NanoPi NEO2, now called NanoPi NEO2 LTS, is a great little Allwinner H5 SBC designed for server/headless applications with Ethernet & USB ports, as well as I/O headers. FriendlyELEC is now about to launch a new variant called NanoPi NEO2 Black with the same form factor and Allwinenr H5 64-bit Arm SoC, but adding an eMMC flash module, supporting up to 1GB RAM, modifications to the I/O headers, and featuring a black PCB instead of the blue PCB found in NEO2-LTS. NanoPi NEO2 Black SBC specifications with changes in bold or stricken-through: SoC – Allwinner H5 quad-core Cortex A53 processor with an ARM Mali-450MP GPU System Memory – 512 MB or 1GB DDR3 Storage – MicroSD card slot, eMMC flash module connector Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet (via RTL8211E-VB-CG chip) USB – 1x USB 2.0 host port, 1x micro USB OTG port, 2x 1x USB via headers Expansion headers 10-pin header […]
Ugoos AM6 Review – An Android 9.0 TV Box with Plenty of Options
Karl here….With another review. Today we look at the AM6 from Ugoos. Ugoos has been around for quite some time. I recently did a review of the Beelink GT-King with the same S922X processor and I will do some comparisons with that. I have to say with everything except the UI, I like this box much better (You can read my rant in the Beelink article about Android on the TV). The AM6 is built well. It is solid with a metal enclosure and just feels good when you pick it up. I know weight doesn’t really matter but it feels substantial. Like I stated I don’t really like UI but Ugoos ticks quite a few boxes that appeal to my nerdiness. I will go more into that later. Below are the specs per Ugoos Website. I highlighted the interesting ones. Hardware Specs: Operation System – Android 9.0 Language – […]
AMD Ryzen Embedded SBC Supports 4x 4K Displays Ready for Linux and Windows
The Release of the IB918 SBC The IBASE Technology Inc has released its IB918 3.5″ disk sized SBC, based on the AMD Ryzen V1000 or R1000 SoC with several different options for the base chip system. The new computers can support Windows or Ubuntu and offer several different core options. The Basics The board supports 4 simultaneous 4K displays through 2 HDMI ports, eDP and LVDS, as well as 2x GbE 2.0 and storage options include a SATA III port, and an M.2 NVMe socket. The supports offer a choice in which SoC can be loaded, either the Ryzen Embedded R1000 SoC or the already marketed and more powerful V1000 which supports both Ubuntu and Windows. Background and other AMD Ryzen Embedded SBC’s AMD Ryzen Embedded R1000 Series SoC’s UDOO BOLT AMD Ryzen Embedded Sapphire FS-FP5R 5×5 Motherboard with the embedded AMD Ryzen R1606G or R1505G processor onboard. IBASE MI988 […]
Commell Unveils LP-178 Whiskey Lake Pico-ITX SBC
We’ve previously covered several Intel Whiskey Lake-U SBCs in various form factors such as the Commell LE-37N 3.5″ board, ASRock IMB-1216 mini-ITX motherboard, or UP Xtreme with a custom 122×120 form factor. But if your project or application requires a more compact form factor, Commell has just announced LP-178 Whiskey Lake Pico-ITX SBC with either Intel Core i7-8665UE or Celeron 4305UE 8th generation embedded processor. LP-178 board specifications: SoC (one or the other) Intel Core i7-8665UE quad-core/octa-thread processor @ 1.7GHz / 4.4GHz (Turbo) with Intel UHD Graphics 620; 8MB cache; 15W TDP Intel Celeron 4305UE dual-core processor @ 2.0GHz with Intel UHD Graphics 610; 2MB cache; 15W TDP FCBGA1528 package System Memory – SO-DIMM socket for up to 16GB DDR4 RAM Storage – 1x SATA 3.0 interface Video Output / Display I/F HDMI port up to 4K resolution DisplayPort output DP to VGA or LVDS via an optional adapter Triple […]
PicoLibC is a Lightweight C library for Embedded Systems
Well-known developer, Keith Packard has recently announced the launch of “picolibc” through his blog. Picolibc is a C Library for embedded systems which is suitable for small micro-controllers, and this standard C library API’s allows to run even in low memory (RAM) devices. This is an upgraded version of “newlib-nano” with few interesting changes which includes replacement of “stdio” lib with ATMEL-specific printf code adopted from avrlibc. As part of this library, Keith also launched picocrt, which is responsible for initializing memory and invoking various constructors before calling its own C program, the main function. Features picolibc is a revised version of newlibc, without full-fledged stdio lib and uses lightweight stdio lib from avrlibc, which is more suitable to low memory embedded devices. Meson build-system eases the build process of picolibc source tree for various target platform and hardware. Updated the math test suite to use Glibc as a reference […]
Rock Pi 4C SBC to Support Dual Display Setups via micro HDMI and mini DP Ports
Rockchip RK3399 powered Rock Pi 4 SBC was introduced at the end of 2018 and followed nearly exactly Raspberry Pi 3 Model B form factor just with a more powerful processor, GPU, as well as more memory depending on which model you purchase. But in June 2019, the Raspberry Pi foundation launched Raspberry Pi 4 SBC with a much faster processor and many of the same ports as its predecessor except for support for two HDMI displays via micro HDMI ports. Radxa has now followed suit with Rock Pi 4C which offers two modern video outputs, but with a twist as the upcoming SBC combines one micro HDMI port with one mini DP port. Rock Pi 4C was introduced at the XDC 2019 conference where open-source graphics developers meet, and Radxa was a “supporter”. The company explains Rock Pi 4B uses RK3399’s USB type-C controller for the two USB 3.0 […]
Nubix Edge-native Tiny Containers for IoT Apps Released For Raspberry Pi and BeagleBone SBCs
Nubix has just launched the developer edition of its edge-native tiny containers for IoT application development and analytics that target microcontrollers and single-board computers such as Raspberry Pi 3/4 and BeagleBone Black. Typical cloud solutions such as Docker are often too large with tiny IoT devices, and to solve these issues, Nubix tiny containers are sized in kilobytes, instead of megabytes, or about 100 times smaller than a Docker container, in order to be small enough to run at the edge. Nubix.io provides access to a library of sensors, analytics and tiny services that leverage open source languages and pre-packaged functions to easily create IoT applications in a few minutes. Analytics is commonly done in the cloud, which may cause issues in environments with limited or intermittent connectivity, so to solve this issue, Nubix provides analytics functionality directly on the IoT device, eliminating the latency, bandwidth, connectivity and cost constraints […]
Raspberry Pi 4 Digital Signage Solution Supports 4K HEVC Video and Dual Display Setups
4K H.265 & dual-display digital signage for Raspberry Pi 4 The Info-Beamer, the company that started as a for-fun project at a hacker conference and turned into a now growing business has developed the first Raspberry Pi 4 OS that can use the HEVC (H.265) decoding system and support dual-display setups. The latest info-beamer hosted version 11 (aka hosted 11) is designed for 4K video quality digital signs, and the two HDMI ports on the Raspberry Pi 4 can be used simultaneously for mirrored output on two displays or span two video displays on digital signs. The company has reported that this solution can work on a video wall, like the info-beamer magic video wall. Previous Info-Beamer Previously there was an info-beamer hosted 10 released in February 2019 and that version is still applicable if wanted. All versions of Raspberry Pi are still supported but the OS 11 release focuses […]