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Vorke Z3 Rockchip RK3399 TV Box to Launch in February 2017

I was expecting devices based on Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core processor to launch by the end of this year, that is about right now, but finally it looks like products will only start the show by the end of Q1 2017, as Firefly-RK3399 development board is scheduled to ship to backers in March 2017, while GeekBuying has started teasing us with their Vorke Z3 TV box powered by Rockchip RK3399 with 4GB RAM slated to launch in February 2017. [Update: Vorke Z3 is now up for sale for $169.99 including shipping] Vorke Z3 preliminary specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core processor with  2x ARM Cortex A72 cores at up to 2.0GHz, 4x Cortex A53 cores, and an ARM Mali-T860MP4 GPU System Memory – 4GB LPDDR3 Storage – 32GB eMMC flash, external SATA interface (hopefully implemented via the PCIe interface), micro SD slot Video Output – HDMI 2.0 up to 4K @ […]

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Pycom To Sell WiFi, BLE, LoRa and Sigfox OEM Modules for Your Own Hardware Projects

Pycom is the company making some relatively popular IoT boards programmable with Python such as WiPy, LoPy, SiPy, and soon FiPy, supporting respectively WiFi+BLE, LoRa+WiFi+BLE, Sigfox+WiFi+BLE, and for the latter all four plus LTE CAT M1/NB1. Those little boards are great for personal projects and/or to experiment, but for those of you who would like to integrated IoT connectivity into your own hardware projects, Pycom will soon launch three OEM module for corresponding to WiPy, SiPy and LoPy connectivity featues with respectively W01, S01 and L01 modules. Key features: W01 WipY 2.0 OEM Module – Dual network BLE and WiFi – 7.95 Euros L01 LoPy OEM module – LoRa, WiFi and Bluetooth – 14.95 Euros S01 SiPy OEM module – Sigfox, WiFi and Bluetooth; Available in both 14dB (for Europe) and 22dB (outside Europe) version for respectively 14.95 and 19.95 Euros All three models have basically the same functionality as […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM
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Imagination PowerVR G6230 is the First GPU To Pass Khronos OpenVX 1.1 Conformance

The Khronos Group is the non-profit consortium group behind open standards and APIs for graphics, media and parallel computation such as OpenGL for 3D graphics, OpenCL for GPGPU, OpenVG for 2D vector graphics, etc… OpenVX is one of their most recent open, royalty-free standard, and targets power optimized acceleration of computer vision applications such as face, body and gesture tracking, smart video surveillance, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), object and scene reconstruction, augmented reality, visual inspection, robotics and more. The first revision of the standard was released in 2014, and the latest OpenVX 1.1 revision was just released in May 2016. We’ve already seen OpenVX 1.1 support in Nvidia Jetson TX1 module & board, but Khronos has a conformance program to test  implementations, and if successful, allow companies to use the logo and name of the API. The version first GPU to pass OpenVX 1.1 conformance is Imagination Technologies PowerVR […]

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NXP LPC Microcontrollers Roadmap for 2017 – LPC800 and LPC54000 Series

With the acquisition of Freescale, NXP now has both Kinetis and LPC ARM Cortex M micro-controller families. The company has kept selling both so far, but it’s unclear whether they’ll keep developing new Kinetis MCU family in the future. There’s no such doubt about LPC family with the company having published a 2017 roadmap for ARM Cortex M0+ based LPC 800 series, and ARM Cortex M4 based LPC54000 series. LPC800 series MCUs are promoted as 8-bit MCU alternatives, and three new models are expected next year: LPC84x ARM Cortex M0+ @ 30 MHz with 64KB flash, 8 to 16KB RAM available in QFN and LQFP packages. LPC802 ARM Cortex M0+ @ 15 MHz with 16KB flash, 2KB RAM available in TSSOP packages LPC804 ARM Cortex M0+ @ 15 MHz with 32KB flash, 4KB RAM available in QFN or TSSOP packages There will be new models of the more powerful LPC54000 […]

