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May 31, 2018May 31, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Sony SPRESENSE Arduino Compatible GNSS + Audio IoT Board To Sell for $50 (in Japan)

Last year, we covered Sony Spritzer, an Arduino compatible with a Sony hexa-core Arm Cortex-M4F micro-controller, a built-in GNSS receiver, and an audio codec. The product page for this product is now gone, but it appears Sony only renamed it to SPRESENSE, made some design modifications, and is ready to launch the main board for 5,500 JPY (~$50), and the extension board for an extra 3,500 JPY ($32) on July 31, 2018. Sony SPRESENSE main board (CXD5602PWBMAIN1) specifications: MCU – Sony CXD5602 ARM Cortex-M4F ×6 micro-controller clocked at up to 156 MHz with 1.5MB SRAM Storage – 8MB Flash Memory GNSS – GPS & GLONASS Audio – 3.5mm audio jack Expansion I/Os Digital I/O Pins – GPIO, SPI, I2C, UART, PWM, I2S Analog Pins – 2ch (0.7V range) Camera interface USB – 1x micro USB port for programming and power Power Supply – 5V via micro USB port Dimensions – […]

May 16, 2018May 16, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

AsteroidOS 1.0 Released – An Open Source Linux OS for Wear OS Smartwatches

We first discovered AsteroidOS, a Linux based open source operating system working on some Android Wear (now Wear OS by Google) smartwatches, in early 2016 while looking at FOSDEM 2016 schedule. The project and community have since grown to support more watches, and a company even tried to launch an AsteroidOS smartwatch (sadly unsuccessfully), but development kept going, and now the very first stable release is out with AsteroidOS 1.0. Some of the highlights of the release: AsteroidOS 1.0 features and apps: phone notifications, an agenda, an alarm clock, a calculator, a music remote control, settings customizations, a stopwatch, a timer, and a weather forecast app. Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) sync with Android phones using AsteroidOSSync app. Supported hardware LG G Watch, LG G Watch Urbane, LG G Watch R Asus Zenwatch 1, Asus Zenwatch 2, Asus Zenwatch 3 Sony Smartwatch 3 Software emulator for testing and development. Community supported […]

May 9, 2018May 9, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Android P Beta Released. What’s New?

Last March, Google released Android P developer preview with new features such as indoor positioning with WiFi RTT, support for display notch, HDR VP9, HEIF image compression, a new API to access two or more camera simultaneously and so on. Google I/O 2018 has just gotten started, and the company announced the release of Android P beta with yet more features, and support for phones from more manufacturers. Some of the most notable features include: Adaptive Battery uses machine learning to prioritize access to system resources for a user’s most commonly run apps, and places each app in four “buckets” ranked from “active” to “rare”. Apps will change buckets over time, and apps not in the “active” bucket will have restrictions for jobs, alarms, network and high-priority Firebase Cloud Messages. App Actions will also use machine learning to show actions for specific apps depending on context. For example highlighting “Taylor Swift” […]

January 9, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Android Things is Finally Getting into Products: Smart Speakers, Smart Displays, and More

Android Things was first introduced as Brillo in October 2015, before being renamed to Android Things the following year when a developer preview was released with support for Raspberry Pi 3, as well as Intel and NXP development boards. But if you can’t remember the last time you’ve purchased a device running Android Things that’s normal, because so far, there was none. Google announced this is going to change as the first set of Android Things products have been announced at CES 2018. The first category of devices to run Android Things will be Google Assistant enabled smart speakers with the launch of products such as iHome iGV1 and LG ThinQ WK7. ODM partners have also created full speaker reference designs based on certified Android Things and Cast System-on-Modules (SoMs) powered by Rockchip RK3229, Mediatek MT8516, or based on Qualcomm SD212 Home Hub Platform. NXP i.MX 8M solutions are also […]

September 1, 2017September 10, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Google Assistant News – AIY Voice Kit For Sale, Offline Support, 3rd Party Smart Speakers Announced

