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

December 23, 2014May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

VidOn Box Android XBMC TV Box Unboxing

Vidon.me has sent me one of their Vidon Box (without asking). The box features an Allwinner A31s processor, 1GB RAM, 8GB storage, and more. You can check my previous post for Vidon Box specifications. The company is also providing a membership for extra services such as HDMI / SPDIF pass-through, and Blu-ray menu navigation, among others, as you can see from the table below. The item with ** are upcoming features. VidOn Box Features Subscriber Non Subscriber Blu-ray Menu Navigation Y N Access to VidOn XBMC Pro Y N Access to VidOn Media Center Beta* Y Y Access to VidOn XBMC* Y Y Free XBMC Add-ons Y Y Media Library Info Collection Y Y Access Home Sharing Server Y Y 1080p Hardware Acceleration Y Y Blu-ray ISO Playback Y Y 3D Blu-ray Playback Y Y Firmware/Software Update Support Y Y SPDIF/HDMI Passthrough Y N Mobile Transfer** Y N Photo Backup** […]

December 23, 2014December 23, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

$142 Micromax Yureka Cyanogen OS Smartphone Features a 64-bit Qualcomm Processor

Micromax is one of the leading smartphone companies in India, battling with Samsung for the top spot, and they’ve recently announced Yureka, a 64-bit smartphone with Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 processor, and Cyanogen OS 11 selling for just 8,999 Rupees (~$142 US) in India. Yureka smartphone specifications: SoC – Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 (MSM8939) octa core Cortex A53 processor with Adreno 405 GPU, and Hexagon V50 DSP System Memory – 2GB DDR3 Storage – 16GB internal storage + micro SD slot up to 32GB Display – 5.5″ IPS display with Corning Glass 3, 1280×720 resolution Cellular Connectivity LTE TDD B40 2300 MHz / B3 1800 MHz (150 Mbps DL / 50 Mbps UL) WCDMA 900/2100 MHz (42 Mbps DL/ 11 Mbps UL) GSM 900/1800/1900 MHz Dual SIM (micro) Wireless Connectivity – 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, FM radio Camera – 13MP rear camera with autofocus and flash, 5MP front-facing camera USB […]

December 23, 2014December 23, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

TyGL OpenGL ES 2.0 Backend for WebKit Speeds Up Web Rendering by Up to 11 Times

ARM, Szeged University in Hungary, and Samsung Research UK have been working on TyGL, a new backend for WebKit accelerated with OpenGL ES2.0, and developed and tested on ARM Mali-T628 GPU found in Samsung ARM Chromebook. It will typically provide 1.5 to 4.5 times higher performance, but in the best cases, it can achieve up to eleven times the performance of a CPU-only rendered page. The key features of TyGL include: Web rendering accelerated by GPU – Batching of draw calls delivers better results on GPUs. TyGL groups commands together to avoid frequent state changes while calling the Graphics Context API. Automatic shader generation – TyGL generates complex shaders from multiple shader fragments, and ensures the batches fit into the shader cache of the GPU. Trapezoid based path rendering – Work in progress. It will leverage GPU capabilities such as the Pixel Local Storage extension for OpenGL ES. No software […]

December 22, 2014December 22, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Gemalto Cinterion Concept Board Features 3G Connectivity, Arduino Headers for Secure Java M2M Applications

Gemalto is a digital security company providing software solutions, smart cards, and secure modules, and one the largest manufacturer of SIM cards. The company has launched a developer board earlier this year called Cinterion Concept Board with the company’s Cinterion EHS6 M2M Java embedded machine-to-machine (M2M) 3G module, and Arduino compatible headers. Cinterion Concept Board specifications: 2G/3G M2M Module – Gemalto Cinterion ESH6 with Java ME embedded support Cellular Connectivity GPRS/EDGE Class 12, HSPA, 5 bands 3G, 4 bands 2G. Voice support. On-board antenna (top left side on picture) SIM card holder Expansion Arduino Compatible headers 8 GPIO with level shifters, and corresponding LEDs USB – 1x mini USB port for power, 1x mini USB port for debugging and power Misc – Start on/off, and user buttons, LEDs for serial interface. Power – 5V via either mini USB ports, solder pads for external battery. Dimensions – N/A The board is […]

