Embedded Linux Conference & IoT Summit Europe 2016 Schedule

Embedded Linux Conference & IoT summit 2016 first took place in the US in April, but the events are now also scheduled in Europe on October 11 – 13 in Berlin, Germany, and the schedule has now been published. Even if you are no going to attend, it’s always interesting to find out more about the topic covered in that type of events, so I had a look, and created my own virtual schedule with some of the sessions. Tuesday, October 11 10:40 – 11:30 – JerryScript: An Ultra-lightweight JavaScript Engine for the Internet of Things – Tilmann Scheller, Samsung Electronics JerryScript is a lightweight JavaScript engine designed to bring the success of JavaScript to small IoT devices like lamps, thermometers, switches and sensors. This class of devices tends to use resource-constrained microcontrollers which are too small to fit a large JavaScript engine like V8 or JavaScriptCore. JerryScript is heavily […]

Jiayu S3 and S3 Plus Smartphones Get Android 6.0 Firmware Releases with Source Code

Jiayu S3 and S3 Plus are your typical Android smartphones powered by Mediatek MT6752/MT6753 octa core Cortex A53 processor with 3GB RAM, 16GB flash, and a 5.5″ touch screen display. The news here is that Jiayu Germany (a reseller, not the manufacturer), and Team M.A.D (Mediatek Android Developers) comprised of XDA members, have releasing three custom ROMs based on Android 6.0.1 for the smartphone: Cyanogenmod13, Paranoid Android (AOSPA) and AICP (Android Ice Cold Project), which contrast with my Iocean MT6752 smartphone still stuck on Android 4.4.4. I’ll reproduce the technical specifications of Jiayu S3+ phone for reference: SoC- Mediatek MT6753 Octa-core 64-bit ARM Cortex A53 processor @ 1.3 GHz, with ARM Mali-T720 GPU System Memory – 3GB RAM Storage – 16 GB eMMC + micro SD slot up to 64GB Display – 5.5” IPS capacitive touchscreen display; 1920×1080 resolution Connectivity – 802.11 b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi , Bluetooth 4.0, GPS / A-GPS, FM Radio Cellular […]

Music802 Linux Audio & IoT Board is Powered by Atheros AR9331 SoC (Crowdfunding)

When Link Card evaluated processors for a Linux audio IoT board, they considered candidates like Allwinner H3 and Ralink RT5350, but eventually went with Atheros AR9331 due to cost, simplicity, features, and power consumption reasons for their Music802 board based on LC930 system-on-module. Music802 board specifications: SoC – Atheros AR9331 MIPS 24K WiSoC @ 400 MHz System Memory – 64MB DDR2 Storage – 16MB SPI Flash Audio – Cirrus Logic WM8960 Codec; 2x 3.5 mm jacks for Line IN and headphone; optical S/PDIF output; on-board microphone Connectivity – 2x 10/100M Ethernet ports (WAN & LAN), 802.11 b/g/n WiFi with 1x IPEX antenna connector USB – 1x USB 2.0 host, 1x micro USB port for power only Debugging –  3-pin 2.54mm pitch header for serial console Expansion – 16-pin 2.0mm pitch header for GPIO, UART, I2C, etc.. Misc – Power, system, and 2x user LEDs, 1x reset button, 1x power switch […]

96Boards Gets a TV Platform Edition Targeting $50 Mid-range Boards, $99 High-end Boards

96Boards was born as a hardware and software standard with Consumer (CE) & Enterprise Editions (EE), with different form factors with the latter focusing on server boards, but with similar software requirements requiring recent and mostly open source software. The consumer edition was also split into “Standard” and “Extended” editions, which the latter allowing for larger boards with more features, while the Enterprise Edition has its own larger format, as well as an option for micro-ATX form factor. I’ve just learned that a “fifth” 96Boards standard has been worked on with 96Board TV Platform for Home Gateways, OTT Streaming boxes, and TV boards with prices target of $50 or lower for mid-range boards, and $99 or lower for high-end boards. 96Boards TV Platform hardware requirements: Dimensions – 160 x 120 mm (EE Standard form factor) RAM – 1GB minimum; 2GB recommended Flash – 8GB eMMC minimum WiFi – 802.11 g/n […]

