Kodi 17 “Krypton” Released, Kodi 18 “Leia” Development Started

Although not officially announced yet, Kodi developers have finally released Kodi 17 “Krypton” which you can download for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Android, and iOS, as well as Raspberry Pi and some other development boards, and several Linux versions specific to TV box such as Nvidia Shield Android TV, Amazon Fire, or WeTek Hub. The most visible changes of the update are the new Estuary and Estouchy default skins, and people who have bought recent Amlogic based Android TV boxes may have already experienced them as several TV boxes shipped with Kodi 17 Beta versions. There’s a long list of changes, but some noticeable ones include: Lots of changes and updated to the Live TV and PVR (Personal Video Recorder) include PVR backend clients addons New Settings user interface Media library improvements with multiple sources support, more filtering & rating options, and better scanning & database performance Audio Engine […]

FOSDEM 2017 Open Source Meeting Schedule

FOSDEM (Free and Open Source Software Developers’ European Meeting) is a 2-day free event for software developers to meet, share ideas and collaborate that happens on the first week-end of February, meaning it will take place on February 4 & 5, 2017 this year. FOSDEM 2017 will features 608 speakers, 653 events, and 54 tracks, with 6 main tracks namely: Architectures, Building, Cloud, Documentation, Miscellaneous, and Security & Encryption. I won’t be there, but it’s always interesting to look at the schedule, and I made my own virtual schedule focusing especially on talks from “Embedded, mobile and automotive” and “Internet of Things” devrooms. Saturday 4, 2017 11:00 – 11:25 – Does your coffee machine speaks Bocce; Teach your IoT thing to speak Modbus and it will not stop talking, by Yaacov Zamir There are many IoT dashboards out on the web, most will require network connection to a server far […]

BitScope Blade Industrial Mounting & Power Systems Support Up to 40 Raspberry Pi Boards

BitScope Designs, a manufacturer of embedded mixed signal test, measurement and data acquisition systems, has announced the launch of a new models of their industrial desktop, rack or wall mountable power and mounting power systems with BitScope Blade Uno, Duo, and Quattro supporting respectively 1, 2 and 4 Raspberry Pi 3/2/B+/A+ boards. The blades can also be mounted in a 19″ rack with up to 40 Raspberry Pi boards. The three systems share many of the same specifications: Power Supply Unregulated 9V to 48V DC power, compatible with most 12V & 24V UPS, most DC solar power systems 4A (peak) switch mode supply built-in 2.1mm socket or industrial power tabs Can be used with low cost passive PoE, Can power external USB, HDD & SSD 5V auxiliary power for example for Pi Display Expansion& I/O ports Full access to RPi’s I2C, SPI, UART & most GPIO Slot for camera connector […]

NexDock is Working on a Hybrid Laptop Dock for Intel Compute Cards

NexDock first launched a 14″ laptop dock for smartphones, tablets, and development boards via a Indiegogo campaign in 2016, where they successfully raised over $350,000, and delivered rewards to backers last September and October. With the recent introduction of the Intel Compute Card, the company has now decided to work on a new NexDock that will take Intel’s cards. We don’t have much details right now, but the company said that beside the Intel Compute Card, it will come support interchangeable USB type-C modules, and will still support Windows 10 smartphones with continuum feature, Raspberry Pi and other devices that can be connected through a USB-C port. The second drawing also suggests the keyboard will be detachable, and you’ll be able to use NexDock as a Windows tablet. It could be nice to have an Intel laptop with Linux or Windows, and an ARM tablet with Android, but this won’t […]

RailPi 2.0 DIN Rail Enclosure & Industrial Expansion Board is Designed for Raspberry Pi 3 & ODROID-C2 Boards

We’ve already seen the Raspberry Pi compute module used for industrial applications with RevolutionPi RevPi Core industrial computer with a DIN rail enclosure, support for digital I/O modules and fieldbus gateways. Hagedorn Software Engineering GmbH, another German company has designed a similar industrial computer, called RailPi 2.0, with a DIN rail enclosure integrating an add-on board designed for Raspberry Pi 3 and ODROID-C2 boards. RailPi 2.0 specifications (adapted from Google Translation of website): I/Os 4x digital outputs, short-circuit-proof, PWM-compatible, with diode for the connection of inductive loads such as relays. 2x optically decoupled inputs, current-limited, with dimensions compliant with the S0 standard to allow them to be used with  pules counters / current meters. RS485 interface 1-Wire bus placed at the front of the RailPi Bus connector for extensions with GND,I2C Clock (5V), I2C data (5V), 5V, and 12V Misc – Real-time clock Power Supply – Input voltage range of […]

Raspberry Pi 3 Compute Modules CM3 and CM3L Launched for $30 and $25

We all knew Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3 were about to be launched soon, as the Raspberry Pi foundation announced a partnership with NEC displays last October, and the datasheet for two version of the Broadcom BCM2837 based system-on-module, CM3 and CM3L (Light), was released shortly after. The good news is that the modules have officially been launched for $30 and $25 for respectively Compute Module 3 with 4GB flash, and Compute Module 3 Light with the SD card signals exposed via the SO-DIMM connector. The foundation has also lowered the original compute module price to $25. Here are Compute Module 3 specifications as a reminder: SoC – Broadcom BCM2837 quad core Cortex A53 processor @ 1.2 GHz with Videocore IV GPU System Memory – 1GB LPDDR2 Storage CM3L – SD card signals through SO-DIMM connector CM3 – 4GB eMMC flash 200-pin edge connector with: 48x GPIO 2x I2C, 2x SPI, […]

ASUS Tinker Board is a Raspberry Pi 3 Alternative based on Rockchip RK3288 Processor

Regular readers may remember MQMaker MiQi board, a $35 (and up) development board powered by Rockchip RK3288 quad core ARM Cortex A17 processor, based on Raspberry Pi 3 form factor, but much faster according to benchmarks. Sadly, the board’s crowdfunding campaign was not that successful, possibly because of the “its’ a 2-year old processor” syndrome. But now, Minimachines has found that ASUS has designed a very similar board, dubbed Tinker Board, with an extra WiFi and Bluetooth LE module, audio jack, MIPI DSI connector, and a few other modifications. Asus Tinker Board specifications (bold highlights and strike-through show differences with MiQi board): SoC – Rockchip 3288 quad core ARM Cortex A17 up to 1.8 GHz with Mali-T764 GPU supporting OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0 /3.0, and OpenCL 1.1 System Memory – 2GB LPDDR3, dual channel Storage – 8 or 32 GB eMMC flash + micro SD slot Video output & Display I/F 1x HDMI 2.0 up to 3840×2160@60p […]

Ten Most Popular Posts of 2016 on CNX Software and Some Stats

The last day of the year is a good time to look back at what the year brought us, and I have to say it has been a fun and interesting year on CNX Software. The TV boxes news cycle has been dominated by Amlogic products, but most products have now switched to 64-bit ARM SoC, with 4K and HDMI 2.0 support, and price have kept going down, so you can now get a 4K TV box for as low as $20, although many people will prefer spending a bit more for extra memory and support. Intel based Bay Trail & Cherry Trail mini PCs have continued to be released with Windows, and in some cases Ubuntu, but the excitement seems to have died off a bit, maybe with the expectation of upcoming Apollo Lake mini PCs that should be more powerful. The year have been especially fruitful in the […]

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