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

ECS LIVA X Bay Trail Mini PCs Support Up to 4GB RAM, Windows and Linux OS

ECS LIVA was on of the first Bay Trail mini PC available on the market, and included both memory and storage. Elitegroup Computer System (ECS) has now officially announced an upgrade at CES 2015 with ECS LIVA X, another Bay Trail-M/I mini PC with up to 4GB, and 64GB storage. LIVA X specifications: SoC – Intel Bay Trail-M / I SoC up to 2.25 GHz. The M version is most probably featuring a dual core Celeron N2808 processor. System Memory – 2 or 4GB DDR3L Storage – 32 or 64GB eMMC + mSATA for SSD. 64Mb SPI Flash ROM with AMI BIOS. Video Output – 1x HDMI, 1x VGA. Dual independent displays supported. Audio – 1x audio combo jack (LIne In and Mic IN); Realtek ALC283 HD codec Connectivity 1x Gigabit Ethernet (Realtek RTL8111G) 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 USB – 1x USB 3.0, 2 x USB 2.0 […]

January 6, 2015January 6, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

Xunity Aurora is an XBMC Linux TV Box Powered by Amlogic S802 Processor

There are plenty of Android media players on the market, and Linux only TV boxes with recent processors have become a rarity. One of them is Armada Mach 8 Pure Linux based on Shenzhen Tomato / Eny M8 hardware, and a new device called Xunity Aurora, also powered by Amlogic S802 quad core processor, will run Linux based on an hardware platform that looks very much like Zoomtak T8. Xunity Aurora specifications: SoC – Amlogic S802 quad core cortex A9r4 @ 2 GHz with Mali-450MP6 GPU @ 700 MHz System Memory – 2GB DDR3 Storage – 8GB NAND flash + SD card slot Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet, dual band 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi with external antenna, Bluetooth 4.0 Video Output – HDMI 1.4a up to 4K30, composite output (RCA) Audio Output – HDMI, stereo RCA, and optical S/PDIF Video Containers – DAT, MPEG, MPE, MPG, TS/TP, VOB, ISO, AVI, MP4, MOV, […]

January 5, 2015January 6, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Crowdfunding Report for 2014 on CNX Software Blog

Following up on my 2013 Crowdfunding Report, I’ve gone through all 55 Kickstarter and Indiegogo crowdunding projects featured on CNX Software between December 2013 and November 2014 (inclusive) to see how well they fared. The table below sort projects chronologically as they were published on this very blog. Date Project Crowdfunding Site Funded? Pledged amount / Goal Expected Delivery Actual Delivery Comments 2. Dec. 2013 Micro Python Kickstarter Yes 97,803 GBP / 15,000 GBP 03/2014 04/2014 Available @ https://micropython.org/store/#/store 5. Dec. 2013 Plugaway Kickstarter Yes $162,835 AUD / $50,000 AUD 04/2014 – People upset because of lack of updates. Project might be dead, and backers lost their money 6. Dec. 2013 AIRTAME Indiegogo Yes $1,268,332 / $160,000 05/2014 12/2014 People have started received the beta versions, after a massive 8-month delay 7. Dec. 2013 Crystal Board Kickstarter No $14,574 / $200,000 04/2014 – The project appears to be dead 10. […]

December 29, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

CloudProject Air X1 and Air S1 Intel Bay Trail Mini PCs to Support Windows 8.1, Android 4.4, and Linux Distributions

Lots of Intel Atom Z3735 based mini PCs have been announced, and some such as MeegoPad T01 have already ended up in the hands of end users, but most of them are running Windows 8.1 with bing, with some featuring a dual boot image with Windows and Android, but no company has yet committed to release one supporting a Linux desktop distribution. This may change thanks to CloudProject Air X1 and Air S1 mini PCs that already support Windows 8.1 (with bing or pro), and Android 4.4.4, but the company is also working on a Linux port, and both models will be available in consumers and enterprise editions. Air X1 is the black mini PC, and Air S1 an HDMI stick stick, both powered by Intel Atom Z3735F processor, and they share most of the same specifications: SoC – Intel Atom Z3735F “Bay Trail” quad core processor @ 1.33 GHz […]

