Testing Category - Page 116 of 159 - CNX Software

May 31, 2015May 31, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Linaro 15.05 Release with Linux 4.1 and Android 5.1

Linaro 15.04 has been released with Linux 4.1-rc4, Linux 3.10.79 and 3.14.42 (LSK), and Android 5.1_r3. The Ubuntu image is now based on Vivid instead of Utopic. Android and Debian builds/images have been released for Hikey’s 96boards, Ubuntu Vivid and Android builds have been setup for Qualcomm’s Dragonboard 410c. A new platform, Socionext M8M, has also show in Linaro changelog. I could not find details about M8M, but Socionext is a “new company that designs, develops and delivers System-on-Chip products” and focuses on “imaging, networking and other dynamic technologies”. Their latest press release mentions a 4K media processor with build-in HDMI 2.0 Tx and Rx, so maybe M8M is based on that processor, but I can’t know for sure as they have several chips. Highlights of this release: Linux Linaro 4.1-rc4-2015.05 GATOR updated to version 5.21.1 updated integration-linaro-vexpress64 topic by ARM LT: PCI support added – for Juno r1. Linaro […]

April 30, 2015April 30, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

Windows 10 IoT Preview for Raspberry Pi 2 and MinnowBoard Max

When Raspberry Pi 2 Model B was released, we were promised a Windows 10 image for the board, and today, Microsoft released “Windows 10 IoT Core Insider Preview” for both the Broadcom BCM2836 based Raspberry Pi 2 and Intel Atom E3800 series based Minnowboard MAX boards. To get started with either board, simply go to Windows IoT – Getting Started page. I’ll quickly go through the instructions for Raspberry Pi 2. Beside the board, you’ll also need a PC running Windows 10 Insider preview (Virtual machine not supported), a 5V power supply, a HDMI cable (optional but recommended), an Ethernet cable, and a 8GB micro SD card, class 10 or better. The you’ll need to configure a connect account, where I had to accept two EULA including “Windows 10 IoT Core Insider Preview EULA”, and once this is done the area of the page for EULA should just be blank, […]

April 28, 2015April 29, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Intel Atom Z3735F mini PC Power Consumption in Android

I’ve already measured power consumption running Antutu and playing a 4K video on Rockchip RK3288 and Amlogic S812 platform, as described in “Power Consumption of Amlogic S812 and Rockchip RK3288 TV Boxes“, and now that I have an Intel Bay Trail-T mini PC running Android 4.4 with Wintel W8, I was interested in comparing its power consumption to the ARM platform. [Update: I forgot to mention measurements have all been done @ ~5V.] The test normally consists in several steps: Boot the device Run the latest Antutu benchmark Connect a USB hard drive Play a 4K video in Kodi from the hard drive Diconnect the hard drive Power off the device But since the current draw was a little to high at times, I got a few issues with my setup. First, I had to boot twice hence the “Power On 1” and “Power On 2” strings on the chart, […]

April 27, 2015August 8, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 46 Comments

Wintel W8 Review – Dual Boot Android & Windows TV Box

Wintel W8 (aka Kingnovel K8) is an Intel Atom Z3735F mini PC inspired from Sunchip Wintel CX-W8 (the hardware is a little different), but instead of just running Windows 8.1, the device can dual boot Android 4.4 and Windows 8.1 with Bing. I’ve already taken pictures or torn down Wintel W8, so today, I’ll focus on the software part of the review, first checking dual boot functionality and Windows 8.1 briefly since it should be very similar to MeLE PCG03, before spending more time on Android as it’s my first Android Intel platform. Dual boot in Wintel W8 When you boot the device, you can select Android or Windows icon, with a 10 second timeout that will boot your latest choice. There’s no menu within Windows to start Android, and vice versa, so to dual boot you need to reboot first, and select the operating systems right after UEFI. The […]

April 26, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 16 Comments

Improve Mediatek MT6752 GPS Accuracy by Turning WiFi Off?

Mediatek smartphones used to have a terribly slow GPS fix, and it would often take over 10 minutes to get a fix if any, and one workaround was to enable Mediatek EPO. However, in my Iocean M6752 review, I found out GPS fix was not super fast even without Internet connection, but accuracy is quite a disaster as Nike+ Running screenshot below clearly shows. I’m running around a stadium so the shape should be elliptic…, but data point are all over the place. Since the review, I’ve kept using the smartphone with Nike+ Running, and each time it’s a disaster, and once the app even reported a 81 km for an actual 10 km run… I’ve also used Google Maps once or twice, and found accuracy to be poor as well. However, I usually leave Wi-Fi on, and for some reasons today, I decided to turn Wi-Fi off before driving […]

April 24, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 43 Comments

Wintel W8 Dual boot Android 4.4 + Windows 8.1 mini PC Unboxing

Last year, we were promised dual boot mini PC based on Intel that would run Windows 8.1 or Android 4.4, but finally companies decided against shipping a dual boot firmware, and simply loaded Windows 8.1 on their machines. Kingnovel sent me their K8 mini PC, better known as Wintel W8, based on Intel Atom Z3735F, and that can dual boot Windows 8.1 with Bing or Android 4.4. Today, I’ll go through the specs first, take some pictures of the device, and tear it down to have a closer look at the hardware, and in a separate post I’ll quickly check out Windows 8.1, before spending a bit more time on Android 4.4 to see how well or bad Android runs on Intel platforms. Kingnovel K8 / Wintel W8 specifications Hardware-wise the box has mostly the same boring specifications as almost any other Intel Atom Z3735F products on the market: SoC […]

April 16, 2015April 19, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Popcorn Hour VTEN 4K Linux Media Player Unboxing & Teardown

Cloud Media (aka Syabas) sent me their latest Popcorn Hour VTEN media player. It supports HDMI output up to 4K, H.265 video codec, and features an eSATA connector, as well as optical and coaxial S/PDIF connectors. Today, I’ll show some pictures of the kit, and teardown the box to checkout the hardware, and in a few days, I’ll report on the user interface, video playback, and HDMI audio pass-through capabilities. Popcorm Hour VTEN Unboxing The unexpected device was sent via Fedex in the package shown below. It lists some of the key features such as H.265, DSD (Direct Stream Digital), FLAC, Matroska, UPnP, 3D, and 4K Ultra HD support, as well as the specs, and more features and package content in English, French, Italian, Spanish, German, Dutch, Swedish, and Danish. The box comes with an IR remote control and two AAA batteries, an HDMI cable, a SATA cable, a 5V/3A […]

April 14, 2015April 15, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

HPC Performance & Power Usage Comparison – Intel Xeon E3 vs Intel Atom C2720 vs Applied Micro X-Gene 1 vs IBM Power 8

Last year, the CERN published a paper comparing Applied Micro X-Gene (64-bit ARM) vs Intel Xeon (64-bit x86) Performance and Power Usage, and they’ve now added IBM Power 8 and Intel Atom Avoton C2750 processor to the mix in a new presentation entitled “A look beyond x86: OpenPOWER & AArch64“. So four systems based on Intel Xeon E3-1285L, Intel Atom C2750, Applied Micro X-Gene 1, and IBM Power 8 were compared, all running Fedora 21, except the HP Moonshot 1500 ARM plarform running Ubuntu 14.04 and an older kernel. All four systems use gcc 4.9.2, and Racktivity intelligent PDUs were used for power measurement. I’ll just share some of their results, you can read the presentation, or go through the benchmark results to find out more. HEP-SPEC06 is a new High Energy Physics (HEP) benchmark for measuring CPU performance developed by the HEPiX Benchmarking Working Group, and here it’s not […]