Apertus AXIOM Beta Open Source Professional Digital Cinema is Built around MicroZed Board

Apertus AXIOM Beta is a professional digital cinema camera built around FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) and open hardware licenses. The project started around year 2011 with AXIOM Alpha camera, and AXIOM Beta is the latest iteration powered by MicroZed development board based on Xilinx Zynq 7020 ARM + FPGA SoC, and running Arch Linux ARM. AXIOM Beta developer kit (planned) hardware specifications: “Linux” Board – Xilinx Zynq 7020 based MicroZed board Beta Main Board – Hosts two external medium-speed shield connectors and two high-speed plugin module slot connectors. Image Sensor – 12MP CMV12000 (Used for research and development) via CMV12K ZIF Sensor Board Lens Mount Passive E-mount Ports – USB / USB UART / JTAG / Gigabit Ethernet Modules and Shields Single HDMI Full HD (4:4:4) output at up to 60 FPS Dual 6G SDI output (in development) 3x PMOD debug module LED matrix debug module Genlock, Trigger, […]

Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 Octa Core Kryo 385 SoC to Power Premium Smartphones, XR Headsets, Windows Laptops

Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor was expected since May 2017 with four custom Cortex A75 cores, four Cortex A53 cores, Adreno 630 GPU, and X20 LTE modem. with the launch planned for Q1 2018. At least, that what the leaks said. Qualcomm has now formally launched Snapdragon 845 Mobile Platform and rumors were mostly right, as the the octa-core processor comes with four Kryo 385 Gold cores (custom Cortex A75), four Kryo 385 Silver cores (custom Cortex A55) leveraging DynamIQ technology, an Adreno 630 “Visual Processing System”, and Snapdragon X20 modem supporting LTE Cat18/13. The processor is said to use more advanced artificial intelligence (AI) allowing what the company calls “extended reality (XR)” applications, and will soon be found in flagship smartphones, XR headsets, mobile PCs, and more. Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 (SDM845) specifications: Processor 4x Kryo 385 Gold performance cores @ up to 2.80 GHz (custom ARM Cortex A75 cores) 4x […]

AWS DeepLens is a $249 Deep Learning Video Camera for Developers

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has launched Deeplens, the “world’s first deep learning enabled video camera for developers”. Powered by an Intel Atom X5 processor with 8GB, and featuring a 4MP (1080p) camera, the fully programmable system runs Ubuntu 16.04, and is designed expand deep learning skills of developers, with Amazon providing tutorials, code, and pre-trained models. AWS Deeplens specifications: SoC – Intel Atom X5 Processor with Intel Gen9 HD graphics (106 GFLOPS of compute power) System Memory – 8GB RAM Storage – 16GB eMMC flash, micro SD slot Camera – 4MP (1080p) camera using MJPEG, H.264 encoding Video Output – micro HDMI port Audio – 3.5mm audio jack, and HDMI audio Connectivity – Dual band WiFi USB – 2x USB 2.0 ports Misc – Power button; camera, WiFi and power status LEDs; reset pinhole Power Supply – TBD Dimensions – 168 x 94 x 47 mm Weight – 296.5 grams The […]

Hisilicon Hi3559A V100ES is an 8K Camera SoC with a Neural Network Accelerator

Earlier today, I published a review of JeVois-A33 machine vision camera, noting that processing is handled by the four Cortex A7 cores of Allwinner A33 processor, but in the future we can expect such type of camera to support acceleration with OpenCL/Vulkan capable GPUs, or better, Neural network accelerators (NNA) such Imagination Tech PowerVR Series 2NX. HiSilicon already launched Kirin 970 SoC with such similarIP, except they call it an NPU (Neural-network Processing Unit). However, while looking for camera SoC with NNA, I found a list of deep learning processors, including the ones that go into powerful servers and autonomous vehicles, that also included a 8K Camera SoC with a dual core CNN (Convolutional Neural Network) acceleration engine made by Hisilicon: Hi3559A V100ES. Hisilicon Hi3559A V100ES specifications: Processor Cores 2x ARM Cortex A73 @ 2 GHz, 32 KB I cache, 64KB D cache or 512 KB L2 cache 2x ARM […]

