Posted on - 1 Comment on Xiaomi WEMAX ONE Android Laser Projector Features Amlogic T968 Processor

Xiaomi WEMAX ONE Android Laser Projector Features Amlogic T968 Processor

Xiaomi WEMAX ONE Laser Projector

We’ve previously covered some entry-level mini Android projectors like Rikomagic R5 or Nebula Capsule, but Amlogic T968 powered Xiaomi WEMAX ONE ultra short throw Android laser projector is a different beast entirely as it sells for $1949 shipped on GearBest. You can lower the price somewhat ($20 discount) with coupon IT$CN33WMX. Xiaomi WEMAX ONE (FMWS01C) projector specifications: SoC  – Amlogic T968 quad core Cortex-A53 @ up to 1.8GHz with Arm Mali-T830MP GPU System Memory – 2GB DDR3 Storage – 16GB eMMC Flash Projector Details 0.47 inch DMD Resolution – Full HD ( 1920 x 1080 ) with support for HDR and 4K resolution somehow Light source – ALPD 3.0 (Advanced Laser Phosphor Display) Brightness – 1688 ANSI lumens  (Claims of 7000 ANSI lumens in GearBest and other websites in English appear to be false) Color gamut – NTSC 80 – 85 percent Central contrast – 2500 : 1 – 3500 : 1 Throw ratio – 0.233 : 1 Best screen …

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Posted on - No Comments on Amlogic T968 Processor is Designed for Smart 4K UHD TVs and Smart Projectors

Amlogic T968 Processor is Designed for Smart 4K UHD TVs and Smart Projectors

Amlogic T968

Amlogic S-series processors are the most well-known processors by Amlogic with parts like S905X or S912, but the company is also offering other families with the new A-series for smart audio applications, and T-series processor for televisions. The latter have been around for a while, and also include HDMI inputs and digital TV tuners. We hear less about them since they are embedded into more expensive devices like Smart TVs or Android projectors, although in some cases they get into TV boxes with HDMI such as Alfawise H96 mini TV box powered by Amlogic T962E processor. Today, I’ll have at one of the top TV processor from Amlogic: T968 with four Cortex A53 cores clocked at up to 1.8 GHz, and an Arm Mali-T830MP2 GPU. Amlogic T968 processor key features and specifications: CPU – Quad core Arm Cortex-A53 processor clocked at up to 1.8 GHz GPU – Arm Mali-T830MP2 GPU System Memory I/F – DDR3/DDR3L RAM Storage I/F – eMMC …

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Posted on - 13 Comments on USB Charging Actually Poses Security Risks – Hacking a Laptop via a USB-C Adapter

USB Charging Actually Poses Security Risks – Hacking a Laptop via a USB-C Adapter

Hacked USB type-C Charger

Smartphones have been charged over USB for many years, but with the advance of USB type-C now even laptops may be charged over USB, instead of the typical DC power barrel jack. Why am I writing about that? That’s because charging over a DC jack is normally safe, but after reading an article on BBC website, I’ve just realized when you charge over USB you also give access to the data connection, and security researcher (MG) has found a way to hack the USB-C charger of an Apple laptop and show a login prompt to steal credentials (username / password). The full details of the hack are no public, but it does require altering the hardware of the charger. So as long as you use the charger sold with your laptop, you should be safe. However, there’s always a risk if you charge from public places, or buy  a charger from a third party. It’s a limited risk, but still …

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Posted on - 2 Comments on Linux 4.18 Release – Main Changes, Arm and MIPS Architecture

Linux 4.18 Release – Main Changes, Arm and MIPS Architecture

Linux Changelog 4.18

Linus Torvalds has just announced the release of Linux 4.18: One week late(r) and here we are – 4.18 is out there. It was a very calm week, and arguably I could just have released on schedule last week, but we did have some minor updates. Mostly networking, but some vfs race fixes (mentioned in the rc8 announment as “pending”) and a couple of driver fixes (scsi, networking, i2c). Some other minor random things (arm crypto fix, parisc memory ordering fix). Shortlog appended for the (few) details. Some of these I was almost ready to just delay to until the next merge window, but they were marked for stable anyway, so it would just have caused more backporting. The vfs fixes are for old races that  are really hard to hit (which is obviously why they are old and weren’t noticed earlier). Some of them _have_ been seen in real life, some of them probably need explicit help to ever …

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Posted on - 12 Comments on Amlogic Open Source Video Decoder Driver Coming Soon for S905, S905X and S912 Processors

Amlogic Open Source Video Decoder Driver Coming Soon for S905, S905X and S912 Processors

