CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

August 20, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

NextDrive Plug Adds Wireless Storage or a Surveillance Webcam to Your Smartphone (Crowdfunding)

There are several wireless storage options on the market that allows you to add storage to your smartphone, such as WiFi USB flash drives, wireless SD card readers, or WiFi HDD enclosures. These inexpensive solutions are are quite portable since they come with a battery, so it’s like your have your own portable NAS or Cloud storage in your pocket. The Next Drive plug is a tiny computer with a single USB port and WiFi connection, that will add wireless connectivity to your USB device such as hard drives, including USB RAID arrays, but also others like USB webcams. Next Drive technical specifications: Processor – ARM Cortex A9 @ 1GHz System Memory – 128MB DDR3 Storage – 16MB NOR flash for firmware only Connectivity – 802.11 b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0 USB – 1x USB 2.0 host port USB Output – 5V @ 2.1A Support File Systems – FAT, FAT32, […]

August 19, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Eglobal K8 Z3735F mini PC Includes Up to 2 Ethernet Ports, a COM Port and an IR Receiver (As options)

Most mini PCs based on Intel Atom Z3735F have very similar specifications, but at least one company – Eglobal Technology – is providing some extra options with their mini PC as they offer dual Ethernet (which they call “Router”), a COM port and an IR receiver as options. Eglobal K8 specifications: SoC – Intel Atom Z3735F “Bay Trail” quad core processor @ 1.33 GHz (Bust freq: 1.83 GHz) with Intel HD graphics System Memory – 2 GB DDR3L Storage – 32 GB eMMC + micro SD card slot (up to 128GB) Video Output – HDMI Audio I/F – HDMI, 3.5mm earphone jack, 3.5mm microphone jack Connectivity Standard – 1x 10/100M Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 4.0 Option – One extra 10/100M Ethernet port USB – 4x USB 2.0 host Misc – Power Button, optional IR receiver, optional COM port (DB9) Power Supply – 5V/2A Dimensions – 107 x 107 […]

August 19, 2015August 19, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Ascella USB 3.0 Camera Reference Design Kit Supports 4K Recording at 30 fps

Cypress Semiconductor and THine Electronics have recently introduced Ascella USB 3.0 camera reference design kit based on Cypress EZ-USB CX3 USB 3.0 camera controller and THIne THP7312 ISP that supports 13-megapixel resolution at 21 frames per second, and 3840x2160p recording at 30 fps using MJPEG compression. The kit is composed of 5 boards with an OV13850 13MP camera board, an LED board, the ISP board, Cypress CX3 board, and a debug board with USB 3.0 and a debug interfaces. Main specifications and features: Cypress EZ-USB CX3 ARM9 based Programmable MIPI CSI-2 to USB 3.0 Camera Controller THine THP7312 image signal processor based on a 32-bit RISC CPU OmniVision OV13850 Image sensor interfaced through a four-lane MIPI CSI-2 interface High Intensity LED Board for Low light environment SPI Flash for firmware storage Supports auto-focus, auto-exposure, auto-white-balance and the ability to select from 20 picture resolutions Support for streaming of live […]

August 19, 2015August 23, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Intel Announces Optane Brand for 3D XPoint SSD and DIMM Modules

Last month, Intel and Micron unveiled 3D XPoint technology – pronounced 3D Crosspoint – promising over 1,000 times the performance and durability of NAND flash, and 10 times the density of DRAM for non-volatile memory. Intel has now showcased some of the first products to use that technology with an Optane SSD. At IDF 2015, Intel compared the performance of their high-end P3700 SSD delivering 10,600 IOPS against an early 3D Xpoint “Optane” SSD prototype that could deliver 76,600 IOPS or 7.23 times more I/O per seconds, while according to Anandtech some other tests still ran 5 times faster on 3D Xpoint compared the NAND based SSD. Intel plans to release 3D XPoint SSD in 2016, as well as 3D Xpoint DIMM modules for the datacenters. These are exciting developments, but it will probably take a few more years before it comes affordable for consumer devices, as a 400GB P3700 […]

