Elk, An Allwinner H3 Development board Crafted For the Decentralized Internet (Crowdfunding)

Elk: The Dev Board for the Decentralized World

Back in 2017, Bitcoin peaked at almost $20,000; many were pretty shocked about how this supposed virtual currency suddenly become a scare resource. It also brought limelight to the technology behind it Blockchain and the idea of Decentralized internet. Although the success of the cryptocurrency didn’t last that long, as it lost about 80 percent in a year and still categorized as one of the biggest bubbles in financial history. After the crash of Bitcoin and some other similar cryptocurrencies, a lot of people predicted that’s the end of the whole Blockchain thing, and the idea of Decentralized internet will not happen. The recently announced Facebook Libra, a new cryptocurrency by the American giant Facebook, shows that Blockchain and the Decentralized web isn’t going anywhere and will probably start growing stronger. Arduino made it possible for Artist, Makers, Engineers, Students to bring ideas to life and quickly make things easier. Now, […]

Orange Pi Zero LTS Allwinner H2+ SBC Gets More Efficient and Cooler

Allwinner H2+ SBC Low Power Consumption

Orange Pi Zero is a cool little Arm Linux board based on Allwinner H2+ processor for headless applications requiring WiFi and/or Ethernet that was first launched in November 2016 for $7 and up. It was not launched without controversy, as first users had various issues with the Allwinner XR819 WiFi module, but I had no such problem when I made an Orange Pi Zero Google Assistant smart speaker. Nevertheless, Shenzhen Xunlong Software is about to launch a newer version of the board – Orange Pi Zero LTS -, with the same specifications, but improvements in the design in order to reduce power consumption, and lower the board’s temperature. As the name implies, the company will commit to long term support (i.e. long term availability) for the board, but they did not tell me for how many years. Orange Pi Zero LTS v1.5 specifications: SoC – Allwinner H2+ quad-core Cortex A7 […]

Linux 5.2 Release – Main Changes, Arm, MIPS & RISC-V Architectures

Linux 5.2 Changelog

Linus Torvalds announced the release of Linux 5.2 last Sunday: So I was somewhat pre-disposed towards making an rc8, simply because of my travels and being entirely off the internet for a few days last week, and with spotty internet for a few days before that [*]. But there really doesn’t seem to be any reason for another rc, since it’s been very quiet. Yes, I had a few pull requests since rc7, but they were all small, and I had many more that are for the upcoming merge window. Part of it may be due to the July 4th week, of course, but whatever – I’ll take the quiet week as a good sign. So despite a fairly late core revert, I don’t see any real reason for another week of rc, and so we have a v5.2 with the normal release timing. There’s no particular area that stands […]

M2M-IoT GW-01 LoRaWAN Gateway is equipped with Orange Pi Zero H2+ SBC

GW-01 Orange Pi Zero H2+ LoRa Gateway

M2M-IoT has developed a new LoRa gateway. The gateway, GW-01, is based on Orange Pi Zero H2+ board. While it is new, it has a lot of useful features. The new GW-01 gateway operates in the 868MHz or 915MHz LoRa frequencies and has -139 dBm sensitivity. Furthermore, the GW-01 is fully functional. It is also an open source low-cost solution to developing a LoRaWAN network. In addition, the gateway supports both OpenWrt, and Armbian distributions, and you’ll find documentation for both on Github. Another great thing about the gateway is that it has two boards. Also, the first board, which is on top, is based on SX1301. This 8 channel LoRa concentrator implements the LoRa physical interface. Now, the second board is at the bottom.  It is also the model that the whole gateway was based on. This board is the OrangePi Zero H2+ 256MB (RAM) development board. The gateway […]

THEC64 a Retro Functional Commodore 64

Retro Games has set December 2019 as the release date for their reimagined full-size fully functional C64, named THEC64. This somewhat smaller version of the original Commodore 64 comes with 64 games, a joystick and may include a handheld game console. THEC64 computing power is limited, but Basic is still functioning and can be booted, as well as Vic20 Basic. The original replica was a small keyboard facsimile of the original keyboard, called the C64 mini. The keyboard was just for “show” but did have 64 games included, which many people suspect are the same games that will be available on the “full-size” reissue. There are quite a few people willing to help out with the launch of the THEC64, offering video tutorials of how to program the fully functioning retro computer. There is a website called 64Bites, devoted to the Commodore 64 and it’s Basic programming, and this leads […]

Banana BPI-P2 Maker SBC with PoE Support Sells for $13 and Up (Promo)

Banana Pi BPI-P2 Maker PoE Module

Last year SinoVoIP introduced Banana BPI-P2 Zero board powered by Allwinner H2+ processor with 512MB, 10/100M Ethernet with Power-over-Ethernet, WiFi & Bluetooth, a mini HDMI port, and an 8 GB eMMC flash. They also launched a lower cost version without eMMC flash nor wireless module for $16, and the optional PoE module going for $6 extra. The company is now selling the board at a promotional price of $13 without PoE, and $19 with RT9600 POE module. The shipping fee is not included in those prices however, and in my case, the prices end up at respectively about $25 and $31 with shipping. Banana Pi BPI-P2 Maker specifications: SoC – Allwinner H2+ quad-core Arm Cortex A7 processor with Mali-400MP GPU. System Memory – 512MB DDR3 SDRAM. Storage – microSD card slot Video Output – mini HDMI port Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet with optional PoE support Camera I/F – Parallel CSI […]

New Release (1.3.5) for H3Droid Android OS Optimized for Allwinner H3 & H2+ Processors

H3droid 1.3.5

H3Droid project provides Android images for Allwinner H3 & H2+ boards and TV boxes in order to improve on the firmware released by manufacturers. Last time we wrote about was in 2017, but the project released H3droid 1.3.5 recently with several improvements.. The good news is that more boards are supported with a bit fix that for example enables H3Droid to work on Orange Pi Zero (256MB RAM) and Libre Computer Tritium H2+ SBC’s, but the bad news is that it’s still based on Android 4.4 Kitkat, so some apps are not working anymore including Kodi, and the default YouTube app had to be removed since it does work not anymore. Workarounds do exist though, as you can install SPMC fork of Kodi, and play YouTube videos in a web browser, or install it manually after updating Google Play Services. Here’s the full changelog provided by the developers: Added: fex/uboot […]

$58 H6 Android TV Box “Supports” 4G LTE SIM Cards

H6 LTE Android TV Box

We covered several 4G LTE TV boxes running Android operating system in the past, but until recently they were only available in quantities for operators or distributors. A couple of weeks ago, we found one that would sell to individuals via Aliexpress: T96G TV box. One small problem is that at $80 it’s almost 50 dollars than a TV box without LTE connectivity. The good news is there appears to be a more affordable TV box with SIM card support thanks to H6 TV box powered by Allwinner H6 and coming in 2GB/16GB or 4GB/32GB RAM/storage configurations starting at $57.99 shipped. H6 TV box specifications: SoC – Allwinner H6 quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor with Arm Mali-T720 GPU System Memory – 2GB/4GB DDR3 Storage – 16GB/32GB, microSD card slot Video Output – HDMI 2.0a up to 4K @ 60 Hz with HDR support Video Decode – 6K@30fps, 4K@60fps, H.265, AVI, H.264, […]

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