Freaks3D is a Low Cost Portable 3D Printer (Crowdfunding)

ElecFreaks is a design house based in Shenzhen that caters to makers and startups, and started selling Arduino shields and accessories, as well as  Raspberry Pi add-on boards, before moving to robotics kits, 3D printers, and other tools in demand by electronics hobbyists. The company has now designed Freaks3D portable 3D printer, and launched an Indiegogo campaign to fund production. Freaks3D printer specifications: Technology – Fused Deposition Modeling Build Volume – 130 x 150 x 100 mm (LxWxH) Nozzle Size – Standard 400 microns Resolution – Layer: 100 microns; XY: 50 microns Filament diameter – 1.75mm Filament Material – PLA or TPU 3D Files Transfer – USB via PC, or SD card Misc – LCD Display, one button operation, printing bed does not require heating Power Supply – 12V / 8A power adapter, or 12V / 5A power bank (Not included) Dimensions –  290 x 320 x 325 mm Weight […]

$55 UWatch UX Strapless Heart Rate Monitor Watch Syncs with iOS and Android Devices

Last time I checked about heart rate monitor, they required a chest strap to monitor ones heart rate, which I found cumbersome. It’s been while though, and I’ve now been informed that a low cost Bluetooth strapless heart rate monitor watch was available for $59.99 on GeekBuying. This type of product should provide a much more accurate evaluation of your daily calories burn rate than typical fitness bands based on an accelerometer and gyro sensor, but I’m not quite sure how they compare to the old models with a chest strap. Uwatch UX specifications and features: SoC – Mediatek Aster MT2501 ARM7 processor @ 108 MHz (A lower end version of MT2502 used in LinkIt One Devkit) System Memory – 32MB RAM Storage – 24MB NOR flash Heart rate monitor – Built-in photoelectric heart rate sensor Other sensors – magnetometer, 3-axis gravity and acceleration sensor Connectivity – Bluetooth 4.0 and […]

PiPo X1 is a Windows 10 Bay Trail HDMI TV Stick

PiPo used to the mostly know for its low cost tablets, but then they started launching ARM based mini PCs, and followed with x86 mini PCs such as the popular PiPo X7. Netbook Italia found out the company is now working on a new HDMI TV stick that will run Windows 10, but they must have run out of “lucky” names because the product will apparently be called PiPo X1, a name they already used for a Rockchip RK3188 TV stick… The hardware is not really interesting, as it has basically the same specs as the other Bay Trail-T sticks on the market: SoC – Intel Atom Z3735F  “Bay Trail” quad core processor @ 1.33 GHz (Bust frequency: 1.83 GHz) with Intel HD graphics Gen 7 System Memory – 2 GB Storage – 32 GB eMMC + micro SD slot up Video & Audio Output – HDMI Connectivity – 802.11 […]

Geniatech Showcases Amlogic T866 TV Box with 2 HDMI inputs, 1 HDMI output

Amlogic mostly makes SoCs for tablets, for example the M80x series, and TV boxes such as Amlogic S805 or S812, but they also have a processor family designed for Smart TVs such as Amlogic T866 quad core Cortex A9 processor @ 1.8 GHz coupled with an octa-core Mali-450MP. Somehow, Geniatech has designed ATV1866 TV box based on the latter support two HDMI inputs, and one HDMI output. The box does not appears to support video recoding from the HDMI input, nor time-shifting, but the company showcased picture-in-picture (PiP) functionality, showing either input used in full screen or windowed mode on top of the Android user interface. HDMI version is 2.0 for the output, with H.265 codec supported, but I could not find details about the HDMI inputs. The box is running Android 4.4 for now, but will certainly run Android 5.0 at launch. The company is still developing the product, […]

Remix Mini Android Mini PC Offers a Better Desktop Experience (Crowdfunding)

