Posted on

Review of Rippl-TV Android XBMC TV Box

Rippl-TV is an Android TV box based on an update revision of Eny Techology/Shenzhen Tomato M8 (square) TV Box with an Amlogic S802 quad core processor, but featuring a different firmware with an alledgedly customized Android 4.4 OS called utilOS, and a launcher based on XBMC also called Rippl-TV. I’ve already written an unboxing post, including pictures of the board, so today I’l focus on the full review, and compare the performance to the original M8, as well as a closer look at the new user interface. First Boot, Settings and First Impressions Rippl-TV comes with an IR remote, and as long as your stay in XBMC and play videos, it’s fine, but as this type of remote is usable with most Android apps, I used Mele F10 Deluxe air mouse instead to control the device. I’ve connected an Ethernet cable, an HDMI cable, a USB hard drive, and a […]

Posted on

Rubix A10 is an Arduino Shield Running Linux Powered by Allwinner A10 Processor

There are plenty of ARM Linux boards featuring Arduino compatible headers such as UDOO, PcDuino, ATSAMA5D3 Xplained, etc…, and Rubix A10 looks like one of these boards, as it comes with an Allwinner A10 processor, boast Arduino compatible header, and runs Linux or Android, but instead of simply accepting Arduino shields, Rubix A10 can be used as a shield itself for Arduino (UNO?)boards. Rubix A10 specifications: SoC – Allwinner A10 ARM Cortex A8 processor @ 1.0 Ghz with Mali-400 GPU System Memory – 1GB DDR3 Storage –  4 to 8 GB MLC 64-bit ECC NAND Flash, micro SD slot up to 128 GB Video Output – HDMI 1.4 up to 1080p60 Audio I/O – HDMI, 3.5 mm jack for MIC + headphone. Connectivity – 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi up to 150Mbps, USB – 2x USB 2.0 host interfaces, 1x mini USB OTG 2.0 port Expansions Headers Arduino compatible headers 26-pin Raspberry Pi […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM
Posted on

Free Electrons Publishes Yocto & OpenEmbedded Training Materials

Free Electrons is a small (9 people) engineering company focusing on embedded Linux / Android, and open source software, which also happens to have ported several ARM SoC to the mainline kernel. From time to time, they also offer training sessions, and release course materials publicly. Their latest training is a 3-day course dealing with the Yocto Project and OpenEmbedded, using BeagbleBone Black development board for lab sessions, and all materials have been released under a Creative Commons license. The training consists in: Understanding the Yocto Project Using it to build a root filesystem and run it on your target Writing and extending recipes Creating layers Integrating your board in a BSP Creating custom images Application development with an Eclipse SDK Three files are released: yocto-slides.pdf – Yocto Project and OpenEmbedded Training presentation slides (245 pages) give an overview of various build systems, before getting more details about the Yocto […]

Posted on

Unboxing of Rippl-TV XBMC Android Media Player

Half year ago, I reviewed Shenzhen Tomato M8 / TM8 Android TV Box. It was the first hardware I received based on Amlogic S802, and although I found overall performance and video playback in XBMC was very good, the firmware was not always stable, and Wi-Fi performance was poor. Shenzhen Tomato has now sent me another model based on Amlogic S802 called Rippl-TV (click for full specs), with an hardware very similar to M8 as we’ll see below, but a completely different firmware that relies on XBMC as the Android launcher. Rippl-TV Unboxing I received the TV Box by Fedex in the following package that reads “Rippl-TV a drop of perfection brings out the best in media…” The package lists the key features of the TV with 4K UHD video playback, XBMC Rippl-TV Edition, Android 4.4 OS (called UtilOS), dual band Wi-Fi, a quad core Cortex A9 CPU coupled with […]

