CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

May 20, 2021May 21, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 49 Comments

Nezha RISC-V Linux SBC launched for $99 and up

Last month, we wrote about Allwinner D1 SBC & processor that promised to offer a relatively low-cost RISC-V Linux solution. We were not given a name at the time, but there was a logo of Nezha, a fictional character from Chinese literature. The board is now known as the Nezha SBC and has been launched on Indiegogo for $99 and up as a board designed for IoT projects running Linux, but can also be purchased directly on Aliexpress for the same price. [Update: It can also be purchased on Taobao for 599 RMB] Nezha SBC specifications: SoC – Allwinner D1 single-core XuanTie C906 64-bit RISC-V processor @ 1.0 GHz with HiFi4 DSP, G2D 2D graphics accelerators Memory – 1GB DDR3 memory Storage – 256MB SPI NAND flash, MicroSD card slot Video Output – HDMI 1.4 port up to 4Kp30, MIPI DSI & touch panel interface up to 1080p60 Decoding – […]

May 20, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Snapdragon 778G 5G SoC to power “high-tier” smartphones with up to 16GB LPDDR5

There used to be “premium mid-range” smartphones, but Qualcomm now calls those “high-tier” smartphones in the recent announcement of Snapdragon 778G 5G processor succeeding Snapdragon 765G/768G 5G mobile platforms. The octa-core Cortex-A78/A55 SoC features a Snapdragon X53 5G Modem supporting up to 3.7 Gbps downlink, support FHD+ display up to 144 Hz, up to 16GB LP-DDR5 memory, and packs 12 TOPS of AI processing power. Snapdragon 778G (SM7325) specifications: CPU – Eight Kryo 670 CPU cores including 4x Arm Cortex-A78 @ 2.4GHz and 4x Arm Cortex-A55 @ 1.8GHz GPU – Adreno 642L with Vulkan 1.1, Snapdragon Elite Gaming features, H.265 and VP9 video decode, HDR10+, HDR10, HLG DSP – Hexagon 770 Processor with fused AI Accelerator architecture, Hexagon Tensor Accelerator, Hexagon Vector eXtensions, Hexagon Scalar Accelerator 2nd generation Qualcomm Sensing Hub Memory – Up to 16 GB LP-DDR5 memory up to 3200 MHz Display On-Device Display – up to FHD+ […]

May 20, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Sonoff & Tuya smart plugs found to transmit unencrypted passwords

There are many low-cost smart plugs based on ESP8266 that provide a convenient way to control lights or home appliances with your smartphone. But cybersecurity firm A&O IT Group found vulnerabilities in ITEAD’s Sonoff S26 and Ener-J Wi-fi (Tuya) smart plugs that would allow an attacker to easily access your wireless network. The first security vulnerability is pretty common and hard to exploit since it’s only a concern during the setup. Sonoff S26 starts itself into access point mode with ITEAD-1001xxxxxx SSID, and is set up through the eWelink app with the user not needing to know the password. But with older firmware is was needed, so ITEAD still shares the default password: 12345678 in the user manual, and it can be used to connect to the smart plug by anyone. But once configured, it’s not accessible anymore as the smart plug should be in client mode connected to your […]

May 20, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Qualcomm unveils Snapdragon X65 and X62 5G M.2 card reference designs

Qualcomm has introduced 5G M.2 card reference designs based on Snapdragon X65 and X62 5G modems with the aim of accelerating 5G adoption in PCs, Always-Connected PCs (ACPCs), laptops, Customer Premises Equipment (CPEs), XR, gaming, and other mobile broadband (MBB) devices. The Snapdragon X65 card will allow download speeds of up to 10 Gbps, while the Snapdragon X62 model can handle up to 4.4 Gbps with both versions compliant with 3GPP Release 16, and supporting mmWave and sub-6GHz networks. For those who may not know, reference designs are ready to be manufactured solutions provided by silicon vendors to OEM’s. So Qualcomm will not sell the cards themselves but instead, rely on partners who may manufacture them as is or with some tweaks. Companies committed to either sell cards or include them into their offering include Compal Electronics, Fibocom Foxconn, MeiG Smart, Partron, Quectel, Sierra Wireless, Telit, and others with most […]

