Hardware Category - Page 787 of 1060 - CNX Software

January 5, 2016May 10, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Mediatek Unveils MT2523 SiP for GPS Enabled, Bluetooth LE Wearables

Silicon manufacturers are starting to launch ever more integrated solutions specifically designed for wearables, and after Samsung S3FBP5A bio-processor unveiled a few days ago, MediaTek has launched MT2623 ARM Cortex M4 System-in-Package (SiP) with GPS, Bluetooth LE, and a MIPI DSI interface. Other details are sparse but here’s what the company disclosed for MT2523: MCU core – ARM Cortex M4 GPU – 2D accelerator supporting true colors, per-pixel alpha channel, anti-aliasing fonts, and 1-bit index color to save memory. Connectivity – Dual-mode Bluetooth Low Energy and GPS Display – MIPI DSI and serial interfaces Integrated PMU Battery Life – More than a week (typical) The SiP’s printed circuit board area is said to be 41% percent smaller than competitors’ solutions. MT2523 will be available to manufacturers in H1 2016, and found in active and fitness smartwatches a little later. Thanks to Nanik for the tip. Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)Jean-Luc started CNX Software […]

January 4, 2016January 6, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 21 Comments

PiPO X6S is a Windows 10 Cherry Trail mini PC with 4GB RAM, 64GB Storage, Dual Ethernet, and SATA Support

PiPO X6S is a Windows 10 mini PC powered by an Intel Atom x5-Z8300 quad core processor with up to 4GB RAM, 64GB eMMC, and a 2.5″ internal SATA bay, that includes support for 802.11ac WiFi, and two Ethernet ports. PiPO X6S specifications (preliminary since the specs on GeekBuying are a complete mess, and pictures are lacking): SoC – Intel Atom x5-Z8300 “Cherry Trail” quad core processor @ 1.44 GHz/1.84 GHz with Intel Gen8 HD graphics System Memory – 4 GB DDR3 Storage – 64 GB flash, 2.5″ SATA drive support, and micro SD slot up to 128GB Video and Audio Output – HDMI and AV Connectivity – 2x 10/100M Ethernet ports, 802.11 b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 4.0 via Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 3160 Plus Bluetooth card USB – 2x USB 2.0 host ports, 1x USB 3.0 port Misc – Reset and power button Power Supply – 5V/3A Dimensions – […]

January 4, 2016January 20, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

NavSpark mini is a $6 Arduino Compatible GPS Board

One person asked me whether any of the low cost boards in my Raspberry Pi Zero vs CHIP vs Orange Pi One comparison post came with GPS, and the answer is not without some external hardware. The only low cost boards with GPS I could think of were LinkIt ONE and NavSpark. I wrote about the latter over 2 years ago when the board launched via a crowdfunding campaign, so I went to the update page to find out more about the current status, and found two updates made in the last 6 months, including one about Navspark mini, a tiny board with GPS support, removing the USB port and having fewer I/Os compared to its older brother. NavSpark mini specifications: MCU – Skytraq Venus828F 32bit LEON3 Sparc-V8 MCU @ 100MHz with IEEE-754 Compliant Floating Point Unit, 1024KB Flash Memory, and 212KB RAM GPS 167 channel Venus 8 engine Uses […]

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

Zotac ZBOX Pico T4 is an Intel Atom x7-Z8700 based mini PC

While there are plenty of mini PCs based on Intel Atom x5-Z8300 Cherry Trail processor on the market, it’s much more difficult to find more powerful Intel Atom x7 mini PCs, and the only option that I’m aware of is MagicStick Wave TV stick, but while the project was very successful in raising money on Kickstarter, they have not exactly delivered on their December 2015 shipping deadline, and instead shipping has been postpone to March 2016 for now. Luckily, there will be soon another option with Zotac ZBOX Pico T4 coupled with 2GB RAM, 32GB storage, USB 3.0, 802.11ac WiFi, Gigabit Ethernet, and more. ZBOX Pico T4 specifications: SoC – Intel Atom x7-Z8700 “Cherry Trail” quad core processor @ 1.60 GHz/2.40 GHz (turbo) with Intel Gen8 HD graphics @ 600MHz with 16EU. System Memory – 2 GB RAM Storage – 32 GB storage + micro SD slot Video Output – […]

