Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft), Author at CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

October 28, 2014October 29, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 21 Comments

OpenELEC for M8 TV Box (Amlogic S802) with USB Tuner Support

M8 TV Box is an Android media player based on Amlogic S802 that’s relatively popular. We’ve already seen XBMC Linux ported to M8 device, for people who want a more pure XBMC experience, and automatic frame rate switching, but now OpenELEC Beta 2 is also available for the device thanks to Alex Deryskyba (Codesnake). The firmware image (OpenELEC-Meson8-K200-devel-test build 2.zip) will work on M8 / TM8, and any other Amlogic S802 devices based on K200 board. It is based on OpenELEC 4.1.2 and Linux 3.10, and a beta version, so there may still be some bugs, for example Bluetooth is not working. One very interesting feature is built-in VDR / Tvheadend DVB backends which means you should be able to use one of these USB tuners to watch Live TV from your box via satellite (DVB-S/S2), cable (DVB-C) or digital terrestrial TV (DVB-T2/ATSC) dongle. The zip files contains three files […]

October 28, 2014October 28, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

BungBungame Photon2 Tablet Features AMD A10 Micro–6700T Mullins Processor

AMD A10 Micro–6700T is the most powerful AMD Mullins low power processor (4.5W TDP) that competes with quad core Intel Bay Trail-T processors, and even outperforms them in terms of performance, especially GPU performance with Radeon R6 graphics, but possibly not in terms of power consumption. BungBungame Photon2 may be the first tablet to feature this AMD processor, so let’s have a look. BungBungame Photon2 technical specifications: SoC – AMD A10 Micro-6700T quad core APU @ 1.2 to 2.2 GHz. with Integrated AMD Radeon R6 Graphics System Memory – 4GB DDR3L-1333 Storage – 64GB SSD + micro SD card slot up to 128GB Display – 10.1″ touchscreen display, 1920×1200, 16:10 aspect ratio Video Output – Micro HDMI 1.4a Connectivity – 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/MIMO Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 LE, NFC Camera – 2MP rear and front webcams USB – 1x micro USB 2.0 Battery – 31Wh battery good for 6 to 8 hours usage. […]

October 28, 2014October 29, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

ARM Unveils Mali-T800 Series GPUs, Mali-V550 VPU, and Mali-DP550 Display Processor

ARM has just announced several new Mali media IP: three Mali-T800 series GPUs (Mali-T820, Mali-T830, and Mali-T830) based on Midgard architecture, as well as Mali-V500 video accelerator, and the Mali-DP550 display processor. Mali T800 Series GPU The new Mali T-8xx GPUs are based on the same Midgard architecture used in Mali T-6xx and T-7xx GPUs, but deliver better power efficiency thanks to technologies such as ARM Frame Buffer Compression (AFBC), and Adaptive Scalable Texture Compression (ASTC) for imput bandwidth reduction, as well as Transaction Elimination and Smart Composition. ARM provided some performance and energy-comparison between T800 and T600 series (but strangely nothing against T700): The Mali-T820 GPU is optimized for entry-level products, achieving up to 40 percent more performance density compared to the Mali-T622 GPU. The Mali-T830 GPU delivers up to 55 percent more performance than the Mali-T622 GPU. The Mali-T860 GPU provides higher performance and 45 percent more energy-efficiency […]

October 28, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Amazon Introduces $39 Fire TV Stick to Compete with Chromecast, Roku Streaming Stick

Amazon has decided to put Fire TV media player functionality into a low cost HDMI TV stick called “Fire TV stick” to offer an alternative to the likes of Google Chromecast, and Roku Streaming Stick. The device is based on a Broadcom BCM28155 dual core processor with the same VideoCore IV GPU/VPU found in BCM2835 SoC used in the Raspberry Pi. Fire TV stick hardware specifications: SoC – Broadcom BCM28155 (Capri) dual core ARM Cortex A9 processor @ 1.0 GHz with VideoCore IV GPU/VPU System Memory – 1GB RAM with half reserved to the system, and the other half dedicated to video. Storage – 8 GB internal storage Video / Audio Output – HDMI 1.4b output, w/HDCP 1.4. Resolution: 720p and 1080p up to 60fps Video Codecs – H.264 Audio – AAC-LC, AC3, eAC3 (Dolby Digital Plus), FLAC, MP3, PCM/Wave, Vorbis Connectivity – dual-band/dual-antenna 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi (2×2 MIMO), Bluetooth 3.0 […]

