smartphone News - Page 4 of 75 - CNX Software

June 20, 2023June 20, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Broadcom unveils 2nd generation WiFi 7 chipsets: BCM6765, BCM47722, BCM4390

Broadcom WiFi 7 Gen2: BCM6765, BCM47722, BCM4390

Broadcom has announced its second generation WiFi 7 chipsets: the BCM6765 residential WiFi 7 access point chip, the BCM47722 enterprise WiFi 7 access point chip with dual IoT radios that support simultaneous operation for Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), Zigbee, Thread, and Matter protocols, and the BCM4390 low-power Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth, and 802.15.4 combo chip designed for use in mobile devices. This follows the introduction of Broadcom’s first WiFi 7 chipsets in April 2022 with residential and enterprise WiFi 7 access point chips, and a WiFi 7 client chip, but the second generation access point chipsets support 320 MHz 2-stream Wi-Fi operation and add extra features, and the BCM4390 optimized costs bringing WiFi 7 to lower-prices phones and devices. BCM6765 residential Wi-Fi access point chip highlights: CPU – Quad-core ARMv8 CPU with 10Gbps Ethernet PHY WiFi 7 Dual 2×2 tri-band (2.4, 5, and 6 GHz) capable radios that support simultaneous operation […]

June 6, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

NexDock XL 15.6-inch touchscreen laptop shell for smartphones supports wireless charging

The NexDock XL is a 15.6-inch touchscreen laptop shell for a smartphone with wireless charging support and a 360-degree flip capability that can transform it into a laptop or a tablet, and be used in tent mode. With its USB-C 3.1 with DisplayPort and mini HDMI 1.4a input ports, the laptop shell can also potentially be used with other devices that output video, audio, and data through USB-C or/and HDMI. The phone can be secured with a magnet on the area between the display and keyboard both for wireless charging or even to use the phone as a touchpad. NexDock XL specifications Display 15.6-inch IPS touch screen with 1920 x 1080 FHD resolution, 120Hz, 16:9 aspect ratio Brightness: 300 nits, Contrast 800:1, Color Gamut: NTSC 72% / sRGB 100% Audio 4 x 2W speakers (THX approved) 3.5mm audio jack Full-sized backlit keyboard with multitouch trackpad on the side. Storage – […]

May 29, 2023June 1, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Arm unveils Cortex-X4, Cortex-A720, Cortex-A520 CPUs, Immortalis-720 GPU

Arm Cortex-X4 Immortalis-G720 SoC block diagram

Arm has just announced the new Total Compute Solutions 2023 (TCS23) with Cortex-X4, Cortex-A720, and Cortex-A520 Armv9.2 CPU cores, and the 5th generation (i.e. no Valhall) Immortalis-720 GPU that will initially be found in SoC for premium smartphones and laptops before reaching the other markets over the years. The announcement follows TCS22 platform announced in June 2022 with Cortex-X3, Cortex-A715 and 510 cores plus the Immortalis-715 GPU that was eventually found in the MediaTek Dimensity 9200 SoC integrated into OPPO and Vivo smartphones, and the new TCS23 CPU cores offer up to 15% performance improvement, 40% higher efficiency, while the Immortalis-720 GPU offers similar performance and efficiency improvements on the graphics front. A typical TCS23 mobile SoC will have a Cortex-X4 premium core, a few Cortex-A720 high-performance cores, and a few Cortex-A520 efficiency cores managed by the new DynamIQ Shared Unit DSU-120 capable of handling up to 14 cores in […]

April 24, 2023April 24, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Linux 6.3 release – Notable changes, Arm, RISC-V and MIPS architectures

