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

February 26, 2015February 26, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Spark Electron Cellular Module for M2M Projects Comes with a $3 Monthly Data Plan (Crowdfunding)

Spark IO started with Spark Core, a tiny Wi-Fi module, followed with Spark Photon is a cheaper, faster, and tinier Wi-Fi module, and now the company is launching Spark Electron to bring cellular connectivity to hobbyist projects at an affordable cost and small form factor. Spark Electron specifications: MCU – ST Micro STM32F205 ARM Cortex M3 microcontroller @ 120 MHz with 1MB Flash, 128K RAM Cellular Connectivity – U-Blox SARA U-series (3G) or G-series (2G) modem + NanoSIM card slot + u.FL connector for Antenna Headers – 36 pins with 28 GPIOs (D0-D13, A0-A13), plus TX/RX, 2 GNDs, VIN, VBAT, WKP, 3V3, RST USB – micro USB port for power and programming Misc – Setup and reset buttons, LED Dimensions – 5.08 cm x 2.03 cm x 0.76 cm (1.27 cm including headers) The board can be programmed with Wiring (Arduino’s programming language), C/C++, or ARM assembly. It’s longer than Spark […]

February 26, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Samsung Introduces Faster Full-Duplex UFS 2.0 Storage for Mobile Devices

eMMC (embedded multimedia card) provides a boost in read and write performance compared to traditional NAND flash memories, let alone micro SD cards. Samsung has now announced the manufacturing of the first 32, 64, and 128GB embedded memory solution based on Universal Flash Storage (UFS) 2.0 standard delivering up to 350MB/s read speed and 150MB/s write speed, or 40% improvement in read speed over eMMC 5.1.This should help further reduce boot time, and app loading times. Moreover, while eMMC read and write operating are sequential (half-duplex), UFS 2.0 allows for full-duplex operating, meaning writing and reading can happen at the same time. UFS can achieve this feat thanks to a LVDS (Low-Voltage Differential Signaling) serial interface with dedicated read/write paths contrary to the parallel 8-bit interface used for eMMC. Combined with a Command Queue(CQ), which sorts out the commands that needs to be carried out, UFS 2.0 allows three times […]

February 26, 2015December 13, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Console OS Developer Preview Image Released for Some Intel Haswell and Bay Trail Systems

Console OS is an operating system based on Android that’s designed to run on x86 machines side-by-side with Windows and with desktop-friendly user interface. The project has been funded via a Kickstarter campaign, so backers get the updates earlier, but the developers have now publicly released Console OS DR1 (Developer Release 1) based on Android 4.4.2 so that more people can download it and try it for free after registration. I wanted to try it on Mele PCG03, but it failed, even after copying bootia32.efi to /EFI/BOOT directory (I get stuck into Grub command line), and I found out that “Systems must have 64-bit UEFI firmware. Some systems have 32-bit UEFI firmware, and we are working on adding support for those provided you have one of the processors above”. So it won’t work on cheap Windows 8.1 dongles and mini PC like MeegoPad T01 or Pipo X7, but MINIX NEO […]

February 26, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Intel Introduces Atom x3, x5 and x7 Categories for Its Upcoming Low Power Processors

Intel has been using Core i3, i5, and i7 models for its desktop processor for a few years in order to help consumers chose between entry-level, mid-range, and high-performance processor, although you may also want to look at the launch date as some Core i7 launched in 2010 may be quite slower than Core i3 launched in 2013 or 2014 for example. Intel has now decided to use a similar naming scheme for its next generation Atom processor used in tablets, phablets, and smartphones with Atom x3, Atom x5, and Atom x7 product ranges instead of the often confusing names like Z3735F, Z3580, etc.. The company will still offer slightly more powerful Pentium and Celeron processor for 2-in-1 laptop designs and mini PCs, as well as new Core-M processors for low power and PC-like performance think laptops or tablets. Via Liliputing and UMPCPortal Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)Jean-Luc started CNX Software in […]

February 26, 2015May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Allwinner’s New Media Codec Library (CedarX) May Infringe on Open Source Licenses and Copyrights

