7.8-inch PocketBook InkPad Color eReader launched for $329

Color eReader large display

Color eReaders and color e-Ink smartphones have started to show up last year with products such as Onyx Boox Poke2 Color, PocketBook Color, or Hisense A7 CC with displays ranging from 6-inch to 6.7-inch in size. If you like the idea of having a color eReader, but would prefer a (slightly) large display, PocketBook InkPad Color may be an interesting option with the eReader featuring a 7.8-inch Kaleido e-Ink display with 4096 colors. PocketBook InkPad Color specifications: Processor –  Unnamed dual-core processor @ 1 GHz (probably Allwinner B288 dual-core Arm Cortex-A7 processor) System Memory – 1GB RAM Storage – 16GB eMMC flash, and microSD card reader up to 32GB Display – 7.8 inch E-Ink Kaleido display with 1872 x 1404 (16 shades of grey – 300 ppi) or 624 x 468 (color – 100 ppi) resolution, capacitive touch, and front-light Connectivity – WiFi 4 and Bluetooth (e.g. for audio) USB […]

Pine64 unveils Quartz64 SBC powered by Rockchip RK3566 SoC

Quartz64 RK3566 SBC

We may just have written about Geniatech RK3566/RK3568 development board, but as expected, Pine64 has now unveiled more details about Quartz64 SBC powered by Rockchip RK3566 SoC. As we’ll see below, the design is very similar to RK3399 based RockPro64, but the new model adds a native SATA 3.0 port, an integrated battery charging circuitry, an ePD port for e-Ink displays, and supports more memory with up to 8GB LPDDR4 RAM. Quartz64 Model A preliminary specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3566 quad-core Cortex-A55 processor up to 1.8 GHz with Arm Mali-G52 GPU supporting OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0/3.2, OpenCL 2.0, Vulkan 1.1, 0.8 TOPS NPU for AI acceleration System Memory – 2GB to 8GB LPDDR4 Storage SPI Flash optional eMMC module from 16GB up to 128GB capacity bootable SDHC/SDXC MicroSD card up to 256GB (or is it 2TB?) SATA 3.0 port (multiplexed with USB 3.0) Video Output / Display Interfaces HDMI 2.0a up […]

Linux 5.11 Release – Main Changes, Arm, MIPS & RISC-V Architectures

Linux 5.11 release

Linus Torvalds has released Linux 5.11 just in time for… “Valentine’s Day”: Nothing unexpected or particularly scary happened this week, so here we are – with 5.11 tagged and pushed out. In fact, it’s a smaller-than-average set of commits from rc7 to final, which makes me happy. And I already have several pull requests lined up for tomorrow, so we’re all set for the merge window to start. But in the meantime – and yes, I know it’s Valentine’s Day here in the US – maybe give this release a good testing before you go back and play with development kernels. All right? Because I’m sure your SO will understand. Linus Last time around, Linux 5.10 was an LTS release that added EXT-4 performance enhancements, improved post-Spectre performance, as well as the enablement of BCM2711 (Raspberry Pi 4) display pipeline, among other many changes. Some of the notable changes in […]

Vacos Cam AI Security Camera Review – Part 1: Specifications, Unboxing and Teardown

Vacos Cam teardown

As we’ve seen in our Reolink RLC-810A review, AI security cameras greatly reduce the number of false alerts generated by motion sensors, and the Reolink 4K security camera we tested was capable of people and vehicle detection. The Reolink model does not support WiFi, so I had to run a long Ethernet cable, plus a power extension to connect a 12V power adapter since I don’t own a PoE injector. But I’ve been given the opportunity to review another AI security camera, namely Vacos Cam, that also supports human detection, but relies on WiFi connectivity and can be powered by a solar panel removing the need for potentially long cable. As a bonus, it comes with eMMC for storage, so there’s no need for a MicroSD card. In the first part of the review, I’ll list the specifications, unbox the power panel and camera, and tear down Vacos Cam to […]

Commell LP-179 Pico-ITX motherboard ships with Intel Tiger Lake UP3 embedded processor

