RJ45 […]

Arm: “Panfrost is now the GPU driver for the Linux community”

Arm Panfrost Linux

Arm is now saying that “in effect, Panfrost is now the GPU driver for the Linux community” after having extended and expanded the collaboration with Collabora for the development of the open-source Panfrost driver for Arm Mali GPUs, following their first official collaboration in the fall of 2020. Arm goes even as far as to claim that “through the Arm and Collabora partnership, device manufacturers can confidently choose SoCs containing a Mali GPU regardless of the software operating system (OS) and graphics middleware… delivering a high-quality open-source Linux implementation which can be used in their products”. Collabora confirmed the new partnership saying Arm will be instrumental in getting Vulkan support in Panfrost alongside the existing OpenGL and OpenGL ES implementations. Going forward that means SBC vendors will have no excuse for not getting 3D graphics acceleration working on Linux with Panfrost when using an Arm SoC with a recent Mali […]

Edgeble AI Neural Compute Module 2 (Neu2) follows 96Boards SoM form factor

Edgeble AI Display carrier board 96Board SoM

Edgeble AI’s Neurable Compute Module 2, or Neu2 for shorts, is a system-on-module for computer vision applications based on the Rockchip RV1126 quad-core Cortex-A7 camera processor that follows the 96Boards SoM form factor. I first found the Neu2 and Neu6 (Rockchip RK3588) in the release log for the Linux 6.3 kernel, but at the time I found there was not enough information about those. The specifications for the Neu6 are still wrong (e.g. “64-bit processor with 4x Cortex-A7 core”) at the time of writing, so I’ll check the Neu2 system-on-module and its industrial version – the Neu2K based on RK1126K – for which we have more details. Edgeble Neu2 SoM specifications: SoC – Rockchip RV1126/RV1126K with CPU – Quad-core Arm Cortex-A7 @ 1.5GHz, RISC-V MCU @ 200MHz; (14nm SMIC process) GPU – 2D graphics engine NPU – 2 TOPS with INT8/INT16 VPU 4K H.264/H.265 video encoder up to 3840 x […]

Aetina introduces fanless NVIDIA Jetson Orin embedded box PCs with Ubuntu 20.04

Fanless NVIDIA Jetson Orin embedded systems

Aetina has launched fanless edge AI embedded box PCs powered by NVIDIA Jetson Orin system-on-modules (SoM), namely the AIE-CN31/41, AIE-CO21/31, AIE-PN32/42, and AIE-PO22/32 models featuring the Orin NX or Orin Nano modules, and the AIE-PX11/12/21/22 and AIE-PX13/23 embedded systems fitted with the more powerful Jetson AGX Orin module. All new fanless Ubuntu 20.04 embedded computers are suitable for AI-powered applications and work in an operating temperature range of -25°C to +55°C. When I first read the email press release, I thought it was a refresh of an old PR since I had written about Aetina NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano and Orin NX edge embedded systems last January. But those are new models with similar specifications, but housed in a fanless enclosure with a large heatsink, while variants unveiled at CES 2023 were all actively cooled. Let’s have a closer look at the AIE-CO21, AIE-CO31, AIE-CN31, and AIE-CN41 models with some […]

Yahboom DOFBOT 6 DoF AI Vision robotic arm for Jetson Nano sells for $289 and up

Yahboom AI robot arm for Jetson Nano

Robotic arms can be expensive especially if you want one with AI Vision support, but Yahboom DOFBOT robotic arm designed for NVIDIA Jetson Nano offers a lower cost alternative as the 6 DoF robot arm sells for about $289 with a VGA camera, or $481 with the Jetson Nano SBC included. We previously published a review of the myCobot 280 Pi robotic arm from Elephant Robotics, and while it’s working well, supports computer vision through the Raspberry Pi, and is nicely packaged, it sells for around $800 and up depending on the accessories, and one reader complained the “price tag is still way too high for exploration“. The DOFBOT robotic arm is looking more like a DIY build, but its price may make it more suitable for education and hobbyists. DOFBOT robotic arm main components and specifications: SBC – NVIDIA Jetson Nano B01 developer kit recommended, but Raspberry Pi, Arduino, […]

EmbeddedTS embedded systems design