Posted on

Flow Browser, a Raspberry Pi optimized web browser for HMI

Most people will use Chromium on Raspberry Pi boards simply because it’s now the default browser in Raspberry Pi OS. But the performance may not be optimal, and UK-based Ekioh has developed the Flow Browser optimized for performance on Raspberry Pi with multi-thread support and 3D accelerated graphics. There’s a caveat though, as the Flow Browser has been developed from the ground up, i.e. not based on Webkit or Mozilla Engine, with human-machine interfaces (HMI) in mind, rather than individuals browsing the web, and that means that while performance will be better, site compatibility does suffer at this point in time. Key features in Flow Browser Before going into benchmarks and other tests, let’s check some of the key features listed for Flow Browser: HTML & CSS3CSS – Animations and Transitions, CSS Transforms (2D and 3D), CSS Flexbox, Bi-directional text layout Graphics – Web Fonts – Canvas, SVG & WebGL […]

Posted on

Onlogic industrial Raspberry Pi CM4 based mini PC to offer dual GbE, USB 3.1, M.2 SATA socket

Yesterday, we covered two Raspberry Pi CM4 carrier boards with dual Ethernet ports, including one from Seeed Studio with dual Gigabit Ethernet and USB 3.1 ports, and another from MCUZone with Gigabit + Fast Ethernet ports, USB 2.0 ports, plus a 4G LTE modem. But Onlogic will soon add another option with a complete Raspberry Pi CM4 based industrial mini PC with dual Gigabit Ethernet, teased as “One Tough Pi”, as well as USB 3.2/2.0 ports, M.2 SATA storage, and more. Onlogic “One Tough Pi” mini PC preliminary specifications: SoM – Raspberry Pi CM4 module with  up to 8 GB LPDDR4 memory, 32 GB eMMC flash storage Storage –  M.2 2280 SATA SSD support Video & audio output – 1x Micro HDMI port up to 4Kp60 Connectivity – 2x Gigabit Ethernet ports USB – 3x USB ports include 1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 port, and 2x USB 2.0 ports; 1x […]

Khadas Edge2 Arm mini PC
Posted on

Raspberry Pi CM4 boards offer dual Ethernet, 4G LTE

Since the launch of Raspberry Pi CM4 and CM4Lite systems-on-module last October, we’ve seen carrier boards bring their own set of features including industrial communication interfaces, a stereoscopic camera, four SATA ports to build a NAS, a DIN-rail based industrial controller, and more. But so far, I have not seen a Raspberry Pi CM4 carrier board with dual Ethernet ports. Seeed Studio’s “Dual Gigabit Ethernet Carrier Board for Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4” was brought to our attention this morning, but there’s another one with 4G LTE connectivity, Fast+Gigabit Ethernet ports, and extra I/Os courtesy of MCUZone’s CM4-4G IO board. Let’s have a look at both of them. Dual Gigabit Ethernet Carrier Board for Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 Specifications: Supported SoMs – Raspberry Pi CM4 and CM4Lite with up to 8GB RAM, 32GB eMMC flash, optional WiFi & Bluetooth Storage – MicroSD card slot to load OS on CM4Lite […]

Posted on

Piper Make: First Drag-and-Drop Coding Platform for Raspberry Pi Pico

In 2019 we saw Piper’s Computer Kit 2, which was a DIY Raspberry Pi 3 Computer for educational purposes. The kit was for kids to educate them on building their own computers and the basics of programming in electronics. This year the company has come up with another educational platform. Meet Piper Make. The newly launched Raspberry Pi Pico is capable of a wide range of applications but directly working on the development board for exploring these applications could be difficult for beginners. Additionally, prototyping a project or an application before implementing it is an ideal way for starting. Hence. Piper has launched its first drag-and-drop coding platform for the Raspberry Pi Pico which allows hands-on prototyping for the users. Piper Make platform has an interface that supports Chromebooks and other computers, thus making it flexible for users. It is free for users to explore hands-on with the Raspberry Pi […]

