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Getting Started with Qoitech Otii Developer Tool using ESP8266 and Raspberry Pi 4 Boards

Last month, I received Qoitech Otii Arc power supply, power meter, and DAQ unit that aims at helping hardware and software engineers develop energy-efficient products. I’ve now had time to test the unit with an ESP8266 board and Raspberry Pi 4 SBC, so I’ll show how to get started and my overall experience with the hardware and program. Requirements and Initial Setup The unit takes a 9V power supply or micro USB adapter as power input, but power output is done through banana plugs. I did not have any cables with banana plugs so I bought one on eBay for about $5 shipped. This cable is really convenient with output to USB (female connector), crocodile clips, and hook clips. However, as we’ll see below it may not be suitable for all types of loads, and you may have to make your own with a higher rated cable. You’ll need to […]

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Astro Slide 5G Transformer Smartphone Comes with a Slide-out Keyboard, MediaTek Dimensity 1000 SoC (Crowdfunding)

Planet Computers has introduced several smartphones with physical keyboards over the last few years including Gemini PDA and Cosmo Communicator with the later recently received its promised Debian Linux images besides just running Android 9.0. The company is now back with the new model. Powered by a MediaTek Dimensity 1000 processor, Astro Slide 5G Transformer supports 5G connectivity and comes with a slide-out keyboard following on the steps of the company’s previous smartphones. Astro Slide 5G Transformer preliminary hardware specifications: SoC- MediaTek Dimensity 1000 (MT6889)octa-core processor with 4x Arm Cortex-A77 cores @ 2.6 GHz, 4x Arm Cortex-A55 CPU efficient cores @ 2.0 GHz, Arm Mali-G77 GPU, 4.5 TOPS APU 3.0 AI accelerator / NPU System Memory – At least 6GB LPDD4x RAM Storage – 128 GB flash, MicroSD card slot Display – 6.53″ touchscreen display with 2340×1080 resolution, scratch-resistant glass Camera – 48MP rear camera with flash, 5.0MP front-facing camera […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM
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Updating the BIOS (System Firmware) from the Device Manager in Windows 10

I recently started having problems playing YouTube videos in Firefox and Chrome in Ubuntu 18.04. The video would load, and I could see frames at any time, but it would just not play. I soon discovered that killing PulseAudio, and the video would play without audio. I also noticed I had Dummy Output in Sound settings. I tried all usual tricks to fix this, but still no luck. Then I discovered I had audio just after booting my computer, but after a while, there would be no audio at all. This seems to match the time by which the AMD GPU drives crashes (just warning), something that had happened ever since I installed Ubuntu on my Acer laptop. After more failed attempts, I decided to try to update the BIOS using Windows 10. A 10-minute task, right? I would just have to replace the hard drive with one pre-loaded with […]

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HardROCK64 SBC with Rockchip RK3399 Processor to Launch in April for $35 and Up

If you thought we didn’t have enough Rockchip RK3399 SBCs already, Pine64 is working on a smaller and cheaper version of the RockPro64 single board computer with HardROCK64 SBC powered by RK3399 processor and following Raspberry Pi form factor. HardROCK64 specifications: SoC –  Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core processor with 2x Arm Cortex-A72 @ up to 1.8 GHz, 4x Cortex-A53 @ up to 1.4 GHz, a Mali-T864 GPU, and a VPU with 4K VP9 and 4K 10-bit H265/H264 decoding System Memory – 1GB, 2GB or 4GB LPDDR4 Storage – SPI flash, eMMC flash socket, MicroSD card slot Video Output – HDMI 2.0, AV port, MIPI DSI connector Audio – Analog stereo audio via AV port, digital audio via HDMI Camera – MIPI CSI connector Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet, dual-band WiFi 5 (802.11ac) and Bluetooth 5.0 USB – 2x USB 3.0 ports, 2x USB 2.0 ports Expansion – 40-pin Raspberry Pi compatible header […]

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Year 2019 in Review – Top 10 Posts and Stats

2019 is closing to an end, or you may already be into 2020 while reading this post. In any case, that means it’s time to look back at 2019 and look forward to the events and new products to take place next year. While 2018 was a boring year for new processors, 2019 brought us some interesting new chips such as Amlogic S922X / A311D, or the first Arm Cortex-A55 only processors such as Amlogic S905X3. Rockchip RK3399Pro was promising when it was announced last year, but it never really took off. It was a pretty quiet year for Allwinner as well. RISC-V architecture has been ramping up with the first general-purpose RISC-V MCU: GD32V, WCH CH572 Bluetooth LE MCU, the launch of more SiFive RISC-V cores, and Kendryte K210 RISC-V AI processor announced last year has found its way into more and more boards. There have also been the […]

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SH72 Soldering Iron Looks Similar to TS100, Sells for around $10

TS100 is a popular soldering iron in the shape of a pen, and whose temperature is controlled by an STM32 microcontroller. Parameters such as temperature, temperature steps, sleep time and others can be setup over USB, and the soldering is powered by a standard 19V power supply often used with laptops. TS100 sells for around $50, while the more recent USB-C powered version (TS80) sells for a little over $70. But a new model that looks similar to TS100 minus the OLED display is now selling for around $10 on Banggood. SH72 soldering iron features and specifications: Temperature range – 220-400℃ Temperature control knob Available/supported tips – SH-B2/SH-BC2/SH-C4/SH-D24/SH-I/SH-K/SH-Ku (Hakko types) Power Supply 12-24V DC input up to 65 Watts via 5.5 x 2.5 mm barrel jack Modes of operation – 12V >=1.5A (18W);  16V >=2A (32W); 19V >=2.1A (40W); 24V >=2.7A (65W) Dimensions Control handle – 110 x 16 x […]

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Desklab Ultrathin, Lightweight 15.6″ 4K Portable Touchscreen Display Comes HDMI, USB-C, Stereo Speakers (Crowdfunding)

We’ve already seen a fair amount of portable displays launched in recent years which are often supposed to be brought along with your laptop or smartphone, including DUO add-on display, TAIHE Gemini 15.6″ FullHD/4K display, and the low-cost BlitzWolf BW-PCM1 11.6″ display among many others. Another option is Desklab 15.6″ portable display available either in Full HD or 4K resolution and which comes with stereo speakers in a similar fashion to the TAIHE model but with different ports, and no battery. Desklab key features and specifications: Display 15.6″ IPS touchscreen display with FullHD (1920×1080) or 4K (3840×2160) resolution 10ms response time 400 cd/m2 luminance 183° viewing angles Ports mini HDMI input 2x USB typ-C ports 3.5mm audio jack Micro USB port Audio – Stereo speakers Misc – Power button, volume rocker Battery – None, used the host battery Thickness – ~0.6 cm Weight – 595 grams Since the display comes […]

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Linux 5.4 Release – Main Changes, Arm, MIPS & RISC-V Architectures

Linus Torvalds has just announced the release of Linux 5.4: Not a lot happened this last week, which is just how I like it. And as expected, most of the pull requests I got were for the 5.5 merge window, which I’ll obviously start working through tomorrow. What little there is here is mostly some networking updates (mix of network drivers and core networking), and some minor GPU driver updates. Other than that it’s a small collection of random other things all over. The appended shortlog is small enough that you might as well just scroll through it. Anyway, this obviously opens the merge window for 5.5. It’s not ideal timing with Thanksgiving week coming up, but it hopefully shouldn’t be too much of an issue. If I fall behind (not because I’m all that big of a fan of the indiscriminate and relentless turkey-killing holiday) it’s because we’ve got […]

Boardcon CM3588 Rockchip RK3588 System-on-Module designed for AI and IoT applications