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

September 10, 2016September 10, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 53 Comments

Large American Technology Companies Abusive Practices Against Bloggers

OK the title might be a little over of the top, but within the last month or so, I’ve been a “victim” of three American companies’ requests, via third parties, namely their customers or technology partners, never directly, to delete or amend the content of this blog. One which I believe is justified albeit not really necessary, and two are just ridiculous, with the latest one prompting me to write this post. The first issue was about a post entitled “Allwinner A64 based Pine A64 and Banana Pi M64 Boards Can Now Run Windows 10 IoT Core“, where I shared .ffu firmware file links that I found directly via a page on Microsoft Azure github about Banana Pi board. There were accessible without any EULA, or agreement. So The Internet being the Internet, where you can freely share links that don’t break any sort of copyrights or promote hate, I […]

September 9, 2016October 24, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 30 Comments

Beelink GT1 4K TV Box Review – Part 1: Unboxing and Teardown

Beelink GT1 is among the cheapest Amlogic S912 TV boxes available today, selling for around $56, but despite the inexpensive price tag, its specifications are not too bad with Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11ac WiFi, 2GB RAM, 16GB flash, and 4K H.265 & VP9 video capabilities. The company sent me a sample for review, and as usual, I’ll start by posting photos, and having a look at the hardware design, before reviewing the firmware in more details in a the second part of the review. Beelink GT1 Unboxing My package appears to have had a rough trip, but apart from the edges of the black retail package nothing was damaged. The main specifications are shown on the bottom of the package together with CE and FCC certifications, and the type of power adapter inside the package. GT1 ships with a simple IR remote control, a shortish HDMI cable (~1 meter), a small […]

September 9, 2016September 10, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 19 Comments

Zidoo X9S Realtek RTD1295 Android & OpenWrt TV Box System Info & Benchmarks

Zidoo X9S is the first Android TV box based on Realtek RTD1295 quad core Cortex A53 processor that I’ve received for review. So in this post, I’ll show some system information with CPU-Z, and Android & OpenWrt Settings, and run typical Android benchmarks such as Antutu 6.x, Vellamo, and 3Dmark. Zidoo X9S / Realtek RTD1295 Android System Info CPU-Z detects Realtek RTD1295 is a quad core ARM Cortex A53 processor clocked between 600 MHz and 1.4 GHz with an ARM Mali-T820 GPU, and uses an unknown governor… But in adb shell, tje command “cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor” reports an ondemand governor is used. The system runs Android 6.0.1 on top of Linux 4.1.17 (I think it’s the first time I see a Linux 4.x kernel used in a TV box…), and with 1920×1080 resolution. Total RAM is shown to be 1672 MB, most probably because some RAM is reserved for the GPU […]

September 9, 2016September 9, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

ArduBoy Arduino Compatible Portable Game Console Sells for $39

Ardubox feels like the little brother of PocketCHIP portable & hackable game console with its transparent case, but instead of running Linux on a 32-bit ARM processor, Ardubox is based on the same Atmel ATmega32u4 MCU used in Arduino Leonardo & Micro boards. Arduboy specifications: MCU – Atmel ATmega32u4 AVR MCU with 32KB flash, 2.5KB RAM, and 1KB EEPROM Display – 128×64 1-bit OLED display USB – 1x micro USB 2.0 port for power and programming User Inputs – 6x momentary tactile buttons Audio – 2 channel Piezo Speaker Misc – 1x LED Battery – 180 mAh Thin-Film Li-Po battery good for over 8 hours Beside the Arduino IDE, The board can also be programmed with Codebender, GCC & AVRDude. There’s also a fairly long list of games to play with, and it can be hacked as a virtual business card, a USB mouse and keyboard, a synthesizer, and more. […]

September 9, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Sensors Predicting The Future – Elderly Persons Fall Prediction and Detection with Kinect, Webcams and Microphones