October 27, 2014October 27, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

Add Wireless Charging to (Almost) Any Smartphone or Tablet

Flagship mobile devices often come with wireless charging capability, but there’s an easy way to add (Qi) wireless charging to almost any smartphone, or possibly tablet, thanks to wireless charging receivers that simply connect to the micro USB port of your mobile device, and can be purchased for as low as $7 on Aliexpress, Ebay, DX.com, etc… I’ve also seen Adafruit made a Qi Wireless Receiver module for Arduino with a 2.54mm pitch connector. They come in various sizes and shapes, but they’re all extra thin (1 mm), with a micro USB connector oriented upwards or downwards depending on your mode, and a thin cable, that allows you to place it inside your phone between the battery and the phone cover as shown in the picture below. It’s not always possible however, as for example the receiver would cover my phone’s rear camera lens, but you could always attach it […]

October 27, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Vsmart V52D EZCast HDMI Dongle Supports Dual Band (2.4 / 5.0GHz) Wi-Fi

EZCast wireless adapters are now pretty common, allow you to display and stream documents, pictures, music, and videos from your smartphone or computer to your big screen TV, and sell for about $20, but the vast majority come with a 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi module, which may be a problem if your environment is crowded with other 2.4GHz routers. Vsmart V52D fixes that, as it includes a dual band Wi-Fi module supporting both 2.4 and 5.0 GHz frequencies. The other part of the specifications remain the same: SoC – Action Semi AM8251 @ 600MHz (MIPS) System memory – 128 MB DDR3 RAM Storage – 128 MB NAND Flash Video output – HDMI 1.3 make Wi-Fi – Dual band 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi module Standards – Miracast (EZMirror), Airplay (EZ Air), DLNA, and EZCast Video Containers – MPEG2, MPEG4, AVI, WMV, MKV, MOV, RM, RMVB Audio Formats – MP3, WMA, WAV, OGG, AAC, […]

October 26, 2014December 4, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Applied Micro X-Gene (64-bit ARM) vs Intel Xeon (64-bit x86) Performance and Power Usage

A group of researcher at CERN have evaluated Applied Micro X-Gene 1 64-bit ARM XC-1 development board against Intel Xeon E5-2650 and Xeon Phi SE10/7120 systems, and one of them, David Abdurachmanov, presented their findings at ACAT’ 14 conference (Advanced Computing and Analysis Techniques) by listing some of the issues they had to port their software to 64-bit ARM, and performance efficiency of the three systems for data processing of High Energy Physics (HEP) experiments like those at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), where performance-per-watt is important, as computing systems may scale to several hundred thousands cores. Intel Xeon Phi platform based on Many Integrated Cores (MIC) computer architecture was launched the HPC market, and contrary to the table above features 61 physical cores. Applied X-Gene 1 (40nm process) was used instead of X-Gene 2 built on 28-nm process which was not available at the time. The ARM platform ran […]

October 25, 2014May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Boardcon Compact 31S is an Allwinner A31s based Development Board with HDMI, VGA, and LCD Interfaces

Boardcon Embedded Design, an ODM providing industrial Computer-on-Module, and board, announced Compact A31S powered by Allwinner A31s quad core Cortex A7 processor, with 2GB RAM, 4GB eMMC, HDMI, LCD and VGA video outputs, and various other ports. Boardcon Compact A31s hardware specifications: SoC – Allwinner A31s quad core ARM Cortex-A7 @ 1 GHz with 256 KB L1 cache, 1MB L2 cache, and PowerVR SGX544MP2 GPU compliant with OpenGL ES 2.0, OpenCL 1.x, DX 9_3 System Memory – 2GB DDR3 @ 1866MHz Storage – 4GB eMMC Flash + micro SD slot Video Output – HDMI 1.4, VGA (up to 1280×800), and 40-pin FPC connector for LCD with capacitive touch screen support Audio Output – HDMI, 3.5mm headphone jack Connectivity – 10/100M/1000M Ethernet, Wi-Fi USB – 1x USB 2.0 host port, 1x USB 2.0 OTG port Camera – CMOS Camera interface Expansion – 1x 20-pin expansion connector for GPIOs Misc – Real Time […]