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Pine64 hostboards for SOQuartz System-on-Module

While the Rockchip RK3566 powered SOQuartz system-on-module is designed to be compatible with most Raspberry Pi CM4 baseboards, Pine64 is working on three baseboards, which it calls hostboards, for SOQuartz, with the latest introduced in the Pine64’s November update designed to fit in a server rack. That means we now have the “small form factor” hostboard that’s about the size of a business card, the Model-A hostboard with more features and the same dimensions as Pine A64 SBC, and the new Blade hostboard compatible with server racks. Let’s have a look at the three baseboards. Small form factor hostboard Key features: Compatible with SOQuartz SoM with quad-core Cortex-A55 processor with 2GB to 8GB RAM, optional eMMC flash up to 128GB, and optional WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0 module Display Interfaces HDMI 2.0 up to 4Kp60 1x MIPI DSI connector Camera interfaces – 2x MIPI CSI connectors Networking – Gigabit Ethernet […]

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XPI-S905X3/S905X2 4K SBC with 2GB RAM sold for $35 and up

Geniatech has added two more single board computers to its XPI family with Raspberry Pi form factor. The Geniatech XPI-S905X2 and XPI-S905X3 boards are powered by respectively Amlogic S905X2 and S905X3/S905X4 quad-core processors, ship with 2GB RAM, and sell for $35 and up depending on the choice of processor and the presence of a wireless module. The company promotes each Raspberry Pi 3 lookalike as a “4K Single Board ARM PC” because of the 4K video playback capabilities or the Amlogic processors. Those boards provide an update to the earlier Amlogic S905X based XPI-S905X, and join Rockchip and NXP models. Geniatech XPI-S905X3/S905X2: SoC (one or the other) Amlogic S905X2 quad-core Cortex-A53 processor with Mali-G31 MP2 GPU Amlogic S905X3/S905X4 quad-core Cortex-A55 processor with Mali-G31 MP2 GPU System Memory – 2GB 1GB Optional) Storage – 8GB eMMC flash (option for 16GB or 32GB), MicroSD card slot Video & audio output – HDMI […]

Khadas Edge2 Arm mini PC
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Giveaway Week – Maker Pi Pico board

If you have not played with Raspberry Pi Pico board, here’s an opportunity, as the third prize of our giveaway week is the Maker Pi Pico board fitted with the Raspberry Pi RP2040 MCU board, and providing easy access to I/Os with headers and Grove connector, plus a buzzer, an audio jack, and a MicroSD card socket for people needing storage. I reviewed the Maker Pi Pico board with CircuitPython, and it was more convenient than the bare Raspberry Pi Pico thanks to the reset button and an LED is assigned for each I/O. You could also add an ESP-01 module for WiFi connectivity since there’s an 8-pin header for that purpose. The CNXSoft signature on the back of the board clearly brings infinite value to the board. It’s just like an NFT, except it’s real ;). If you don’t think so, you could always use some alcohol to wipe […]

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Picovoice Cobra Voice Activity Detection Engine shown to outperform Google WebRTC VAD

Picovoice Cobra Voice Activity Detection (VAD) engine has just been publicly released with support for Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone, NVIDIA Jetson Nano, Linux 64-bit, macOS 64-bit, Windows 64-bit, Android, iOS, and web browsers that support WebAssembly. Support for other Cortex-M and Cortex-A based SoCs can also be made available but only to enterprise customers. Picovoice already offered custom wake word detection with an easy and quick web-based training and offline voice recognition for Raspberry Pi, and even later ported their voice engine to Arduino. Cobra VAD is a new release, and, like other VADs, aims to detect the presence of a human voice within an audio stream. Picovoice Cobra can be found on Github, but note this is not an open-source solution, and instead, libpv_cobra.so dynamic library is provided for various targets, together with header files and demos in C, Python, Rust, and WebAssembly, as well as demo apps for iOS […]

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CompuLab IOT-GATE-RPI4 gateway targets industrial control and monitoring

