CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

August 20, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

Rockchip RK3066 Android 4.2.2 HDMI TV Stick SDK Leaked

About 10 days ago, Android 4.2.2 SDK for MK908 (RK3188) HDMI TV Stick was leaked, and now, I’m reporting another leak, this time for the Android 4.2.2 SDK for the Android TV Boxes based on the older Rockchip RK3066 dual core processor. The files were first found on an FTP server, but one of Freaktab members uploaded a compressed image of all files, RK3066_R-BOX.7z (3.2GB) to MEGA.co.nz. The content of the SDK directory comes with a bit of documentation, AVC and VP8 encoding and decoding demos, and the SDK itself as a 3.2GB tar. I’ve haven’t download the file yet. If you switch to the parent directory, you’ll find more documentation such as several datasheets and RK3066 technical reference manual, hardware files (Schematics, PCB layout, BoM), and some manufacturing files. If you go up to the parent directory, you’ll also find an A20 directory with AllWinner A20 Android SDK (homlet […]

August 20, 2013May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 26 Comments

$48 Ninss Tech BBA22 Android STB Powered by AllWinner A20

Ninss Tech BBA22 is an ultra cheap AllWinner A20 dual core Cortex A7 Android 4.2 media player with 1GB RAM, 4GB Flash, Wi-Fi and Ethernet. It lacks SATA, but if you don’t absolutely need this particular feature, it’s amazingly about 30 to 40 USD cheaper that competing products such as Jesurun A19 or Mele M5. Here’s an attempt at the specifications: SoC – AllWinner A20 dual core Cortex A7 @ 1.2GHz with ARM Mali-400MP2 GPU System Memory – 1GB DDR3 (256*8*4) Storage – 4GB NAND Flash (Optionally: 8 or 16 GB) + micro SD card slot Video output – HDMI, CVBS Audio output – HDMI, CVBS, and optical S/PDIF Connectivity – WI-FI 802.11 b/g/n (USB RTL8188) + 10/100M Ethernet USB – 3x USB 2.0 Host + 1x micro USB OTG Misc – IR Sensor, reset button, function key (for USB), power and status LEDs Power Supply – 5V/2A Dimensions – 148mm […]

August 20, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Ostec Wi-Fi Telescopes, Wi-Fi and USB Portable Microscopes for iOS, Android, and PCs

Ostec Electro-Optical Science and Technology, is a company headquartered in Shenzhen, China, with a factory based in Guangzhou, that manufactures optical devices such as telescopes, microphones, endoscopes, and scanners that connects to your computer, or tablet via USB or Wi-Fi. Charbax of armdevices.net interviewed the company in April at the Hong Kong Electronics Fair, and uploaded the video (see bottom of post) very recently. Let’s have a closer at some of the products. KoPa WiFi Telescope (Model TW501) The first device is TW501 Wi-Fi telescope that comes with a tablet holder, and allows you to visualize the picture directly on your smartphone, tablet, or other Wi-Fi capable device either via specific Apps or via the web browser. It apparently not suited for astronomy, but can be used for bird watching, building surveillance, hiking, and any application where you may need to take close-up pictures or videos. Wi-Fi Telescope Specifications: Sensor […]

August 20, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

CheapCast ChromeCast Emulator For Android Source Code Released

CheapCast is an Android app that lets you emulate ChromeCast hardware on any Android 4.x devices such as smartphone, tablet, and mini PCs. I’ve tried CheapCast last week unsuccessfully on several hardware, but a recent update fixed that and I could use Tronsmart T428 to stream videos from YouTube with the Cast button just like you would do with a real ChromeCast. There’s more work to be done however, and the only application that currently work are YouTube and Google Music, which is nice, but more work is needed to bring CheapCast functionalities closer to what’s possible with ChromeCast. That’s why Sebastian Mauer, CheapCast developer, has decided to release the source code under Apache License Version 2.0. You can get the source code from Cheapcast repo on github:

git clone https://github.com/mauimauer/cheapcast.git

1	git clone https://github.com/mauimauer/cheapcast.git

Finally import it into Android Studio or Eclipse, and start hacking and contribute back to the project.

