CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

April 4, 2013April 5, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Google Announces Blink, a Fork of WebKit Rendering Engine for Chromium

WebKit rendering engine has been used by Chromium since the start of the project, but Chromium uses a different multi-process architecture than other WebKit-based browsers, and this has made maintenance increasingly complex, and Google intends to investigate other performance improvement strategies. Those 2 reasons explain why the company has announced it would fork WebKit and start working on its own open source rendering engine called Blink. Google tells web developers that in the short term, Blink will bring little change to them, as most of the work will focus on architectural improvements as well as code cleanup with about 7,000 files, corresponding to 4.5 millions line of code, to be deleted. One of the main changes will be “out-of-process iframes“, where the rendering engine will start a sandbox process for each individual parts of the page in order to render it faster. This has been planned for a while, but […]

April 4, 2013April 4, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

Quad Cores SoC Comparison: Rockchip RK3188 vs Exynos 4412 vs Tegra 3

padhz.com compared three of the fastest Quad Core Cortex A9 processors: Rockchip RK3188, Samsung Exynos 4412, and Nvidia Tegra 3. In their detailed report (in Chinese) they compare the performance, power consumption, video play back and more. As expected, it turns out RK3188 is the best, followed by Exynos 4412, and then Tegra 3, which correspond to the inverse of their release dates. Keep reading to find the details. The Contestants Nvidia Samsung Rockchip Model Tegra 3 Exynos 4412 RK3188 CPU Cortex A9 Quad Core Cortex A9 Quad Core Cortex A9 Quad Core Process 40nm 32nm 28nm Frequency 1.3 GHz 1.4 GHz 1.6 / 1.8 GHz GPU Geforce ULP ARM Mali-400MP4 ARM Mali-400MP4 GPU Frequency 416MHz 440MHz 533 / 600 MHz GPU GFLOPS 10 17.6 24 Level 2 Cache 1MB 1MB 512KB Memory Bus 32-bit 64-bit 32-bit HW Video Decode 1080p 1080p 1080p Release date November 2011 April 2012 January […]

ArmSoM CM5 Raspberry Pi CM4 alternative with Rockchip RK3576 SoC

April 3, 2013April 3, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

CX-803 II Android mini PC Features 2GB RAM, an External Antenna

Several mini PCs have been claimed to come with 2GB RAM (e.g. S21H, MK812), but it turned out the sellers simply made a mistake, or possibly lied to sell a few more sticks. To date, the only HDMI TV dongle which you can buy and expect it to really come with 2GB RAM is the PQ Labs iStick A200, but we’ve now got another option with the CX-803 II (aka CX-803B or FX5) powered by Rockchip RK3066 with 2GB RAM, 8GB flash and a short external antenna. If the picture below looks similar, it’s because it’s an upgrade of CX-803 / AVS-TV603 with more RAM, more flash and built-in Bluetooth. Here are CX-803 II specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3066 @ 1.6 GHz + Mali-400 MP4 GPU System Memory – 2GB DDR3 RAM Storage – 8GB NAND flash + micro SD slot (up to 32GB) Video Output – HDMI 1.4 Connectivity: […]

April 2, 2013April 2, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

$25 Expansion Board for the Raspberry Pi

There are already several expansion boards for the Raspberry Pi such as the Gertboard or RaspiComm, but none of them originated from China. Onebir spotted a new expansion board from a Chinese supplier on Aliexpress that’s available for $25 including shipping. There’s no description on the seller website, the seller provided us some details in Chinese. With Google translate help, the key features of the board(s) can be summarized as follows: 3.3V / 5V SPI interface 3.3V / 5V I2C interface Opto-isolator for GPIOs supporting 8-channel 50V/600mA to control motors, drive LEDs, etc… Power LED (The pictures are crap, but I can’t see any LEDs on the boards) External power fuse to protect the expansion board and the Raspberry Pi. The features in Chinese are shown below in case something was lost in translation: 1.全尺寸完美兼容树莓派， 2.将3.3V的SPI接口转换为通用的5V SPI接口（并且可以通过P13跳线切换回3.3V） 3.将3.3V的I2C接口转换为通用的5V I2C接口（并且可以通过P13跳线切换回3.3V） 4.GPIO放弃光耦隔离方式，采用芯片驱动，支持8路50V、600mA的高电压大电流驱动，意味着可以直接连接舵机，驱动LED等等（要做小车，机器人，智能家居，远程控制的必备哟）芯片采用插座方式，不小心烧坏以后方便更换 5.增加LED电源灯 6.外接电源使用保险丝，更好的保护你的扩展板和树莓派 I’m not even sure this “expansion […]