August 19, 2015August 19, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Google OnHub 802.11ac WiFi Router Also Supports Bluetooth 4.0, Zigbee/Thread, and Automatic Firmware Upgrades

Google has just announced OnHub, a $200 router designed in cooperation with TP-Link which the company claims will be “fast, secure, and easy to use”. It should indeed be fast as it’s a Class AC1900 router capable of 600 Mbps with 802.11n and 1300 Mbps with 802.11ac. Router are gateways between home networks and the Internet, but most of them aren’t updated automatically, leaving them vulnerable to attacks, while OnHub should get its firmware regularly updated over-the-air and include a Trusted Platform Module (TPM), making it more secure. Finally, Android and iOS apps are available to easily manage the router. OnHub (TGR1900) router specifications: WiSoC – Qualcomm Atheros IPQ8064 dual core Krait processor @ 1.4 GHz System Memory – 1GB DDR3L Storage – 4GB eMMC, 8MB NOR flash Connectivity 802.11 b/g/n 3×3 with smart antenna 802.11 a/n/ac 3×3 with smart antenna AUX wireless (802.11 a/b/g/n/ac 1×1) – I don’t understand […]

August 18, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

$5 Amazon Dash Buttons Can Be Hacked as WiFi Logging Buttons

Amazon launched Dash buttons earlier this year in order to allow Amazon Prime customers to order products by simply pressing them. The small WiFi enabled buttons only cost $5, and looked like a nice thing to hack. And that’s exactly what Ted Benson did, and managed to use them to log his baby’s patterns like the number of time he poos, or wakes up at night by pressing some buttons, and storing the results in a spreadsheet. The hack does not involve any firmware or hardware modifications, and instead he noticed that the Dash was disconnected and sleeping, except when the button was pressed. So all he does is to detect ARP requests from the Dash using some Python code relying on Scapy library, and when the MAC address matches one of the dash MAC addresses (hard coded in the Python program), data is sent to a Google Spreadsheet using […]

August 18, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Android 6.0 Marshmallow SDK & Final M Preview Released

Google have finally announced Android 6.0 will be Marshmallow, and more importantly released the Android 6.0 SDK (the API won’t change), and the final M Developer Preview. That means developers can already work on and publish apps to the Google Play Store that are compatible with Android 6.0 API level 23. The final Android 6.0 SDK and Android Support Library v23 can be downloaded via the SDK Manager in Android Studio. The new Android Support library includes new libraries such customtabs, percent, recommendation, preference-v7, preference-v14, and preference-leanback-v17, and will help developer integrate new Android Marshallow functionalities to their app in a backward-compatible way. Android 6.0 adds new features like fingerprint scanner support and Doze power saving mode, as well as a new way to handle permissions, but the latest developer preview only brings small changes: Final Permissions User Interface – Updated permissions user interface and permissions behavior. API Change – […]

August 17, 2015August 17, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Meet the First Affordable 360 Degrees Cameras: Gyroptic 360Cam and IC Realtech ALLIe

Last year, I discovered one company developing and selling 360 degrees video recording solutions, and you could then watch the videos using a VR Kit like vrAse, Google Cardboard, or Oculus Rift. It was all cool, but involved a camera mount for 6 GoPro cameras with a total cost well over $2,000. This year, GoPro also unveiled their own camera array for 16 GoPro cameras, again very cool, but even less affordable to the masses. But thanks to two CES 2015 videos recently uploaded to ARMdevices.net, I found out about two interesting sub $500 cameras that can record 360 degrees videos at 1080p, which can then be optionally uploaded to YouTube 360˚, and watched with a VR Kit, using a tablet, or on a touchscreen enabled video sphere. Gyroptic 360 Camera The cool looking 360 degrees camera comes with 3 lenses, a Nike+ Fuelband like display, WiFi or Ethernet connectivity […]