Android News - Page 76 of 375 - CNX Software

June 4, 2019June 4, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

SolidRun i.MX 8M Mini SoM Includes Gyrfalcon Lightspeeur 2803S AI Accelerator

There are already plenty of NXP i.MX 8M Mini boards and system-on-modules, but so far none of those included a neural network accelerator. But that’s now an option as SolidRun and Gyrfalcon teamed up to design SolidRun i.MX 8M Mini system-on-module that combines NXP i.MX 8M Mini processor with Gyrfalcon Lightspeeur 2803S NPU (Neural Processing Unit) in order to speed up AI workloads at the edge. SolidRun i.MX 8M Mini SoM Specifications: SoC (one or the other) NXP i.MX8M Mini S single core Arm Cortex-A53 processor up to 1.8 GHz, Arm Cortex-M4 core up to 400MHz, GC NanoUltra 3D GPU + GC320 2D GPU NXP i.MX8M Mini D dual-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor up to 1.8 GHz, Arm Cortex-M4 core up to 400MHz, GC NanoUltra 3D GPU + GC320 2D GPU NXP i.MX8M Mini Q quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor up to 1.8 GHz, Arm Cortex-M4 core up to 400MHz, GC NanoUltra […]

May 31, 2019May 31, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 16 Comments

ASUS Tinker Edge R Pico-ITX Board to Feature Rockchip RK3399Pro SoC

Just a few days ago, we wrote about ASUS Tinker Edge T board and other products from ASUS featuring Google Coral Edge TPU which were showcased at Computex 2019. It turns out the company is working on another Tinker with a processor featuring an neural network accelerator. Meet ASUS Tinker Edge R Pico-ITX SBC powered by Rockchip RK3399Pro hexa-core processor equipped with a 3.0 TOPS NPU. One of the reasons it did not get noticed is that ASUS may not have had a sample for display at the event, but instead only described the board in a brochure. [Update: ASUS Tinker Edge R was also showcased at Computex 2019] ASUS Tinker Edge R SBC preliminary specifications: SoC – Rochchip RK3399Pro hexa-core big.LITTLE processor with 2x Cortex A72 cores up to 1.8 GHz, 4x Cortex A53 cores @ 1.4 GHz, an Arm Mali-T860 MP4 GPU up to 800 MHz with OpenGL […]

May 30, 2019May 31, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 18 Comments

FriendlyELEC SOM-RK3399 Development Kit Targets AI & Machine Vision Applications

FriendlyELEC is better known for their low-cost tiny single board computers, but the company has also introduced systems-on-module in the past such as Smart6818 module powered by Samsung S5P6818 octa-core processor. The company has now launched another system-on-module with SOM-RK3399, which as its name implied features Rockchip RK3399 processor, as well as a corresponding carrier board mostly designed for artificial intelligence and computer vision applications. SOM-RK3399 System-on-Module Specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3399 big.LITTLE hexa-core processor with 2x Cortex-A72 cores up to 2.0GHz, 4x Cortex-A53 cores up to 1.5GHz, Mali-T864 GPU with support for OpenGL ES1.1/2.0/3.0/3.1, OpenVG1.1, OpenCL, DX11, and AFBC, and VPU capable of handling 4K VP9 and 4K 10bits H265/H264 60fps decoding, Dual VOP, etc System Memory – Dual-Channel 2GB DDR3 Storage – 16GB eMMC 5.1 flash Networking 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.1, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth combo module (AP6356S), dual antenna interface Realtek RTL8211E Gigabit Ethernet transceiver USB – 2x USB-C […]

May 24, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

An Interview with a TV Box Manufacturer: Shenzhen Tomato

I’ve been interviewing Jojo Zhou, Sales Manager at Shenzhen Tomato Technology, a TV box manufacturer, over email to learn a bit more about the TV box market, and various challenges encountered by manufacturers. CNXSoft: We’ve already covered several products sold by Shenzhen Tomato on CNX Software, but for readers who may not know the company yet, could you provide a short description of the company? Jojo Zhou: With over 8-years of experience, Shenzhen Tomato Technology Co., Ltd has become one of the leading OEM/ODM manufacturers specialized in developing Android TV Box, IPTV Set Top Box, Android Media Player, Hybrid Set Top Box and media solution. ODM and OEM is our main advantage, including hardware design and software customize (such as driver porting, kernel modification, etc). We have a first-class R&D team of 30 energetic engineers with rich experience to focus on that. A strict and complete quality control system is […]

May 23, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Boundary Devices NXP i.MX 8M Mini Board Gets Android 9.0 Firmware

