CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

July 18, 2014July 18, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

NEJE ZB01 Clone of Google Cardboard Virtual Reality Kit Sells for about $12

Can you remember Opendive, a low Cost DIY open source 3D virtual reality kit for smartphones? The kit can be built by anybody as long as you happen to own a 3D printer. But Google liked the concept, and at the latest Google I/O, the company designed the cardboard equivalent using the same lenses, and adding accessories namely a magnet, Velcro strips, and a rubber band to complete the kit. But some people saw a business opportunity here, and created NEJE ZB01, a nearly identical reproduction of the Google kit that can be bought for $12.66 on DealExtreme, instead of the $19.95 you’d have to pay for the original kit. The complete kit includes the cardboard, a rubber band, two magnets with 2cm diameter, two lenses with 2.3 cm diameter, and a pair of Velcro strips. It’s suppose to work with device using displays between 4″ and 7″ large. You’ll […]

July 17, 2014May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

Onda V989 AllWinner A80 Android Tablet is Now Available for Pre-order

AllWinner A80 octa-core big.LITTLE has been delayed several times, but it appears products based on the latest AllWinner application processor can finally be pre-ordered. One of them is Onda V989, an Android 4.4 tablet with a 9.7″ 2048 x 1536 pixel display, 2GB RAM and 32GB flash, that’s supposed to reach over 48,000 in Antutu, but actually gets a little over 32,000 points in Antutu X. Onda V989 tablet specifications: SoC – AllWinner A80T octa core bit.LITTLE processor with 4x ARM Cortex A7 cores @ ?? GHz and 4x ARM Cortex A15 cores @ 2GHz, and PowerVR G6230 GPU System Memory – 2GB DDR3 Storage – 32GB NAND flash + micro SD/SDHC slot (up to 128GB) Display – 9.7″ IPS display with 10-point capacitive touchscreen, 2048 x 1536 resolution Video Output – micro HDMI (up to 1080p) Audio I/O – Stereo speakers, built-in microphone, 3.5mm earphone jack, and HDMI Connectivity […]

ArmSoM CM5 Raspberry Pi CM4 alternative with Rockchip RK3576 SoC

July 16, 2014November 23, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Intel Announces Galileo Gen 2 Development Board Based on Quark SoC

As many of us are waiting for our Intel Galileo board promised by Microsoft, and right after the Raspberry Pi foundation announced the Raspberry Pi Model B+, Intel has introduced a new version of the Galileo board which they simply call Galileo Gen 2. The development board is still powered by Intel Quark single core SoC (Pentium class) and with the same key features as the original Galileo Board, but with some tweaks based on the feedback from the community. Intel Galileo Gen 2 specifications (Changes in Bold): SoC- Intel Quark SoC X1000 single core, single-thread application processor @ 400 MHz, with 12KB embedded SRAM System Memory – 256MB DDR3, 5 Storage – 8MB NOR fklash, 8KB EEPROM, and micro SD card slot (up to 32GB) Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet USB – 1x USB 2.0 host port, 1x micro USB 2.0 device port used for programming Debugging / Programming 10-pin […]

July 15, 2014July 15, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

Adapteva Announces Three Parallella Fanless Boards for Microserver, Desktop, and Embedded Applications

Adapteva’s Parallella low cost open source hardware “supercomputer” is a board powered by Xilinx Zynq-7010/7020 dual core Cortex A9 + FPGA SoC and the company’s Ephipany epiphany coprocessor, that’s had a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2012 as the 16-core version sold for just $99, and is capable of handling applications such as image and video processing, and ray-tracing, and also comes with an OpenCL SDK. The board was fairly difficult to source after the crowdfunding campaign, and one the common complain of backers was the board had to be actively cooled by a fan. The company has fixed both issues by increasing slightly the price, and redesigning the board so that it can be passively cooled by a larger heatsink. There are now three versions of the parallela board: Parallella Microserver ($119) – Used as an Ethernet connected headless server Parallella Desktop ($149) – Used as a personal computer Parallella […]

