FriendlyELEC NanoPi R2S SBC for headless applications with Rockchip RK3328 processor and dual Gigabit Ethernet ports is getting some competition, as with Orange Pi R1 Plus board, Shenzhen Xunlong Software has updated its Orange Pi R1 board powered by an Allwinner H2+ to RK3328 processor coupled with 1GB RAM, and offering dual Gigabit Ethernet ports, plus one USB port for router applications. Orange Pi R1 Plus board specifications with highlights in bold or stricken through showing differences against R1 board: SoC –Rockchip RK3328 quad-core Cortex-A53 @ 1.5 GHz with Arm Mali-450MP2 System Memory – 1GB DDR4 RAM Storage – MicroSD card slot, 16 MB SPI flash Connectivity – 2x Gigabit Ethernet via RTL8211E transceiver and RTL8153B USB 3.0 to Ethernet chip + 802.11 b/g/n WiFi (Realtek RTL8189ETV) with u.FL antenna connector and external antenna USB – 1x USB 2.0 port, 1x USB-C OTG port Expansion headers Unpopulated 26-pin “Raspberry Pi […]
Android’s 3D mapping aided GPS enables improved urban GPS accuracy
One of the best features of smartphones is GNSS location with standards like GPS that allows you to get directions or share your location with friends or business contacts. It works great in most cases, but getting an accurate location may be challenging in urban areas due to tall buildings that block the signal to the satellites and create reflections. This can be an issue for ride-sharing apps for example, as the applications may detect the wrong side of the street you are on, either forcing the client to cross the street (when possible) or the driver to take a detour to reach your location. This problem may soon go away in Android phone thanks to 3D mapping aided GPS corrections. So how does that work exactly? Google explains: The 3D mapping aided corrections module includes tiles of 3D building models that Google has for more than 3850 cities around […]
Compact Jetson Xavier NX/ Nano open hardware baseboard supports Android
When it comes to NVIDIA Jetson family of modules, we should understand that NVIDIA Jetson Nano is for makers and STEM education, while Xavier NX is more geared towards professional and commercial use. The compute module Xavier NX was announced before the development kit, which includes the module and reference carrier board and otherwise for NVIDIA Jetson Nano. There are some third-party carrier boards & edge computers available for Jetson Xavier NX and Jetson Nano, including DesignCore Carrier Board and Diamond FLOYD Carrier Board. Antmicro, a custom hardware, software, and AI engineering company, came up with a compact open hardware device: Jetson Nano/ Xavier NX baseboard. It supports both NVIDIA Jetson Nano SoM as well as the Xavier NX SoM. The board is designed to put NVIDIA’s versatile module at the heart of cutting-edge projects and drive innovation in areas such as AI/ML, drones, medical and industrial object recognition systems. […]
Rockchip RK3568 processor to power edge computing and NVR applications
We recently reported on the Rockchip developer conference (RKDC) 2020, and especially the upcoming Rockchip RK3588 Cortex-A76/A55 processor that packs a lot of power and features, and is now scheduled to launch in Q3 2021. But as you can imagine there were other products revealed during the conference, including the new Rockchip RK3568, similar to the previously announced RK3566, and designed for edge computing and network video recorder (NVR) applications. There’s also an RK353X processor specifically designed for NVR application that should have similar performance as RK3568, but a lower cost, as well as two UP camera SoC with RV1106 and RV1128. CNX Software managed to obtain the presentation for the RK3568 processor from the conference so we’ll focus on the quad-core Cortex-A55 processor in this post. Rockchip RK3568 specifications: CPU – Quad-core Cortex-A55 processor with NEON and FPU GPU – Mali-G52 EE with support for OpenGL ES 1.1 to […]
