Rikomagic MK80LE (Linux Edition) Octa-core Ubuntu mini PC

Allwinner A80 based Rikomagic MK80 Android TV box, now has a Linux sibling with Rikomagic MK80LE (Linux Edition) running Ubuntu 14.04, and allegedly supports 2D/3D graphics acceleration, and hardware video decoding. Two versions are available MK80LE with 2GB RAM & 16GB Flash, and MK80LE Plus with 4GB RAM & 32GB flash. The hardware specs are the same as the Android versions (and Tronsmart Draco AW80 Meta / Telos): SoC – AllWinner Ultra Core A80 4x Cortex 15 @ 2016 MHz, 4x Cortex A7  @ 1320 MHz big.LITTLE processor with Imagination Technologies PowerVR GC6230 GPU with support for OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0/3.0, Directx 9.3 System Memory – 2GB (MK80LE), or 4GB (MK80LE Plus) RAM Storage – 16 GB (MK80LE) or 32GB (MK80LE Plus) eMMC, external SATA port (via a USB 2.0 bridge), and micro SD slot up to 64GB Video Output – HDMI 1.4 + AV port Audio Output – HDMI, AV […]

Theobroma Systems Introduces A31-μQ7 Micro QSeven System-on-Module Powered by Allwinner A31 Processor

Most standardized system-on-modules for embedded and industrial applications are still based on established Silicon vendors such as Freescale, Texas Instruments or Atmel, simply because documentation and support is generally much better than relatively new SoC vendors, most of the time China-based, such as Allwinner or Rockchip. That does not mean nobody is using Rockchip or Allwinner on their modules, as shown recently with Olimex RK3188-SOM, and previously with an Allwinner 10 CoM. But Theobroma Systems, an Austrian based engineering services and embedded systems solutions company, may have a first with a Micro Qseven compliant modules powered by Allwinner A31, simply called A31-μQ7. A31-μQ7 module specifications: SoC – Allwinner A31 quad core ARM Cortex A7 processor up to 1.2GHz with 256KB L1 cache / 1024KB L2 cache, and PowerVR SGX544MP2 GPU System Memory – Up to 2GB DDR3 Storage – Up to 64GB eMMC, Up to 16MB SPI NOR flash, On-board […]

Giveaway Week – VidOn.me AV200 Android Media Player

After Vidon Box giveaway earlier this week, it’s time for another Vidon.me box with AV200 powered by Allwinner A31 qaud core Cortex A7 processor coupled with 2GB RAM and 8GB eMMC, and a metallic body. In Vidon.me V200 review, I concluded the box had pretty good video decoding capabilities in XBMC, as well as fast Wi-Fi, but the box still suffered from a few stability issues, and since the device was phased out, quite unlikely to get further firmware updates. All accessories shown above are included except the HDMI cable. You can check out more pictures here. To enter the draw simply leave a comment below. Other rules are as follows: Only one entry per contest. I will filter out entries with the same IP and/or email address. Contests are open for 48 hours starting at 10am (Bangkok time) every day. Comments will be closed after 48 hours. Winners will […]

(Most of) FOSDEM 2015 Videos Are Now Online

FOSDEM 2015 took place on between the 31st of January and 1st of February, and while some sessions were not recorded on videos, most of them were, and the organizers are now slowly processing and uploading 402 videos to their server. So far 210 videos have been uploaded, including the Embedded Devroom. You can follow the upload status to check out when your preferred track/devroom sessions are uploaded. For example, “internet of things” videos have not been uploaded so far, so you’d need to be a bit more patient for this topic. One of such videos is “Upstream Allwinner ARM SoC (A10 / sunxi) support status”  by Hans de Goede, which includes the slides on the left and video of the right. This makes the presentation easy to follow (despite the slides being cropped), but probably explains why it takes so long to process the videos. http://video.fosdem.org/2015/devroom-embedded/allwinner_upstream__CROPPED_PRES.mp4 You can also […]

