LG Releases webOS Open Source Edition Optimized for Raspberry Pi 3

webOS, originally developed by Palm, is a Linux based multitasking operating systems with support for HTML5 and CSS3. It is now found in most (all?) new LG smart TVs, and the TV manufacturer has decided to expand the adoption of webOS by collaborating with the South Korean government and local startups,  and released an open source version , webOS Open Source Edition, available publicly at http://webosose.org. webOS Open Source Edition 1.0 is said to be optimized for the Raspberry Pi 3, and the company provides build instructions on the “setting up” page of the website to build the firmware image, which you can then flash to a micro SD card. The idea is to for a community around the open source version webOS, and let different categories of developers or users contribute to the project: System UI Developers – The System UI is based on Blink and Qt, and developers […]

FOSSASIA Summit 2018 Schedule – March 22-25

FOSDEM is the “Free & Open Source Software Developers’ European  Meeting” takes place the first week-end of February every year in Brussels, Belgium.  It turns out there’s an event in Asia called FOSSASIA Summit that’s about to take place in Singapore on March 22-25. There are some differences however, as while FOSDEM is entirely free to attend, FOSSASIA requires to pay an entry fee to attend talks, although there are free tickets to access the exhibition hall and career fair. There are also less sessions as in FOSDEM, but still twelve different tracks with: Artificial Intelligence Blockchain Cloud, Container, DevOps Cybersecurity Database Kernel & Platform Open Data, Internet Society, Community Open Design, IoT, Hardware, Imaging Open Event Solutions Open Source in Business Science Tech Web and Mobile Since the event is spread out over four days, it should be easier to attend the specific sessions you are interested in. I’ve […]

Khadas Edge2 Arm mini PC

Year 2017 in Review, Top 10 Posts, and Some Fun Stats

2017 is coming to an end, and as I do every year, I’ll take a look back at the year that was on CNX Software. The pace of development boards launches has not slowed down this year, and we get an even wider range from the low-end with Orange Pi or NanoPi boards, to much more powerful ARM boards, and some new entrants like Libre Computer. The same is true for TV boxes, most of which now support 4K HDR, ranging from ultra cheap models selling for less than $20 to higher end Android TV boxes, while mini PCs were dominated by Intel Apollo Lake models, although some Cherry Trail products were also launched. Processor-wise, Amlogic launched more Amlogic S905X derivatives with S905W/S905D/S905Z, which are popular in the TV box market. Rockchip’s most interesting processor this year was RK3328 quad core Cortex A53 processor designed for 4K HDR Android TV […]

UBPorts Ubuntu Touch Firmware to Add Android App Support using Anbox

Last spring, Canonical stopped working on mobile and convergence, and dropped any work on Unity, which explains why Ubuntu 17.10 is now running Gnome desktop environment by default. The company had to take this decision because there was little interest from manufacturers for such solution, and instead they refocused on the more profitable IoT and cloud markets. However, some members of the community still wanted to run Ubuntu on their phone, and that’s why UBPorts community decided to carry on development on their own and released their first stable Ubuntu Touch image for supported smartphones last summer. A phone running Ubuntu Touch is great, but you’d have a very limited set of app to play with, so the developers are now working on adding support for Android apps support. There are various ways to implement such features, but they went with Anbox, as it executes Android apps natively in a […]

PiPO P10 Phoenix OS 2-in-1 Laptop is Powered by Rockchip RK3399 Processor

Phoenix OS is an operating system based on Android 7.1 with desktop optimizations, and is one of the last few options if you plan to run Android on x86 platforms as other projects such as Remix OS have stopped providing images, at least for the consumer market. The operating system also work on Arm platforms, but it is not open source – except for a Linux kernel release a few months ago -, manufacturers partners with the company to port the OS to their hardware. PiPO P10 2-in-1 laptop is one of those devices, and thanks to Rockchip RK3399 processor should offer decent performance. PiPO P10 (preliminary) specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3399 hexa core processor with 2x Cortex A72 cores, 4x Cortex A53 cores, Mali-860MP4 GPU System Memory – 4GB DDR3 RAM Storage – 32 or 64GB storage, 1x micro SD slot Display – 10.1″ capacitive touch display with 2560×1600 […]

A Day at Chiang Mai Maker Party 4.0

The Chiang Mai Maker Party 4.0 is now taking place until December 9, and I went there today, as I was especially interested in the scheduled NB-IoT talk and workshop to find out what was the status about LPWA in Thailand. But there are many other activities planned, and if you happen to be in Chiang Main in the next few days, you may want to check out the schedule on the event page or Facebook. I’m going to go though what I’ve done today to give you a better idea about the event, or even the maker movement in Thailand. Booth and activity area should be the same over the 4 days, but the talks, open activity, and workshop will be different each day. Today, people could learn how to solder in the activity area. The even was not really big with manufacturers/sellers like ThaiEasyElec, INEX, or Gravitech closer […]

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs

Nexell NXC100 Voice Recognition Chip, NXP4330Q Processor, and ALTO Development Board

I wrote about NanoPi Fire2 & Fire3A boards based on Nexell S5P processors a few days ago, and at the time, as I checked out Nexell website, I found out about the company’s NXC100 Voice Recognition SoC that can be used in 4-mic array board. The chip can then be connected through SPI to a host processor, and Nexell appears to have a NXP4330Q Smart Voice kit based on their quad Cortex A9 processor of the same name. But since documentation is really limited, I looked for more details, and came across NXP4330Q based ALTO board design by InSignal, which sold the Exynos powered Arndale boards a few years back. Nexell NXC100 Voice Recognition SoC The chip is the only product from the “A.I related” section of therir website, but more are likely to come out as the company is working on GP-GPU (General Purpose GPU), machine learning, and even registered […]

JeVois Smart Machine Vision Camera Review – Part 1: Developer / Robotics Kit Unboxing

JeVois-A33 computer vision camera was unveiled at the end of last year through a Kickstarter campaign. Powered by an Allwinner A33 quad core Cortex A7 processor, and a 1.3MP camera sensor, the system could detect motion, track faces and eyes, detect & decode ArUco makers & QR codes, follow lines for autonomous cars, etc.. thanks to JeVois framework. Most rewards from KickStarter shipped in April of this year, so it’s quite possible some of the regular readers of this blog are already familiar the camera. But the developer (Laurent Itti) re-contacted me recently, explaining they add improves the software with Python support, and new features such as the capability of running deep neural networks directly on the processor inside the smart camera. He also wanted to send a review sample, which I received today, but I got a bit more than I expected, so I’ll start the review with an […]

Khadas VIM4 SBC