Author: Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments on Iteaduino Lite is an $8 Arduino (Mostly) Compatible Board (Crowdfunding)

Iteaduino Lite is an $8 Arduino (Mostly) Compatible Board (Crowdfunding)

A few months ago, Borderless Electronics sold a $12 Arduino Leonardo clone ($9 + $3 shipping), and a Chinese company called Itead Studio, which also makes Iteauino Plus board (AllWinner A10), has just launched an Indiegogo campaign for an $8 Arduino “nearly-fully-compatible” board, and yes, that includes shipping. The board is similar to Arduino UNO, but with a different MCU in order to reduce costs: MCU – Logic Green LGT8F88A @ 16MHz with 8KB flash (0.7KB used by bootloader), 1KB SRAM, and 504 byte EEPROM. Operating Voltage  – 5V / 3.3V Input Voltage – Recommended: 7-20V, Limits: 7-24V Digital I/O – 14 pins of which 6 provide PWM output. Analog Input – 6 pins DC Current per I/O – Pin80 mA DC Current for 3.3V – power supply 250 mA USB – microUSB for power, programming and debugging Arduino Uno is based on Atmel ATmega328, but this baord uses LFT8F88A, […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments on Pivothead SMART Looks like the Offspring of Google Glass and GoPro Hero3 Camera (Crowdfunding)

Pivothead SMART Looks like the Offspring of Google Glass and GoPro Hero3 Camera (Crowdfunding)

Pivothead SMART is a pair of smart glasses designed for action. It’s basically pacts GoPro Hero camera functionality into glasses, adding some of the smart features of Google Glass without the head-up display (HUD). As controlling the weight is quite important for comfort, the glasses are also modular, so you can just add features such as Wi-Fi or GPS via “SMART Mods” when you need it, and keep the glasses as light as possible during the rest of the time. Instead of just listing the specifications of Pivothead SMART, I’ll show the comparison table with Google Glass and GoPro Hero3 Black provided on their Indiegogo page. SYSTEM Pivothead SMART Google Glass GoPro Hero3 Black Processor 2x ARM Cortex A7 (w/ Mod) (Probably Mediatek MT6572) TI OMAP4460 ARM 2x Cortex A9 @ 1GHz Ambarella A770 ARM11 @ 528 MHz RAM 4GB??? 1GB 512MB RAM Native Memory 16GB (15.5 usable) 16GB (12 […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments on Teclast T97 Air Tablet Features AllWinner A80 Octa-core big.LITTLE SoC

Teclast T97 Air Tablet Features AllWinner A80 Octa-core big.LITTLE SoC

AllWinner A80 octa core big.LITTLE ARM Cortex A15/A7 SoC was announced as part of AllWinner Roadmap a couple of months ago, and one of the first devices based on the new processor will be Teclast T97 Air, an Android tablet with 9.7″, 2048×1536 display. There are currently very few other details about the device, but we do know it will be extra slim with a thickness of just 7.5mm, and Edward Weinert reports the device is getting around 40,000 points in Antutu (if Google Translate Polish is right). Teclast T97 Air will be available early 2014, and price has not been disclosed yet. Via AndroidPC.es Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011. www.cnx-software.com

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments on Smart Power Strip Controls and Monitors your Electric Appliances with Android or iOS Devices (Crowdfunding)

Smart Power Strip Controls and Monitors your Electric Appliances with Android or iOS Devices (Crowdfunding)

Broadlink SP1 and Plugaway are smart sockets controlled by your mobile device(s) via Wi-Fi, but they only support one appliance at a time. Smart Power Strip will fix that thanks to 4 sockets with independent power consumption meters that are controlled via Wi-Fi by Android or iOS devices. The power strip is comprised of 4 independent relays, 2 USB ports, a 120V or 230V circuit breaker, and a dual 2.4 GHz module for Wi-Fi and Home Automation (MESH) technology. It supports 100-250V AC, with a maximum of 15 Amps. The smart power strip will be available for US, EU, UK, and AU standards. That’s about all we know about the hardware. The mobile app will allow you to turn on/off devices manually, monitor each appliance’s power consumption individually, set timers, and monitor which device is on/off. As long as you have Internet access, the smart power strip can be accessed […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments on Most Embedded GPUs Do NOT Support Hardware Video Decoding Acceleration. The VPU Does.

