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

February 24, 2026February 24, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

PocketBeagle 2 SBC gets industrial version with 1GB RAM, 64GB eMMC flash

PocketBeagle 2 Industrial 1GB RAM 64GB eMMC flash

The PocketBeagle 2 Industrial is an update to the PocketBeagle 2 Rev A1 SBC featuring 1GB DDR4 RAM, a 64GB eMMC flash, and industrial temperature range support. The original board only comes with 512MB DDR4 memory, an eMMC flash footprint (unpopulated), and commercial temperature range support. Apart from those changes, the other specifications remain the same, with a Texas Instruments AM6254 quad-core Cortex-A53 SoC, an MSPM0L1105 Cortex-M0+ microcontroller, a microSD card slot, a USB-C port, UART and JTAG debugging support, and two 36-pin GPIO headers. Another difference is that the PCB is red for the PocketBeagle 2 Industrial (like the BeagleBone Black Industrial 4G), while the PocketBeagle 2 features a black PCB. PocketBeagle 2 Industrial specifications: Main SoC – Texas Instruments AM6254 CPU Quad-core 64-bit Arm Cortex-A53 @ 1.4 GHz Arm Cortex-M4F real-time core @ 400 MHz with 256KB SRAM GPU – Imagination PowerVR Rogue AXE-1-16M with support for OpenGL […]

February 24, 2026February 24, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Inkplate 13SPECTRA 13.3-inch E-ink Spectra smart color display supports Arduino, MicroPython, ESPHome (Crowdfunding)

Soldered Electronics has made ESP32-based e-paper displays for years, starting with the launch of the Inkplate 6 in 2019. The Inkplate 13SPECTRA is their latest model based on an ESP32-S3 WiFi and Bluetooth SoC and a 13.3-inch E-Ink Spectra color display with 1600 x 1200 resolution. More specifically, it’s powered by an ESP32-S3-WROOM-2-N32R16V module with 32MB SPI flash and 16MB PSRAM, features a microSD card slot for data storage, a USB-C port for data and power, a JST connector for an optional 3,000 mAh LiPo battery, and expansion capabilities through three Qwiic connectors and GPIO expander pins. Inkplate 13SPECTRA specifications: Wireless module – ESP32-S3-WROOM-2-N32R16V SoC – ESP32-S3 dual-core Xtensa LX7 processor (up to 240 MHz) with wireless connectivity System Memory – 16 MB PSRAM Storage – 32 MB flash Wireless – Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n (2.4 GHz), Bluetooth 5 (LE), Storage – MicroSD card slot Display 13.3-inch E-Ink SPECTRA color e-paper […]

February 24, 2026February 24, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

GyroidOS virtualization solution aims to secure embedded devices, ease cybersecurity certification

Maintained by Fraunhofer AISEC, GyroidOS is an open-source, multi-arch OS-level virtualization solution designed for embedded devices with hardware security features, and aiming to support security certification processes such as Common Criteria (ISO/IEC 15408), DIN SPEC 27070 – IDS Trust Security profile, and IEC-62443 cybersecurity standards. The virtualization layer is based on Linux-specific features like namespaces, cgroups, and capabilities to provide isolation of different guest operating system stacks on top of a single, shared Linux kernel. It offers a much smaller footprint and additional separation of privileged instances compared to other container solutions, such as Docker. GyroidOS security features Container isolation based on a modularized OS-level virtualization layer Secure boot (e.g., UEFI on x86) Kernel module signing Signed GuestOSes (containers) Measured boot and remote attestation Full disk encryption coupled to TPM and secure boot Restriction of superuser in containers with Linux capabilities Fine-grained device access with device cgroups whitelists Secure Element […]

February 23, 2026February 23, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

The Ambient IoT Alliance aims to promote and develop standards for batteryless IoT devices using energy harvesting

The Ambient IoT Alliance, or AIoTA, is a global, cross-industry coalition working to promote and develop standards for batteryless IoT devices relying on energy harvesting for power. Ambient Internet of Things (IoT) refers to a class of IoT devices powered by radio waves, light, motion, heat, or any other viable ambient energy source. It is an evolution of legacy IoT and RFID technologies that promises lower costs and high scalability through Bluetooth, 5G Advanced, and the IEEE 802.11bp ambient power communication (AMP) standard. The alliance says its mission is to “promote and support the development of an open, harmonized, and aligned multi-standard ecosystem”. Ambient IoT-enabled devices can gather location, temperature, humidity, and/r other data, and communicate with the wireless infrastructure through a nearby mobile device, wireless access points, domestic appliances, or other standard gateways using a compatible standard. This reduces maintenance costs since batteries do not need to be replaced, […]