Giveaway Week – VidOn Box XBMC Android Media Player

Vidon Box is the second item for the Giveaway Week organized on CNX Software. This nice looking media player is powered by Allwinner A31s with 1GB DDR3 and 8GB internal storage, and runs Android 4.4 with VidOn’s own XBMC version. VidOn Box is certainly not the fatest device around but in my review I found out that it mostly did the job with excellent Wi-Fi performance, and good XBMC support, but for some reasons transfer from USB hard drive was particularly slow, at least with the firmware version I used during testing. Some features that you may take for granted like Blu-ray playback and audio pass-through require a $15 one year membership, but one free year is included. I’m not sure if the one-year free card is transferable, so the giveaway winner may not be able to enjoy the remaining membership options without paying extra. Basic functionalities will work fine. […]

Calaos is an Open Source Home Automation Suite for Raspberry Pi, Allwinner A10/A20 and x86 Platforms

Calaos is a Linux based home automation software released under GPLv3 license that works on Raspberry Pi, some Allwinner platforms like Cubiebaord 1/2, Mele A1000(G)/A2000, as well as x86 / amd64 hardware platforms that allows you control switches & lights in the rooms of your home or office, control your music, and manage security cameras.. The developers have recently released Calaos v2.0, the first stable release, so it’s a good time to have a look. The software stack is comprised of 6 main components: Calaos Server – Daemon that exports the state of the house via a JSON protocol. It can currently manage the following hardware components and protocols: Wago’s PLC, with digital or analog I/O, DALI or DMX light bus IPX800 web relay board GCE Electronics Eco Devices used to monitor power consumption. Web API 1-Wire, X10 Zibase I/O GPIO (Linux based GPIO, for direct use of RaspberryPI GPIO […]

Mixtile LOFT-Q Allwinner A31 Board with SATA Can Now be Purchased for $90

Mixtile LOFT-Q and LOFT Kit were unveiled nearly a year ago, the first being a development board based on Allwinner A31 processor with 2GB RAM, 16GB RAM,  SATA connector, Gigabit Ethernet, etc.., while the second is a kit with an enclosure and power supply. The kit does not appear to be available yet, but the board has recently been listed on SeeedStudio for $90. Mixtile LOFT-Q specifications: SoC – Allwinner A31 quad core ARM Cortex-A7 processor with PowerVR SGX544 MP2 GPU System Memory – 2GB DDR3 Storage – 8GB eMMC, SATA III connector for 2.5″ drives, and SD card Slot Video Output – HDMI 1.4 up to 1080p60 Video Decoding – H.264 4Kx2K video decoding, multi-format FHD video decoding, including Mpeg1/2, Mpeg4 SP/ASP GMC, H.263, H.264,etc Audio I/O – HDMI, 1 S/PDIF, high definition microphone Camera I/F Integrated Parallel & MIPI I/F sensor Integrated powerful ISP, supporting Raw Data CMOS […]

Allwinner’s New Media Codec Library (CedarX) May Infringe on Open Source Licenses and Copyrights

Allwinner has had to good idea to open allwinner-zh github account last September in order to release source code, binary libraries, and documentation for these ARM processors. Yesterday, the company released a new version of their closed source CedarX library used to decode and encode video streams. But Luc Verhaegen (libv), known for his reverse-engineering work on ARM Mali-400 (lima driver) and now Mali-Txxx GPU (Tamil driver), analyzed the binary and claimed  the library is not compliant with LGPL licenses, and may also infringe on On2 copyrights. Luc wrote his concerns on sunxi-linux mailing list, and Allwinner promised to look into it. Two libraries are involved: ffmpeg which includes both LGPL and GPL licenses, but the contention seems to be about the LGPL part, since only optional features are GPL’ed in ffmpeg. It’s perfectly fine to include LGPL libraries into your binaries, as long as you don’t modify the open source […]

EmbeddedTS embedded systems design