Video Category - Page 144 of 326 - CNX Software

August 21, 2018January 5, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

How to Make a Cheap Single Channel Gateway with an ESP32 LoRa Board

Actual LoRaWAN gateways based on Semtech SX1301 concentrator can be pretty expensive, and even if you take a LoRa gateway design based on Raspberry Pi for indoor placement or experimentation, price is still around $200. A much cheaper way (~$70) is to use a single channel LoRa gateway, which as the name implies only support one channel, which limits the number of nodes, and forces you to set the nodes at the same frequency as your gateway. Those are not really suitable for commercial offerings, but if you manage your own gateway and nodes that should be usable. If you only plan to implement a network with a dozen nodes or so, you could even use much cheap ESP32 LoRa board like the ESP32 LoRa 1-Channel Gateway sold on Sparkfun for $29.95. Hardware specifications: Connectivity WiFi and Bluetooth 4.2 LE via ESP32-WROOM-32 module with integrated PCB antenna LoRa @ 868 […]

August 21, 2018January 14, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Pocket Science Lab (PSLab) is an Open Source Hardware Electronics Lab

Last Saturday I created a virtual schedule for the Embedded Linux Conference Europe 2018 where I listed some of the sessions relevant to myself and hopefully regular readers of CNX Software, but due to scheduling conflicts one talk did not make it to the list: “Pocket Science Lab – An Open Source Hardware for Electronics Teaching & Learning” by FOSSASIA. The project is also referred to as PSLab, and aims to “create an Open Source hardware device that can be used for experiments by teachers, students, and citizen scientists to learn and teach electronics”. It looks interesting enough so let’s have a closer look. The project is inspired by the earlier expEYES project that combines with Raspberry Pi or other Linux platform to create an electronic labs, and the work by the Open Science Hardware community. PSLab key features and specifications: MCU – Microchip PIC24EP256GP204 16-bit microcontroller @ up to […]

August 18, 2018August 18, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Embedded Linux Conference Europe & OpenIoT Summit Europe 2018 Schedule

Embedded Linux Conference OpenIOT Summit Europe 2018

The Embedded Linux Conference & OpenIoT Summit 2018 took place in March of this year in the US, but the European version of the events are now planned to take place on October 21-24 in Edinburg, UK, and the schedule has already been released. So let’s make a virtual schedule to find out more about some of interesting subjects that are covered at the conferences. The conference and summit really only officially start on Monday 22, but there are a few talks on Sunday afternoon too. Sunday, October 21 13:30 – 15:15 – Tutorial: Introduction to Quantum Computing Using Qiskit – Ali Javadi-Abhari, IBM Qiskit is a comprehensive open-source tool for quantum computation. From simple demonstrations of quantum mechanical effects to complicated algorithms for solving problems in AI and chemistry, Qiskit allows users to build and run programs on quantum computers of today. Qiskit is built with modularity and extensibility […]

August 15, 2018August 15, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

More Speculative Execution Exploits – Meet Foreshadow / L1 Terminal Fault

Speculative execution is a feature to speed up performance of recent processors which works by predicting and loading likely future instructions ahead of time. The features became somewhat famous a few months ago with Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities exploiting the features. The exploits impact Intel, AMD, Arm, and other processors to various degrees, and since the feature is built-in into the hardware, there’s no easy fix, and instead operating systems vendors, cloud service providers, hosting services and other stakeholders implemented mitigations. While a lot of progress has been made, work is still going on with the just released Linux 4.18 still getting some code changes related to the exploits. But just as solutions were found for Spectre and Meltdown, a new speculative execution exploitation has raised its ugly head: L1 Terminal Fault also known as Foreshadow. The new flaw appears to be just as serious, and a dedicated website has […]

August 14, 2018August 14, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 14 Comments

USB Charging Actually Poses Security Risks – Hacking a Laptop via a USB-C Adapter

Smartphones have been charged over USB for many years, but with the advance of USB type-C now even laptops may be charged over USB, instead of the typical DC power barrel jack. Why am I writing about that? That’s because charging over a DC jack is normally safe, but after reading an article on BBC website, I’ve just realized when you charge over USB you also give access to the data connection, and security researcher (MG) has found a way to hack the USB-C charger of an Apple laptop and show a login prompt to steal credentials (username / password). The full details of the hack are no public, but it does require altering the hardware of the charger. So as long as you use the charger sold with your laptop, you should be safe. However, there’s always a risk if you charge from public places, or buy a charger […]

August 13, 2018August 13, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments

Amlogic Open Source Video Decoder Driver Coming Soon for S905, S905X and S912 Processors

Allwinner processors aren’t the only ones getting an open source hardware video decoding / encoding support in Linux, as Maxim Jourdan recently submitted a patchset to Amlogic Linux mailing list adding a video decoder driver to some Amlogic processors. The driver is written around the V4L2 M2M framework and currently supports MPEG 1/2/4, H.263, H.264, MJPEG, and (partially) HEVC 8-bit codecs. The driver has been tested with FFmpeg, GStreamer, and Kodi, and currently works on S905 (Meson GXBB), S905X/W/D (Meson GXL), and S912 (Meson GXM) processors. Those processors also support HEVC 10-bit, VP9, and VC1 codecs, and while those are implemented yet, they should be in the future. A separate commit adds support for “Overlay plane for video rendering” which support various YUV layouts and a non-alpha RGB32 layout, and will be useful for Kodi and LibreELEC ports. I came to learn about those two patchsets thanks to Neil Armtrong […]

August 10, 2018August 10, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

ioLight High Resolution Portable Microscope Works with Tablets and Smartphones

We’ve all read about those cheap USB microscopes that can be used to checkout PCB issues or read IC part numbers, but ioLight is a different beast. The device is a proper microscope offering up to 1 μm resolution that could be used by a biologist in the field coupled with an Android mobile device, an iPhone, or iPad. ioLight portable microscope specifications: Magnification Field of view (FoV) – 1mm fixed width, giving ~ x200 on a 9.7″ screen. Larger screens give greater magnifications Digital zoom on captured image to x500 on 9.7″ screen Resolution – 1µm (0.001 mm) Working distance – 1mm from lens to sample Illumination – Adjustable top and bottom illumination Sample stage – Glass Image / Video format 5MP (2592 x 1944 pixels); JPEG; color MPEG-4; color; up to 1296 x 972; 10 fps Images and videos are stored in the tablet’s camera roll ready for […]

August 9, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

KINGJIM Pomera DM200 Rockchip RK3128 Portable Mini Computer Can Run Debian

Ultra mobile portable computers (UMPC) are somewhat making a come back with products such as GPD Pocket 2 or DragonBox Pyra open source handheld computer. While being fairly powerful, neither devices are particularly inexpensive, and if you are looking for something cheaper, and admittedly much slower, I’ve been informed that Rockchip RK3128 based KINGJIM Pomera DM200 mini computer can be an option since it has been “hacked” to run Debian. By default, the device runs a Linux OS with user interface in Japanese only, and is sold as a digital memo. Some of the specifications include: SoC – Rockchip RK3128 quad core Cortex A7 processor with Mali-400MP2 GPU System Memory – 512MB RAM Storage – 4GB flash, micro SD slot up to 32GB Display – 7″ TFT LCD display with WSVGA (1024 x 600) resolution Connectivity – WiFi 802.11 b/g/n + Bluetooth 4.0 LE + EDR Keyboard – Japanese keyboard […]