Posted on

Machine Learning on Raspberry Pi Pico, RP2040, and future RPi MCUs

Although the Raspberry Pi Pico comes with the RP2040 chip that lacks the performance to implement machine learning inference for its applications. However, we saw a person detection use case through ArduCAM and TensorFlow lite interface. But, the processing performance of the use case was on the slower side. Additionally, a recent Eben Upton presentation also unveiled that due to low power requirements the board compensates the processing efficiency. Hence, it offers low-performance for edge inference and machine learning use cases. Eben Upton’s teaser on improvement in machine learning and the future scope of “Pi Silicon” revealed potential growth and development in edge inference applications. The demand for RP2040 boards has given rise to the market necessity for more boards. This demand can only be fulfilled if more boards with RP2040 chip are available in the market and company “partners such as Adafruit, Pimoroni, Adafruit and Sparkfun are start releasing […]

Posted on

THine Raspberry Pi camera extension kit works with 20-meter LAN cables

Most applications using Raspberry Pi camera are perfectly happy to rely on the FPC flat cable connecting the Pi camera to a Raspberry Pi SBC. But for some use cases, the board and camera may have to be separated by some distance, for example, if you’d like to keep the single board computer indoor, while the camera is housed in a waterproof enclosure outside. THine Solutions has designed a cable extension kit for the Raspberry Pi camera exactly for this purpose. The kit comes with Rx and Tx boards to be connected to the board and camera respectively., as well as a 2-meter CAT5e LAN cable, but the company says the solution supports up to 20-meter Ethernet cables. THine camera extension kit content and key features: Supported cameras – Raspberry Pi camera V1.3 (for certain modes only), Raspberry Pi camera V2, and Raspberry Pi HQ camera Tx Board – Transmitter […]

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs
Posted on

PiccoloSDR – A Raspberry Pi Pico powered SDR working with GNU Radio

There’s a lot you can do with the tiny Raspberry Pi Pico board, but computer student and radio amateur Luigi Cruz decided to go a step further by making Raspberry Pico RP2040 board work as an SDR compatible with GNU Radio open-source toolkit. The PicoSDR PiccoloSDR project relies on one of the ADC pins from the Raspberry Pi Pico board to sample 8-bit data at around 500 ksps and makes the data available through TCP/IP (emulated via the RNDIS protocol) over the Full Speed USB interface at up to 12 Mbps. As Luis notes applications are limited due to the low bandwidth, but it’s still a fun project. You can see demos with a web-based tone generator, a PWM generator, and actual audio where we see the spectrum chart, scope plot, and FFT plot updated in real-time. He has not released the demo code “officially” just yet, but I can […]

Posted on

Geniatech XPI-3288 Raspberry Pi lookalike features Rockchip RK3288 SoC

Geniatech XPI is a family of single board computers following Raspberry Pi 3 form factor. We first covered XPI-S905X SBC in 2018, which was followed by XPI 3128 board last year. The company has now launched another model with Geniatech XPI-3288 SBC powered by Rockchip RK3288 32-bit quad-core Cortex-A17 processor coupled with 2G RAM and 16GB eMMC flash. Geniatech XPI-3288 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3288 quad-core Cortex-A17 processor @ up to 1.6GHz with Arm Mali-T764 GPU System Memory – 2GB RAM Storage – 16GB eMMC flash (8/32GB optional), MicroSD card slot Video Output – HDMI up to 4Kp60 (may be limited to 4Kp30 on  some older 4K TVs) Video decoding H.264 up to HP level 5.1 @ 2160p24 (3840×2160) MPEG-1/-2/-4, AVS, VP8, MVC up to 1080p60 (1920×1080) VC-1 up to AP level 3 @ 1080p30 (1920×1080) H.263 @ 576p60 (720×576) Connectivity Gigabit Ethernet port Optional dual-band 802.11b/g/n/ac WiFi 5 and […]

Khadas VIM4 SBC