August 19, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

MEN Mikro Elektronik BL50W is an Embedded PC For Wireless Applications with up to 9 Antennas

MEN Mikro Elektronik Gmbh, a German company specialized in industrial embedded boards and systems, has recently unveils BL50W, an embedded PC powered by AMD G-Series APU targeting wireless applications for transportation: trains, buses, construction and agricultural machines or airplanes. The rugged device provides nine antenna slots, with support for up to 8 SIM cards and a GPS interface. BL50W Specifications: Processor – AMD G-Series single or dual core APU from AMD T24L to AMD T56N (13 Processor options). The standard version comes with AMG G-series T48N Dual Core processor @ 1.4 GHz with AMD Radeon HD 6310 GPU System Memory – 2GB DDR3 SDRAM (4GB optional) Storage – SD card slot, mSATA slot (Up to 3Gb/s), and SATA 3.0 (Up to 6Gb/s) Graphics – Radeon HD 6310 GPU by default with dual independent display support, dual DisplayPorts, and 2560×1600 maximum resolution. Video – Dedicated hardware (UVD 3) for H.264, VC-1 […]

August 19, 2013May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Kaiboer Q7 Android 4.2 STB Features Dual Wi-Fi Antennas, Internal 3.5″ Hard Drive Bay

Kaiboer Q7 is an upcoming Android 4.2 media player, a bit larger than usual, based on a dual core Cortex A7 SoC, probably AllWinner A20, that features two Wi-Fi antennas, a front panel with LCD display and buttons, and a bay for a 3.5″ SATA hard drive. AndroidPC.es reports the company did not provide the full specifications, but we still know the processor is based on a dual core Cortex A7 processor, and includes 4 USB ports, HDMI, composite and component video outputs, coaxial and optical SPDIF audio outputs, an RJ45 network connector, and on-off button. It’s quite nice to have a device with an internal 3.5″ hard drive, but one downside is the addition of an small fan to keep the device and hard drive cool. The device will run Android 4.2 with a custom interface called KIUI6.0. Price and availability are unknown at this point.

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs

August 17, 2013May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 16 Comments

Texas Instruments OMAP5432 EVM Benchmarked Against ODROID-U2, BeagleBone Black, GK802… and an Intel Core i7-2600K based PC

Texas instruments and SVTronics announced an OMAP5 evaluation board a couple of months ago. The board features OMAP5432 dual Cortex A15, dual Cortex M4 SoC, 2GB RAM, a 4GB eMMC module, USB 3.0, SATA and more. SVTronics sent a board to Linux.com, where they wrote a short review, followed by an article benchmarking the OMAP5 EVM against AllWinner A10, Freescale i.MX6, Exynos 4412 Prime, and TI Sitara platforms, namely Cubieboard, GK802, ODROID-U2, and BeagleBone Black, all running Linux. Ben Martin, the writer, also benchmarked the board against a Linux PC powered by an Intel Core i7-2600K processor (4 cores, 8 thread, clocked at 3.4GHz, with a turbo frequency up to 3.8GHz). The board used was an early version, clocked at 800MHz, and later in September, all boards will be clocked at 1.5Ghz, so for benchmarks that stress the CPU, you could expect almost double the performance. With that in mind, […]

August 16, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

MCU Energy Efficiency Benchmark – Freescale KL02, Microchip PIC24, TI MSP430, and STMicro STM32L

Freescale has recently uploaded a video comparison the energy efficiency of several micro-controllers: Freescale Kinetis KL02, Texas Instruments MSP430, STMicro STM32L, and Microchip PIC24. Since it’s a Freescale video, we already know the winner, but the test they performed it still interesting, and it shows drastic performance differences between architectures. The used the following exact MCU for testing: Freescale MKL02Z32CAF4R – Cortex M0+ @ 48 MHz STMicro STM32L151RBT6 – Cortex M3 @ 32 MHz Microchip PIC24FJ128GA308 – 16-bit MCU @ 32 MHz Texas Instruments MSP430F5529 – 16-bit MCU @ 25 MHz Freescale did not really select tough competition such as NXP LPC800 Cortex M0+, but instead a Cortex M3 MCU, and older 16-bit MCUs. I don’t know if Microchip has a new generation of ultra low power 16-bit MCUs , but Texas Instruments, for example, launched MSP430 Wolverine MCUs at the end of last year. So this comparison may not be […]