Android 7.0, Android TV 7.0, and Yocto Project Ported to Pine A64 Boards

A few weeks ago, Raspberry Pi 3 got an Android 7.0 Nougat port, and it’s usable for some app even simple games like Angry Bird, but there are still problems with 3D graphics, and hardware video decoding. But thanks to Pine64 forum’s member Ayufan, we now have Android 7.0 and Android TV 7.0 for Pine A64 boards with 1GB or more memory with 3D graphics, and hardware video acceleration for most apps. Everything is said to pretty much work, but there are some known issues, such as camera support (being worked on now), touchscreen support (not tested), YouTube is limited to 360p/480p as it does not support hardware video decoding, and Widevine DRM is not supported. Android 7.0 has also been shown to be about 10 to 15% faster than Android 5.1.1 in GeekBench. Ronnie Bailey has shot a video showing Pine A64 running Android TV 7.0 Nougat. If you […]

$20 pcDuino4 Nano is Yet Another Allwinner H3 Development Board (Sort of)

We already have plenty of low cost Allwinner H3 development boards thanks to several Shenzhen Xunlong Orange Pi boards and FriendlyARM NanoPi boards among a few others. Here comes another one with pcDuino4 Nano. pcDuino4 Nano (preliminary?) specifications: SoC – Allwinner H3 quad core Cortex A7 @ 1.2 GHz with an ARM Mali-400MP2 GPU up to 600 MHz System Memory – 1GB DDR3 SDRAM Storage – micro SD card slot Video & Audio Output – HDMI and 3.5mm jack for CVBS (composite + stereo audio) Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet USB – 3x USB 2.0 host ports, 1x micro USB OTG port Camera – DVP Interface Expansions – 40-pin Raspberry Pi compatible header with UART, SPI, I2C, PWM, GPIOs, etc… Debugging – 4-pin header for serial console Misc – Power and reset buttons; 2x LEDs; IR receiver; on-board microphone. Power Supply – 5V/2A via micro USB port; 5V via VDD_5V pin […]

Borg Lets You Search for Bash Commands within the Terminal

There are so many commands available in bash that it’s impossible to know them all, and some commands are rarely run. Usually, you have to switch to your web browser to search for a solution or spending time reading through the manpage. In case you’d like to search for a specific command line you can now do so with borg script. If you want to give it a try, you can install it in Linux as follows:

Then run the script with your search query in quotes. Some explanations for the output: () denotes hits for your query [] denotes possible solutions … under a [] means more lines to display a “–” in a solution means separate code examples extracted from the same source Some queries are returning useful results such as “list all files in dir” as show in the screenshot above, but others not so, as […]

Hisilicon Hi3798M V200 SoC to Allow for Cheaper 4K TV Boxes with Gigabit Ethernet, SATA, and/or USB 3.0

One year after Hisilicon Hi3798C V200 processor was unveiled at IBC 2015, Hisilicon has now introduced a cost down version named Hisilicon Hi3798M V200 at IBC 2016 with a lower-end Mali-450 GPU, only 2 TS input interfaces, one less USB 3.0 interface, and only 1x GMAC (Gigabit Ethernet MAC) or 1x Fast Ethernet PHY, instead of two GMAC interfaces. The processor also adds 1080p30 H.265 video encoding. Hisilicon Hi3798M V200 key features: CPU – Quad core Cortex A53 processor (15K DMIPS) GPU – ARM Mali-450 + Hisilicon dual-core GPU Memory I/F – 32-bit DDR3/3L/4 Storage I/F – eMMC/NAND/SPI, 1x SATA 3.0, 2x SDIO Video Engine (VPU) HiVXE 2.0 video engine supporting 4Kp60 10-bit H.265 and VP9 decoding, 4Kp30 H.264, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, VC1, VP6/VP8, Real Media 8/9/10 Encoder – H.264/H.265 @ 1080p30 or dual 720p30 Imprex 2.0 processing engine with support for HDR10 & HLG high dynamic range, BT.709/BT.2020, etc.. Peripherals: […]