January 4, 2016January 7, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 53 Comments

Faster H.265/HEVC Video Encoding with Nvidia GTX960 GPU and ffmpeg

H.265 promises the same video quality as H.264 when using half the bitrate, so you may have thought about converting your H.264 videos to H.265/HEVC in order to reduce the space used by your videos. However, if you’ve ever tried to transcoding videos with tools such as HandBrake, you’ll know the process can be painfully slow, and a single movie may take several hours even with a machine with a power processor. However, there’s a better and fster solution thanks to hardware accelerated encoding available in some Intel and Nvidia graphics cards. For this purpose, GearBest sent me Maxsun MS-GTX960 graphics card, a second generation Maxwell GPU, that supports H.265 accelerated video encoding and promised up to 500 fps video encoding. So I’ve put the graphics card to the test in a computer running Ubuntu 14.04, and reports some of my findings here. Similar instructions can also be followed in […]

January 3, 2016May 16, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 37 Comments

Raspberry Pi Zero, C.H.I.P, and Orange Pi One Boards’ Features and Price Comparisons

With Raspberry Pi Zero, Next Thing C.H.I.P, and Orange Pi One, we now have have three ARM Linux development boards selling (now or soon) for less than $10 excluding shipping and taxes. So I’d think it would be interesting to compare the features of the boards, and prices for different use cases. The comparison table below shows the three boards features side-by-side with items highlighted in green for the best or extra features, and in red for the weakest. Some cells will have to be filled later as data is currently not available (marked TBD). Raspberry Pi Zero C.H.I.P Orange Pi One Processor Broadcom BCM2835 single core ARM11 processor @ 1GHz (~1250 DMIPS) Allwinner R8 Cortex A8 processor @ 1 GHz (2000 DMIPS) Allwinner H3 quad core Cortex A7 processor @ 1.2 GHz (4x 2280 DMIPS) GPU VideoCore IV ARM Mali-400 ARM Mali-400MP2 Video Decoding 1080p30 for H.264, MPEG2* and […]

January 2, 2016December 19, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 52 Comments

Orange Pi One is a $10 Quad Core Board with Ethernet and HDMI

Until recently, Orange Pi PC was probably the most cost efficient ARM hardware, but with the launch of Raspberry Pi Zero, and to some extent C.H.I.P computer, they had some competitors in the ultra low cost space, so Shenzhen Xunlong Software developed two more cost effective Orange Pi boards, with Orange Pi One selling for $9.99 with Ethernet, and Orange Pi Lite for $12 with WiFi, also referred to as versions B and A. Orange Pi One & Lite (preliminary) Specifications: SoC – Allwinner H3 quad core Cortex A7 @ 1.2 GHz with an ARM Mali-400MP2 GPU up to 600 MHz System Memory – 512 MB DDR3 Storage – micro SD card slot Video & Audio Output – HDMI Connectivity Orange Pi One – 10/100M Ethernet Orange Pi Lite – WiFi USB Orange Pi One – 1x USB 2.0 host ports, 1x micro USB OTG port Orange Pi Lite – […]

December 31, 2015January 29, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 18 Comments

Ten Most Popular Posts of 2015 and Statistics on CNX Software

In the second part of 2014, we saw a big jump in performance thanks to Cortex A15 and A17 based SoCs, and higher clocked Cortex A9 processors such as Rockchip RK3288 and Amlogic S812, but in 2015, TV box companies have focused on lowering the price and adding features such as HDMI 2.0, instead of looking for higher and higher CPU and GPU performance, and they’ve also moved to 64-bit ARM platform. Intel also continued its foray into low cost HDMI sticks and mini PCbased on Bay Trail, and later on Cherry Trail based devices. The development boards story was also very much about lower cosst with the $15 Orange Pi PC, follow a few months later by the $5 Raspberry Pi Zero, although people looking for performance at any price still saw the release of Nvidia Jetson TX1 board. It’s was also a big year for IoT with the […]