Posted on

Pengutronix uCLinux 3.2 for Energy Micro EFM32 Cortex-M3 Gecko MCUs

Energy Micro and Pengutronix announced that they will be demonstrating µClinux for Cortex-M3 on the EFM32 Gecko range (Leopard and Giant) of MCU during  Embedded World Conference 2012 on 28 February – 1 March 2011 in Nuremberg, Germany. Pengutronix’s port of µClinux features the Linux 3.2 kernel, providing the cost and time-to-market benefits of Linux operating system, while maintaining low current consumption of just 1.6mA when in idle mode. The company explains that using µClinux reduces design cycles and accelerates time-to-market by giving the designer access to ready-made system functions such as IP connectivity, file systems, and multi-tasking. Users can also employ the broad range of free software and drivers available as open source, within a robust, portable open source framework. The teaser video (below) shows that the demo platform (Giant Gecko Development Kit?) uses 4 MB of RAM (755 KB used after boot-up) and the MCU delivers 9.07 Bogomips. […]

Posted on

Trimble Yuma: A Military-Grade Rugged Ubuntu Tablet

SDG Systems announced an Ubuntu version of the Trimble Yuma, a rugged tablet for the industrial and military applications. The company also sells the product with Windows 7. This tablet enables the use of open source geospatial applications such as GRASS or Quantum GIS, as well as other Linux-based applications. The water- and dust-proof tablet  meets the military MIL-STD-810F standard and run Ubuntu 10.04 LTS netbook edition, although the company said other Linux distributions are available on request with a minimum purchase agreement or engineering fee.. Here are the Yuma Trimble specifications: Processor: Intel Atom Z530 1.6 GHz processor Memory: 1 GB DDR2 Storage: 32 GB Solid State Hard Drive Expansion: SDIO memory slot ExpressCard 34mm slot Display: 7″ widescreen 1024×600 WSVGA 650 nit Standard Batteries: Dual hot-swappable Lithium-Ion batteries, 2600 mAmp each Extended Batteries: Dual hot-swappable Lithium-Ion batteries, 5100 mAmp each I/O: USB 2.0 port (x2), 9-pin serial port […]

Khadas Edge2 Arm mini PC
Posted on

Raspberry Pi Releases BCM2835 Datasheet for ARM Peripherals

If you have been following Raspberry Pi project, you may have noticed the dearth of documentation related to Broadcom processors. For BCM2835 (The processor used in Raspberry Pi board), Broadcom only has one laconic webpage. But the Raspberry Pi’s “super-team” has managed to get a (partial) datasheet for the SoC showing the details of BCM2835 ARM peripherals which is all that we may need. This would only be useful for people playing around with the Linux (and u-boot) drivers. The document includes details about the processor’s memory map as shown below. It also contains details (registers, implementation details, etc..) about the following ARM peripherals: Timers Interrupt controller GPIO USB PCM / I2S DMA controller I2C master I2C / SPI slave SPI0, SPI1, SPI2 PWM UART0, UART1 You can download BCM2835 datasheet to get the complete documentation. The Raspberry Pi foundation also announced that the boards will be ready on February […]

Posted on

Run Windows 7 (or Any OS) on Android Tablets with PCoIP Protocol

Teradici has developed PCoIP (PC-over-IP) protocol, a technology that allows to  run a full desktop remotely over the network on thin clients, desktops, integrated displays, laptops and even Android tablets. The PCoIP protocol compresses, encrypts and encodes the entire computing experience at the data center and transmits it ‘pixels only’ across any standard IP network to stateless PCoIP zero clients. The PCoIP protocol is implemented in silicon for hardware accelerated performance and in software in VMware View. It supports high resolution, full frame rate 3D graphics and HD media, multiple large displays, full USB peripheral connectivity, and high definition audio all via LAN or WAN networks. A typical network made of PCoIP clients is shown below. Teradici emphasizes three key features of PCoIP technology: PCoIP technology uses host rendering Most other remote desktop technologies uses client rendering which may not be optimal and requires somewhat powerful clients. PCoIP uses host […]

