CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

June 28, 2013June 28, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

Snowball Board Phased Out, and Offered at a Discount

Snowball is a mobile development board based on ST Ericsson Nova A9500 dual core ARM Cortex A9 SoC , which was officially supported by Linaro (they still released Android and Ubuntu images), and designed by Calao Systems, but since ST-Ericsson venture fell apart, support for the board has been discontinued, and the developer’s community (igloocommunity) has recently been closed down. The last message of the mailing list (now not accessible) reads as follows: A small team of passionate ST-Ericsson people have dreamed about Snowball and they makes it possible. Since December 2011 after a management change, it has been difficult to maintain the program, but with your support, we succeed until this time. Nevertheless, you have been able to demonstrate the pertinence of this program, and its great potential with impressive realizations. In December 2012, STMicroelectronics announced a new strategic plan, where STM takes the decision to exit ST-Ericsson. Then […]

June 28, 2013July 31, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Linaro 13.06 Release With Linux Kernel 3.10 and Android 4.2.2

Linaro 13.06 has been released with Linux Kernel 3.10-rc6 and Android 4.2.2. Linux Linaro Stable (LSK) preview is based on kernel 3.9.6. There seems to have been a lot of activity for the LAVA and Builds and Integration teams, with LAVA support for new SoC such as Huawei K3V2 and Broadcom Capri from 2 companies which have recently joined Linaro as members, and well as continuous build for Linaro Stable Kernel. On the kernel side, more work has been done for multi-platform support (unified kernel), uprobes, eMMC power mamangement, and more. Here are the highlights of this release: LAVA LAVA Core As part of the effort to improve the developer experience with LAVA, the different client tools were consolidated into a single package, which simplifies the process of updating the tools and makes it easier for the team to provide new features for LAVA users. LAVA now supports KVM devices, […]

June 27, 2013June 27, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 19 Comments

MINIX MINI HD PC Based on Intel Atom D2550 Sells for $119

MINIX MINI HD PC is a barebone x86 computer without RAM or hard disk that has been announced last year, and it has just come to my attention that the system sells for just $119 on Geekbuying (excluding shipping), so once you add (up to 4GB) DDR3 RAM, and a SATA hard drive, you may have a basic x86 Linux or Windows system for about $200. MINIX MINI HD PC specifications: CPU – Intel dual-core (4 threads) D2550 processor @ 1.86GHz Chipset – Intel NM10 GPU – Intel GMA 3600 Series System Memory – 2x 1.5V DDR3 @ 800/1066MHz SO-DIMM sockets supporting up to 4GB of system memory (GeekBuying reports that “8GB (4GB x 2) memory is supported unofficially, stability will not be guaranteed by Intel”) BIOS – 1 x 16Mbit flash with AMI BIOS. Supports Plug & Play, Advanced Power Management ACPI, STR, CPU temperature, Fan speed, System Voltage […]

June 27, 2013June 27, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 14 Comments

$199 Minnowboard is an Open Source Embedded Board Powered By Intel Atom E640 Processor

Minnowboard is a development board designed by Intel’s Open Source Technology Center, powered by Intel Atom E640 processor @ 1GHz with 1GB RAM, SATA2 and Gigabit Ethernet support, and several embedded I/O such as SPI, I2C and CAN, and that ships with Angstrom Linux distribution. Minnoboard Specifications: Processor – Intel Atom E640 @ 1GHz (32bit) Chipset – EG20T Intel Platform Controller Hub GPU – Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 600 System Memory – 1 GB DDR2 RAM Storage – 4 MB SPI Flash (for Firmware), micro SD card slot and SATA Video Output – SDVO to DVI (over HDMI connector) Audio – 1/8″ (3.5mm??) jack line Input and Output I/O: 1x SATA2 3Gb/sec 2x USB host ports + 1x micro USB device 1x Serial debug via Serial (UART 0) to USB conversion (mini-USB-B port) 10/100/1000 Ethernet PCI Express Expansions: 8x Buffered GPIO pins 2x GPIO controlled LEDs 4x GPIO […]

