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makeSD Script to Write Image to SD Card for Mele A1000 / AllWinner A10 Devices

Most images released for Mele A1000 (Ubuntu, Puppy Linux..) won’t fit in my SD card, and until now I had to manually partition the SD card, extract the data and copy it to the SD card. I’ve also noticed the size of the SD card slowly creeps lower overtime. I bought an SD card last week and fdisk reported 3901685760 bytes and this morning the same command reported 3898782720 bytes. That’s probably due to new bad sectors which I believe is actually normal for this type of device. The problem is that a backup of “last week” SD card done with dd might not be restored properly with dd since the SD card is now smaller. So I decided to write a shell script “makeSD.sh” that will do the following: Umount the SD card if needed Partition the SD card Copy uboot to the SD card Mount the image file […]

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VWorks VLAB Powers Freescale Vybrid Virtual Platform

Back in March, Freescale announced their Vybrid solution featuring both a Cortex A5 processor and a Cortex M4 microcontroller, and they had prototypes running  an unnamed virtual platform in order to speed up software development and possibly have the software ready at the same time as the silicon is. Always looking to learn more, I studied and wrote about virtual hardware platforms such as Cadence Virtual System Platform, Wind River Simics Virtual  Platforms and the open source Imperas OVPsim simulator. It turns out Freescale does not use any of these solutions, but relies on VWorks VLAB instead, which still use the same standard (SystemC/TLM) as the virtual hardware solutions aforementioned. VWorks uploaded a demonstration of VLAB running a virtual platform for the Freescale Vybrid controller and showing how it can handle both ARM Cortex-A5 and Cortex-M4 cores. This demo of VLAB 1.7.0 is pretty interesting and showcases: Dual (virtual) display […]

Khadas Edge2 Arm mini PC
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199 USD Seeed Studio DSO Quad Open Source Oscilloscope

The DSO (Digital Storage Oscilloscope) Quad is a pocket size 4 channel digital oscilloscope for common electronic engineering tasks based on STM32F103VCT6 ARM cortex M3 MCU with a 3″ display. It can provide 72MS/s sampling rate with integrated FPGA and high speed ADC and an internal 2MB USB disk can be used to store waveform captures, user applications and to upgrade firmware. SeeedStudio DSO Quad is not exactly a new product (June 2011), but I was not aware of this type of low cost oscilloscopes until I come across a review today. Here are the key features of this tiny oscilloscope: Pocket size and light weight Two 72MS/s analog channels, plus two digital channels Signal Generator Auto Measurement Various Triggering Option Easy waveform storage Firmware upgrade User applications Open source and technical specifications: 2x Analog channel: [CH A]  [CH B] 2x Digital channel :   [CH C]  [CH D] Vertical […]

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Artila M-506 and M-606 ARM9 Industrial Single Board Computers

Artila Electronics announced 2 new single board computers (SBC) based on Atmel SAM9G45 ARM9 Processor: Artila M-506 running Linux 2.6.38 Artila M-606 running Wince 6.0 Both models features the same hardware with a standard 3.5” form factor, Atmel AT91SAM9G45 Processor, 128MB DDR2 RAM, 128MB NAND Flash and 2MB DataFlash and only differ by the operating system and software used. The company explains that the board targets industrial application such as intelligent transportation system (ITS), building automation, energy-saving system, and scenario control systems. Here are the hardware specifications for both devices: CPU – ATMEL AT91SAM9G45 @ 400MHz Memory – 128MB SDRAM Flash – 128MB NAND & 2MB DataFlash for system recovery On-board TTL/LVDS LCD interface Supports 5V/12V TFT LCD panels, up to 1280 x 860 pixels Ethernet: 1x, 10/100Mbps COM port – 3x RS-232, 1x RS-422/485 USB Host – 4x USB 2.0 HS ports. Micro-SD Card – 16GB max. GPIO – […]

