CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

April 1, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

This Multi-function Capacitive Stylus Includes a USB Flash Drive

If you have fat fingers, or somehow capacitive touchs creens don’t work that well with your fingers, or you simply need more accuracy, you may have purchased one of those cheap capacitive stylus, many of which come with a real ball-point pen and/or a flash light. However, I’ve just noticed GeekBuying listed a few USB multi-functional 6-in-1 touch pens with 4 to 32GB internal flash with prices ranging from 8 to 19 dollars. Based on the picture above, you can open the stylus to take out a USB flash drive that you can insert into your computer, laptop or mobile’s micro USB OTG port via an OTG adapter. Specifications include: Use with touchscreen of smartphone or tablet PC Ball-point pen Files storage (USB flash drive) Money inspection (ultra-violet light) Pointer (red laser) Mini flash-light Dimensions – 143 x 12 mm Weight – 25 grams I find the USB drive-in-a-pen idea […]

April 1, 2015May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Cubieboard 4 Ubuntu Review – Setup, Usability, and Performance

Cubieboard4 is a development board powered by Allwinner A80 octa-core processor with 2GB RAM and 16GB eMMC. I’ve already shown how to get started with the board using the pre-installed Android 4.4 image, and run some benchmarks in Android, so now it’s time to check out the Ubuntu Linaro 14.04 image provided by CubieTech. I’ll show how to install and setup Ubuntu 14.04 on the board using a micro SD card, run desktop applications like Chromium, Libre Office, and son on on the board, and complete the review with some Linux benchmarks. Setting up Ubuntu on Cubieboard4 Firmware images for Cubiebord4 can be downloaded @ http://dl.cubieboard.org/model/cc-a80/Image/. Currently Android 4.4, Debian server, Ubuntu Linaro server, and Ubuntu Linaro desktop with LXDE desktop environment. That’s the latter I’ll use for the experiment, and two images are available: linaro-desktop-cb4-card-hdmi-v0.4.img.7z – Bootable image from micro SD card linaro-desktop-cb4-emmc-hdmi-v0.4.img.7z – Installation image to eMMC to […]

April 1, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

How to Read OpenOffice / LibreOffice Files from the Command Line

Let’s say you have edited a file in LibreOffice Writer, but later you access your computer remotely via SSH for example. You don’t really want to bother copying the file to your current machine, and rather just quickly check its content in the terminal. Is there a way? Since odt files are just some zip files containing XML files, you could manually decompress the file, and open XML files, but there is a more convenient the program is called odt2txt. On an Ubuntu / Debian machine it can be installed with:

sudo apt-get install odt2txt

1	sudo apt-get install odt2txt

For basic usage, you just need to pass the filename as parameter:

odt2txt test.odt 

This is a test

odt2txt test.odt

This is a test

But there are also a few more options:

odt2txt 
odt2txt 0.4
Converts an OpenDocument or OpenOffice.org XML File to raw text.

Syntax:   odt2txt [options] filename

Options:  --raw         Print raw XML
          --encoding=X  Do not try to autodetect the terminal encoding, but
                        convert the document to encoding X unconditionally
                        To find out, which terminal encoding will be used in
                        auto mode, use --encoding=show
          --width=X     Wrap text lines after X characters. Default: 65.
                        If set to -1 then no lines will be broken
          --output=file Write output to file, instead of STDOUT
          --subst=X     Select which non-ascii characters shall be replaced
                        by ascii look-a-likes:
                           --subst=all   Substitute all characters for which
                                         substitutions are known
                           --subst=some  Substitute all characters which the
                                         output charset does not contain
                                         This is the default
                           --subst=none  Substitute no characters
          --version     Show version and copyright information

odt2txt

odt2txt 0.4

Converts an OpenDocument or OpenOffice.org XML File to raw text.

Syntax: odt2txt [options] filename

Options: --raw Print raw XML

--encoding=X Do not try to autodetect the terminal encoding, but

convert the document to encoding X unconditionally

To find out, which terminal encoding will be used in

auto mode, use --encoding=show

--width=X Wrap text lines after X characters. Default: 65.

If set to -1 then no lines will be broken

--output=file Write output to file, instead of STDOUT

--subst=X Select which non-ascii characters shall be replaced

by ascii look-a-likes:

--subst=all Substitute all characters for which

substitutions are known

--subst=some Substitute all characters which the

output charset does not contain

This is the default

--subst=none Substitute no characters

--version Show version and copyright information

This also wrote with ods (spreadsheets) and odp (presentations) files with ods2txt and odp2txt which are just symlinks pointing to the same program as odt2txt, namely odt2txt.odt2txt.