Compulab IOT-GATE-RPI4 is another industrial gateway based on the Raspberry Pi CM4 module that offers a different feature set and form factor compared to solutions like TECHBASE iModGATE-AI gateway or QWave Systems CatsPi Industrial carrier board. Designed with industrial control and monitoring in mind, the IOT-GATE-RPI4 gateway offers multiple RS485, RS232 and CAN FD ports, Ethernet, 4G LTE/4G, WiFi 802.11ac, and Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity, as well as a wide -40°C to 80°C operating temperature range, plus a wide input voltage from 8V to 36V as well as PoE support. Compulab IOT-GATE-RPI4 specifications: SoM – Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 (CM4) with SoC – Broadcom BCM2711 quad-core ARM Cortex-A72 @ 1.5GHz plus VideoCore IV GPU with H.265 (4Kp60 decode), H.264 (1080p60 decode, 1080p30 encode) System Memory – 1GB to 8GB LPDDR4 Storage – 16GB to 128GB eMMC flash soldered on-board Secondary Storage – 64GB – 256GB NVMe flash via optional module […]

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BioAmp EXG Pill board enables ECG, EMG, EOG, and EEG biosensing (Crowdfunding)

BioAmp EXG Pill is a small Analog Front End (AFE) biopotential signal-acquisition board designed to be interfaced to any 5V MCU board with an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) such as most Arduino boards, or through a dedicated 5V ADC like the Texas Instruments ADS1115. The board can record biopotential signals like ECG (electrocardiogram), EMG (electromyography), EOG (electrooculography), and EEG (electroencephalogram), or in more simple terms, biosignals from the heart, muscles, eyes, or brain activity. BioAmp EXG Pill key features and specifications: Compatible with any 5V MCU with an ADC Biopotentials: ECG, EOG, EMG, and EEG (configurable) No. of channels: 1 Electrodes: 2 or 3 (configurable) Input Voltage – 5 – 40 V Input Impedance: > 35 MΩ Dimensions – 25.4 x 10 mm OSHWA certifications – IN000026 The board is open-source hardware and you’ll find KiCAD hardware design files like schematics and Gerber files on Github where you’ll also find several […]

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs
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RAKwireless announces 14 new WisBlock modules for IoT prototyping

Rakwireless has added 14 new Wisblock modules to the WisBlock IoT modular system introduced last year, plans to soon release a Raspberry Pi RP2040 based LoRaWAN Wisblock Core module, and will give away some Wisblock starter kits this week. As a reminder WisBlock IoT modular system is comprised of four block types: WisBlock Base – A carrier board with connectors for other block types, power supply, some ports WisBlock Core – Module with a microcontroller/processor WisBlock Sensor – Modules with environmental sensors, motion sensors, ambient light sensors, or others WisBlock IO – Adds more inputs, outputs, or connectivity options including  LTE-M / NB-IoT, cellular and Wi-Fi modules, NFC reader, and interfaces for I2C, UART, ADC, and GPIO. New WisBlock IO and Sensor modules Some modules are available right now, while others have been announced, but just coming soon Here’s a list of the 10 modules available now: RAK12002 – RTC […]

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Picovoice offline Voice AI engine now works on Arduino

Last year, I wrote about Picovoice support for Raspberry Pi enabling custom wake-word and offline voice recognition to control the board with voice commands without relying on the cloud. They used  ReSpeaker 4-mic array HAT to add four “ears” to the Raspberry Pi SBC. I also tried to generate a custom wake-word using the “Picovoice Console” web interface, and I was able to use “Dear Master” within a few minutes on my computer. No need to provide thousands of samples, or wait weeks before getting a custom wake-word. It’s free for personal projects. But the company has now added Picovoice to Arduino, or more exactly  Arduino Nano 33 BLE Sense powered by a  Nordic Semi nRF52480 Arm Cortex-M4F microcontroller, and already equipped with a digital microphone, so no additional hardware is required for audio capture. To get started, you’d just need to install the Picovoice Arduino library, load the sample […]

Boardcon Rockchip and Allwinner SoM and SBC products