Android mini PC are great to consume content, but when I tried to blog with one, I found many shortcomings which made it not such as good user experience, and writing articles on an Android mini PC everyday, it would seriously decrease my productivity.  That’s probably why Chinese start-up Jide Tech decided to work on Remix OS, based on Android 5.0 but with customizations for a better desktop experience including multitasking support, resizable windows, shortcuts support, a taskbar, and more. The company has now launched a Kickstarter campaign for a low cost mini PC powered by Allwinner A64 and Remix OS. They called it Remix Mini, and dubbed it the “First True Android mini PC”.  Two versions are available, one with 1GB RAM + 8GB storage, and one with 2GB + 16GB storage. Specifications: SoC – Allwinner H64 quad core Cortex A53 processor @ 1.2 GHz System Memory – 1 […]

Kodi 14.2 Linux Ported to Rockchip RK3288 with VPU Hardware Decoding

Rockchip RK3288 is one of the most popular platforms for TV boxes, and while most boxes are sold with Android OS, it can also run various Linux distributions with two main caveats: 2D/3D GPU acceleration, and hardware video decoding by the VPU. It appears the last two have been worked on, as yesterday, I got tipped that Kodi 14.2 Linux was running on Ugoos UT3 and Radxa Rock2 Square. Since both hardware platforms showcased a Kodi port at the about same time, it’s probably safe to assume they use the same implementation (despite slightly different build dates May 29 vs June 6), which has been developed by “Marc” (or is it MAC?) using the Android libraries and libhybris for video decoding, raw2 device driver for 2D HW accelerated blitting and converting frames, and ARM OpenGL library, driver and examples, among other software packages. So let’s check the demos starting with […]

ODROID-XU4 Development Board is a Smaller and Cheaper Version of ODROID-XU3 Board

Many people are expecting Hardkernel to launch an Exynos 7 board, but this won’t be with ODROID-XU4, maybe with ODROID-XU5, as the latest development board from Hardkernel is a modified version of ODROID-XU3 with the same Exynos 5422 octa-core processor with four Cortex-A15 cores @ 2GHz and four Cortex-A7 cores. ODROID-XU4 board specifications (differences with ODROID-XU3 highlighted and sometimes crossed out in bold): SoC – Samsung Exynos 5422 quad core ARM Cortex-A15 @ 2.0GHz quad core ARM Cortex-A7 @ 1.4GHz with Mali-T628 MP6 GPU supporting OpenGL ES 3.0 / 2.0 / 1.1 and OpenCL 1.1 Full profile System Memory – 2GB LPDDR3 RAM PoP (750 MHz, 12GB/s memory bandwidth, 2x32bit bus) Storage – Micro SD slot (up to 64GB) + eMMC 5.0 module socket (16, 32, and 64GB modules available) Video Output – micro HDMI (Up to 1080p) and DisplayPort (up to 2160p) Audio Output – HDMI, 3.5mm headphone jack, […]

Gesto is a Wearable Gesture Motion Solution for Makers (Crowdfunding)

A while ago I wrote about an open source prosthetic arm controlled by signals generated by your arm’s muscles. It used an Arduino board, a bio-feedback shield by Olimex, and inMoov Hand for the arm and hand. It worked, but lacked accuracy. Gesto is a solution based on boards powered by Atmel MCUs that looks somewhat similar, but with higher accuracy (over 100 gestures have been tested), and the project has now been launched on Crowdsupply. Two kits are available: Gesto Stella EMG circuit – ADS1294 MCU – Atmel ATmega1284p 2x EMG cables connector Through holes with GND, PWR, MOSI, MISO, CLK and SC Dimensions – 35 x 20 mm Includes 16 disposable electrodes and relevant cables Gesto Caelum EMG circuit – ADS1294 MCU – Atmel ATmega1284p Sensors – 3-axis accelerometer (MMA8652FC) Connectivity – Bluetooth (RN42-HID) 2x EMG cables connector USB – Micro USB connector Programming – ICSP connector Power […]