There’s been a lot of development related to Google Assistant in the last few days. First, Google provided an update for AIY Projects, with their AIY Projects Voice Kit now available for pre-order on Micro Center for $35 including a Raspberry Pi 3 board, making the kit virtually free, although you may also purchase it. Note that Micro Center blocks traffic originating from some countries, so I had to use Zend2 to access the site. [Update 10/09/2017: You can also get it from Seeed Studio for worldwide shipping] Google also announced the Speech Commands Dataset with 65,000 one-second long utterances of 30 short words, which they are in the process of integrating with the next release of the Voice Kit, and will allow the devices to respond to voice commands without the need for an Internet connection. So if you lose your Internet connection, or want to isolate your Voice […]

August 14, 2017August 14, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

Sony Spritzer is an Arduino Compatible Board with Built-in GPS, Audio Codec

Look who is joining the maker community! Sony has showcased their Arduino compatible Spritzer board during the Maker Faire Tokyo on August 5-6. Despite lacking on-board network connectivity, the board is said to have been designed for IoT applications with features such as an integrated GPS and an advanced digital audio codec and amplifier. Sony Spritzer specifications: MCU – Sony CDX5602 ARM Cortex-M4F ×6 micro-controller clocked at up to 156 MHz with 1.5MB SRAM Storage – 8MB Flash Memory, micro SD card GNSS – GPS, GLONASS, supported Audio – 3.5mm audio jack Expansion I/Os Digital I/O Pins – SPI, I2C, UART, PWM ×4 (3.3V) Analog Pins – 6ch (3.3V range) Audio I/O – 8ch Digital MICs or 4ch Analog MICs, Stereo Speaker, I2S, CXD5247 audio codec with 192 kHz/24bit High-Resolution audio 2x camera interfaces USB – 1x micro USB port for programming Power Supply – Via Power barrel and Vin […]

June 12, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

E-ink Demonstrated a Foldable E-Book Prototype, Color-Changing Clothes, Smartcards and More at Display Week 2017

E-ink is known with their e-paper technology with the same name, that is used in e-book readers and some signage applications, but the company demonstrated some their prototypes and customer’s products at SID’s Display Week in Los Angeles last month, with some capabilities I had not seen before. Some of the notable solutions and products include: 10.2″ foldable e-book reader prototype based on the company’s flexible Carta Mobius plastic display with 220 ppi A dress that can change colors using E-ink Prism film that was made for a fashion exhibition in Japan. A 42″ active matrix E-ink digital signage display Various examples of products based on E-ink such as smartwaches (e.g. Sony FES Watch U), e-book readers, flexible displays… NFC Smartcard with E-ink display that has the same thickness as normal smartcard, but can be used to display account balance, price of last purchased item, etc… QuirkLogic Quilla interactive and […]

February 8, 2017February 8, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Sony Has Developed a Smartphone Camera Sensor Capable of Recording 1080p 1000 fps Slow Motion Videos

Sony has announced what it claims to be the first 3-layer stacked CMOS image sensor with DRAM for smartphones, which allows for fast data readout speeds making possible still images capture of fast moving objects with minimal focal plane distortion, and recording of Full HD (1920×1080) slow motion movies at 1000 fps, which compares to current solutions capable of only 720p @ 240 fps such as Google Pixel phones. Sony CMOS camera key specifications as listed in the press release: Effective pixel count – 5520 (H) x 3840 (V) 21.2 megapixels Image size Diagonal – 7.73mm (Type 1/2.3) Unit cell size – 1.22μm (H) x 1.22μm (V) Frame rate Still images – 30fps; 4:3 19.3 megapixels / 16:9 17.1 megapixels Movies – 60fps @ 4K (3840 x 2160); 240fps @ Full HD / 720p Image format – Bayer RAW Reading speed – 8.478 ms (4:3 19.3 megapixels) / 6.962 ms (16:9 […]