Dune HD SOLO Lite is a Cheaper Sigma Designs SMP8758 based 4K Media Box

Launched at the very end of  last year, Dune HD SOLO 4K media player and NAS with Sigma Designs SMP8758 processor, a 2.5″ SATA bay, and a DVB-T2 tuner has high end specifications, but the price is also steep at 349 Euros inc. VAT. So the company has come up with a newer and cheaper version, Dune HD Solo Lite without the SATA bay, Z-wave support, nor the tuner card, but that keeps many of the same features, and sells for 199 Euros inc. VAT (MSRP). Dune HD Solo Lite specifications: SoC – Sigma Designs SMP8758 dual core Cortex A9 processor @ 1.2 GHz with an ARM Mali-400 GPU and VXP image processing engine System Memory – 1GB Storage – 4GB flash for firmware, SD card reader Video Output – HDMI 1.4b up to 1080p60 / 4K30 (including 23.976, 25, 29.97, 50, 59.94Hz refresh rates), and composite video Audio Output […]

WeTek Play 2 Amlogic S905 TV Box Gets Ubuntu 16.04 Mate and Minimal Firmware Images

WeTek Play 2 is the latest TV box from WeTek with DVB or ATSC tuner, and powered by Amlogic S905-H processor. It ships with Android 5.1.1, but Ubuntu 16.04 Mate and Ubuntu 16.04 minimal firmware images have been released by the community. You can try Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Mate (with desktop environment) or the headless Ubuntu 16.04 LTS minimal image by uncompressing the images, and flashing them to a micro SD card with dd or Win32DiskImager.  Two default credentials (username/password) are provided:  wetek/wetek and root/wetek. This required the latest Play 2 Android firmware, so make sure you get the latest OTA update before trying Ubuntu. The Ubuntu 16.04 images should just boot from the SD card without replacing or affecting your Android installation. If this type of images for Amlogic S905 seems similar, it’s because are based on Hardkernel ODROID-C2 Ubuntu 16.04 images. You can find the Linux kernel for […]

MinnowBoard Turbot SBC Gets a Quad Core Atom E3845 Processor, Better Ethernet, and a Fansink

MinnowBoard Turbot open source hardware SBC was released in 2015 with an Intel Atom E3826 dual core Bay Trail-I processor, 2GB RAM, SATA and Gigabit Ethernet support, and a new version – MinnowBoard Turbot Quad – with a more powerful quad core processor, an heatsink and fan, and better Ethernet connectivity will be launched in December. MinnowBoard Turbot Quad “MBT-4210” board specifications: SoC – Intel Atom E3845 quad core Bay Trail-I processor @ 1.92 GHz with Intel HD graphics @ 542 / 792 MHz (10W TDP) System Memory – 2GB DDR3L 1067 MT/s (Soldered) Storage – 1x SATA2 3Gbs, 1x micro SD card slot, , 8 MB SPI Flash for firmware (Tianocore UEFI, Coreboot, SeaBIOS) Video & Audio Output – 1x micro HDMI connector Connectivity – 10/100/1000M Ethernet RJ-45 connector (Intel i211 instead of Realtek NIC on first board) USB – 1x USB 3.0 host, 1x USB 2.0 host Debugging […]

Tizen Studio 1.0 Replaces Tizen SDK for Smartphones, Wearables and TVs

Tizen has converged all Tizen SDK for mobile, wearables, and TV to Tizen Studio since the beginning of the month, and released Tizen Studio 1.0 for developers interested in developing app for Tizen smartphones, TVs and/or smartwatches such as the latest Samsung Gear S3. So instead, you’ll now be able to select the targets platform and profiles within Tizen Studio. Some of the key changes made to the development environment in Tizen Studio 1.0 include: Launching tools: Installer, Uninstaller, and Package Manager Developing tools: IDE perspective theme, Project Wizard, Certificate Manager, and Menu and tool icons UI tools: UI Builder, Component Designer, and EDC Editor Testing tools: Emulator Testing tools: Dynamic Analyzer for memory and CPU profiling Other improvements in Tizen application development environment Tizen Studio is available for the 32-bit and 64-bit version of Windows,  and Ubuntu, as well as for Mac OS with one version with the graphics […]

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