February 22, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments

Taalas HC1 hardwired Llama-3.1 8B AI accelerator delivers up to 17,000 tokens/s

Taalas HC1 is an AI accelerator hardwired (i.e, implemented in hardware) with Llama-3.1 8B and delivering close to 17,000 tokens/s of AI performance with the model, outperforming datacenter accelerators such as NVIDIA B200 or Cerebras chips. The Taalas HC1 is about 10x faster than the Cerebras chip, costs 20x less to build, and consumes 10x less power. The main downside is that it only works with the model hardwired into the hardware, currently Llama-3.1 8B, although we’re told it “retains flexibility through configurable context window size and support for fine-tuning via low-rank adapters (LoRAs)”. Hardware accelerators usually come with memory on one side and compute on the other. Both operate at different speeds, and the memory bandwidth is usually the bottleneck for Large Language Models. Taalas technology unifies storage and compute on a single chip, at DRAM-level density, to massively increase the performance and reduce power consumption. Ultra-fast inference can […]

February 21, 2026March 5, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

CHUWI CoreBook Air Plus 16 review – Part 2: An AMD Ryzen 5 6600H-powered, mid-range laptop tested with Windows 11 Pro

CHUWI CoreBook Air Plus 16 laptop review Windows 11

I’ve already checked out the hardware of the CHUWI CoreBook Air Plus 16 laptop in the first part of the review, so today, I’ll report my experience using the AMD Ryzen 5 6600H laptop with the pre-installed Windows 11 Pro operating system. We’ll start with a software overview and a test of key features, followed by benchmarking, evaluation of WiFi 6 performance, and measurement of fan noise, power consumption, and battery life. Software Overview and Features Testing The CoreBook Air Plus 16 ships with Windows 11 Pro 64-bit 24H2 operating system, upgraded to the 25H2 version after running Windows updates. The System->About window confirms we have a CoreBook Air Plus laptop powered by a 3.3 GHz (base frequency) AMD Ryzen 5 6600H processor with Radeon graphics paired with 16GB of RAM and 447GB of storage. None of the mini PCs and laptops we’ve reviewed in the past come with Microsoft […]

February 20, 2026February 20, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

MediaTek Genio 360/360P hexa/octa-core Cortex-A76/A55 AIoT SoC features 8 TOPS NPU for cost-sensitive embedded applications

MediaTek Genio 360 and Genio 360P are respectively hexa-core and octa-core Arm Cortex-A76/A55 AIoT processors featuring a MediaTek NPU delivering up to 8 TOPS of AI performance, and designed for cost-sensitive embedded applications. The chips support up to 8GB of memory and eMMC 5.1, SPI NOR, and SD 3.0 storage interfaces. They feature two 4-lane MIPI DSI and one 4-lane DP/eDP interfaces for single or dual display setups, two 4-lane MIPI CSI camera interfaces, audio inputs/outputs, Gigabit Ethernet with TSN, optional WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.3 via MT6631N, USB 3.1 and USB 2.0 interfaces, PCIe Gen2 x1, and low-speed interfaces. MediaTek Genio 360/360P specifications: CPU MediaTek Genio 360 (MT8366) – Hexa-core processor 1x Arm Cortex-A76 core clocked at up to 1.9 GHz (industrial) / 2.0GHz (commercial) 5x Arm Cortex-A55 cores clocked at up to 1.7 GHz (industrial) / 2.0GHz (commercial) MediaTek Genio 360P (MT8367) – Octa-core processor 2x Arm Cortex-A76 […]

February 20, 2026February 20, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

MediaTek MT7902 wireless chipset finally gets a Linux driver

MediaTek MT7902 wireless modules are used in many Windows laptops, but so far, a Linux driver has been missing. This is about to change, as Mediatek has finally committed a patchset for MT7902 to the mainline Linux mailing list. This is personal. I bought an ASUS Vivobook 16 in August 2023, and Ubuntu 22.04 worked pretty well out of the box, except for support for the Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth module, detected as “Network controller: MEDIATEK Corp. Device 7902” with lscpi but without working drivers. Since then, I’ve been using the laptop connected to the USB dock with Ethernet support when at home, or using USB tethering with my phone when on the road. I initially thought it might just be a matter of time before the driver is ported to Linux, but it took well over two years. I was far from being alone in my ordeal, and you […]