December 22, 2014May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 39 Comments

Orange Pi Development Boards Are Raspberry Pi “Clones” based on Allwinner A20 and A31s

After Raspberry Pi, Waxberry Pi, and Banana Pi boards, here come another fruit-named board with Orange Pi. There are actually three models, with Orange Pi and Orange Pi mini based on Allwinner A20, and Orange Pi Plus powered by a quad core Allwinner A31s processor. I’ve drawn a comparison table with the specifications for the three models. Please note that Orange Pi Plus full specifications have not been released yet, so I don’t have all details. Orange Pi Mini Orange Pi Orange Pi Plus SoC Allwinner A20 dual core Cortex A7 processor up to 1GHz with Mali-400 MP2 GPU Allwinner A31s quad core Cortex A7 processor with PowerVR SGX544MP2 GPU System Memory 1 GB DDR3 Storage 2x micro SD slot + SATA NAND Flash + micro SD slot + SATA TBD Video Output HDMI, AV, and DSI I/F HDMI, AV, VGA, and DSI I/F HDMI, AV, and DSI I/F Audio I/O HDMI, […]

December 22, 2014May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

Tronsmart Draco AW80 SATA Performance in Android

When Allwinner A80 TV boxes with SATA port were first release, some people hailed SATA performance, especially while seeking during video playback. But at the time, I was skeptical of these claims since Allwinner A80 SoC does not have have a SATA interface, so a USB to SATA bridge must be used, and the performance should be the same as USB hard drives. Unfortunately, I was unable to confirm these doubts, and test SATA performance in my review of Tronsmart Draco AW80 Meta, because at the time, I did not have any spare SATA hard drive or SSD. But since I’ve received CubieTruck Metal Case kit, which include a 120 GB SSD, so I could finally test the device SATA interface. This CHUANG JIU SSD achieves write and read speeds of respectively 8.7 MB/s & 50.5 MB/s for NTFS, and 36.31 MB/s & 179.45 MB/s for EXT-4 using CubieTruck with […]

December 21, 2014May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

CubieTruck Metal Case Kit Getting Started Guide and Review

I’ve received CubieTruck Metal Case kit just over a month ago, but just like for Ubuntu on ODROID-XU3 Lite, the board could not get HDMI EDID info from my Panasonic TV, which led to a crash at boot time. CubieTech has now fixed the issue, so I’ve finally been able to complete the review with Cubieez (Cubie Easy) distribution, pre-installed on the board, and based on Debian 7.6. You can get the full hardware specs on my previous post, but the kits is comprised of four parts: CubieTruck development based on Allwinner A20 dual core processor, a rugged metallic enclosure, a 128GB SSD, and a 5,300 mAh battery acting as a UPS. I’ll start by showing how to setup the board, test SATA and Gigabit Ethernet performance, check if the battery acts as expected, try to use the board as a desktop replacement with LibreOffice, Chromium, and so on, and […]

December 20, 2014December 26, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Android 5.0 Lollipop Running on Amlogic AML8726-MX Based WeTek Play STB

Last month as Android Lollipop was shown booting on a Rockchip RK3188 tablet, and a few days later several companies such as Allwinner and Rockchip announced Android 5.0 ports were in progress for their latest processors, a few people asked me: what about Amlogic? I had no news at the time, but I expected the company to port Android 5.0 to their recent processor such as S802, S805, or S812, so I was surprised when I saw WeTek Play might be the first Amlogic device to boot Android 5.0 (CyanogenMod version), since it features the old dual core Amlogic AML8726-MX processor. The company has just released their latest Android 4.2 firmware, so this Android 5.0.1 version is most probably an early firmware, just not quite ready for prime time just yet, but hopefully they’ll release a stable version within a few weeks. That’s the boot and About WeTek Play video […]