A few years ago, smartphone with a 5″ display were also laughed at, before phablet basically became the norm. Now most smartwatches feature a screen between 1.5″ to 1.8″, but Rufus Cuff goes big with a 3″ screen, that you can strap to your wrist and be used a as watch, a web browser, music player, as well as send SMS and make calls via your smartphone, or if you don’t have one via VoIP thanks to the Wi-Fi connection. Here are the technical specifications: Processor – Texas Instruments Cortex A8 Processor (OMAP3 or Sitara) System Memory – N/A Storage – 16GB Storage Display – 3.0″ TFT Capacitive Touchscreen, 400 x 240 QVGA Resolution Connectivity – Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 LE, GPS Camera – Front-facing Video Camera Audio – Speaker, and microphone Sensors – Accelerometer, 6-Axis Gyroscope. Misc – Vibration Alert, Alerts & Flashlight LEDs Battery – ~1000 mAh […]
The Open Source Robots Invasion Has Begun: BeagleMiP, uARM, and PiddyBot
In the last few days, I’ve come across three affordable open source robots either based on BeagleBone Black, or Arduino compatible boards, and I’m sure there are many other projects out there for people interested in getting started with robotics without breaking the bank. BeagleMiP Self-balancing Robot I’ve found out the first robots from a long armdevices.net video showing two Mobile Inverted Pendulum (MiP) robots, able to stand on two wheels, designed by the Coordinated Robotics Lab of The University of California, San Diego: BeagleMiP educational robotics development kit from Strawson Design. The kit features the BeagleBone Black board with Texas Instruments Sitara ARM Cortex A8 processor and Novus Robotics Cape, an add-on board that provides 9-axis IMU (Accelerometer, Gyro, Magnetometer), 6 PWM connectors to power servos or brushless ESCs, 2 user-accessible buttons and 2 LEDs, a cell balancer & overvoltage protector, H-bridges to drive 6 DC Motors, and connectors […]
Fedora 20 “Heisenbug” Release Makes ARM a Primary Architecture
Fedora has been supporting ARM architecture for a while now, but it was only as a secondary architecture without official support. With the recent Fedora 20 release, nicknamed “Heisenbug”, the ARM architecture, more exactly ARMv7 hard float and greater, is promoted to a primary architecture meaning ARMv7 will have the same status as x86 and x86_64 architectures with packages officially build and supported by the Fedora community. What it does not mean however, due to the nature of ARM architecture, is that you can simply download an ISO to install on any ARM platforms, like you would do on an Intel or AMD computer. It’s a little more complicated than that, as it is platform specific, but instructions are available for the Beaglebone Black, Compulab Trimslice, the Wandboard, Calxeda Energycore Midway and Highbank, and Versatile Express in QEMU. You can download images with MATE, KDE, XFCE, LXDE, SOAS desktops, as […]
AlmaDom.us Home Automation System Fits into Your Walls’ Gang Boxes
Almaware, an Italian IT company, has recently launched an Indiegogo campagain for AlmaDom.us, an home automation system with a 4.3″ touchscreen screen that replaces your wall switch, and fits in your wall’s gang box. Almadom.us specifications: SoC – ARM Cortex A8 720Mhz ARM Processor with PowerVR SGX530 GPU (Texas Instruments AM3354) System Memory – 256MB or more (TBD) Storage – 128Mb Flash or more (TBD) Display – 4.3″ resistive touchscreen (5 points). Resolution: 480×272, 256K colors Connectivity – Bluetooth 4.0, Z-Wave and WiFi 802.11b/g/n with antenna on external cover Relays – 3 relays compatible with 110V and 230V (US and European Standard), with a maximum of 10A for single electrical equipment Misc – Temperature sensor, Infrared proximity sensor (to turn on/off screen), microphone and speaker. Power consumption – Active: 0.2 – 2W, Standby: 20 – 100 mW Operating temperature range – 0° to 70° C Board dimension – About 70×30 […]
Gumstix Announces Solution Kits for their CPU Modules and Boards
