CutiePi Raspberry Pi CM3+ Lite based Tablet Launched on Kickstarter

CutiePi Tablet

Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3+ Lite based CutiePi open-source tablet has been in the making for well over a year, and the company has made enough progress to launch a Kickstarter campaign with the Raspberry Pi tablet offered for $169 and up. CutiePi specifications: SoM – Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3+ Lite with Broadcom BCM2837 quad-core Cortex-A53 processor and 1GB RAM Storage – MicroSD card slot Display – 8-inch 5-point multi-touch display with 1280×800 resolution Video Output – Micro HDMI Audio – 2W 8Ohm speaker Camera – 5MP front-facing camera Connectivity – WLAN 802.11 b/g/n WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 4.0 (RTL8723BS) USB – 1x USB type-A port Expansion – 6x GPIO pins Sensor – Gyroscope Misc – Handle that doubles as a stand Battery – 5,000 mAh Li-Po battery Power Supply – 5V via USB Type-C port; STM32 MCU handles power management and battery level monitoring Dimensions – 213 x […]

Tiny NanoPi NEO3 SBC Targets Networked Storage with GbE and USB 3.0

NanoPi NEO3 SBC

Once upon a time, FriendlyELEC launched a Raspberry Pi Zero competitor for headless applications with Allwinner H3 powered NanoPi NEO, which was then followed with NanoPi NEO2 equipped with a more powerful Allwinner H5 processor and Gigabit Ethernet, and less than two years ago, NanoPi NEO4 was launched with Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core processor, 1GB RAM, and HDMI output. “Wait! What happened to NanoPi NEO3?!” you may ask. It probably got lost in the woods, but FriendlyELEC found it under a rock, and are about to launch NanoPi NEO3 SBC based on Rockchip RK3328 and offering a USB 3.0 port and Gigabit Ethernet network connectivity. NanoPi NEO3 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3328 quad-core Arm Cortex A53 processor with Mali-450MP2 GPU System Memory – 1GB or 2GB DDR4 Storage – MicroSD Slot for system boot and storage Video Output – N/A Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet with unique MAC via RTL8211E PHY USB […]

Raspberry Pi VideoCore IV Boards Get an Unofficial Vulkan Driver Good Enough to Play Quake 3

Raspberry Pi 3 Vulkan VideoCore IV GPU

The Raspberry Pi Foundation is collaborating with Igalia to work on everything related to graphics support for VideoCore VI GPU found in Raspberry Pi 4’s Broadcom BCM2711 SoC. This lead to OpenGL ES 3.1 conformance at the beginning of the year, and good progress with Raspberry Pi 4 Vulkan support. There’s no plan to work on an official Vulkan driver for earlier Raspberry Pi  boards with VideoCore IV GPU, but since the Raspberry Pi Foundation released open-source VideoCore IV driver and documentation several years ago, it’s, in theory, possible for skilled developers to improve on it. That’s exactly what Martin Thomas, an NVIDIA engineer, has done in his spare time, and after two years of work, a Vulkan driver for Raspberry Pi VideoCore IV board – RPi-VK-Driver – has been released on Github. Pi-VK-Driver implements a subset of the Vulkan, and since it is not fully conformant to the standard […]

Checking Out Raspberry Pi OS 64-Bit on Raspberry Pi 4 8GB RAM

Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit on Raspberry Pi 4 8GB

The Raspberry Pi 4 with 8GB RAM launched a couple of weeks ago together with the beta version of Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit. Note that you should currently use the 32-bit version of Raspberry Pi OS (previously known as Raspbian) as the 64-bit still has bugs and missing features, but I want to find out the current progress, so I installed raspios_arm64-2020-05-28/2020-05-27-raspios-buster-arm64.zip and had no problem to boot the board. Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit System Information After going through the setup wizard in the desktop environment to configure the language, time, networking, etc…, and make sure the OS is updated, I checkout some information:

I do have a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B Rev 1.4 with 8GB Memory (revision: d03114), the image comes with a 64-bit Linux kernel:

and we do get a 64-bit rootfs.