December 24, 2014December 24, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Kodi 14.0 Helix Release

XBMC (name) is definitely dead, as developers of the popular open source “entertainment center” project have announced the first stable Kodi release – the new name of XBMC – with XBMC 14.0 Helix. Key changes and new features include: Update to FFmpeg 2.4.4 – Adds H.265 / HEVC and VP9 video codecs support. Software decode only. Library Improvements – Scanning speed greatly improved, better UPnP support including with PlanOn and MediaBrowser servers. New Configuration features – Add-on update controls, choice of virtual keyboard layouts for tablets and remote control users in order to support multiple languages. Android, iOS and Embedded – 4K support for Amlogic S802, more ARM SoCs are now supported in Android, fast forward/rewind improvements. Airplay support fixed, except for Android. Freescale i.MX6 support for Kodi Linux. Windows, OSX, and Linux – Audio playback improvements. DXVA video playback has been improved for Windows too. A critical Kodi Linux […]

December 23, 2014December 23, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

TyGL OpenGL ES 2.0 Backend for WebKit Speeds Up Web Rendering by Up to 11 Times

ARM, Szeged University in Hungary, and Samsung Research UK have been working on TyGL, a new backend for WebKit accelerated with OpenGL ES2.0, and developed and tested on ARM Mali-T628 GPU found in Samsung ARM Chromebook. It will typically provide 1.5 to 4.5 times higher performance, but in the best cases, it can achieve up to eleven times the performance of a CPU-only rendered page. The key features of TyGL include: Web rendering accelerated by GPU – Batching of draw calls delivers better results on GPUs. TyGL groups commands together to avoid frequent state changes while calling the Graphics Context API. Automatic shader generation – TyGL generates complex shaders from multiple shader fragments, and ensures the batches fit into the shader cache of the GPU. Trapezoid based path rendering – Work in progress. It will leverage GPU capabilities such as the Pixel Local Storage extension for OpenGL ES. No software […]

December 22, 2014May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 39 Comments

Orange Pi Development Boards Are Raspberry Pi “Clones” based on Allwinner A20 and A31s

After Raspberry Pi, Waxberry Pi, and Banana Pi boards, here come another fruit-named board with Orange Pi. There are actually three models, with Orange Pi and Orange Pi mini based on Allwinner A20, and Orange Pi Plus powered by a quad core Allwinner A31s processor. I’ve drawn a comparison table with the specifications for the three models. Please note that Orange Pi Plus full specifications have not been released yet, so I don’t have all details. Orange Pi Mini Orange Pi Orange Pi Plus SoC Allwinner A20 dual core Cortex A7 processor up to 1GHz with Mali-400 MP2 GPU Allwinner A31s quad core Cortex A7 processor with PowerVR SGX544MP2 GPU System Memory 1 GB DDR3 Storage 2x micro SD slot + SATA NAND Flash + micro SD slot + SATA TBD Video Output HDMI, AV, and DSI I/F HDMI, AV, VGA, and DSI I/F HDMI, AV, and DSI I/F Audio I/O HDMI, […]

December 21, 2014May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

CubieTruck Metal Case Kit Getting Started Guide and Review

I’ve received CubieTruck Metal Case kit just over a month ago, but just like for Ubuntu on ODROID-XU3 Lite, the board could not get HDMI EDID info from my Panasonic TV, which led to a crash at boot time. CubieTech has now fixed the issue, so I’ve finally been able to complete the review with Cubieez (Cubie Easy) distribution, pre-installed on the board, and based on Debian 7.6. You can get the full hardware specs on my previous post, but the kits is comprised of four parts: CubieTruck development based on Allwinner A20 dual core processor, a rugged metallic enclosure, a 128GB SSD, and a 5,300 mAh battery acting as a UPS. I’ll start by showing how to setup the board, test SATA and Gigabit Ethernet performance, check if the battery acts as expected, try to use the board as a desktop replacement with LibreOffice, Chromium, and so on, and […]