Gumstix has recently unveiled several solution kits featuring their Overo and DuoVero Computer-on-Modules (CoMs), Pepper single board computer, and several expansions boards, together with required accessories, and software packages, in order to help their customers getting started more easily. All these solutions are based on Texas Instruments OMAP3, OMAP4, and/or Sitara processors, and run Linux (Ubuntu or Yocto), and sometimes Android for the kits with displays. The solutions kits target 6 different types of applications and/or markets: Robotics Robotic Development Kit (Pictured above) with one Overo AirSTORM CoM (OMAP3703), and RoboVero expansion board. The kit is better suited for motor control applications. Mobile Robotic Development Kit with one Overo AirSTORM CoM, and Turtlecore expansion board to be used with iRobot Create. The kits ship with a Linaro (Ubuntu for Overo) system card and Robot Operating System (ROS) pre-installed. Handhelds 3.5″ Handheld Development Kit featuring Overo AirSTORM CoM with Alto35 cutomizable […]
Ninja Sphere Home Automation and Monitoring Platform
Ninja Blocks is an company providing open source hardware solutions for home automation. Their first product was called Ninja Blocks Kit which includes a Ninja Block (Beaglebone + Arduino based gateway, but they now also support the Raspberry Pi), sensors, sockets, cables, and a power supply, and works with Ninja Platform, an open source software framework. The goal was to simplify the process of developing automation applications by taking care of all low levels tasks such as electronics, embedded programming, network protocols.., and letting “end users” / developers focus on their application. The company is now working on a new version called the Ninja Sphere, including a “Spheramid” gateway, location waypoints (Bluetooth low energy tags), and smart power sockets. Here are the key features of the gateway: Processor – ARM Cortex A8 (probably Texas Instruments Sitara) Color LED Matrix Connectivity – Bluetooth, Bluetooth LE, Zigbee, and Wi-Fi USB Port – […]
ISEE IGEP COM AQUILA Powered by TI Sitara AM3354 Processor is now available for 79 Euros
Back in February, ISEE announced 2 new computers-on-module based on TI AM335x at Embedded World 2013. IGEP COM AQUILA, one of those 2 modules based on AM3354, is now available and we have a more information about software support, and baseboard availability. AQUILA specifications do not appear to have changed since the earlier announcement: Processor – Texas instruments Sitara AM3354 Cortex A8 @ 720 Mhz + PowerVR SGX GPU System memory – 256 MB DDR3 SDRAM, 303 MHz, 16-bit Storage – 128 MB SLC NAND FLASH + on-board micro-SD socket Networking – 1x Ethernet PHY Debug Interface – JTAG Sitara AM335x interfaces – USB Host/OTG, I2C, SPI, CAN, UART, LCD controller, GPIOs, etc… Power – 4V to 5,5V DC via SODIMM connector. 1x Linear 3V3@1A regulator Dimensions – 67,6mm x 26 mm (SODIMM form factor) Temperature Range – Industrial: -40 to +85 C What’s new to me, is the tiny […]
Embedded Linux Conference Europe 2013 Schedule – Build Systems, Security, Device Tree, Debugging & Profiling Techniques, and More
Embedded Linux Conference Europe 2013 will conveniently start right after LinuxCon 2013, last 2 days (October 23-24), and take place at the same location: the Edinburgh International Conference Center, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. The Linux Foundation has published the schedule for the conference, so I’ll make my own virtual schedule with sessions that I find particularly interesting. Thursday – 24th of October 9:30 – 10:10 – Timeline For Embedded Linux by Chris Simmonds, Consultant, 2net Limited Today, Linux is woven into the fabric of our technology. Things such as printers, routers, TVs and phones all have their own “Inner Penguin”. Yet it was never originally intended to be used beyond desktop and server PCs. A lot of things had to happen before Linux could break out of the PC environment and make its way in the world as a jobbing jack-of-all-trades. Since the early beginnings of embedded Linux in the late 1990’s many people have contributed […]