April 1, 2015April 1, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Asus Chromebit Chrome OS TV Stick to Sell for Less than $100

Google has just announced Rockchip RK3288 Chromebooks, and also quickly mentioned Chrombit Chrome OS dongle, but with very few details. However, several large US blogs like Engadget and Gizmodo got a sample (mock-up?), and shared more details. So now we have the technical specifications of the dongle, which unsurprisingly also feature RK3288 processor: SoC – Rockchip RK3288-C quad core Cortex A17 processor with ARM Mali-T764 GPU. System Memory – 2 GB DDR3L SDRAM Storage – 16 GB eMMC Flash Storage Video Output – HDMI Connectivity – Dual band Wi-Fi 802.11 2×2 (MIMO) a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.0 USB – 1x USB 2.0 host port, 1x micro USB OTG port Power – 5V via micro USB port Dimensions – N/A Weight – N/A It’s quite likely the Rockchip processor won’t run at full speed, at least not for a long period of time, as it’s likely to overheat in such small form factor, […]

April 1, 2015April 1, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Intel Introduces Celeron N3000 / N3050 / N3150 and Pentium N3700 Low Power Braswell Processors

Intel Bay Trail processor are found in low cost tablets, laptops and mini PCs with prices starting as low as $60 for retail products. The company has introduced Braswell some time ago, the successor of Bay Trail, which among other thigns brings 14nm process technology instead of 22nm, for even lower power consumption. CPU World has noticed Intel listed the first four low power Braswell processor using Celeron and Pentium branding and with 6W TDP max. We only know a few details about the new processor Celeron N3000 – Dual core CPU @ 1.04 GHz (Burst: 2.08 GHz) with 1MB L2 cache, 4W TDP Celeron N3050 – Dual core CPU @ 1.6 GHz (Burst: 2.16 GHz) with 1MB L2 cache, 6W TDP Celeron N3150 – Quad-core CPU @ 1.6 GHz (Burst: 2.08 GHz) with 2MB L2 cache, 6W TDP Pentium N3700 – Quad-core CPU @ 1.6 GHz (Burst: 2.40 GHz) […]

April 1, 2015August 7, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

$149 Rockchip RK3288 Chromebooks by Haier and HiSense Launched

Just ten days ago, Asus C201 Chromebook powered by Rockchip RK3288 processor was spotted on a product catalog. Today, Google unveiled two Rockchip Chromebooks, except the Asus Chromebook is not there yet, but instead Haier Chromebook 11 HR-116R and Hisense Chromebook both available for pre-order for $149 respectively on Amazon US and Walmart. Both laptops have very similar specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3288-C quad core Cortex A17 processor @ 1.8 GHz with ARM Mali-T764 GPU. (Wallmart claims a 2.5GHZ processor frequency, but this has to be an error). System Memory – 2 GB DDR3L SDRAM Storage – 16 GB eMMC Flash Storage + micro SD slot + 100GB Google drive storage, free for 2 years Display – 11.6” HD wide screen LED-backlit display; 1366 x 768 resolution Video Output – HDMI Audio – HDMI, stereo speakers, headphone jack, Connectivity – Dual band Wi-Fi 802.11 2×2 (MIMO) a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.0 USB […]

March 31, 2015March 31, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Onion Omega is an Atheros AR9331 Wi-Fi Module Supporting Various Docks and Add-on Boards (Crowdfunding)

There are so many inexpensive Wi-Fi modules running Linux that it would be easy to discard Onion Omega as yet another Wi-Fi module based on Atheros AR9331 WiSoC. However, the developers have tried to bring some added value by making programming easier for web developers, integrating it with a cloud platform (free for non-commercial use), and providing basicor Arduino dock, and add-on boards for Ethernet, OLED, Relay… to make building hardware projects easier too. Let’s go through the hardware first, starting with the module specifications: SoC – Atheros AR9331 400MHZ MIPS 24K System Memory – 64MB DDR2 400MHz Storage – 16MB Flash Connectivity – 10/100 Mbps Ethernet + 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi up to 150Mbps with PCB antenna w/ uFL connector I/Os – 18 GPIOs USB – 1x USB 2.0 Power Supply – 3.3V; Typ. consumption: 0.6W Dimensions – 28.2mm x 52mm (1.1″ x 2.0″) Since this type of module is not […]

March 31, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Baseball Nano-ITX i.MX6 Board Targets Secure Industrial M2M and IoT Products

Calao Systems has introduced a new Freescale i.MX6 single board computer with Baseball embedded platform, targetting network-connected industrial M2M and Internet of Things (IoT) applications requiring a high-level of security achieved with an FIPS 140-2 trusted platform module, and Crypto Authentication chip. The board is comprised of a Nano-ITX based board and a Freescale.iMX6 (Solo, Dual or Quad) SMARC 1.1 module with the following combined specifications: SoC – Freescale iMX6 Solo, Dual or Quad Cortex A9 processor @ up to 1GHz with Vivante GPU System Memory – 2 GB DDR3L, Storage On Module: 8 GB e-MMC, 8 MB SPI Flash, 1x EEPROM with unique S/N and MAC address On Baseboard: 1x Micro-SD socket, 1x Industrial Grade eMMC NANDrive (optional), 1x Industrial Grade SATA Nandrive (optional), Video Output – HDMI Audio Output – HDMI and optical S/PDIF Connectivity – 2x Gigabit Ethernet, 1x SIM card slot USB – 3x USB 2.0 […]