I’ll combine two unrelated short news about software releases for TV boxes, Raspberry Pi, and other SBCs: Kodi 20 “Nexus” Alpha 1 media center, and DietPi 8.5 lightweight Debian-based image for SBC’s. Kodi 20 “Nexus” Alpha 1 The first alpha release of Kodi 20 “Nexus” is out with one highlight being support for AV1 hardware video decoding in Android and x86 (VAAPI) platforms with AV1-capable GPU or VPU. Other notable changes include: FFMPEG upgraded to version 4.4 Plenty of subtitle related changes: Added Steam Deck built-in controller support Initial support for M1 native including native windowing/input handling Pipewire support in Linux Various PVR improvements including in terms of performance when a large number of channels is displayed You’ll find more details in the announcement. The RetroPlayer project based on Kodi, but adding some game-related features, has also released some test images based on Kodi 20. Note that since it’s an […]
4K USB AI camera is powered by Rockchip RV1126 SoC with 2.0 TOPS NPU
ThinkCore TC-RV1126 is a USB AI camera powered by Rockchip RV1126 quad-core Cortex-A7 processor with a 2.0 TOPS NPU and equipped with a Sony Starvis IMX415 CMOS image sensor with 4K resolution (3840 x 2160). The Linux-powered camera module features a USB Type-C port compatible with UVC & UAC protocols so that it can work without drivers on Windows, Android, Linux, Mac OS, and most other operating systems with a USB stack. TC-RV1126 camera specifications: SoC – Rockchip RV1126 quad-core Arm Cortex-A7 @ 1.5 GHz + RISC-V MCU @ 400 MHz, 2D graphics engine, 2.0 TOPS NPU with support for INT8/ INT16, 14M ISP System Memory – 2x DDR3 chip (128M x 16), so that should be 512MB RAM (TBC) Storage – 1 Gbit (128MB) SPI NAND flash Camera Image sensor – Sony Starvis IMX415 1/2.8-inch 8MP CMOS sensor with night vision Capture up to 3840×2160 @ 30 fps Supported […]
Embedded World 2022 – June 21-23 – Virtual Schedule
Embedded World 2020 was a lonely affair with many companies canceling attendance due to COVID-19, and Embedded World 2021 took place online only. But Embedded World is back to Nuremberg, Germany in 2022 albeit with the event moved from the traditional month of February to June 21-23. Embedded systems companies and those that service them will showcase their latest solution at their respective booths, and there will be a conference with talks and classes during the three-day event. The programme is up, so I made my own little Embedded World 2022 virtual schedule as there may be a few things to learn, even though I won’t be attending. Tuesday, June 21, 2022 10:00 – 13:00 – Rust, a Safe Language for Low-level Programming Rust is a relatively new language in the area of systems and low-level programming. Its main goals are performance, correctness, safety, and productivity. While still ~70% of […]
Axzez Interceptor carrier board for RPi CM4 gets 8-port PoE+ board
The features-rich Axzez Interceptor carrier board for Raspberry Pi CM4 has gotten the Interceptor PoE board with eight PoE+ ports for connecting up to sixteen PoE IP cameras making it usable as a network video recorder. We first wrote about the Interceptor last January noting its impressive I/O capabilities with five SATA ports, four Gigabit Ethernet, two HDMI ports, RS-485 terminal block, and more. It also had two 40-pin FFC connectors “for future expansion”. Those connectors have now found a “meaning to life” with the Interceptor PoE board, as up to two can be connected to the FFC connectors. Some of the features of the new Interceptor PoE Board include: 8x fast PoE+ ethernet ports IEEE 802.3AF-2003 and 802.3AT-2009 compliance Each port has activity/link and status LEDs Input voltage range – 44-57V Optional 48V power boost that can support up to two Interceptor PoE+ boards (Powered from 12V ATX power […]
Ubuntu 22.04 LTS “Jammy Jellyfish” released