April 2, 2013April 2, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 18 Comments

$99 MarS Board Features Freescale i.MX6 Dual, 4GB eMMC

Embest, a subsidiary of Element14, has just announced the MarS Board, a development board powered by Freescale i.MX6 Dual (2x Cortex A9) with 1 GB RAM and 4GB eMMC flash. This is not related to the Marsboard based on AllWinner A10, and designed & manufactured by another company. Here are the key features of the MarS Board: SoC – Freescale i.MX6 Dual 2xCortex-A9 Processor @ 1GHz + Vivante GC2000 GPU. System Memory – 1GB RAM (4*256MB DDR3 SDRAM) Storage – 4GB eMMC + micro SD card slot (up to 32GByte) Video Output – 1xHDMI interface, 1x LVDS interface and 1x LCD interface USB – 4x USB Host ports (2x USB connector, 2x via headers), 1x mini USB OTG port, and 1x mini USB for debug Connectivity – 10/100M/1Gbps RJ45 Ethernet interface 2 Expansion Hearders – 2x CAN, 2x IIC, Audio & SPDIF, 8bit IPU1(Camera), SPI, USDHC1(SD card), 4x UART, 2x […]

April 1, 2013April 2, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Wandboard Releases Updated Android and Ubuntu Linux Images and Source Code

Since I’ve received my previous short review of the Wandboard Dual development board, there has been more work on done the platform with new Android and Ubuntu images, Jelly Bean source, Linux SDK release, and git repo setup. I’ve tried the binary images, and had a quick look at the source code and corresponding documentation. Android 4.1.2 Image and Source Code Wanboard has release an improved Android image on the 14th of March which you can download for both Solo and Dual version of the development board with the following Changelog: Fix HDMI audio/playback issue with certain monitor. Add support for wifi on wandboard-dual. Known issue: Might need to turn off “Avoid poor connections” in Wi-Fi ->Advanced to keep connection alive. I’ve given it a try in Wandboard Dual, and it seems Ethernet support is gone (Sorry my mistake, Ethernet IS working, but there’s no indication when it’s connected, and […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs abd SoMs

March 31, 2013March 31, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Undistract-me Sends An Alert For Time-Consuming Commands in Linux

In Linux, some commands executed in the terminal such as make, wget, dd may take a while, so usually you’d just let them run in the background, and do some other work, drink tea, go for nap… while they are running, and come to check from time to time if the command has completed. Sometimes I even forget I run a particular command, and realize it has completed a few hours ago… It’s possible to add some command at the end of your command line, but it can be cumbersome, and you may forget to do it. The best would be automatic alerts for commands that take a long time, and undistract-me just takes care of that by sending an alert for commands that take more than 10 seconds (by default). In Ubuntu 12.04 and 12.10, you can install undistract-me as follows:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:undistract-me-packagers/daily
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install undistract-me

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:undistract-me-packagers/daily

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install undistract-me

Undistract-me is part of Ubuntu 13.04 or […]

March 31, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

$80 MK818 / MK818B Android Set-top Box Sits on Top of Your TV

There are already a few set-top boxes that are designed to be placed on top of a television such as Archos Connect TV. Those usually come with a webcam, which makes them ideal for video conference, and much more convenient than mini PCs with a webcam such as Measy U2C or B12. GeekBuying is now offering such device with the MK818B (aka MK818) powered by RockChip RK3066 with 1 GB RAM, 8 GB Flash, and a 0.3 MP front camera for $84.99. They could probably have done without the “so far away, yet this close!” marking at the front of the device… MK818B has the following specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3066 Dual Core Cortex A9 @ 1.6 GHz + Mali-400MP4 GPU System Memory – 1GB DDR3 Storage – 8GB NAND Flash + SD Card slot (Up to 32GB) + micro SD Card slot (Up to 32GB) Camera – Built-in front […]