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GroBotz Interactive Robot Project is Made of Easy to Assemble Smart Blocks (Crowdfunding)

GroBotz makes me think of Lego applied to robotics. The project consists of modules such as motors, sensors, buttons, switches, or cameras that snap together in order to create a robot on wheels, games, toys, a musical instrument, or whatever idea you may have, and the hardware is then programmed using a graphical user interface. A Raspberry Pi board is used for the brain of the robot, and Microchip PIC MCUs for the smart blocks. The software is programmed in C# using Xamarin, the user interface is based on Unity, OpenCV is used for image processing, and during development a plastic part where printed with Makerbot, and schematics and PCB layout designed with CadSoft EAGLE. The company has now come up with a number of modules as shown in the picture below. Your robot can then be controlled over Wi-Fi with GroBotz app which works on Windows, Mac OS, iOs, […]

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Freescale Announces i.MX 6SoloX ARM Cortex A9 & Cortex M4 Processor

Freescale i.MX6 SoloX processor started to show up in the ARM Linux Kernel mailing list last year, and Cortex A9 + Cortex M4 processor showed up in some marketing documents, but so far all documentation was tied to a non-diclosure agreement. However, all resources are now publicly available, as the company officially launched i.MX 6SoloX processor at Embedded World 2015. Freescale i.MX 6SoloX specifications: CPU – ARM Cortex-A9 up to 1 GHz with 512 KB L2 cache, 32 KB instruction and data caches and NEON SIMD media accelerator MCU – ARM Cortex-M4 up to 200 MHz with 16 KB instruction and data caches, 64 KB TCM, MPU and FPU Memory Interface 16/32-bit DDR3-800 and DDR3L-800, 16/32-bit LPDDR2-800 SLC/MLC NAND, 62-bit ECC, ONFI2.2 2x DDR Quad SPI NOR flash, 16/32-bit NOR Flash Display and Camera Interfaces Parallel RGB LVDS 20-bit parallel CMOS sensor interface NTSC/PAL analog video input interface Multimedia GPU […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM
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Freescale Kinetis based Mbed IoT Starter Kit Ethernet Edition Connects to IBM IoT Cloud

ARM, IBM and Freescale have jointly announced Mbed IoT Start Kit – Ethernet Edition at Embedded World 2015 that consists of  a Freescale Kinetis Cortex M4 mbed-enabled development board and a sensor IO application shield that interface with IBM Bluemix cloud platform. Freescale FRDM-K64F Freedom development board specifications: MCU – Freescale Kinetis K64 (MK64FN1M0VLL12) ARM Cortex M4 MCU @ 120 MHz with 1 MB flash memory, 256 KB RAM External Storage – SDHC slot Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet USB – Dual role USB interface with micro-B USB connector Sensors – FXOS8700CQ accelerometer and magnetometer Headers – Arduino R3 compatible I/O connectors Misc – RGB LED, two user push buttons Power Supply – OpenSDAv2 USB, Kinetis K64 USB, and external source The board also features a programmable OpenSDAv2 debug circuit supporting the CMSIS-DAP Interface software that provides a mass storage device (MSD) flash programming interface, or a CMSIS-DAP debug interface, or […]

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ARM Releases Kernel Drivers for Mali-T880 / T860 GPUs, User Space Drivers for Mali-T76x GPUs

ARM Mali GPU drivers includes both open source kernel drivers, and binary userspace drivers supporting framebuffer and/ior X11 implementation. The former is rarely an issue and is quickly released, but the latter requires porting and testing for a specific hardware platform, as well legal work, which greatly delay the releases. Mali-T880 GPU was announced at the beginning of the month together with ARM Cortex A72, and on February 17, 2015, ARM released an update to their Mali-T600 series, Mali-T700 series & Mali-T860/T880 GPU kernel device drivers with revision r5p1-00rel0 that adds supports to Mali-T860 and Mali-T880 GPU. These open source drivers are available for Android and Linux, and also support early Mali-T700 and T600 GPUs. Separately, the company has also released Mali-T76X GPU drivers for Firefly board powered by Rockchip RK3288 quad core Cortex A17 processor featuring a Mali-T764 GPU. The first release only supports the framebuffer driver, but ARM […]

