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

July 4, 2016July 4, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 39 Comments

Have US Customs Declared War on TV Boxes (and mini PCs)?

Customs are useful to make sure illegal or dangerous goods don’t reach customers, and they also “protect jobs” or “special interests” by applying tariffs to imports. If you’ve ever purchased goods out of your country or economic zone, the experience can range from flawless (no duties), to annoying (paying some taxes), up to really frustrating and depressing, if customs decide to have a closer look to your imported item. Most the time I don’t have any problems, especially since I try to be careful to stay below the limit (~$30 here) sometimes splitting my orders, a few times I have to pay custom duties and VAT, and once I got a call from UPS telling me my $100 mini PC was kept by customs (not sure why), and that the total cost to it get was unknown, but it will be at least $150 for handling and taxes, and sending […]

July 4, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 17 Comments

WiReboot is a Watchdog Device Rebooting Your Router if the WiFi Connection is Lost (Crowdfunding)

Routers are usually pretty stable devices, but sometimes they still hang, and I think I must reboot my router about 2 to 3 times a year as I lose (Ethernet) connectivity. I’m usually at home, so it’s not really an issue as I can just walk a few meters to manually reboot the router. But if you are often on the go, and have a few WiFi devices such as smoker alarms, smart lights, and other home automation products that you may want to control over the Internet, if WiFi goes down nothing works. Luckily there’s a solution: WiReboot, a small device powered by ESP8266 that will check your WiFi and Internet connection, and automatically restart the router if it fails.Key features of WiReboot: ESP8266 module for 802.11 b/g/n WiFi connection USB – 1x USB input port to connect your router power supply, and 1x USB output to connect to […]

July 4, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

UL Goes Beyond Electrical Safety with UL 2900 IoT Security Standard

UL is a company providing testing and safety certifications with electrical, building, fire, mechanical and other codes to ensure products sold to consumers and companies are as safe as possible, and follow their UL standards. For example, you should probably look for the UL logo on any 100~240V electrical appliances, power supplies, etc… to make sure you purchase safe products, and also in order to avoid voiding any insurance you may have in case of fire. The company is now getting into cybersecurity, specifically for IoT security, with UL 2900 standard. The standard is currently divided into three parts: UL 2900-1 – Outline of Investigation for Software Cybersecurity for Network-Connectable Products, Part 1: General Requirements UL 2900-2-1 – Outline of Investigation for Software Cybersecurity for Network-Connectable Products, Part 2-1: Particular Requirements for Network Connectable Components of Healthcare Systems UL2900-2-2 – Outline of Investigation for Software Cybersecurity for Network-Connectable Products, Part […]

July 4, 2016July 4, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

Compulab Fitlet-RM is a Rugged Wide Temperature Fanless mini PC based on AMD A10 Micro-6700T Processor

Among the many Intel Cherry Trail and Braswell mini PCs, it’s nice to see an alternative with AMD processor, and after their Fitlet-H and Fitlet-iA10 mini PCs powered by AMD A10 Micro-6700T quad core processor, Compulab is back with two rugged models based on the processor, and supporting a wide temperature range, with namely Fitlet-RM-iA10 and Fitlet-RM-XA10 LAN mini PCs. Fitlet-RM specifications: SoC – AMD A10 Micro-6700T 64 bit quad-core processor up to 2.2 GHz with AMD Radeon R6 Graphics (4.5 W TDP) System Memory – Up to 8 GB DDR3-1333 (1x SODIMM) Storage – mSATA up to 1 TB (SATA 3.0 6 Gbps); micro SD/SDXC slot up to 25 MB/s Display – 2x HDMI 1.4a ports Audio – S/PDIF 7.1+2 channels in/out + stereo line-out/line-in/mic + HDMI audio Connectivity Fitlet-RM-XA10 LAN – 4x Gigabit Ethernet ports (Intel I211), 802.11 b/g/n WiFi Fitlet-RM-iA10 – 2x Gigabit Ethernet ports, 802.11 b/g/n/ac […]

July 3, 2016July 3, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 21 Comments