Amlogic Open Source Vide Decoder

Allwinner processors aren’t the only ones getting an open source hardware video decoding / encoding support in Linux, as Maxim Jourdan recently submitted a patchset to Amlogic Linux mailing list adding a video decoder driver to some Amlogic processors. The driver is written around the V4L2 M2M framework and currently supports MPEG 1/2/4, H.263, H.264, MJPEG, and (partially) HEVC 8-bit codecs. The driver has been tested with FFmpeg, GStreamer, and Kodi, and currently works on S905 (Meson GXBB), S905X/W/D (Meson GXL), and S912 (Meson GXM) processors. Those processors also support HEVC 10-bit, VP9, and VC1 codecs, and while those are implemented yet, they should be in the future. A separate commit adds support for “Overlay plane for video rendering” which support various YUV layouts and a non-alpha RGB32 layout, and will be useful for Kodi and LibreELEC ports. I came to learn about those two patchsets thanks to Neil Armtrong (Bay Libre) who also mentioned he will talk about Amlogic …

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Posted on - 1 Comment on Dragino LoRaST M.2 LoRa Card Convert Compatible Platforms into LoRa Nodes

Dragino LoRaST M.2 LoRa Card Convert Compatible Platforms into LoRa Nodes

Dragino LoRaST

Modern motherboards or single board computers often expose mPCIe or M.2 / NGFF socket, and we’ve seen it was possible to easily add a LoRa radio using RAK833 mPCIe LoRaWAN gateway card to hardware with an mPCIe (USB/SPI) socket. You can now do something similar with Dragino LoRaST M.2 LoRa card by inserting into a spare M.2 / NGFF socket. There’s an important distinction however, as while RAK833 is designed for LoRa gateways, LoRaST is based on SX1276/SX1278 for LoRa end nodes. Dragino LoRaST M.2 LoRa card specifications: MCU – STMicro STM32L072CZT6 Arm Cortex M0+ MCU @ 32 MHz with 192 KB flash,  20 KB of RAM, 6 KB data EEPROM LoRa Connectivity Semtech SX1276/78 LoRa Wireless Modem Available Bands – 433/868/915/920 Mhz Built-in antenna or optional external antenna via I-PEX connector Host interface – Standard M.2 (NGFF) interface Supply Voltage – 1.8V ~ 3.6V Dimensions – 22 x 42 x 3.6 mm Weight – 4g Temperature Range – -40 …

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Posted on - 2 Comments on NanoPC-T4 Review with Android 7.1 Firmware

NanoPC-T4 Review with Android 7.1 Firmware

NanoPC T4 Connected

NanoPC-T4 is one of the many Rockchip RK3399 SBCs now available, and as we’ve seen in the “unboxing review” the company sent me two samples. So far, I’ve been reviewing RK3399 boards with Linux distributions in posts such as “Checking Out Debian and Linux SDK for VideoStrong VS-RD-RK3399 Board” and more recently “AIO-3399J Development Board Review with Ubuntu 16.04“. But in this NanoPC-T4 review, I’ll switch to Android, specifically Android 7.1, as I’ll soon try Android 8.1 on Firefly-RK3399 which might make for an interesting comparison between the two versions of the OS, before switching to Linux with Pine64 RockPro64 board which I received yesterday. First Boot with NanoPC-T4 Development Board I had already assembled  the board in the first part of the review, so I just added the two WiFi antennas, the optional USB to serial debug board, and connected various accessories and cables from left to right: USB keyboard and mouse, HDMI cable to 4K TV,  USB 3.0 …

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Posted on - 2 Comments on How to Build an Orange Pi Zero LoRa Gateway

How to Build an Orange Pi Zero LoRa Gateway

Armbian LoRa Gateway

LoRa gateways tend to be fairly expensive, especially because of the radio part, but anything that may help lower the cost is probably welcomed. And one way to to do that is to use dirt cheap boards like Orange Pi Zero as Edzelf did, by combining the low cost Arm Linux board ($15 shipped) with Rak wireless RAK831 concentrator module kit ($143) via a custom cable, and a power supply board. All assembled into a metal case. RAK831 communicates with Orange Pi Zero over an SPI connection. While some other Orange Pi boards are suitable for the project, note that Orange Pi Zero Plus lacks a spare SPI interface, and can’t be used with this particular application. A fan was also added for cooling, a well as a USB serial debug board for debugging purpose, but it can be removed once the gateway is in the field. Software-wise, Edzelf installed Armbian 5.38 on the board, and setup the timezone and …

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