Most Embedded GPUs Do NOT Support Hardware Video Decoding Acceleration. The VPU Does.

Many people seem to get confused with the actual function of GPUs used in embedded (ARM / MIPS) SoC, and I can often read comments similar to “with lima drivers we should get video decoding in XBMc soon”,  and I’ve just received any email reading “My main task is to build a full hd media player based on ffmpeg with hardware decoding acceleration for Linux. Is it possible with mali400mp4?”. So I’ve decided to write a short post about it to make things a bit more clear. Contrary to GPUs in the PC world, embedded GPUs only take care of 3D, and sometimes 2D graphics, and leave video encoding and/or decoding to another block called Video Processing Unit (VPU). There’s at least one exception with Broadcom Videocore IV GPU as found in the processor used in the Raspberry Pi that apparently takes care of 2D & 3D graphics as well […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on PVRMonitor Displays real-time CPU and GPU performance for PowerVR enabled Android Devices

PVRMonitor Displays real-time CPU and GPU performance for PowerVR enabled Android Devices

Imagination Technologies has some advanced tools such as PowerVRTune in their Powervr Graphics SDK, but they’ve now released a simple tool called PVRMonitor to display real-time CPU and GPU usage for Android devices featuring PowerVR GPUs. In some firmware, Android’s Developer Settings have options to enable CPU and GPU usage, but in my phone for example, this is not available, so this app may be handy to check whether your system or app is taking too many resources. Inside the application, you can select the overlay position, whether to show all CPU cores with CPU load averaged over 200ms, or over one second. You can select five hardware blocks to display: CPU Total Pixel – Load in percent of the pixel processing hardware including texturing, raster operation and  fragment shader processing. If nothing is modified on the screen it should be zero, and if it is too high during games […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments on Android 4.2 Laptop Boasts 13.3″ Display, Dual Core WM8880 SoC

Android 4.2 Laptop Boasts 13.3″ Display, Dual Core WM8880 SoC

Charbax has just found a 13.3″ laptop powered by WonderMedia WM8880 dual core Cortex A9 processor running Android 4.2 manufactured by Shenzhen Honlin, and selling for about $108 in China (retail or factory price?). That’s the first time I see a Chinese ARM based laptop with a somewhat decent screen, so I went to Aliexpress to find the device or a similar one, and after going through all the 13.3″ Android tablets, I found a no brand laptop, model GA1331F, sold by Shenzhen GA Technology Development with apparently the same specs for  about $170 including shipping via EMS. GA1331F Laptop specifications: SoC – WonderMedia WM8880 Dual-Core ARM Cortex A9 @ 1.5GHz with Mali-400 MP2 GPU System Memory – 1GB DDR3 RAM @ 1033MHz, with an option to get 2GB Storage – 8GB or 16GB MLC NAND flash, SD card slot (Up to 32GB) Display – 13.3″ LCD screen (1280 x 800) […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments on Geniatech Releases XBMC Linux Image for AML8726-MX based Media Players

Geniatech Releases XBMC Linux Image for AML8726-MX based Media Players

A couple of week ago Geniatech released the source for XBMC for Android, and today I’ve been informed they’ve released an XBMC Linux image for their media players based on AMLogic AML8726-MX dual core Cortex A9 SoC, just a few days after the release of MX Linux v1.00 RC1 working for MX2REF, G18REF and g02refDongle (These are not product names, but board codes that can also be found in ro.product.device or ro.product.board in build.prop of Android firmware). You can download MX_BOX-Linux_XBMC20131205.zip which is said to contain the XBMC Linux image for ATV1200, ATV520, ATV400, ATV360, etc… However, it’s said not to work for HDMI dongles such as ATV120, contrary to MX Linux. I haven’t been able to download the file within a reasonable amount of time, so I haven’t been able to check the content, and installation instructions. An anonymous source told me it was likely Geniatech just took the community […]

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