AOMedia AV1 is a Royalty-free, Open Source Video Codec Aiming to Replace VP9 and Compete with H.265

The Alliance for Open Media, or AOMedia, is a new non-profit organization founded in 2015 by Amazon, Cisco, Google, Intel Corporation, Microsoft, Mozilla, and Netflix, and more recently joined by AMD, ARM, and NVIDIA, whose first project is to develop AV1 royalty-free and open video codec and format to provide an alternative to H.265 / HEVC, and a successor to VP9. The project is a team effort combining teams working on Daala, Thor, and VP10 video codecs, and while AFAIK, AV1 specifications have not been released yet (target: Q1 2017), the organization has already released an early implementation of AV1 video decoder and encoder under the combination of an BSD-2 clause license and the Alliance for Open Media Patent License 1.0 , which can be found on googlesource.com. So I’ve had a quick my myself following the instructions, by first downloading one uncompressed YUV4MPEG sample:

mkdir ~/derf_cif
pushd ~/derf_cif
wget http://media.xiph.org/video/derf/y4m/husky_cif.y4m
popd

mkdir ~/derf_cif

pushd ~/derf_cif

wget http://media.xiph.org/video/derf/y4m/husky_cif.y4m

popd

and the source code:

git clone https://aomedia.googlesource.com/aom
cd aom

1 2	git clone https://aomedia.googlesource.com/aom cd aom

[…]

July 2, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 40 Comments

Review of Vorke V1 mini PC Powered by Intel Celeron J3160 Processor

After checking out Vorke V1 mini PC hardware in the first part of the review, it’s now time to publish the review starting with system information, benchmarks, and user testing. The device competes with similarly priced devices based on Intel Atom x7 processor such as Voyo V3 and Beelink BT7, so I’ll also include some comparisons to those in the review. Setup and System Information I connected USB keyboard and mouse, an Ethernet cable, HDMI and VGA cables to check dual display support, as well as the power supply. I did not connect my USB 3.0 hard drive since, I’ve already fitted the mini PC with an internal 1TB hard drive. Pressing on the large power button on the top of the device will boot it, and after a few seconds, you’ll get to go through Windows 10 setup by first accepting the EULA. The next steps are Custom or […]

July 1, 2016July 2, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Stress Testing Windows mini PCs with OCCT Overclock Checking Tool

I’m mostly a Linux user, but the marketplace has chosen Windows 10 as its preferred operating systems for mini PCs, so I’ve been reviewing fanless (or not) mini PCs running Windows 10 for around two years since Intel decided to provide low cost and low power processors. I normally run some benchmarks such as PCMark 8 or 3DMark, as well as typical user tasks, while monitoring CPU temperature and throttling using HWInfo64 utility, but those benchmarks are not really pushing the device to its limits. However, I’ve just learned out about OCCT “Overclock Checking Tool” that’s just doing that, and installed OCCT 4.4.2 on Vorke V1 to check it out. The tool has four taps: CPU: OCCT, CPU: Linpack, GPU: 3D, and Power Supply to stress test different part of the system. I just let it run for over 3 hours after pressing the ON buttons, and you can see […]

July 1, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

WiThumb is an ESP8266 WiFi USB Adapter with Motion and Temperature Sensors (Crowdfunding)

There are now plenty of Espressif ESP8266 boards or module to play with, but most of them require some cables or wires, at least for power. WiThumb does not need any of that as it’s designed to be plugged into any USB ports, and includes a 6-axis motion sensor, and a temperature sensor. WiThumb USB dongle specifications: SoC – Espressif ESP8266 32-bit MCU with 802.11b/g/n WiFi Storage – 4MB Flash memory Sensors – Temperature sensor (+/- 0.25C typical accuracy, -40 to 125 C range), 6-axis gyroscope + accelerometer Expansion – Breadboard friendly through holes with 1x 10-bit ADC, I2C and 4x GPIOs USB – USB type A connector Misc – Reset and flash buttons Power – 5V via USB port Dimensions – 4.8 x 2.2 cm The USB stick can be programmed like most ESP8266 board, i.e. via USB using the Arduino IDE. In case you wonder what kind of […]