Fanless Linux embedded system makes a compact IoT gateway
ICP Germany has recently introduced the MiTAC ME1-8MD series family of compact, fanless Linux embedded systems powered by NXP i.MX 8M processor and designed to be used as IoT gateways, data acquisition and processing systems, and mini servers. Three models have been launched with a choice of dual or quad-core processors, up to 4GB LPDDR4 RAM, and 32GB eMMC flash storage. The embedded computers also come with up to two Ethernet ports, support up to two displays, and include an internal Raspberry Pi compatible 40 pin GPIO header. MiTAC ME1-8MD specifications and key features: SoC – NXP i.MX 8M Dual or Quad with two or four Cortex-A53 @ 1.3GHz, Cortex-M4 MCU, Vivante GC7000 Lite GPU, and 4K video processing unit System Memory – 1 to 4GB LPDDR4 800 Mhz RAM Storage – 8, 16, or 32GB eMMC flash, 1x MicroSD card slot up to 256GB Video Output HDMI 2.0 Optional […]
Rockchip RK3588 specifications revealed – 8K video, 6 TOPS NPU, PCIe 3.0, up to 32GB RAM
Rockchip RK3588 is one of the most anticipated processors for the year on this side of the Internet with the octa-core processor features four Cortex-A76 cores, four Cortex-A55 cores, an NPU, and 8K video decoding support. [Update December 2021: check out our post with the RK3588 datasheet for the latest details about the processor] The roadmap shows an expected launch date in Q3/Q4 2020, but sadly the release date will be pushed back in the future. Having said that, the Rockchip Developer Conference (RKDC) is now taking place, and the company has put up a poster that reveals a bit more about the processor. That means we now have more detailed Rockchip RK3588 specifications: CPU – 4x Cortex-A76 and 4x Cortex-A55 cores in dynamIQ configuration GPU – Arm Mali “Odin” MP4 GPU AI Accelerator – 6 TOPS NPU 3.0 (Neural Processing Unit) VPU – 8Kp60 video decoding support, 8Kp30 encoding […]
Allwinner H6 SBC offers dual Ethernet, four display outputs, M.2 expansion
While the processor was introduced in 2017, there are only a few Allwinner H6 SBC’s on the market with, for instance, Orange Pi 3 or Pine H64 boards, and it never became as popular as solutions based Allwinner H3 processor. But Boardcon has now launched its own Allwinner H6 SBC targeting professionals with Boardcon EMH6 board combining a carrier board and a computer-on-module that can be integrated into products. Boardcon EMH6 specifications: Core module SoC – Allwinner H6 quad-core Arm Cortex A53 processor with Arm Mali-T720 GPU with support for OpenGL ES3.1/3.0/2.0/1.1 System Memory – 1GB LPDDR3 Storage – 8GB eMMC Storage – MicroSD card slot, M.2 slot for NVMe SSD Video Output 1x HDMI 2.0a up to 4Kp60 1x CVBS interface 1x RGB interface or 2x eDP interface via NCS8801S RGB-to-eDP converter Backlight header Camera – 24-pin connector compatible with 13MP OV13850 camera sensor Audio – Optical S/PDIF output, […]
ASUS unveils Tinker Board 2 SBC with faster Rockchip RK3399/OP1 processor
ASUS surprised the maker community in 2017 with the introduction of the Rochchip RK3288 powered Tinker Board to compete as Raspberry Pi 3 Model B. It was followed by Tinker Board S with built-in storage and other new features, as well as Tinker Board Edge T and Edge R SBC’s both with an AI accelerator namely Google Edge TPU and the NPU inside Rockchip RK3399Pro. The company has now launched a new model called Tinker Board 2 without AI accelerator, but featuring Rockchip RK3399, or more exactly the higher grade Rockchip OP1 used in Chromebooks, delivering 96% faster single-thread performance and a 64% boost in multi-core performance compared to the Rockchip RK3288 processor found in the original Tinker Board, while the GPU is around 28% faster with glmark2-es2 off-screen benchmark. There are two variants of the board with Tinker Board 2 and Tinker Board 2S with the latter adding onboard […]