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iben Gamepad Android Game Consoles Powered by AllWinner SoCs

Earlier this month, AllWinner exhibited many devices from their customers at the Hong Kong Fair, including an Android game console called iben GamePad. There are now more details about this gaming device, one of them being there are three models: Game Pad L1-B – Based on AllWinner A20 – $110 per unit for 500 pieces order. Available in May. Game Pad L1-C – Based on AllWinner A31 – $150 per unit for 500 pieces order. Available in May. Transformer Game Pad  L2 – Same as L1-C except the actual gamepad is detachable, so you can just use it as a normal tablet when you don’t play. Available in June. Game Pad L1-C / L2 Specifications: SoC – AllWinner A31 Quad-Core ARM Cortex A7 CPU + PowerVR SGX544MP2 GPU System Memory – 2GB RAM Storage – 16GB flash + microSD slot Display – 7″ touch screen (5pts), IPS display. Resolution: 1280×800 […]

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Linux 3.9 Release

Linus Torvalds has announced the release of Linux Kernel 3.9: So the last week was much quieter than the preceding ones, which makes me suspect that one reason -rc7 was bigger than I liked was that people were gaming the system and had timed some of their pull requests for just before the release, explaining why -rc7 was big enough that I didn’t  actually want to do a final release last week. Please don’t do that. Anyway. Whatever the reason, this week has been very quiet, which makes me much more comfortable doing the final 3.9 release, so I guess the last -rc8 ended up working. Because not only aren’t there very many commits here, even the ones that made it really are tiny and not pretty obscure and not very interesting. Also, this obviously means that the merge window is open. I won’t be merging anything today, but if […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM
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Tronsmart MK908 Quad Core HDMI TV Stick Review

Yesterday, I published some pictures of MK908, and this morning I updated it to the latest firmware, so it’s time to review this mini PC powered by Rockchip RK3188 quad core Cortex A9 SoC. First Boot, Settings, and First Impressions First of all, the firmware update has not changed the Home Screen, and we still get a standard Android Home Screen with an animated wallpaper. Screenshot and volume buttons are shown in the status bar, but there’s no soft power button, and no full screen button. Hopefully the power button can be added in next firmware update, and as we’ll see later the lack of full screen button is not really an issue. As usual, I’ve gone to the settings menu to configure Wi-Fi, and I had no problem to connect. The device also supports Bluetooth (built-in), and you can setup to device with VPN, as a hotspot, and add […]

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Tronsmart MK908 Rockchip RK3188 Quad Core mini PC Unboxing Pictures

Tronsmart MK908 is one of the many Rockchip RK3188 Android mini PCs hitting the market this month. Beside the quad core Cortex A9 processor, this Android 4.1 HDMI TV stick comes with 2GB RAM, 8GB flash, 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth module, 3 USB ports, and a micro SD card slot. Geekbuying is selling the device for $89.99 including shipping, and the company sent me a unit for review. Today I’ll just show somes unboxing pictures, boot the device, and I’ll write a full review tomorrow. I received the device in the box below. But let’s move on to more interesting things, and see what’s inside the package. We’ve got a 5V/2A power adapter, MK908 itself, a short mini HDMI to HDMI cable, a mini UBS to USB cable for power, and a short mini USB to USB female adapter. I eventually found a manual user manual in English which hid […]

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Linaro 13.04 Release With Linux Kernel 3.9 and Android 4.2.2

Linaro 13.04 has just been released. It features Linux Kernel 3.9-rc7 and Android 4.2.2. A lot of work has been done on ARMv8 (Cortex A53) with further work on OpenEmbedded, more testing, and updates to the GCC toolchain. Calxeda EnergyCore server has been added to LAVA, Origen Quad now gets hardware video acceleration in Android Jelly Bean. Still more cleanup has been done on the kernel side with regards to Samsung and ST SoC, and a big.LITTLE porting guide is now available (linaro login required). Here are the highlights of this release: LAVA Prototype of a new publishing system is used to overcome performance problems with android-build.linaro.org. Calxeda EnergyCore support is merged in LAVA, and an isolated system has been set up for web benchmarking. Fedora support is merged in LAVA. A user can submit LAVA jobs using a Fedora pre-built image. Boot commands are untangled from LAVA dispatcher. They’re now […]

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GV-17 Android 4.2 Set-Top Box Features Allwinner A20 SoC, a 2.0MP Webcam

After Clousto A20 Media PC, and Mele A100 Dual, here’s another set-top box powered by AllWinner A20 dual core Cortex A7 SoC. GV-17 Android TV Box comes with 1GB RAM, 8GB Flash, and contrary to the other previous hardware also adds 2.0MP front camera. If you’ve heard about this model before, it’s because it’s an update of GV-17 set-top box based on AllWinner A10. GV-17 (A20) Specifications: SoC – AllWinner A20 dual core Cortex A7 + Mali-400MP2 GPU System Memory – 1GB RAM Storage – 8G NAND Flash + SD card slot Video Output – HDMI, composite and VGA Audio I/O – HDMI, stereo jack, and S/PDIF – Integrated MIC Video Codecs – MPEG-1/2,MPEG-4 ASP, DivX 3/4/5, H.263, H.264, XviD, VC-1, WMV Audio Codecs – MP3, WMA, WAV, OGG, FLAC, ALAC, APE, ACC-LC, ACC-HE, AC-3, DTS, Real Audio Connectivity: WiFi 802.11b/g/n  (RALINK 8188) 10/100M Ethernet USB – 2x USB Host […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025
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100 Euros “Little Black Box” Runs XBMC Linux

Most set-top boxes running XBMC, are actually Android devices running XBMC as an app, and I don’t know of other media players that are sold with XBMC Linux pre-installed. Until today, as an XBMC Linux STB called The Little Black Box has been officially announced today. This XBMC device is powered by AMLogic AML8726-M3 @ 1 GHz, and comes with 1GB RAM, 4GB Flash, HDMI and AV output and more. Little Black Box hardware specifications: SoC – AMLogic AML8726-M3 ARM Cortex A9 @ 1GHz + Mali-400 GPU System Memory – 1GB RAM Storage – 4GB NAND Flash Video Output – HDMI (1080p) and composite Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet + 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi USB – 2x USB host ports Weight – 500 g Dimensions – 10 x 10 x 3 cm The package will come with the box, a dual sided RF remote  with a qwerty keyboard and standard remote buttons […]

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BeagleBone Black vs Raspberry Pi – Features and Price Comparison

The Beagleboard community officially announced the BeagleBone Black and its $45 price tag on the 22nd of April. Many blogs and news sites touted it as a Raspberry Pi killer, and R-Pi vs BBB fanboys fights ensued, and many articles with incorrect information or heavily biased were published. There’s however one decent BeagleBone Black vs Raspberry Pi comparison from a robotic point of view, so I’ll build from there with some corrections and additions. I’ll compare both the features and the price differential between the Raspberry Pi Model B and BeagleBone Black boards depending on use cases. BeagleBone Black vs Raspberry Pi – The Features BeagleBone Black Raspberry Pi Model B Comment Processor TI Sitara AM3359AZCZ100 Cortex A8 @ 1GHz(will be changed to AM3358BZCZ100 in future versions) Broadcom BCM2835 ARM11 @ 700 MHz (Overclockable to 1GHz) Even thoughboth processors can run at the same frequency (after overclocking the R-Pi), but […]

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