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Review of Mecool BB2 Pro TV Box with DDR4 Memory – Part 1: Specs, Unboxing and Teardown

Mecool BB2 Pro is yet another Amlogic S912 Android 6.0 TV box, but after Eweat R9 Plus, it’s my second TV box with DDR4 memory that should deliver much higher bandwidth compared to DDR3 memory used in most TV boxes. But so far, it’s clear how much performance can be extracted from the system with higher memory bandwidth in actual use,  and that’s exactly what I hope to find out in the second part of the review, but in this post I start by going through the specs, check the box and its accessories, as well as the hardware design. Mecool BB2 Pro specifications Apart from the DDR4 memory, BB2 Pro has pretty common specifications: SoC – Amlogic S912 octo-core ARM Cortex A53 processor @ up to 1.5 GHz with ARM Mali-820MP3 GPU System Memory – 3 GB DDR4 Storage – 16 GB eMMC flash + micro SD slot up […]

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Compress & Decompress Files Faster with lbzip2 multi-threaded version of bzip2

Bzip2 is still one of the most commonly used compression tools in Linux, but it only works with a single thread, and I’ve been made aware that lbzip2 allows multi-threaded bzip2 compressions which should lead to much better performance on multi-core systems. lbzip2 was not installed by default in my Ubuntu 16.04 machine, but it’s easy enough to install:

I have cloned mainline linux repository on my machine, so let’s see how long it takes to compress the directory with bzip2 (one core compression):

9 minutes and 22 seconds. Now let’s repeat the test with lbzip2 using all 8 cores from my AMD FX8350 processor:

2 minutes 32 seconds. Almost 4x times, not bad at all. It’s not 8 times faster because you have to take into account I/Os, and at the beginning the system is scanning the drive, using all 8-core but not all full throttle. […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025
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Quectel SC20 Smart LTE Modules with WiFi, BLE and GPS Run Android 5.1

Google may just have released Android Things operating systems for IoT applications, but its big brother – Android – has already gotten into some other IoT systems such as Quectel SC20 module powered by a Qualcomm processor and supporting LTE, WiFi, Bluetooth LE, and GNSS functions. Quectel SC20 comes in different flavors to cater for various markets, but all module share most of the same specifications: SoC – Unnamed Qualcomm processor System Memory – TBD Storage – 8GB flash Cellular Connectivity – FDD LTE, TDD LTE, TD-SCDMA, EVDO/DCMA, WCDMA, and GSM; antenna: MIMO 2×2, supports Rx-diversity Other Wireless Connectivity WiFi – 2.4GHz 802.11b/g/n (SC20-CE/-W); Dual band 802.11a/b/g/n/ac (SC20-E/-A/-AU/-J) Bluetooth 2.1+EDR/3.0/4.1 LE GNSS – GPS, GLONASS, and BeiDou Interfaces LCD – 4x lanes MIPI-DSI, 1.5Gbps each, HD (720p) @ 60fps Camera – MIPI-CSI, up to 1.5Gbps per lane, supports two cameras 2-lane MIPI_CSI for rear camera, up to 8MP 1-lane MIPI_CSI […]

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ReflowR is a $99 SMT Reflowing Tool for Makers and Students

You can solder SMT components to your custom board by hand, but it would be much faster if you could get a reflow tool instead to “bake” your board after placing the components. ReflowR SMT reflowing tool offers just that in a small and affordable form factor. Some people have tried to use DIY solutions to bake their board, but results may vary. ReflowR has been specifically designed to heat PCB offering constant results. It supports reflow, rework, MSD bake, or rework pre-bake, and follows JEDEC reflow profiles. You can also add a WiFi extension to monitor the tool from your smartphone and set the temperature profile. Two version are available: Smart ReflowR – Compact 600W system for for makers and learners. Large ReflowR – Larger 1200W system for professionals “STEM Inspiration kits” are also offered without a ReflowR kit, but with multiple components, solder paste, a few PCBs, tweezers, […]

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