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Tronsmart Mars G01 Wireless Gamepad Review on Android

One way to play games in Android TV Box with a gamepad is to use a Sony Playstation 3 Controller with Sixaxis Controller app. It can work, but you need a device that supports Bluetooth, with the right drivers, and most games require you to do the mapping manually which is not that user-friendly. Now, they make Android compatible Bluetooth Gamepad such as G910 which seems really nice, but I’ve been told it’s rather hit or miss, and some people have problem with the Bluetooth connection. GeekBuying instead recommends Tronsmart Mars G01, based on 2.4 GHz technology, that requires an external USB RF dongle, but which alledgly does not  have connection problems. It works with Android, Windows, and Playstation 3. The company sent me a sample, so I’ve taken some pictures and tried a few games with Tronsmart Vega S89 Elite TV box. Tronsmart Mars G01 Unboxing I’ve received the […]

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VolksPC mini PC runs Debian and Android Simultaneously Thanks to MicroXwin Framework

It’s been possible to run Linux or Android on ARM based board and producs for a while, with some firmware providing dual boot support, or even simultaneous use running a chroot with a VNC server and client combination. Some developers have come up MicroXwin, a X-windows implementation using a custom Xlib library that communicate directly with the graphics drivers, and not using a client/server implement. This provides much faster performance compare to X11, as shown on Raspberry Pi and Cubieboard2 development boards, and it has given them the ability to run Debian LXDE and Android Jelly Bean simultaneously on their upcoming VolksPC, a mini PC based on Rockchip RK3066 with 16GB flash. The first VolksPC will have the following specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3066 dual core ARM Cortex A9 CPU @ 1.4Ghz with Mali-400MP4 GPU System Memory – 1 GB DDR3 Storage – 16 GB NAND flash + SD/MMC/MS card […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM
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National Instruments Introduces NI sbRIO-9651 SoM Based on Xilinx Zynq SoC Running Linux Real-time OS

National Instruments has recently announced NI sbRIO-9651 System on Module (SoM) powered by Xilinx Zynq-7020 dual core Cortex A9 + FPGA SoC, based on LabVIEW RIO architecture used in products such as myRIO, and coming with a complete middleware solution as well as NI Linux Real-Time OS. NI sbRIO-9651 hardware specifications: SoC – Xilinx Zynq-7020 with two ARM Cortex-A9 cores @ 667MHz and Artix-7 FPGA with 85K Logic Cells System Memory – 512MB DRAM Storage – 512MB flash Dedicated processor I/O: Gigabit Ethernet USB 2.0 Host, USB 2.0 Host/Device RS232 (TX/RX) SHDC FPGA I/O: 160 single-ended FPGA I/O Configurable peripherals: Gigabit Ethernet, 3x RS232, 2x RS485, 2x CAN Power Consumption – 3 to 5 Watts (typical) Dimensions – 50.8 x 78.2 mm Temperature range – -40 to 85 °C NI SoM is said to integrate a validated board support package (BSP) and device drivers with the MI Linux Real-time OS. […]

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The World’s Cheapest Linux Computer? Pogoplug Mobile Now Sells for $7

Somebody asked “Anyone knows a computer cheaper than a Raspberry Pi with a network interface?” on Google+ mini PCs community. Some OpenWRT routers such as TPLink WR703N selling for about $20, or the VoCore Wi-Fi module selling for about the same price (Wi-Fi only) were parts of the answers, and I also mentioned some HDMI TV dongles that now sell for around $35, which is still a little cheaper than the Raspberry Pi model B when one considers shipping. But I found the answer by dhead666 particularly interesting: Pogoplug Mobile goes for 7$ on Amazon and that includes psu and network cable. It run Linux great (I’m using Arch) but you will want to have a ttl-usb cable and soldering iron available in case you manage to mess u-boot (go to the doozan’s forums for more info about the u-boot). Let’s have a look. Pogoplug Mobile is not a new […]