Allwinner has had to good idea to open allwinner-zh github account last September in order to release source code, binary libraries, and documentation for these ARM processors. Yesterday, the company released a new version of their closed source CedarX library used to decode and encode video streams. But Luc Verhaegen (libv), known for his reverse-engineering work on ARM Mali-400 (lima driver) and now Mali-Txxx GPU (Tamil driver), analyzed the binary and claimed the library is not compliant with LGPL licenses, and may also infringe on On2 copyrights. Luc wrote his concerns on sunxi-linux mailing list, and Allwinner promised to look into it. Two libraries are involved: ffmpeg which includes both LGPL and GPL licenses, but the contention seems to be about the LGPL part, since only optional features are GPL’ed in ffmpeg. It’s perfectly fine to include LGPL libraries into your binaries, as long as you don’t modify the open source […]

February 25, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

GroBotz Interactive Robot Project is Made of Easy to Assemble Smart Blocks (Crowdfunding)

GroBotz makes me think of Lego applied to robotics. The project consists of modules such as motors, sensors, buttons, switches, or cameras that snap together in order to create a robot on wheels, games, toys, a musical instrument, or whatever idea you may have, and the hardware is then programmed using a graphical user interface. A Raspberry Pi board is used for the brain of the robot, and Microchip PIC MCUs for the smart blocks. The software is programmed in C# using Xamarin, the user interface is based on Unity, OpenCV is used for image processing, and during development a plastic part where printed with Makerbot, and schematics and PCB layout designed with CadSoft EAGLE. The company has now come up with a number of modules as shown in the picture below. Your robot can then be controlled over Wi-Fi with GroBotz app which works on Windows, Mac OS, iOs, […]

February 25, 2015March 7, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

UDOO Neo Development Board is Powered by Freescale i.MX 6SoloX Processor

UDOO boards combine a Freescale i.MX6 dual or quad core processor with an external Atmel SAM3X MCU that’s programmable as an Arduino board, so as Freescale has now formally announced their i.MX 6SoloX processor with a Cortex A9 core running Linux and Android, and a Cortex M4 core running MQX real-time operating systems, it was logical that the company would soon launch a low cost development board based on this heterogeneous processor. Meet UDOO Neo. UDOO Neo board specifications: SoC – Freescale i.MX 6SoloX ARM Cortex-A9 core @ 1GHz and ARM Cortex-M4 Core with 2D/3D GPU System Memory – 512MB or 1GB DDR3 (only Plus version) Storage – On-board NOR SPI Flash, micro SD slot, 8-bit SDIO interface (on headers) Video Input/Output micro HDMI port LVDS interface + touch (I2C signals) Analog camera connection supporting NTSC and PAL 8-bit Parallel camera interface (on headers) Audio – HDMI USB – 1x […]

February 25, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

Freescale Announces i.MX 6SoloX ARM Cortex A9 & Cortex M4 Processor

Freescale i.MX6 SoloX processor started to show up in the ARM Linux Kernel mailing list last year, and Cortex A9 + Cortex M4 processor showed up in some marketing documents, but so far all documentation was tied to a non-diclosure agreement. However, all resources are now publicly available, as the company officially launched i.MX 6SoloX processor at Embedded World 2015. Freescale i.MX 6SoloX specifications: CPU – ARM Cortex-A9 up to 1 GHz with 512 KB L2 cache, 32 KB instruction and data caches and NEON SIMD media accelerator MCU – ARM Cortex-M4 up to 200 MHz with 16 KB instruction and data caches, 64 KB TCM, MPU and FPU Memory Interface 16/32-bit DDR3-800 and DDR3L-800, 16/32-bit LPDDR2-800 SLC/MLC NAND, 62-bit ECC, ONFI2.2 2x DDR Quad SPI NOR flash, 16/32-bit NOR Flash Display and Camera Interfaces Parallel RGB LVDS 20-bit parallel CMOS sensor interface NTSC/PAL analog video input interface Multimedia GPU […]