All good. Known issues Before starting the review, let’s make ourselves aware […]

CrowPi2 Raspberry Pi 4 Laptop Doubles as Electronics Learning Kit (Crowdfunding)

CrowPi2 Raspberry Pi 4 Laptop with Detachable Keyboard

CrowPi portable learning kit for Raspberry Pi 3 B+ and Pi Zero boards was launched in 2018. It comes with a 7″ display, several sensors, buttons, a breadboard, and more all packed in a small suitcase. Elecrow has now started a new crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter to fund the second generation portable electronics learning kit: CrowPi2 which looks much more like a laptop than a suitcase found in the first model thanks to a large display, and a detachable keyboard placed on top of the electronic prototyping/learning area. It’s also more powerful thanks to the latest Raspberry Pi 4 SBC. CrowPi2 specifications: Compatible Raspberry Pi boards – Raspberry Pi 3B/B+, Raspberry Pi 4 Display – 11.6-inch 1920×1080 IPS screen Camera – 2MP camera Audio – Built-in microphone and stereo speaker; 3.5mm audio jack Keyboard – 2.4GHz detachable wireless keyboard (QWERTY only) with touchpad Sensors and Modules under the keyboard: Displays […]

Linux Powered Industrial IoT Gateway Offers WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.1, 4G LTE Connectivity

Linux Industrial IoT Gateway

Compulab IOT-GATE-IMX8 is a Debian Linux powered fanless Industrial IoT gateway powered by NXP i.MX 8M Mini processor and specially designed for industrial control and monitoring with optional support for WiFI 6 (802.11ax), Bluetooth 5.1, 4G LTE, and GNSS connectivity. The gateway is equipped with up to 4GB RAM and 128GB eMMC flash, takes variable DC input from 8V to 36V, and operates in a wide temperature range of -40C to 80°C with the company providing a 5-year warranty and 15-year availability. Compulab IOT-GATE-IMX8 specifications: SoC – NXP i.MX8M Mini quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor @ 1.8GHz with Arm Cortex-M4 real-time core, Vivante 3G and 2D GPU System Memory – 1GB – 4GB LPDDR4 Storage – 4GB – 64GB eMMC flash (soldered on-board), plus secondary storage with optional 16GB – 64GB eMMC flash module Networking & Wireless Connectivity Gigabit Ethernet port, RJ45 connector Fast Ethernet port, RJ45 connector Optional 802.11ax WiFi […]

Bye Raspbian! Long Live Raspberry Pi OS!

Raspberry Pi OS Magnifier

Last week, we reported a “new” Raspberry Pi 4 SBC with 8GB RAM launched last week, together with a beta version of “Raspbian” 64-bit needed to make full use of the extra RAM, although the 32-bit version can also address the full 8GB thanks to LPAE, but with a limitation of 3GB per process. It turns out the launch of the new board, effectively killed Raspbian. But by name only, as the recommended Raspberry Pi operating system is now called Raspberry Pi OS with three 32-bit images namely Desktop with recommended apps such as Wolfgram and Mathematica, Desktop, and Lite for headless applications, as well as the Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit beta that’s yet to be officially released, but can be downloaded from the forums and works on Raspberry Pi 3 and 4 boards. Apart from the name change, and support for 64-bit kernel and rootfs, the Raspberry Pi Foundation […]

Raspberry Pi 4 Gets 8GB RAM, Raspbian 64-bit (Beta)

Raspberry Pi 4 with 8GB RAM

The Raspberry Pi 4 Model B was launched in June 2019 with Broadcom BCM2711 Arm Cortex-A72 processor coupled with either 1, 2, or 4GB LPDDR4 RAM. But there were expectations that a Raspberry Pi 4 with 8GB RAM or an 8GB eMMC flash may be eventually launched, as some of the user guides read “Product name: Raspberry Pi 4 Model B 1 GB, 2 GB, 4 GB + 8 GB variants”. We now know the answer as the Raspberry Pi Foundation has just introduced Raspberry Pi 4 with 8GB RAM. Raspberry Pi 4 8GB specifications are the same except for the RAM capacity: SoC – Broadcom BCM2711 quad-core Cortex-A72 (ARMv8) @  1.5GHz with VideoCore VI GPU supporting OpenGL ES 3.0 graphics System Memory – 8GB LPDDR4 Storage – MicroSD card slot Video Output  & Display I/F 2x micro HDMI ports up to 4Kp60 3.5mm AV port with composite video (and […]