Video Category - Page 159 of 327 - CNX Software

February 8, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments

T-bao Tbook X8S Pro Apollo Lake Laptop is Equipped with an NVIDIA Geforce GPU

Most products based on Intel Apollo Lake processor do so to leverage the low cost and low power of the chip that also embeds Intel HD graphics removing the need for an external graphics card. But T-bao Tbook X8S Pro laptop powered by Intel Celeron J3455 Apollo Lake “Desktop” processor also comes with an NVIDIA GeForce 920M GPU which should boost graphics performance. Tbook X8S Pro specifications: SoC – Intel Celeron J3455 quad core Apollo Lake processor @ 1.50 / 2.30 GHz with (unused) 12EU Intel HD Graphics 500; 10W TDP GPU – NVIDIA GeForce 920M @ 954 MHz with 2GB RAM System Memory – 6GB DDR3 Storage – 128GB eMMC flash or M.2 SSD (unclear), micro SD card slot up to 128 GB Display – 15.6″ IPS screen with 1920×1080 resolution Video Output – HDMI output Audio – Built-in microphone, and stereo speakers; 3.5mm audio jack Connectivity – Gigabit […]

February 8, 2018February 8, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Kodi 18 Features and Improvements (FOSDEM 2018 Video)

Most Kodi users are now running Kodi 17.x Krypton that was initially released in February 2017, with the latest point version being Kodi 17.6. At the time of Krypton release, the developers had also started working on Kodi 18 “Leia” which should now be in “alpha”, and the stable release may only be a few months away although Kodi developers do not provide an ETA. What they did provide however – via Martijn Kaijser at FOSDEM 2018 – is a progress report for Kodi 18 “Leia”, as well as some insights into Kodi 19 whose development has just started. Kodi 18 has gone through a lot of cleanup with the code upgraded to C++11 standard, duplicate code and obsolete libraries removed, dropped unmaintained feature, and so on. They also moved non-core features such as audio encoders and decoders, PVR, picture decoding, etc… to external plugins. This work resulted into 299,476 […]

February 7, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

AV1 Open Source Video Codec Update at FOSDEM 2018 (Video)

We first covered the Alliance for Open Media’s AV1 video codec in summer 2016, as an open source, royalty-free video codec aiming to replace VP9, and compete or even surpass H.265 capabilities. At the time, everything was pretty new, and when I tried the open source implementation encoding was really slow. Since then, AV1 has gained momentum with for example Apple, Facebook, and IBM recently joining AOMedia, and Mozilla adding HTML5 AV1 video support to Firefox Nightly builds at the end of last year. I was able to play a 720p video @ 800 Kbps almost smoothly in my computer based on AMD FX8350 processor. Many companies want AV1 to succeed since they may not be willing to pay MPEG LA license fee for H.265 and future MPEG codecs (e.g. H.266), and there indeed seems to be issues with the currently MPEG licensing business model. However, AV1 is not quite […]

February 6, 2018February 7, 2018 by Ian W MORRISON (Linuxium) - 4 Comments

Vorke V1 Plus Celeron J3455 Mini PC Review with Windows and Ubuntu

Most Intel based mini PCs use processors classified as ‘Mobile’ as these have lower thermal design power (TDP) ratings which is the maximum amount of heat generated by the processor: However, the new Vorke V1 Plus has incorporated a ‘Desktop’ processor namely the Intel Celeron J3455. On paper this processor looks like it should perform similar to the Intel Pentium N4200 processor but with a tradeoff between being a cheaper processor to purchase but more expensive to run due to the increased power requirements. Geekbuying provided a Vorke V1 Plus for review so let’s start by taking a look at the physical characteristics. The device comes in a plain box and was supplied with the ‘right AC Adapter’ for my country. The first observation is that it is quite a large device. At just over 6” square (153mm) and nearly 1.5” tall (38mm) it is the biggest mini PC I’ve […]

February 5, 2018February 5, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Getting Started with IkaScope WiFi Pen-Oscilloscope, and ScanaQuad SQ50 USB Logic Analyzer & Signal Generator

A couple of weeks ago, I received IkaScope WS200 pen-like WiFi oscilloscope, as well as ScanaQuad SQ50 USB logic analyzer & signal generator, and I’ve already checked out the hardware both both in a aforelinked unboxing post. I had also very shortly tried IkaScope with GOLE 10 mini PC, but just to showcase potential use case for a Windows 10 mini PC with an inclined touchscreen display. But at the time I did not really a proper measurement, as it was more to test the mini PC than the oscilloscope itself. I’ve now had time to test IkaScope desktop program and mobile app in respectively Ubuntu 16.04 and Android 8.0.0, as well as ScanaStudio for ScanaQuad USB device using Ubuntu 16.04 only, since there’s no mobile version of the program. While I’ll focus on Ubuntu and Android, most of the instructions will be valid for Window 10 and Mac OS X […]

February 4, 2018March 16, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 19 Comments

SiFive Introduces HiFive Unleashed RISC-V Linux Development Board (Crowdfunding)

RISC-V free and open architecture has gained traction in the last couple of years. SiFive has been one of the most active companies with RISC-V architecture, introducing Freedom U500 and E500 open source RISC-V SoCs in the summer of 2016, before launching their own HiFive1 Arduino compatible board, and later the official Arduino Cinque board. That’s fine if you are happy with MCU class boards, but RISC-V is getting into more powerful processors, and recently got initial support o Linux 4.15, so it should come as no surprise the company has now launched HiFive Unleashed, the first RISC-V-based, Linux-capable development board. HiFive Unleashed key features and specifications: SoC – SiFive Freedom U540 with 4x U54 RV64GC application cores @ up to 1.5GHz with Sv39 virtual memory support, 1x E51 RV64IMAC Management Core, 2 MB L2 cache; 28 nm TSMC process System Memory – 8GB DDR4 with ECC Storage – 32MB […]

February 2, 2018February 3, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

M1 3D Holographic Display is a Fan Showing Holograms from Videos and Photos

I’ve been watching or reading news about holographic displays recently where you can watch 3D objects into space without 3D glasses. Not the IoT gateway with an holographic maid, but I watched some hologram demos recently, and RED is bringing an (expensive) Android phone – called Hydrgen – to market with an holographic display. Today, I was made aware that you can buy some sort of fan to produce holograms designed in your own computer. It’s referred to “M1 Naked Eye 3D Holographic Advertising” in several shops, and as the name implies it’s likely mostly useful for businesses rather than home users. Hardware specifications: LEDs – 224x RGB0805 LEDs, 100,000 hours life Display – 16.53″ with 450 x 224 pixel resolution; viewing angle: 150° Supported media mp4, avi, rmvb, mkv, gif, jpg, png 3D effect media – MP4 or GIF with black background Storage – micro SD slot for media […]

January 31, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

Evercell Thermal Energy Harvester to Power Battery-less IoT Wireless Sensors

In order to be successful the Internet of Things needs to be extremely inexpensive per node, and the problem is that most remote sensors are non powered by batteries, which either needs to be replaced or recharged, which involve maintenance costs. One ideal solution is battery-less IoT sensor nodes, that do not need any battery, and instead rely on energy harvesting. The idea is easier said that done, especially if you intend to do it cheaply. While there have been solutions provided over the years for example using vibration energy harvesting or water flow, battery-less devices are still not that common, but companies still bring new energy harvesting devices to market. One of those is Face International’s Evercell thermal energy harvester that leverages the temperature difference within a material to generate electricity, as long as ambient temperature is above absolute zero. The company plans to manufacture various models of their […]