Nitrogen8M_Mini Android 9.0 NXP i.MX 8M Mini

Beside Debian 9.5, Ubuntu 18.04, the Yocto Project, and Buildroot Linux, NXP i.MX 8M Mini processors also supported Android 8.1 Oreo. But Boundary Devices has just announced their Nitrogen8M_Mini single board computers is now getting support for Android 9.0 Pie operating system. The company worked with Kynetics to release an Android 9.0 evaluation image for the i.MX8M Mini boards based on Linux 4.14.x kernel. You can also get the source code to build it from scratch for your board:

mkdir myandroid
cd myandroid
repo init -u git://github.com/boundarydevices/android-manifest.git -b boundary-imx-p9.0.0_1.0.0-ga
repo sync

mkdir myandroid

cd myandroid

repo init -u git://github.com/boundarydevices/android-manifest.git -b boundary-imx-p9.0.0_1.0.0-ga

repo sync

You’ll also need NXP vendor package, which you can install as follows:

tar xvzf imx-p9.0.0_1.0.0-ga.tar.gz
cp -r imx-p9.0.0_1.0.0-ga/vendor/nxp/ vendor/ 
cp -r imx-p9.0.0_1.0.0-ga/EULA.txt . 
cp -r imx-p9.0.0_1.0.0-ga/SCP* .
rm -rf imx-p9.0.0_1.0.0-ga/
rm imx-p9.0.0_1.0.0-ga.tar.gz

tar xvzf imx-p9.0.0_1.0.0-ga.tar.gz

cp -r imx-p9.0.0_1.0.0-ga/vendor/nxp/ vendor/

cp -r imx-p9.0.0_1.0.0-ga/EULA.txt .

cp -r imx-p9.0.0_1.0.0-ga/SCP* .

rm -rf imx-p9.0.0_1.0.0-ga/

rm imx-p9.0.0_1.0.0-ga.tar.gz

The last step is to build the code:

source build/envsetup.sh
lunch nitrogen8mm-userdebug
make 2>&1 | tee build.out

source build/envsetup.sh

lunch nitrogen8mm-userdebug

make 2>&1 | tee build.out

You can find more details, including instructions to flash the image in the getting started guide. The image and source code are only suitable for evaluation, and you’d have to work yourself to get a production-ready version with security patches, field upgrade, and performance improvements, or ask Boundary […]

May 23, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Xilinx Arm FPGA, Snapdragon SoM’s, and Wandboard SBC Field Trip to Space

SpaceX Starlink Satellites Falcon Rocket

Most embedded systems are used here on planet earth, but some do take off heading for space, and this week I come accross two separate projects leveraging Arm processors and FPGAs, as well as Ubuntu/ROS and Android operating systems: SpaceX Starlink communication satellites and Astrobee robots roaming in the international space station (ISS) SpaceX Starlink Satellites with Xilinx Ultrascale+ Arm + FPGA SoC SpaceX is about to launch a cloud of 60 Starlink communication satellites that aims to provide internet communication anywhere in the world. That’s just a start as eventually the plan is to get up to 12,000 of those satellites. Usually, we would not know many technical details about the satellites, but as one reader pointed out (Thanks Lawrence!), a Reddit thread about the launch, also pointed to a NASA document revealing the satellites are powered by Xilinx Ultrascale+ quad core Cortex-A53 processor with FPGA fabric. Milestone 2 […]

May 20, 2019May 31, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 30 Comments

Top 5 Raspberry Pi Alternatives in 2019

The Raspberry Pi boards are great little Arm Linux SBC’s with a low price and great community support. But the Broadcom processors used in the boards are also fairly old so they may not be suitable for some projects. If your application needs or would benefit from modern features such as memory over 1GB RAM, an actual Gigabit Ethernet port, USB 3.0 port(s), 4K video output, or H.265 hardware video decoding you’ll have to find Raspberry Pi alternatives. I’ll point out 5 alternative single board computers in this post from the point of view of existing Raspberry Pi users, who will want good software support and a board with the same or similar form factor as Raspberry Pi 3 Model B/B+ in order to reuse their add-on boards and/or enclosures. Price has to be competitive as well, so nothing above $80 will be mentioned. The boards are not listed in […]

May 14, 2019May 14, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Newyes SyncPen Bluetooth Pen Digitizes Your Handwriting to the Cloud (Crowdfunding)

When I first found out about SERVO K07 bluetooth pen last month, I initially hoped it would allow users to digitize their handwriting or drawing and synchronize it to their phone or cloud, but it was not to be the case and instead it was just a 6-in-1 phone/pen/audio player/audio recording/camera/flashlight. But Newyes SyncPen does exactly that: it allows you to write on paper or a writing pad while digitizing your creation on the fly, and storing the result in the cloud. It works thanks to a tiny camera embedded in the pen capturing data at 200 fps. Newyes SyncPen hardware specifications: Connectivity – Bluetooth 4.2 Memory – 32MB, enough to store 800 pages of A5 paper content Pressure levels – 1024 Tiny camera @ 200+ fps Audio – Microphone Battery – 3.4V / 260 mAh Lithium Polymer battery good for about 8 hours; 1.5 hours charging time Dimensions – […]