June 27, 2013June 27, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Imagination Technologies Unveils MIPS “Warrior” 32 and 64 Bit CPU Cores

Last year, MIPS announced Aptiv Cores, but since then, the company has been bought by Imagination Technologies, and they’ve recently announced updates to the family, as well as new MIPS Series5 ‘Warrior’ CPU cores during Imagination Summit in Asia. Before I write about the update to Aptiv cores, let me remind you of the 3 Aptiv families: proAptiv – High performance cores (3.5DMIPS/Mhz) to be used in SoC for smartphone, tablets, …. 1 to 6 cores. Roughly equivalent to ARM Cortex A15. interAptiv – Medium performance core (1.7DMIPS/MHz) for mainstream STB, digital cameras, mid-range smartphones. 1 to 4 cores. Equivalent to ARM Cortex A5 microAptiv – Low power MCU and MPU cores Imagination has added a small-footprint single-core version to the interAptiv family without the extra logic associated with multi-core coherency and L2 cache controller, as well as a floating point version to the microAptiv family for applications such as […]

June 26, 2013June 26, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Android Now Comes to Exercise Bikes thanks to The Peloton Bike

Beyond smartphones and tablets, Android is now running in a number of others devices such as cars, watches, set-top boxes and more, but Android should soon enter the gym, or rather bring the gym to your home, with the Peloton Bike, an exercise bike that comes with a 21.5″ touchscreen powered by Texas Instruments OMAP4 and running Android 4.1. Here are Peloton bike panel’s specifications: SoC – Texax Instruments OMAP 4470 dual-core Cortex A9 @ 1.5GHz System Memory – 1GB RAM Storage – 16GB internal flash Display – 21.5″ PCAP (projected capacitive) multitouch display (1080p resolution). Sweat resistant. Connectivity: 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi ANT+ wireless Bluetooth 4.0 10/100 Ethernet Audio – 3.5mm TRRS headphone and mic jack, 2x 3 watt stereo speakers Camera – 1.3MP front camera Misc – Peloton Cycle data connector as well as the key features of the bike itself: Carbon steel and aluminum monocoque frame Neodymium rare […]

June 26, 2013June 26, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

Ethernet & USB Hub Combo for Android Mini PCs

The first time I saw a USB & Ethernet hub was the one that comes with SmartCandy mini PC, but I never thought of checking if they sold such item separately until this morning, as I’ve noticed that Asiapads is selling a “Zero Devices Hub” with 3 USB 2.0 ports and a 10/100M Ethernet RJ45 connector. Of course, you could always get a standard USB hub plus an external Ethernet USB dongle, but an all-in-one solution maybe more convenient for some people. Zero Device Hub sells for $14.99, and is said to be compatible with Android mini PCs such as Z4C and Z2C. I’ve also looked on DealExtreme, and there’s one device with the same features for $11.90, but according to users’ reviews it’s not compatible with Android. The same device is also available for $7 and up on Aliexpress. The Ethernet part is apparently based on DM9601, which works in […]

June 25, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Xiph Daala Codec Aims to Better H.265/HEVC Video Codec

H.265 (aka HEVC) video codec will eventually supplement H.264 over the years as it offers better compression at the same bitrate, or better quality for the same compression ratio. There’s a already some experimental implementation that allows to (slowly) decode and encode H.265 on your PC, as well as some HEVC implementations optimized for ARM SoCs. At least two other codecs aim to compete against, and better, HEVC: Google VP9, and Daala codec (temporary codename) developed by Xiph.org, the open source community that brought Vorbis or Theora open source codecs to the world. The Xiph developers explains that next generation codecs such as VP9 and HEVC are incremental improvement of codec designs using DCT (Discrete Cosine Transform) that have been used for years, and they’ve decided to take a new approach with lapped transforms, a technique that is also used in audio codecs such as MP3 and Vorbis. Lots of […]