Bitmain, a company specializing in cryptocurrency, blockchain, and artificial intelligence (AI) application, has just joined Linaro, and announced the first 96Boards AI platform featuring an ASIC: Sophon BM1880 Edge Development Board, often just referred to as “Sophon Edge”. The board conforms to the 96Boards CE specification, and include two Arm Cortex-A53 cores, a Bitmain Sophon Edge TPU delivering 1 TOPS performance on 8-bit integer operations, USB 3.0 and gigabit Ethernet. Sophon Edge specifications: SoC ASIC – Sophon BM1880 dual core Cortex-A53 processor @ 1.5 GHz, single core RISC-V processor @ 1 GHz, 2MB on-chip RAM, and a TPU (Tensor Processing Unit) that can provide 1TOPS for INT8,and up to 2 TOPs by enabling Winograd convolution acceleration System Memory – 1GB LPDDR4 @ 3200Mhz Storage – 8GB eMMC flash + micro SD card slot Video Processing – H.264 decoder, MJPEG encoder/decoder, 1x 1080p @ 60fps or 2x 1080p @ 30fps H.264 decoder, […]
Rock Pi 4 Raspberry Pi Compatible RK3399 Board to Sell for $39 and Up
The long awaited RPi 4 is almost finally here! Except we’re not talking about Raspberry Pi 4, but Rock Pi 4 designed by Radxa team, back after three years following the launch of Radxa Rock 2 Square, with the new SBC just unveiled by Tom Cubie, Radxa founder. Rock Pi 4 single board computer is powered by a Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core processor coupled with 1 to 4GB RAM, and following Raspberry Pi 3 and ASUS Tinker board form factor. There will be two variants with Rock Pi 4 Model A and Model B sharing most of the same specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3399 big.LITTLE hexa-core processor with 2x Arm Cortex-A72 @ up to 1.8 GHz, 4x Cortex-A53 @ up to 1.4 GHz, a Mali-T864 GPU with support OpenGL ES1.1/2.0/3.0/3.1, OpenVG1.1, OpenCL, DX11, and AFBC, and a VPU with 4K VP9 and 4K 10-bit H265/H264 decoding System Memory – 1, 2 […]
The First 802.11ax WiFI 6 Routers are Now Shipping for $350 and Up
802.11ax WiFi, to be known as WiFi 6 for consumer, promises a much higher throughput up to 10 Gbps, and a better ability to manage high density scenario (i.e.). crowded places where may users connect at the same time. ASUS announced several 802.11ax routers at CES 2018, and the entry-level model – ASUS RT-AX88U – with a combined maximum throughput of 6000 Mbps (referred to as AX6000) is now sold on Amazon for $349.99. NETGEAR has also unveiled their own WiFi 6 routers with respectively Nighthawk AX80 (RAX80) and Nighthawk AX120 (RAX120) routers. I’ve already covered ASUS routers in a previous post, and the 12-stream RAX120 will only become available in Q1 2019, so I’ll focus on the spaceship looking 8-stream RAX80 router since it’s available now. RAX80 WiFi 6 router specifications: SoC – Broadcom BCM49408 quad core Cortex-A53 processor @ 1.8GHz with network packet co-processor @ 800 MHz WiFi […]
Xiaomi Mi Box S is Now Available Worldwide for $55.99 (Promo)
Xiaomi Mi Box S TV box running Android TV 8.1 launched last month as an upgrade to the popular Xiaomi Mi Box with very similar specifications, but a new remote control, and a cheaper $60 price tag. That means if you already own a working Mi Box you probably don’t want to upgrade, but if you haven’t already that’s a better deal. There’s one caveat however. It’s only available in the US at Walmart, so if you leave in another part of the world it’s not easily possible to order one, except going via a US forwarder. The good news is that you can now purchase it on GearBest for $55.99 with coupon GBMIBOXS (Note: they only have 1,000 pieces at this price). Xiaomi Mi Box S specifications as a reminder: SoC – Amlogic S905X quad core ARM Cortex-A53 @ up to 1.5GHz with penta-core Mali-450MP GPU System Memory – […]
Giveaway Week – Libre Computer ROC-RK3328-CC Board
What will be the prize on the fourth day of this year’s giveaway week? Libre Computer ROC-RK3328-CC, a development board based on Rockchip RK3328 processor and mostly following Raspberry Pi 3 form factor. When I reviewed the board with Debian 9 last summer, I was mostly reminded how important fast storage and proper power supply were important. I had some kernel panic when using slow storage (micro SD card), but when I switch to the eMMC flash stability improved a lot. I also had some troubles with my USB 3.0 hard drive, but switching from a 5V/2A power supply to a 5V/2.5A power adapter solved most of my problems. Once I had “solved” those two issues the board worked fairly well, and Libre Computer always aims for mainline Linux support on their board, so that’s an advantage to take into consideration. The kit offered includes the board and heatsink, so […]
Rockchip RK3399Pro EVB and NPU Performance Demos (Video)
Rockchip RK3399Pro was announced as an updated version of RK3399 processor with an NPU (Neural Processing Unit) capable of delivering 2.4 TOPS for faster A.I. workloads such as face or object recognition. There haf been some delays in the past because of a redesign of the processor that placed the NPU’s RAM on the PCB instead of on-chip for cost reasons. Eventually we got more details about RK3399Pro, and today I also received a 15-page presentation with some more information about the software, and processor itself. But even more interesting, that’s the first time I see Rockchip’s official RK3399Pro EVB (Evaluation Board), and the guys at Khadas uploaded a video to explain a bit more about the board, and showcase the NPU performance measured up to 3.0 TOPS with an object recognition demo, and an “body feature” detection demo – for the lack of a better word – running in […]
Giveaway Week – ESP32-LyRaTD-MSC Audio Misc HDK
ESP32-LyraTD-MSC is a smart audio hard development kit based on ESP32 WiSoC that I plan to send to one of my readers as part of Giveaway week. I had the chance to test ESP32-LyraTD-MSC with Baidu DuerOS voice assistant back in February which requires you to speak Mandarin, but now the board has become more useful outside of China with the release of Espressif ESP-ADF audio development framework and support for Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. To enter the draw simply leave a comment below. Other rules are as follows: Only one entry per contest. I will filter out entries with the same IP and/or email address. Contests are open for 48 hours starting at 10am (Bangkok time) every day. Comments will be closed after 48 hours. If comments are open, the contest is still going on. Winners will be selected with random.org, and announced in the comments section of […]
ModBerry M2000 Industrial Computer Features UP Squared Apollo Lake Board
TECHBASE has been providing DIN rail mountable Arm and x86 based Modberry industrial computers / IoT gateways for several years. The company has now upgraded ModBerry M1000 model with an Intel Cherry Trail UP board to ModBerry M2000 computer featuring AAEON UP Squared board powered by either an Intel Celeron N3350 dual core processor, or Pentium N4200 quad core processor, both part of Intel’s Apollo Lake family. ModBerry M2000 specifications: SoC (one or other other) Intel Celeron N3350 dual core processor @ 1.10 / 2.40 GHz with Intel HD Graphics 500; 6W TDP Intel Pentium N4200 quad core processor @ 1.10 / 2.50 GHz with Intel HD Graphics 505; 6W TDP System Memory – 2, 4, or 8GB RAM Storage – 16, 32, 64, or 128GB eMMC flash, SATA connector and M.2 SATA socket Video Output – 1x HDMI Connectivity – 2x Gigabit Ethernet, with optional LTE/3G, WiFi, ZigBee, LoRa, […]