Canonical has just released Ubuntu 22.04 LTS “Jammy Jellyfish” right on schedule. The new version of the Linux operating system provides cloud confidential computing, a new real-time kernel for industrial applications, Arm optimization, support for Raspberry Pi SBCs, as well as support for enterprise Active Directory, PCI-DSS, HIPAA, FIPS, and FedRAMP compliance. Confidential Computing aims to improve data protection and privacy in public clouds without requiring any changes to existing application deployments, and Ubuntu 22.04 supports Azure Confidential VMs. Speaking about cloud computing, Canonical also says they optimized Ubuntu 22.04 LTS images for AWS Graviton for greater performance on Arm servers. The new real-time PREEMPT_RT kernel is currently in beta and available for both x86 and Aarch64 architectures. It is designed for telco (5G gateways) as well as other latency-sensitive applications such as industrial automation and robotics. Ubuntu 22.04 LTS is also the first long-term support release with Ubuntu Desktop […]
Semtech LR1120 enables global asset tracking with multi-band LoRa, WiFi, and GNSS
Semtech LoRa Edge LR1120 is an ultra-low-power multi-band chip designed for global geolocation and asset tracking applications including direct satellite-connected Internet of Things (IoT) applications in supply chain management and logistics. Not only does the LR1120 features the usual sub-GHz LoRa radio found in most other chips from the company, but also comes with 2.4GHz LoRa and SATCOM S-Band support for satellite, as well as a GNNS radio compatible with GPS and Beidou, and a WiFi radio for indoor positioning (but no WiFi RTT/802.11mc support). Semtech LR1120 key features and specifications: Low-power high-sensitivity LoRa/(G)FSK half-duplex RF transceiver Worldwide ISM frequency bands support in the range 150 – 960MHz (Sub-GHz) and 2.4GHz, as well as 1.9-2.1GHz (S-Band) Low Noise Figure RX front-end High power PA path +22dBm in the Sub-GHz band Up to +11.5dBm in the 2.4GHz band LR-FHSS modulator Integrated PA regulator supply selector to simplify dual power +15/+22dBm with […]
Arduino releases secure bootloader based on MCUboot
Arduino has released a new bootloader based on MCUBoot to increase the range of features and firmware safety of Arduino products, with the first release targetting STM32H7 based Arduino Portenta and Nicla Vision boards from the Arduino Pro family. The release focuses on Arduino Mbed OS-based boards, but MCUboot is OS agnostic, and should also work with Zephyr, Nuttx, and Apache mynewt. The company has also made sure that the transition is easy and reused the existing OTA firmware upgrade process in place on Arduino boards. MCUboot Arduino highlights: Signed and encrypted updates – MCUboot has support for encrypting/decrypting images on-the-fly while upgrading. It will also check if the computed signature is matching the one embedded in the image before booting a sketch. Confirm or revert updates – After an update, the new Sketch can update the content of the flash at runtime to mark itself as OK. If everything […]
SolidRun launches 16-core LX2162A LX2-Lite SOM and ClearFog LX2-Lite development board
SolidRun has launched the LX2-Lite SOM based on NXP Layerscape LX2-Lite SoC with up to 16 Arm Cortex-A72 cores, together with ClearFog LX2-Lite development platform equipped with two SFP28 cages up to 25Gbps each, two SFP+ cage up to 10Gbps each, and eight Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 ports for networking applications. With a footprint measuring just 58 x 48mm, or about 25% the size of a standard COM Express 7 module, the company claims the LX2-Lite Mini SOM, based on LX2162A, is the smallest 16-core SOM platform in the world, and the module and development board target high-performance SD-WAN, network security, and industrial control solutions. SolidRun LX2-Lite SOM Specifications: SoC (one of the other) NXP Layerscape LX2082A with 8x Cortex A72 cores @ 2.0 GHz NXP Layerscape LX2122A with 12x Cortex A72 cores @ 2.0 GHz NXP Layerscape LX2162A with 16x Cortex A72 cores @ 2.0 GHz System Memory – Up […]