LP-179 Tiger Lake Pico-ITX motherboard

Intel first introduced Core i3/i5/i7 Tiger Lake UP3 processors with Intel Xe graphics in early September 2020, soon followed with embedded versions of Tiger Lake UP3 a couple of weeks later, and then Celeron 6305E, still for embedded & IoT applications, with support for features such as 2.5GbE and quad-display support. We’ve already seen some Tiger Lake UP3 motherboards with AAEON UP Xtreme i11 (122 x 120 mm) and IEI tKINO-ULT6 mini-ITX SBC, but if you’d like a more compact Tiger Lake solution, Commell LP-179 Pico-ITX motherboard may be an option with a choice of Core i7-1185G7E or Celeron 6305E processor. Commell LP-179 specifications: SoC (one or the other) Intel Core i7-1185G7E quad-core/octa-thread Tiger Lake UP3 embedded processor @ 1.8 GHz / 4.4 GHz (Turbo) with 12MB cache, 96EU Intel Iris Xe graphics; 12 to 28W TDP Intel Celeron 6305E dual-core Tiger Lake UP3 embedded processor @ 1.8 GHz (No […]

Software configuration tips for Raspberry Pi clusters & parallel-ssh command

parallel-ssh

I missed that linux.conf.au 2021 took place on January 23-25 2021, and while browsing the schedule I noticed a talk entitled “Building Raspberry Pi Supercomputers” by Federico Lucifredi, Product Management Director for Ceph Storage at Red Hat. In the talk, he mostly focuses on the software part, and besides some basic steps, I learned about some new commands that be useful to people managing clusters of Raspberry Pi or other Linux boards or hosts. Configuring a cluster He used Picocluster image in his example, but for people wanting to use 64-bit OS, he recommends Ubuntu or Fedora images until Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit becomes stable. The first part of the configuration is making sure all the main user is the same on all board, disable SSH for root, and configure run levels (X not needed on clusters). Networking is configured with fixed IP addresses for Ethernet, and DHCP for WiFi. […]

SolidRun CuBox-M 2-inch Arm Linux/Android mini PC packs a 2.3 TOPS AI accelerator

CuBox-M i.MX 8M Plus Mini PC

SolidRun first introduced the tiny CuBox Arm Linux mini PC in 2011, with the device based on a Marvell Armada 510 dual-core Armv7 processor, and followed in 2013 with the launch of the CuBox-i family powered by Freescale i.MX 6 single to quad-core Cortex-A9 processor. The company moved to NXP i.MX 8M processor in 2018 with the introduction of CuBox Pulse, and now they’ve introduced their first Cubox mini PC with a built-in AI accelerator. Meet CuBox-M mini PC powered by NXP i.MX 8M Plus quad-core Cortex-A53 processor with a 2.3 TOPS NPU. Cubox-M mini PC specifications: SolidRun i.MX 8M Plus System-on-Module (SoM) SoC – NXP i.MX 8M Plus Quad quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor @ 1.8 GHz with Arm Cortex-M7 up to 800MHz, Vivante GC7000UL 3G GPU (Vulkan, OpenGL ES 3.1, OpenCL 1.2), 2.3 TOPS NPU, 1080p60 H.264/H.265 video encoder, 1080p60 video decoder (H.265, H.264, VP9, VP8), Candence HiFi4 audio […]

Geniatech RK3568 Development Board to support Android 11 and Linux

RK3568 development board

RK3566 and RK3568 are the latest AIoT processors from Rockchip equipped with four Arm Cortex-A55 cores, a Mali-G52 GPU, and an impressive range of peripherals that make them suitable for all sorts of applications including AI edge computing and network video recorder (NVR). We already know Pine64 is working on Quartz64 SBC based on Rockchip RK3566, but I’ve just noticed Geniatech’s “RK3568 development board” that should offer even more features since the processor comes with extra I/Os compared to its little brother. Let’s have a look. Geniatech RK3568 development board specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3568 quad-core Cortex-A55 processor up to 2.0 GHz with Arm Mali-G52 GPU supporting OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0/3.2, OpenCL 2.0, Vulkan 1.1, 0.8 TOPS NPU for AI acceleration System Memory – Up to 4 GB LPDDR4 Storage – Up to 128 GB eMMC 5.1 flash, 1x SATA 3.0 port, MicroSD card slot, M.2 socket for NVMe SSD (See […]

UP 7000 x86 SBC