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Raspberry Pi Model B+ with 4 USB Ports, a micro SD Slot, and More GPIOs Coming Soon

With over 3 million boards sold, the Raspberry Pi is by far the most popular ARM Linux board on the market, but people are often asking for hardware upgrades with a faster processor, more RAM and so on. The good news is that a new Raspberry Pi board seems on the way, but since the real competitive of the Raspberry Pi is not the cheap hardware only, but software support and the community around the little ARM board. So instead of designing of completely new board, they’ve kept Broadcom BCM2835 and 512MB RAM, and mostly made some changes to the ports, and form factor. Since the board has not been officially announced just yet, the full details are available, but according to various reports, the specs should be as follows: SoC – Broadcom BCM2835 ARM11 processor @ 700MHz with VideoCore IV GPU System Memory – 512 MB SDRAM (PoP) Storage […]

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More Details on Mediatek MT2502 Aster SoC and Linkit Platform for Wearables (Video)

Last month, Mediatek announced their Mediatek MT2502 SoC for wearables, codenamed Aster, as well as the Linkit development platform targeting the developer’s community. But at the time they did show the actual hardware, and thanks to Charbax we know have more interesting details about Aster and Linkit. First they compare a design based on Aster to Samsung Galaxy Fit wearable band, and show why it uses less space, will cost less, and they claim  over twice the battery life. Simple and smaller design (~36% reduction in size) Aster solution – MT2504 (6.2 x 5.4 mm) plus all required resistors, capacitors and inductors require 89.97 mm2 Galaxy Fit – MCU. Bluetooth Transceiver,  external memory, a linear charger, and all required resistors, capacitors and inductors require 140.97 mm2 Battery life – Samsung Galaxy Fit is supposed to last between 1 and 1.5 days on a charge, whereas devices based on Aster should last about […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025
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Renesas RZ/A1H Starter Kit and Emtrion DIMM-RZ System-on-Module Run Segger embOS RTOS or Linux with 10MB SRAM

Announced just about a year ago, Renesas RZ/A1 ARM Cortex A9 processor family can be used for human machine interface applications, and has the particularly to embed large amount of SRAM, especially the RZ/A1H series with 10 MB SRAM which allows the development of some applications without external RAM chip, lowering both board size and BoM cost. I’ve just come across a development kit dubbed “RZ/A1H Starter Kit”, and the just released Emtrion DIMM-RZ system-on-module both powered by Renesas RZ/A1H SoC. Renesas RZ/A1H Starter Kit+ (RSK) The development kit includes the mainboard, a 7″ TFT LCD (Optional), a detachable Colour LCD Board Pmod Compatible,a detachable AD Adjustment Shaft, Segger J-LINK Lite debugger, various connection cables, a power supply, a Quick Start Guide, and a DVD-ROM with documentation, ARM DS-5 IDE (with 32K code limit), KPIT GNU compiler for Cortex A9, Segger debugger drivers. and sample code. The mainboard has the […]

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AllWinner V10 and V15 SoCs Target Video Recording Applications

AllWinner A-series that can be found in tablets and media players are pretty well known, but AllWinner also has V-Series processors with V10 and V15. A first glance, AllWinner V10 is quite similar to AllWinner A31 with a quad core Cortex A7 CPU coupled with a PowerVR SGX544MP2 GPU, and AllWinner V15 has the same CPU/GPU combo as AllWinner A10 (CortexA8/Mali-400). But AllWinner V-Series are actually video encoders targeting applications such as IP cameras, car DVRs, and sports digital video cameras thanks to features such as motion detection, video scaling, and digital watermarking. Let’s go through AllWinner V10 specifications, and I’ll mark differences with AllWinner A31, or features not mentioned in A31 specs, in bold: CPU – Quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 with· 256KB L1 cache, 1MB L2 cache GPU – PowerVR SGX544MP2 compliant with OpenCL 1.1 EP and delivering up to 20GFLOPS. Memory – 32-bit DDR3/LPDDR2 SDRAM controller, supporting up to […]

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