Linux Torvalds has just announced the release of Linux 6.3 on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML): It’s been a calm release this time around, and the last week was really no different. So here we are, right on schedule, with the 6.3 release out and ready for your enjoyment. That doesn’t mean that something nasty couldn’t have been lurking all these weeks, of course, but let’s just take things at face value and hope it all means that everything is fine, and it really was a nice controlled release cycle. It happens. This also obviously means the merge window for 6.4 will open tomorrow. I already have two dozen pull requests waiting for me to start doing my pulls, and I appreciate it. I expect I’ll have even more when I wake up tomorrow. But in the meantime, let’s enjoy (and test) the 6.3 release. As always, the shortlog […]

April 23, 2023April 23, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Makeblock Ultimate 2.0 review – A multi-function 10-in-1 educational robot kit

Makeblock Ultimate 2.0 is an educational robot kit that can be used to easily create up to 10 different types of robots. An Arduino-compatible Mega 2560 MCU board serves as the main controller and there are over 550 mechanical parts and electronic modules. The robot can drive up to 4 encoder and stepping motors, control up to 10 servo motors to work simultaneously, and can also be connected to Arduino and Raspberry Pi boards for more complex projects. The review/tutorial is fairly long, so if you are short on time, you can jump to different sections by clicking on some of the links below: MegaPi control board and main modules description mBlock 5 visual-programming IDE installation Programming of DC Encoder motors, Ultrasonic sensor, Line follower module, motion sensor, RJ25 adapter, and shutter module mBlock mobile app Building the ten models for the Makeblock Ultimate 2.0 robot kit (as shown in […]

March 13, 2023March 14, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Scrcpy 2.0 Android screen mirroring and control utility for PCs released with audio forwarding support

Scrcpy 2.0 Android screen mirroring and control utility for Windows, Linux, and macOS has just been released with support for audio forwarding that enables audio to be played back into the computer/laptop, instead of the smartphone, at least for mobile devices running Android 11 or greater. We first reported about Scrcpy open-source utility in 2018, and at the time, it worked relatively well in Ubuntu 16.04 but required quite a few steps for the installation, and it would lag from time to time. I could still use the mouse and keyboard to control my phone, send SMS, chat, browse the web, play games, switch between landscape and portrait modes, and so on. Five years later, Scrcpy 2.0 has been released, the installation is much easier, and new features have been implemented. Scrcpy 2.0 highlights: Quality – 1920×1080 or above Performance – 30~120fps, depending on the device Latency – 35~70ms Startup […]

February 20, 2023February 20, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

Linux 6.2 release – Main changes, Arm, RISC-V, and MIPS architectures

Linux 6.2 has just been released with Linus Torvalds making the announcement on LKML as usual: So here we are, right on (the extended) schedule, with 6.2 out. Nothing unexpected happened last week, with just a random selection of small fixes spread all over, with nothing really standing out. The shortlog is tiny and appended below, you can scroll through it if you’re bored. Wed have a couple of small things that Thorsten was tracking on the regression side, but I wasn’t going to apply any last-minute patches that weren’t actively pushed by maintainers, so they will have to show up for stable. Nothing seemed even remotely worth trying to delay things for. And this obviously means that the 6.3 merge window will open tomorrow, and I already have 30+ pull requests queued up, which I really appreciate. I like how people have started to take the whole “ready for […]

February 17, 2023February 17, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Purism Lapdock kit converts the Librem 5 Linux smartphone into a laptop

Purism has just announced the Lapdock kit to turn their Librem 5 Linux smartphone into a laptop with a 13.3-inch touchscreen display thanks to the NexDock 360 laptop dock. I was a big believer in mobile desktop convergence around 10 years ago, expected to be soon able to use my phone as a computer or laptop with a dock, and it looked like it might have become a reality when Canonical launched the Ubuntu Edge smartphone crowdfunding campaign in 2013. But it turns out demand was not sufficient, and Canonical eventually ended their convergence efforts focusing on profitable IoT and cloud segments instead. But that does not mean there isn’t a niche market and Purism’s Lapdock kit addresses it to some extent. The Lapdock kit is comprised of three parts namely the NexDock 360 laptop dock, a magnetic mount to attach the Librem 5 to the side of the NexDock […]