Most of us now listen to music on the go using our phones, but once upon a not-so-distant time, portable MP3 players were a popular way to listen music. They have not completely disappeared, and Brad Linder of Liliputing needed some for one of his projects, so he bought four inexpensive MP3 players on GearBest with prices ranging from $1.51 to $3.75 to check them out. It turns out the one with the best audio quality and sturdiness was Simplicity Fashion Pocket MP3 Player going for $1.51 shipped. So let’s see what we get for that price: Audio – 3.5mm audio jack Storage – micro SD slot up to 16GB (no internal storage) USB – mini USB port for charging, and connect to PC which detects the MP3 player as an SD card reader (but it’s rather slow) Misc – Power, volume, next, previous, and play/pause buttons; metal clip; power […]
Rockchip Introduces Three Tablet SoCs: RK3126C, RK3326, RK3366, and RK3368H Processor for 2-in-1 Laptops
Rockchip has launched four more processors at the Hong Kong Electronics Fair 2017, with three SoCs specifically targeting tablets namely RK3126C, RK3326 and RK3366, and one SoC, RK3368H modified from RK3368, designed to provide a lower cost alternative to RK3288 and RK3399 for 2-in-1 hybrid laptops and tablets. The company only provided limited information with regards to the tablet SoCs specifications: RK3126C quad core processor supporting 1080p video decoding and HD (720p?) displays for entry-level tablets RK3326 quad core ARM Cortex A35 processor with a quad core Mali GPU, DDR3/LPDDR memory interface, 1080p60 H.264, MPEG-4/-2 video decoding, and 1080p30 H.264 video encoding RK3366 quad core ARM Cortex A53 processor with a quad core Mali GPU, DDR3/LPDDR memory interface, USB 3.0 interface, and 4K H.265 video decoding All three processors will be running Android 7.1. I could not find any tablets based on the processor yet, so we may have to […]
Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE Selects Two Winners for Commercial Medical Tricorders
Healthcare takes around 10% of worldwide GDP, and while in some cases an increase in the healthcare to GDP ratio means better care for people, in other cases it may lead to a decrease in the population’s living standards. There are political, business, and legal issues involved in the costs, but overtime I’m confident that technology can both improve care and lower the costs, in some instances dramatically, especially if open source designs become more common, and there’s some work in that respect with open source projects for prosthetics, opthalmoscope, and even surgical robots. Some commercial projects also aim(ed) to lower the costs of diagnosis tools such as Sia Lab’s medical lab dongle or Scanadu medical tricorder. The latter project sadly did not manage to pass FDA approval, and the company will stop supporting it on May 15, 2017, but that does not mean others have given up on developing […]
Bben to Launch an Apollo Lake HDMI TV Stick Powered by Intel Celeron N3450 Processor
Intel is planning to launch “Michigan City” Apollo Lake Compute Sticks sometimes with year, but Bben, after launching MN17A Apollo Lake mini PC, may be able to launch their own Celeron N3450 TV stick before Intel does, as Netbook Italia reports the company showcased such product at the Hong Kong Global Sources Electronics Fair. Bben Micro computer specifications: SoC – Intel Celeron N3450 quad core processor @ 1.1 GHz / 2.2 GHz, 12 EU Intel HD graphics 500 @ 200 MHz / 700 MHz; 6W TDP System Memory – 2 to 4GB DDR3 Storage – 32 or 64 GB eMMC flash + micro SD slot Video Output – HDMI port (likely limited to 1.4 version with 4K @ 30 Hz max resolution/framerate) Audio – HDMI + 3.5mm audio jack Connectivity – Dual band 802.11 b/g/n/ac WiFi, and Bluetooth 4.2 USB – 2x USB 3.0 ports Misc – Fan and ventilation […]
Mirabook is Laptop Dock for Smartphones, Development Boards (Crowdfunding)
Motorola Lapdock may have been ahead of its time, as laptop docks for smartphone are back in vogue with products like NexDock, and Apple could soon launch their own iPhone laptop dock. Another option is Miraxess Mirabook laptop dock with a 13.3″ display, and a battery lasting up to 24 hours, that works for smartphones, development boards, and HDMI TV sticks thanks to its USB type C port. Mirabook specifications: Display – 13.3″ IPS display with 1920×1080 resolution (non-touch, except if they raise $2 millions…) Audio – Speakers, 3.5mm audio jack Video Output – HDMI port Storage – SD card slot QWERTY keyboard & multi-touch trackpad USB Integrated USB type C cable to connect to phone, board or HDMI TV stick USB type C port to charge the Mirabook battery 2x USB type A host port Battery – TBD capacity good for 24 hours while charging your phone Dimensions – […]
ESP8266, Mongoose OS & Grove Sensors – An Alternative Solution for Hackathons
CNXSoft: This is a guest post by Cesanta If you walked into any Hardware hackathon over the last year, you would see they are about innovation and bringing new ideas to this world and most of them are centered around the connected devices nowadays. However, just walk the floor, talk to the teams and you can quickly see an elephant in the room. The Hackathons are about connected devices, but with the ‘recommended’ and frequently sponsored hardware distributed to the teams such as Intel Galileo, Raspberry Pi, etc…. developers may struggle for a long time to even connect it to the cloud! Not to mention the innovation is usually hindered by a tedious environment setup which takes hours, things to learn about the specific hardware and how it can be programmed using low level languages. So many teams spent most of the time fighting with those issues and oftentimes still […]
Rikomagic RKM R1 Mini Projector Review – Part 2: Android Firmware, Kodi, Touchpad, and HDMI Input
Rikomagic RKM R1 is a projector running Android 4.4.4, and powered by Rockchip RK3128 quad core Cortex A7 processor with 1GB RAM, and 32GB storage. It has a particular feature as it comes with a touchpad on the top of the case as we’ve seen in the unboxing and teardown part of the Rikomagic R1 review. Today, I’ll report my experience with the projector playing games in Android, 1080p videos with Kodi 14.2, using the touchpad, and connecting a laptop through the HDMI input port. I’ll also run some benchmarks as usual. RKM R1 Android User Experience and HDMI Input I wanted to relax and use the projector on the bed pointing to the ceiling. RKM R1 comes with a tripod, but it’s quite small, not the projector would fall off, so I used my own tripod, connected a USB keyboard, and the USB RF dongle for Tronsmart Mars G01 […]
Aconno Bluetooth 4.0 & 5 IoT Development Board Features an nRF52832 or nRF52840 Module, an e-Paper Display, Sensors and More
Bluetooth 5 is the latest iteration of Bluetooth with up to four times the speed and twice the range of Bluetooth 4.0 LE, and so far apart from Puck.js and Nordic Semi nRF52840 devkit, I had not seen many Bluetooth 5 IoT modules or boards. Aconno, a German startup, has designed ACD-52832 Bluetooth 4.0 / Thread / ANT+ IoT development board based on their own nRF52832 module, and equipped with some goodies like a black & white e-Paper display, a joystick, sensors, I/Os, etc… They’ve also launched an updated module with Bluetooth 5 using nFR52840 SoC. I don’t have the full details about the new module, but the nRF52832 module and devkit is interesting to look at, especially features should be similar. Aconno ACD-52832 board specifications: Wireless Module – ACN52832 based on Nordic Semi nRF52832 ARM Cortex-M4 @ 64 MHz SoC with Bluetooth Smart, ANT+, Thread, NFC, and 2.4 GHz […]