Wearables can be used your young children or elderly persons to monitoring their locations or health, and one use case, especially for old age persons, is to detect falls. However, it’s quite possible they don’t like it and/or not always wear it, so the Center for Eldercare and Technology of the University of Missouri designed a system based on Microsoft Kinect, two webcams, and microphones in order to detect falls, and even predict falls by analyzing gait, i.e. the pattern of movement of the limbs. The picture above shows at least part of the hardware setup with the Kinect, a webcam, and a PC tower doing the processing stored in a cupboard. Fall detection algorithms are relying on the microphone array, Microsoft Kinect depth camera, and a two-webcam system used to extract silhouettes from orthogonal views and construct a 3D voxel model for analysis. Passive gait analysis algorithms are for […]

September 8, 2016September 23, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 22 Comments

MINIX NEO Z83-4 mini PC Review – Part 2: Windows 10 and Benchmarks

I’ve listed specifications and posted photos of MINIX NEO Z83-4 mini PC in the first part of review, and while NEO Z83-4 is yet another Intel Atom x5-Z8300 device, it’s clear the company has made specific efforts for the thermal design with a large heatsink and aluminum bottom cover, and provided a solid 12V/3A power supply. So in the second part of the review, I’ll check how Windows 10 performs in the device, and run some benchmarks to compare it to other low power Intel mini PCs. MINIX NEO Z83-4 Setup & System Information If you’ve connected USB mouse and keyboard, HDMI and Ethernet, a USB 3.0 hard drive to the USB 3.0 port, and the power cord. Pressing the power button on the right side will boot the device. A typical boot will take around 30 seconds to the desktop. My system was already configured with Z83-4 user, possibly […]

September 8, 2016February 25, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

u-Blox Unveils SARA-R4 LTE Cat M1 and SARA-N2 NB-IoT Modules for Professional IoT Applications

While I’ve mostly read about SigFox and LoraWan solutions for long range, low power, and low bitrate communications for the Internet of Things so far, there are many active of planned LPWAN standards for IoT applications, and 3GPP Release 13 standard stipulates two LTE LPWAN standards, namely LTE Cat M1 (eMTC) and LTE Cat NB1 (NB-IoT), with the former supporting 1 Mbps downlink and uplink peak data rates, and the latter 250 Kbps downlink, and 250 Kbps (multi-tone) or 20 Kbps (single tone) uplink data rates. U-Blox has released modules for both standard with SARA-R4 LTE Cat M1 and SATA-N2 NB-IoT modules. SARA-N2 Cat NB1 cellular module specifications: LPWAN Connectivity – 3GPP Release 13 NB1; NB-IoT bands: 5, 8, 20; downlink: 227 Kbps, uplink: 21 Kbps Positioning – GNSS via Modem Interfaces – 1x UART, 1x SPI, 2x GPIO, 1x DDC(I2C) for GNSS Features – Antenna supervisor, embedded IPv4 & […]

September 8, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Dune HD SOLO Lite is a Cheaper Sigma Designs SMP8758 based 4K Media Box

Launched at the very end of last year, Dune HD SOLO 4K media player and NAS with Sigma Designs SMP8758 processor, a 2.5″ SATA bay, and a DVB-T2 tuner has high end specifications, but the price is also steep at 349 Euros inc. VAT. So the company has come up with a newer and cheaper version, Dune HD Solo Lite without the SATA bay, Z-wave support, nor the tuner card, but that keeps many of the same features, and sells for 199 Euros inc. VAT (MSRP). Dune HD Solo Lite specifications: SoC – Sigma Designs SMP8758 dual core Cortex A9 processor @ 1.2 GHz with an ARM Mali-400 GPU and VXP image processing engine System Memory – 1GB Storage – 4GB flash for firmware, SD card reader Video Output – HDMI 1.4b up to 1080p60 / 4K30 (including 23.976, 25, 29.97, 50, 59.94Hz refresh rates), and composite video Audio Output […]