July 14, 2014August 1, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Eweat EW802 Android TV Box (Amlogic S802) Supports External SATA Drives, Features Dual Wi-Fi Antennas

Amlogic S802 does not support SATA natively, so few Android media players based on this quad core SoC comes with SATA hard drive or SSD support. Zoomtak T8 is one of them, but there’s now another options with Eweat EW802, except than having an internal bay for 2.5″ hard drives, it just features an external SATA connector capable of handling both 2.5″ and 3.5″ drives, and comes with better specs including dual Wi-Fi antennas, 2GB RAM, and 16GB flash. Eweat EW802 specifications: SoC – Amlogic S802 quad core cortex A9r4 @ 2 GHz with Mali-450MP6 GPU (N.B: It could also be S802-H due to Dolby abd DTS hardware decoding claim). System Memory – 2GB DDR3 Storage – 16GB NAND flash + micro SD slot + SATA connector Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet, dual band 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi with two external antennas, and Bluetooth 4.0 Video Output – HDMI 1.4a and AV […]

July 13, 2014July 13, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 27 Comments

Raspberry Pi Model B+ with 4 USB Ports, a micro SD Slot, and More GPIOs Coming Soon

With over 3 million boards sold, the Raspberry Pi is by far the most popular ARM Linux board on the market, but people are often asking for hardware upgrades with a faster processor, more RAM and so on. The good news is that a new Raspberry Pi board seems on the way, but since the real competitive of the Raspberry Pi is not the cheap hardware only, but software support and the community around the little ARM board. So instead of designing of completely new board, they’ve kept Broadcom BCM2835 and 512MB RAM, and mostly made some changes to the ports, and form factor. Since the board has not been officially announced just yet, the full details are available, but according to various reports, the specs should be as follows: SoC – Broadcom BCM2835 ARM11 processor @ 700MHz with VideoCore IV GPU System Memory – 512 MB SDRAM (PoP) Storage […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs abd SoMs

July 12, 2014July 12, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

More Details on Mediatek MT2502 Aster SoC and Linkit Platform for Wearables (Video)

Last month, Mediatek announced their Mediatek MT2502 SoC for wearables, codenamed Aster, as well as the Linkit development platform targeting the developer’s community. But at the time they did show the actual hardware, and thanks to Charbax we know have more interesting details about Aster and Linkit. First they compare a design based on Aster to Samsung Galaxy Fit wearable band, and show why it uses less space, will cost less, and they claim over twice the battery life. Simple and smaller design (~36% reduction in size) Aster solution – MT2504 (6.2 x 5.4 mm) plus all required resistors, capacitors and inductors require 89.97 mm2 Galaxy Fit – MCU. Bluetooth Transceiver, external memory, a linear charger, and all required resistors, capacitors and inductors require 140.97 mm2 Battery life – Samsung Galaxy Fit is supposed to last between 1 and 1.5 days on a charge, whereas devices based on Aster should last about […]

July 11, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

$70 MicroNFCBoard Brings NFC Connectivity to Any Board or Device (Crowdfunding)

AppNearMe MicroNFCBoard is a development platform for Near Field Communication (NFC) comprised of an NFC transceiver, an NXP MCU, and all software stack and tools you need for development. This board also exposes various I/Os that allows you to connect to external hardware or devices, and it can be used with an Arduino, Raspberry Pi, mbed or PC/Mac. Let’s go through the board specifications first: MCU – NXP LPC11U34FHN33/421 Cortex M0 MCU @ 48MHz, with 10KB RAM, 48KB FLASH, 4KB EEPROM NFC Transceiver – NXP PN512. Reader/Writer and card operation modes supporting ISO14443A/Mifare and FeliCa schemes. NFCIP-1 mode Splittable antenna USB – 1x micro USB port for power and programming I/O – 20x through holes with access to serial (UART), I2C, SPI, 4x ADC inputs, IRQ, Boot and Reset, and power pins. (2x pin header that you can solder are provided) Misc – Reset and bootloader enable push-buttons, 2x LEDs. […]

Boardcon Rockchip RK3588S SBC with 8K, WiFI 6, 4G LTE, NVME SSD, HDMI 2.1...