May 19, 2021May 19, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Android 12 Beta released with revamped user interface

Google has just announced the release of Android 12 Beta. We already covered the first Android 12 developer preview with changes including support for AVIF image format, trust and safety improvement, and enhanced media transcoding. But with the release of Android 12 Beta, Google also introduced significant changes to the user interface created with a design language called Material You, plus some new features that we’ll explore in this post. The most notable user-facing changes include: Personalization – Your phone can now be personalized with a custom color palette and redesigned widgets. This is done automatically using color extraction from your wallpaper images, and Android 12 applies those colors across the entire OS including the notification shade, the lock screen, the volume controls, new widgets, etc… Fluid motion and animations – Google optimized the system to make animations more fluid by reducing the CPU time needed for core system services […]

May 19, 2021May 19, 2021 by Ian W MORRISON (Linuxium) - 7 Comments

Beelink GKmini Review – An Intel Celeron J4125 mini PC reviewed with Windows 10 Pro, Ubuntu 20.04

Beelink have recently released another small form factor (SFF) design similar to the traditional Intel ‘NUC’ called the GKmini which they have provided for review. Available as a fully configured Windows 10 Pro mini PC means it can be up and running straight out of the box. Hardware Overview The Beelink GKmini physically consists of a 115mm x 102mm x 43mm (4.53 x 4.02 x 1.69 inches) rectangular plastic case. It is an actively cooled mini PC and uses Intel’s 14 nm J4125 Gemini Lake Refresh processor which is a quad-core 4-thread 2.00 GHz processor boosting to 2.70 GHz with Intel’s UHD Graphics 600. The front panel has a power button, a headphone jack, two USB 3.0 ports, and a ‘CLR CMOS’ pinhole that leads to a button which when pressed clears the CMOS. The rear panel includes the power jack, dual HDMI ports, a gigabit Ethernet port, a further […]

May 19, 2021December 4, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 21 Comments

去赶潮！CNX Software is now available in Chinese

Short story: CNX Software is now available in Chinese at CNX SOFTWARE中文站—嵌入式开发者的新闻知识库！ thanks to a collaboration with RAKwireless. And now for the longer story. I was born in a small town in the middle of France on the morning of a snowy spring day. Alright, maybe I’ll skip the part about my childhood 🙂 I’ve been writing a lot about Chinese processors, boards, and other electronics products over the years, but my story with China started in November 2002 when I went to Shenzhen to work for a French company spending my time developing hardware and software for CD and DVD players. Eventually, I worked for Hong Kong companies with offices in Guangdong province and Hong Kong for products like VoIP phones, and later IPTV boxes as well as Karaoke systems. But when I moved to Thailand for personal reasons in 2010, CNX Software was already running as a backup […]

May 18, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

DSBOX-NX2 – An NVIDIA Jetson Xavier NX Industrial Fanless PC

Turkish company Forecr has launched DSBOX-NX2 NVIDIA Jetson Xavier NX based industrial fanless PC equipped with the company’s own DSBoard-NX2 carrier board and designed for “multi-stream deep learning edge analytics” and IIoT applications. The compact embedded computer comes with 8GB RAM, up to 2TB SSD storage, as well as HDMI 2.0 output, Gigabit Ethernet, two USB 3.1 ports for high resolution cameras, serial ports, and some GPIOs among other features. Forecr DSBOX-NX2 specifications: System-on-Module – NVIDIA Jetson Xavier NX module with hexa-core NVIDIA Carmel ARM v8.2 64-bit processor, NVIDIA Volta GPU with 384 CUDA core & 48 Tensor Cores, 8 GB 128-bit LPDDR4x, 16GB eMMC flash Storage – M.2 Key M SSD slot, MicroSD card slot Video Ouput – 1x HDMI 2.0 up to 3840×2160 at 60 Hz Networking Gigabit Ethernet Wireless – WiFi, Bluetooth, 4G LTE, 5G connectivity by extension sockets USB – 2x USB 3.1 Type-A Expansion 1x […]