JeVois-A33 Linux Computer Vision Camera Review – Part 2: Setup, Guided Tour, Documentation & Customization

Computer Vision, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, etc.. are all terms we hear frequently those days. JeVois-A33 smart machine vision camera powered by Allwinner A33 quad core processor was launched last year on Indiegogo to bring such capabilities in a low power small form factor devices for example to use in robotics project. The company improved the software since the launch of the project, and has now sent me their tiny Linux camera developer kit for review, and I’ve already checked  out the hardware and accessories in the first post. I’ve now had time to test the camera, and I’ll explained how to set it up, test some of the key features via the provided guided tour, and show how it’s possible to customize the camera to your needs with one example. Getting Started with JeVois-A33 In theory, you could just get started by inserting the micro SD card provided with […]

Xiaomi Mi A1 Smartphone Review – Part 2: Android 7.1.2 Firmware

Google recently announced several Android One smartphones, which are supposed to get 2 years of firmware updates, including to the latest version of Android, such as HTC U11 Life and Android One Moto X4. Many of those phones are limited to some specific countries, but Xiaomi Mi A1 will be launched in over 40 countries, and thanks to Chinese online shops is really available worldwide. GearBest sent me the latter last month, and in the first part of Xiaomi Mi A1 review I simply went through unboxing, booted the phone, perform an OTA update, and ran Antutu 6.x on the phone for a quick estimate of performance. Since then, I’ve had around four weeks to play with the smartphone running Android 7.1.2 (still), so I’m ready to report my experience in the second part of the review. General Impressions In the past year, I used Vernee Apollo Lite smartphone powered […]

NanoPi Fire2A & Fire3 Boards Released with Samsung/Nexell Quad & Octa Core Processors

FriendlyElec previously launched NanoPi 2 Fire board powered by Samsung (Nexell) S5P4418 quad core Cortex A9 SoC, mostly interesting because of its small form factor, camera and LCD interfaces. The company has now launched two new boards based on S5Pxx18 processors, namely NanoPi Fire2A powered by S5P4418 SoC, and NanoPi Fire3 based on S5P6818 octa-core Cortex-A53 SoC. Both boards share the same form factor, which remains quite similar to the one of NanoPi 2 Fire, except the HDMI connector now makes place for a micro HDMI port, the USB 2.0 has moved into vertical position, and a few other tweaks have been made to positions of buttons and components. NanoPi Fire2A / Fire3 specifications: SoC Fire2A – Samsung S5P4418 quad core Cortex A9 processor @ up to 1.4GHz, Mali-400MP GPU Fire3 – Samsung S5P6818 octa core Cortex A53 processor @ up to 1.4 GHz, Mali-400MP GPU System Memory Fire2A – 512MB DDR3 […]

JeVois Smart Machine Vision Camera Review – Part 1: Developer / Robotics Kit Unboxing

JeVois-A33 computer vision camera was unveiled at the end of last year through a Kickstarter campaign. Powered by an Allwinner A33 quad core Cortex A7 processor, and a 1.3MP camera sensor, the system could detect motion, track faces and eyes, detect & decode ArUco makers & QR codes, follow lines for autonomous cars, etc.. thanks to JeVois framework. Most rewards from KickStarter shipped in April of this year, so it’s quite possible some of the regular readers of this blog are already familiar the camera. But the developer (Laurent Itti) re-contacted me recently, explaining they add improves the software with Python support, and new features such as the capability of running deep neural networks directly on the processor inside the smart camera. He also wanted to send a review sample, which I received today, but I got a bit more than I expected, so I’ll start the review with an […]

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