Posted on

Penandfree PT- Pen Transforms Your Laptop into A Tablet

Penandfree has unveiled the PT-pen  (Presentation pen) at the 2012 ISE exhibition. The company claims this pen can transform ordinary laptops or netbooks  into touch-screen tablets, replacing the need for both a mouse and keyboard. PT-Pen can be used for capturing handwritten notes,  digital signatures and all sorts of creative sketches. MINT Interactive software is included with the PT-pen and provides access to a full color pallet, a variety of line thicknesses, a virtual keyboard and a handwriting recognition mode. Penandfree explains that PT-pen allows navigation in web browsers and can be used with office software such as Microsoft Excel and Powerpoint as it conforms with Microsoft tablet and standard HID specifications. Mint Interactive Software can be download for Windows XP/Visata/&, MacOS and Linux. For Android Tablet and/or iPad users, Penandfree unveiled the “Legato Smart-Pen”. The PT-pen digitally “inks” a laptop’s LCD using ultrasonic technology.  A magnetized receiver sits at […]

Posted on

ConnectPort X2e SEP 2.0 Compliant Home Energy Gateway with Zigbee Connectivity

Digi International announced the “ConnectPort X2e for Smart Energy”, a Linux-based Home Energy Gateway with Zigbee connectivity based on Freescale Home Energy Gateway Reference Platform powered by Freescale i.MX28 processor. The “ConnectPort X2e for Smart Energy” is upgradable to comply with the new Smart Energy 2.0 Profile (SEP 2.0)  and  enables ZigBee devices on a Home Area Network (HAN) to communicate with an energy service provider. The new gateway is a low-cost, enhanced version (hence the “e” in X2e)  of Digi’s ZigBee Smart Energy Gateways.  The device connects ZigBee Smart Energy devices from a Home Area Network (HAN) to an energy service provider via broadband. It supports over-the-air updates of connected Smart Energy devices, making it easier for utilities and application partners to establish and maintain large Smart Energy device deployments. The company offers two models namely: ConnectPort X2e, ZigBee SE Coordinator for stand-alone Smart Energy networks that do not […]

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs
Posted on

Raspberry Pi Codecs and Graphics/Video APIs

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has announced which codecs and API would be supported in the Raspberry Pi. The Raspberry Pi board will support the following Graphics and Video API via a set of closed source libraries that give access to the GPU acceleration features: OpenGL ES 2.0 –  OpenGL is a 3D Graphics API defined by the Khronos Group. OpenVG – OpenVG is a 2D vector drawing API also defined by the Khronos Group. EGL – EGL is the interface between Khronos rendering APIs such as OpenGL ES or OpenVG and the underlying native platform window system. OpenMAX IL – OpenMAX supplies a set of API’s that provides abstractions for routines used during audio, video, and still images processing. OpenMAX defines 3 layers, Raspberry Pi library will provide an interface to the IL layer, which provides an interface between media framework such as Gstreamer and a set of multimedia components. […]

Posted on

Debugging Embedded Linux with GDBserver and Insight (gdb GUI)

Although it it sometimes possible to debug applications using GDB (The GNU Debugger) on the target boards, there is often not enough memory available to run GDB on embedded systems running Linux. To work around this issue, you can use gdbserver to perform remote debugging. Installing and running gdbserver on the target board First of all you need to install gdbserver on the target board. Assuming you use a Debian based distribution:

If you distribution, does not have binary repository, you can download gdb source code and cross-compile gdbserver. Once gdbserver is installed, (cross-)compile your application in debug mode and start gdbserver as follows:

Where target_ip and target_port are respectively the IP address of the board and the chosen TCP port, and prog_dbg, the program under test compile in debug mode (CFLAGS=-g). Remote Debugging with GDB If you are familiar with gdb and prefer to use the command […]

Khadas VIM4 SBC