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Beam Android Projector Fits into Any Light Socket (Crowdfunding)

Four years ago, Seco showcased a prototype of a light bulb integrating a picoprojector and running Android, so you could fit it on the socket on your ceiling or compatible lamp. Now a company is planning to launch an Android projector that fits into E27, E26, or Bayonet light sockets called Beam. Beam projector specifications: SoC – Dual core processor @ 1.3GHz System Memory – N/A (1GB?) Storage – 8GB storage Projector LED pico projector; Currently 854×480 resolution, but it may be upgraded before the product ships ANSI 100 lumens 20,000 projection hours Max projection size – 120″ widescreen Throw ratop – 1.6:1 meaning at 1.8m, the project size will be 1.1m. Lamp function: 12 LED lights Audio – 2W stereo speakers Connectivity – 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 Light socket – E26, E27, or Bayonet via included adapter Power Supply – 110VAC to 240VAC Dimensions – N/A The version […]

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DENX Computer Systems Introduces Atmel SAMA5D44 and Freescale i.MX6 System-on-Modules

Embedded World 2015 exhibition and conference will take place in Nuremberg, Germany on February 24-26, 2015, and we should expect interesting news related to MCU, industrial processors, and related development kits and boards next week. DENX Computer Systems has already unveiled two new SoM families with MA5D4 based on Atmel SAMA5D44 Cortex A5 processor, and M6R based on Freescale i.MX 6 Cortex A9 processors. DENX MA5D4 System-on-Module MA5D4 SoM specifications: Processor – Atmel SAMA5D44 Cortex A5 @ 528MHz with 720p hardware video decoder supporting H264/263, VP8, JPEG. System Memory – 128 – 512MB DDR2 RAM Storage – 4 – 32GB eMMC Flash (or optionally 256MB NAND Flash); 4 MB MByte SPI NOR-Flash; I/Os via 230-pin MXM2 edge connector Video Out / Display Support –  HDMI.  TFT controller, overlay support for image composition, resitive Touchscreen controller Camera – CMOS image sensor interface external bus A/D 25/16 bit 2x 10/100MBit Ethernet, IEEE1588 […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025
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Toucan-0700 HMI Panel Runs Linux or Android on Freescale i.MX6 Processors

TechNexion Toucan-0700 is an HMI (Human Machine Interface) panel based on Freescale i.MX6 modules and a baseboard following EDM standard for system-on-modules. The 7″ panel PC features the same EDM1-CF-IMX6 SoM used in Wandboard development boards, and runs various Linux distributions, as well as Android 4.3 or 4.4. Toucan-0700 specifications: SoC – Freescale i.MX6 Solo/Duallite Cortex A9 processor with Vivante GPUs (i.MX6 Dual/Quad on request) System Memory – 512MB (Solo), 1GB (Duallite) Storage – 4GB eMMC + micro SD slot Display – 7″ LCD display with LED backlight, 1024×600 resolution;  16M colors;  500 cd/m²; 4 points touchscreen Video Output – HDMI 1.4 for external display Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet with POE function 802.3at, and optional WiFi 802.11 b/g/n + Bluetooth 4.0 (Broadcom BCM4330) USB – 1x USB 2.0 host port, 1x USB OTG 3.0 connector, 2x internal pin headers Serial – 1x RS-232 (galvanic isolated), 1x RS-232/422/485 (galvanic isolated), 2x […]

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SoundMate WM201 Wi-Fi Music Streamer (EZMusic) Review

Last year I reviewed SoundMate M2 Wi-Fi audio streamer, and Uyesee has sent me a sample of their new SoundMate WM201 powered by Actions Semi AM8253, and based on EZCast app for audio calld EZMusic (EZCast Music). SoundMate WM201 Unboxing Pictures That’s the package for the device. The device comes with two audio cables, a micro USB to USB cable for power, and “SoundMate WiFi Music Streamer” user manual. Let’s have a closer look at the tiny box. Two LEDs are located on the front for power and connection, a micro SD slot can be found on the side, and the rear panel has most of the connection: micro USB port for power, reset pinhole, optical SPDIF, 3.5mm stereo jack, and USB 2.0 host for mass storage. SoundMate WM210 Teardown Take out of four sticky rubber pad on the bottom of the case, and loosen four screws to remove the […]

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