Posted on

Hi-Link HLK-M30 StartKit Based on Mediatek MT7681 WiSoC Sells for $10

Here’s yet again another low cost Wi-Fi board for the internet of things with Hi-Link HLK-M30 StartKit featuring an HLK-M30 Wi-Fi module powered by Mediatek MT7681 SoC, exposing 5 GPIOs, and a serial RS-232 DB9 interface. AFAICR, it’s the second MT7681 board featured on CNX Software after xWiFi. Key feature of HLK-M30 Wi-Fi module and Starter Kit: SoC – Mediatek MT7681 WiSoC Wi-Fi Standards – 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi encryption: WEP/WPA-TKIP/WPA-AES/WPA2-TKIP/WPA2-AES STA/AP mode Protocols supported by MT7681 – TCP Server/Client, UDP Server/Client, DHCP, DNS, HTTP Internal and external antennas Serial – DB9 connector for RS-232 Expansions 2.54mm through holes for 3.3V/GND, Tx/Rx, and GPIO 1 0 to 4. 4-pin SPI interface to flash firmware to IC (not usable by end users) Misc – Test LEDs Power – 5V power barrel Dimensions – 14.1 x 16.5 x 2.25 mm (Module size). PCB size: Unknown. Documentation including User’s manual and AT command sets, windows […]

Posted on

ARM Unveils Embedded Systems Education Kit Based on NXP LPC4088 Cortex M4 MCU

Following up on their first “Lab-In-a-Box” initiative based on Micro STM32F4-Discovery board and Wolfson audio card, ARM launched another low-cost toolkit, based on Embedded Artists LPC4088 QuickStart and Experiment boards, and called “Embedded Systems Education Kit”, to help university educators teach embedded systems design and programming concepts. The kit includes the following hardware, software tools, and teaching materials: Embedded Artists LPC4088 QuickStart Board and LPC4088 Experiment Base Board ARM Keil MDK-ARM Pro microcontroller development suite software licences Complete teaching materials including lecture note slides, demonstration code and hands-on lab manuals with solutions in source for four embedded system courses: ‘Efficient embedded systems design and programming’ teaches microcontroller fundamentals using NXP’s 32-bit ARM Cortex-M4 based LPC4088 microcontroller. ‘Rapid embedded system design and programming’ delivers embedded systems design training for the high-level ARM mbed API ‘OS design’ uses the royalty-free ARM Keil RTX RTOS to show how to design, program and optimize […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025
Posted on

Linaro 14.10 Release with Kernel 3.17 and Android 4.4.4, Debian ARM64 Port Almost Complete

Linaro 14.10 has just been released with Linux kernel 3.17 (baseline), Linux 3.10.54 & 3.14.19 (LSK, same versions as last month), and Android 4.4.2 & 4.4.4. Most of the work is a continuation of previous months working member hardware, and ARM64, but one particularly interesting point is that 90% of Debian packages have been built for ARM64, and the next version of Debian should have an official ARM64 port. Here are the highlights of this release: Linux Linaro 3.17-2014.10 updated linaro-android topic. In particular, CONFIG_IPV6=y is no longer the requirement for linux-linaro tree builds GATOR version 5.19 (same version as in 2014.08 release). gatord is fixed to build for ARMv8. dropped multi_pmu_v2 topic by ARM LT (no longer used) updated topic from Qualcomm LT (include IFC6410 board support) replaced integration-linaro-vexpress topic by integration-linaro-vexpress64. Starting from 2014.10 release, linux-linaro kernel tree will use the mainline support for 32-bit vexpress boards. integration-linaro-vexpress64 […]

Posted on

MIPI Introduces SoundWire Audio Interface for Mobile Devices

MIPI (Mobile Industry Processor Interface) Alliance is a non-profit corporation that establishes standards for hardware and software interfaces in mobile devices. MIPI is better known for its MIPI DSI (Display Serial Interface) and CSI (Camera Serial Interface), but as you can see from the diagram below, they’ve been busy publishing a lot more interface specifications. The latest being MIPI SoundWire, a new audio interface for amplifiers, microphones and audio codecs used in smartphones, tablets, mobile PCs and other devices. The consortium only released a “MIPI SoundWire Specification Brief” so there aren’t that many details. SoundWire is not the first audio interface from MIPI, with SLIMbus having been first introduced in 2007, and later updated in 2013 with SLIMBus 1.1. SLIMbus must not have been that widely used, as only Intrinsyc OPEN-Q 8084 Development Kit appears to feature the interface among all the board listed on CNX Software. Nevertheless SLIMBus and […]

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