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SCUBAPRO-UWATEC Meridian Dive Computer Powered by EFM32 Gecko Cortex M3 MCU

SCUBAPRO-UWATEC and Energy Micro have unveiled the SCUBAPRO Meridian dive computer powered by Energy Micro EFM32 Gecko MCU. Meridian is a sophisticated dive computer in a watch design, powered by a CR2032 lithium battery. The companies claim the Meridian is the world’s first 32-bit dive watch-computer. It can operate at depths of up to 120 meters, incorporates an advanced diving algorithm, performs multi-gas decompression and features an heart rate monitor that enables adaptive workload calculations. The watch computer can be used both during diving, configured to display a variety of dive information including depth, dive time, decompression status and water temperature, and above the surface where it handles remaining desaturation time, no-fly time. Its built-in thermometer and altimeter can also be used for mountain treks. The MCU used in the Meridian is the Energy Micro EFM32G890 Gecko, a 32MHz 32-bit MCU based on ARM Cortex-M3 consuming 180µA/MHz is active mode […]

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IEEE Updates 802.11 Standard to Support 600Mb/s Wi-Fi and Approves 802.1aq Standard for Large Ethernet Networks

IEEE has recently announced a standard update for WiFi (802.11-2012) which adds support for 3.7 GHz bands, 600Mb/s throughput and mesh networking among other things, and approved 802.1aq Shortest Path Bridging standard, which will streamline the creation and management of large Local and Metropolitan Area networks by using the next-generation VLANs. IEEE Wi-Fi 802.11-2012 Standard IEEE 802.11-2012 is the 4th revision of the Wi-Fi standard. It has been expanded by supporting faster and more secure devices, while offering improved Quality of Service and cellular network hand-off. Key amendments to the standard: IEEE 802.11n now defines MAC and PHY modifications to enable throughput up to a maximum of 600Mb/s Direct-link setup “Fast roam” Radio resource measurement Operation in the 3650-3700MHz band Vehicular environments, mesh networking, security, broadcast/multicast and unicast data delivery Interworking with external networks and network management. IEEE 802.11 is available for purchase for $5 at the IEEE Standards Store. […]

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs
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Build Your Phone Android Distro with CyanogenMod Compiler 0.4 GUI (Cmc-pygtk) for Ubuntu

Lithid, a member of XDA Developers Forum, has recently released the 4th version of a GUI tool (Cmc-pygtk) to build Android for a given smartphone as long as it is supported by CM. The CyanogenMod Compiler is supported by Ubuntu 10.04 32/64-bit and greater, and you can either download a deb file or build it yourself by following the instructions below: Install dependencies:

Clone the source tree:

Generate a gpg key:

Delete the changelog or dpkg will use lithid key instead.:

Edit the EMAIL field in the Makefile and replace it with the one used to generated the gpg key. Build it for your version of Ubuntu. For Ubuntu 12.04 32-bit:

And install it:

Before using CyanogenMod Compiler (CMC) is installed, you need to install google repo tool:

Now that everything is setup, you can run CyanogenMod Compiler: cmc A disclaimer message telling […]

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Detect Mobile Devices with WURFL in Websites and Mobile Apps

When designing a mobile application or webpage, you may want to know exactly to know what devices access your site or run your application for example to differentiate automatically between desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones and provide a user interface which is appropriate for a given screen size. This can be achieved with WURFL (Wireless Universal Resource FiLe), a Device Description Repository (DDR). This software component maps HTTP Request headers to the profile of the HTTP client (Desktop, Mobile Device, Tablet, etc.) and provides a description of the capability of the device that made the request. WURFL repository is an xml file (wurfl.xml – Direct links to version 2.3.1:  wurfl-2.3.1.zip or wurfl-2.3.1.xml.tar) containing the definition of thousand of devices which can be access using the WURFL APIs.  Several large Internet companies such as Facebook and Google are using WURFL, and ScientiaMobile, the company behind WURFL, claims that it is the […]

Khadas VIM4 SBC