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Electronics Shop in Thailand – What Will $33 Buy?

Since I was in urgent need for a 5V/3A power adapter, I decided to go shopping locally (in Chiang Mai, Thailand) at some computer shopping malls, where they also have some spare parts. We spent about 1h30 visiting around 10 shops with no success: most of them did not have 5V power supply for sale, and those who did, could only provide 5V/2A power adapters. Finally, one guy at a shop was very helpful, and tried to help us without success, but finally  he said you should go to “Amorn“, and after driving a few kilometers we got there. When I entered the shop  I started to see some pretty interesting equipments: multi-meters, full sized oscilloscopes from 11,000 Bath (~370 USD), electronics cards for appliances (ventilators washing machine, car audio, amplifiers…), soldering irons, ribbon cables, components (capacitors, but no resistors), and much more. It turns out “Amorn Electronics Center” has […]

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TechNexion EDM Modules: Open Software and (somewhat) Open Hardware ARM & x86 CPU Modules

TechNexion, a Taiwanese “embedded solution” company, was present at Computex 2012 showcasing their ARM & x86 CPU Modules and corresponding development kits. The company recently created the EDM Standard, an open hardware and software standard for x86 and ARM Computer on Modules available under the creative commons share alike license. Their EDM modules come in three form factors: EDM Compact: 82 x 60 mm (ARM only) EDM Standard: 82 x 95 mm (ARM and x86) EDM Extended: 82 x 145 mm (x86 only) They have already designed 5 modules based on this standard: EDM-CF-iMX6 EDM Compact Module powered by Freescale i.MX6 (solo, dual or quad) EDM-CT-AM437x EDM Compact Module powered by TI Sitara AM437x (single core Cortex A9) EDM-SF-iMX6 EDM Standard Module with Freescale i.MX6 EDM-ST-AM437x EDM Standard Module with TI Sitara AM437x EDM-XI-QM77 EDM Extended Module with Intel QM77 3rd generation i3/i7 core I could not find information about […]

Khadas Edge2 Arm mini PC
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This is What a Calxeda 192-Core ARM Ubuntu 12.04 Server Looks Like

Last November, Calxeda announced its 32-bit ARM Chip for servers, and now there are been some good progress as Calxeda is currently showcasing a 192-core ARM Server running Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Server edition at the Ubuntu Developer Summit in Oakland, California. The server showcased has 192 cores (48 Calxeda EnergyCore quad core Cortex-A9 processors), consumes less than 300 Watts, supports  up to 24 SATA drivers and runs Ubuntu 12.04 with OpenStack’s cloud management infrastructure. Karl Freund, Calxeda Vice President of Marketing said that the Calxeda server is running “a standard LAMP stack (running Calxeda’s website) along with other popular web frameworks such as node.js and Ruby on Rails, provisioning of OpenStack Nova compute instances, and even Canonical’s Metal-as-a-Service bare-metal provisioning.” The company also explained that a complete native build of the Ubuntu 12.04 kernel took less than an hour to build on a single node, 4 times faster than the […]

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Finding the package that contains a particular file in Ubuntu

It often happens that a file is missing during compilation and you get this kind of error: In file included from media/audio/linux/audio_manager_linux.cc:15:0: ./media/audio/linux/alsa_input.h:8:28: fatal error: alsa/asoundlib.h: No such file or directory compilation terminated. In file included from media/audio/linux/alsa_input.cc:5:0: ./media/audio/linux/alsa_input.h:8:28: fatal error: alsa/asoundlib.h: No such file or directory compilation terminated. That usually means a development package is missing. Sometime you can just guess the name of the package or you can use aptitude to find the file. There is also another (better) method in Ubuntu: apt-file utility allows you to find the package corresponding to a particular file. First install apt-file sudo apt-get install apt-file Them the first time, you need to download the files with the data for your system apt-file update Finally, you can use apt-file to find the package. For example with alsa/asoundlib.h apt-file search alsa/asoundlib.h libasound2-dev: /usr/include/alsa/asoundlib.h  

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What Programming Language Should I Learn ?

“What programming language should I  learn ?” is a question often asked by people new to software development. The answer is always “it depends”. But for embedded systems, it seems C language is a must as you can see in the chart below (Source: “The 2011 Embedded Market Study” by Embedded.com). For the 2011 survey, 1886 respondents from across the embedded industry answered that their embedded project was mostly programmed in C language  (62%), followed by C++ (22%), assembler (5%) and Java (2%). The other languages were all under 1%.  

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What is GENIVI ? A Software Standard for the Automotive Industry

I’ve recently read in the news that a few operating systems had achieved GENIVI compliance. So let’s see what Wikipedia says about the GENIVI Alliance: The GENIVI Alliance was founded on March 2, 2009 by BMW Group, Delphi, GM, Intel, Magneti-Marelli, PSA Peugeot Citroen, Visteon, and Wind River Systems with the goal of establishing a globally competitive, Linux-based operating system, middleware and platform for the automotive in-vehicle infotainment industry. Since then, the alliance has expanded to more than 100 members who are working together to deliver an open and globally consistent software platform based on Linux for use by the whole car industry. So the clear goal here is to have some set of software specifications and standards (Currently GENEVI 1.0)  in the automotive industry in order to speed time to market and reduce the cost of developing Infotainment applications. GENIVI comes from a concatenation of Geneva and IVI (In-Vehicle […]

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs
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What is Augmented Reality ? How to develop Augmented Reality applications ?

Now, we start to hear many smartphones or tablet pc feature Augmented Reality (AR). But what is it exactly? Are there any applications right now? How to development application making use of Augmented Reality? Augmented Reality Definition Ronald Azuma’s definition says that Augmented Reality: combines real and virtual is interactive in real time is registered in 3D Augmented Reality Applications Augmented Reality usually involves a real-life background capture (image or video) which is then going through image recognition and finally, some data is overlaid on top of this background. Here are some of applications that are available today (commercially or experimentally): PSV Eindoven has created an application to track offside at football matches. Augmented Reality Business cards can be scanned, recognized and a video presentation of the person and/or the company on the business card can be played back. Augmented Reality can help you find your way (and your holes) […]

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LiteWing DIY ESP32 drone costs about $12 to make

Circuit Digest’s LiteWing is a low-cost DIY drone controlled by an ESP32 module, based on a custom PCB and off-the-shelf parts that costs around 1000 Rupees to make, or $12 at today’s exchange rate. The DIY ESP32 drone was designed as a low-cost alternative to more expensive DIY drones that typically cost close to $70. The result is a WiFi drone that fits in the palm and controlled over WiFi using a smartphone. Interestingly it does not include any 3D printed parts as the PCB forms the chassis of the device. DIY ESP32 drone key features and components Wireless module – ESP32-WROOM-32 for WiFi control using a smartphone. Storage – MicroSD card slot Sensors – MPU6050 IMU for stability control. Propulsion 4x 720 coreless motors 2x 55mm propeller type A(CW) 2x 55mm propeller type B(CCW) USB – 1x USB-C port for charging and programming (via CP2102N) Power Management 1300mAh Li-Ion […]

Khadas VIM4 SBC