Linux 4.7 Release – Main Changes, ARM and MIPS Architectures

Linux 4.7 is out: So, after a slight delay due to my travels, I’m back, and 4.7 is out. Despite it being two weeks since rc7, the final patch wasn’t all that big, and much of it is trivial one- and few-liners. There’s a couple of network drivers that got a bit more loving. Appended is the shortlog since rc7 for people who care: it’s fairly spread out, with networking and some intel Kabylake GPU fixes being the most noticeable ones. But there’s random small noise spread all over. And obviously, this means that the merge window for 4.8 is open.Judging by the linux-next contents, that’s going to be a bigger release than the current one (4.7 really was fairly calm, I blame at least partly summer in the northern hemisphere). Linus Linux 4.6 brought USB 3.1 superspeed, OrangeFS distributed file system, 802.1AE MAC-level encryption (MACsec), and BATMAN V protocol support, improved […]

FriendlyARM NanoPi NEO Board Benchmarks

We’ve already seen how to setup NanoPi NEO with Ubuntu Core, and while it’s mostly designed as an IoT node, for example to control relays over Ethernet or the Internet, I’ve still decided to see how it would perform under load by running Phoronix benchmarks, and then network and storage (micro SD card provided by FriendlyARM). It’s a small board, so we should expect it to heat a lot under load, especially it does not come with an heatsink by default. Also bear in mind that performance may dramatically change depending on the software implementation, and for the test, I’m using the company’s Ubuntu Core firmware. Before start the benchmark, I noticed that QTe-Demo was running in the background, probably because it was used on their other board with video output or LCD. but it’s taking some CPU usage, and is absolutely not needed here. To disable it, edit /etc/rc.local, […]

Google Research PRUDAQ is a 40MSPS ADC Data Acquisition (DAQ) Cape for BeagleBone Black & Green

Engineers at Google Research wanted to measure the strength of a carrier signals without having to use a bulky oscilloscope or DAQ (Data Acquisition) system,  so they looked into several makers boards to achieve this task, eventually decided to go with BeagleBone Black / Green, and created their own PRUDAQ cape capable of sampling 40 million samples per second, and open source it all. PRUDAQ cape specifications: Dual-channel simultaneously-sampled 10-bit ADC (Analog Devices AD9201) Up to 20MSPS per channel (40MSPS total) theoretical 0-2V input voltage range (DC coupled) 4:1 analog switches in front of each channel provide a total of 8 single-ended analog inputs. (See here for differential input) SMA jacks for direct access to the 2 ADC channels Flexible clock options: External input via SMA jack Internal on-board 10MHz oscillator Programmable clock from BeagleBone GPIO pins Powered via BeagleBone headers – no external power needed Fully exposed BeagleBone headers […]

Gateworks Ventana GW5530 SBC is Designed for Drones, Robots, and Digital Signage

Gateworks Ventana is a family of boards based on NXP i.MX6 processor designed for embedded applications, and often include one or more mini PCIe ports for expansion. Their latest single board computer – Ventana GW5530 –  is powered by an NXP i.MX 6Dual processor coupled with 512MB RAM, 256MB storage, a mini PCIe port, a micro SD / SIM card slot, micro HDMI output, and some I/Os. Ventana GW5530 specifications: SoC – NXP i.MX6 Dual Core ARM Cortex-A9 processor @ 800MHz with Vivante 2D and 3D GPUs System Memory – 512MB DDR3 (Up to 2GB as option) Storage – 256MB flash (Up to 2GB as option), micro SD/SIM card slot, serial configuration EEPROM Video & Audio Output – micro HDMI 1.4 port Connectivity – Optional u-blox EVA-M8M GPS Receiver with MMCX or u.FL Antenna Connector USB – 1x micro USB 2.0 OTG Port Sensors – 9-axis inertial module (accelerometer/gyro/magnetometer) Expansion […]

UP 7000 x86 SBC