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CHIP is a $9 Linux Development Board Powered by Allwinner R8 (Crowdfunding)

It’s quite common to find MCU board for less than $10, but if you want to run Linux, you’ll need to spend a bit more, unlessit’s sponsored, and today, the cheapest you can get is probably the $20 Raspberry Pi Model A+, unless you go with some OpenWRT compatible routers. But there’s now a new board in development, called CHIP, with Allwinner R8 Cortex A8 processor, 512MB RAM, and 4GB NAND flash, as well as wireless connectivity, that will bring cost even lower, as you can pledge $9 on Kickstarter to fund its development. C.H.I.P specifications: SoC – Allwinner R8 Cortex A8 processor @ 1 GHz with Mali-400 GPU (Compatible with Allwinner A13) System Memory – 512 MB RAM Storage – 4GB NAND flash Connectivity – 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi + Bluetooth 4.0 Video Output – 3.5mm jack for composite video and audio (HDMI and VGA available via adapters) USB – […]

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ARM: “Microcontrollers Are Better Because There’s No GPL”

[Update: ARM has pulled down the video and issued a statement] ARM has uploaded a video today entitled “Microcontrollers for Makers” showing the benefits of using micro-controller boards instead of processor based development boards such as Raspberry Pi or ODROID-C1, and their four first points are right on target, but the last one, as mentioned by Olimex, is completely wrong, and already made several people upset. Let’s go through the first four points: Micro-controllers are more energy efficient, so if your project is requires years on a cell-coin battery, MCUs are the way to go. MCU are cheaper too, now you can even get an MCU board for $1. They are smaller. The chip shown on the golf ball is Kinetis KL03 If you need real-time I/O, processors can’t beat micro-controller, that why people decide to connect an Arduino board to their Raspberry Pi, or products like UDOO Neo are […]

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$10 Digistump Oak ESP8266EX Board is Arduino Compatible, Connects to the Cloud, and More (Crowdfunding)

A few years ago, I wondered why adding Wi-Fi to Arduino had to be rather expensive ($40+), and why there weren’t any low cost and small form factor Wi-Fi boards for embedded applications. But we’re now in 2015, embedded is “dead” giving rise to IoT, and I’m left wondering how it’s possible to make IoT Wi-Fi modules that cheap, and whether people will ever stop churning out cheap Wi-Fi boards, as I’m flooded with such news weekly… So when I saw yet another ESP8266 board on Kickstarter I was about to dismiss it, but since it was made by Digistump, that has an active community with their other products like DigiSpark Pro or DigiX, I decided to have a closer look. Digistump Oak hardware specifications: MCU – Espressif ESP8266EX 32-bit microprocessor @ 80MHz (overclockable up to 160MHz)  with 1MB ROM (~300KB available for user code), 64KB RAM, 512 bytes EEPROM […]

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How to Compare Systems Benchmarked with Phoronix Test Suite

Phoronix Test Suite is an open source benchmark for Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X, Windows & BSD operating systems, but in practice it’s mostly used for Linux OS since other benchmarks solutions are available in Windows, while choices are more limited in Linux. There are many benchmarks to choose from, and you can select the ones you want by running a “batch-benchmarks” from the command line. I’ve done so when testing performance of ODROID-XU3 Lite and Cubieboard4 boards in Ubuntu, and once the tests are completed, the results will be automatically uploaded to openbenchmarking.org. From there, it’s quite easy to compare recent results as you’ll get an “add to comparison” option on the site, and you can pick a few results. You can select a few systems, and then click on “Compare Results” to get a side-by-side comparison. If you want to compare your system to an existing system, you […]

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Kodi 14.2 Final and Kodi 15 Alpha 2 Released

Kodi developers have recently announced two release for Kodi: the stable version of Kodi 14.2 Helix, which should be the last Kodi 14 release, and Kodi 15 Alpha 2 Isengard with some interesting new features. Since Kodi 14.2 is a minor release, no new features have been added, but they fixed several bugs: Application stopped responding on Windows Gap-less playback on MP3 Playback of rtmp protocol Scanning of newly added episodes Fix multipath source scanning Loading external subtitles in some cases packaging of PIL module on Android. This fixes some script error when using weather add-on Fix video playback on all platform after refresh rate change Various bugs that were present in PVR add-ons. Save weather location Fix filtering of foreign add-ons ftps handling Use LastWrite instead of ChangeTime for file system on Windows As usual, you can download the release via Kodi download page for Windows, Linux. Mac OS […]

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March 2015 Discounts – GearBest, GeekBuying, DX and WeTek Play

A few companies have started or planned discounts for April’s fool, Father’s day, and maybe even March Madness, the basketball tournament currently taking place in the US. GearBest launched their “March Markdowns” event occurring between March 16-31, and offering 81 discounted items, a spin the wheel game where players can win a One Plus One smartphone, two ZTE Blade S6 smartphones, as well as some other smaller items and discount points. They have deals for smartphones, watches, RC cars and quadcopters, mini PCs, and other accessories. Some interesting deals for Android media players include: MXQ S85 for $50.85. (Amlogic S805) MK808 Plus for $32.99. (Amlogic S805) Rikomagic MK12 for $89.99. (Amlogic S812) Ugoos UT3S (2GB RAM / 16GB flash) for $119.99. (Rockchip RK3288) You can also try to use GBCCN coupon to get 10% discount. This is however not cumulative. For example, Ugoos UT3S will sell for $116.80 with the […]

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Engimusing DIY Home Automation Modules Are Managed with openHAB installed on ODROID-C1 Board (Crowdfunding)

Engimusing has launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter for their home automation solutions comprised of tiny modules (20x20mm) based on Silicon Labs Gecko EFM32 MCUs, some sensor modules and a server based on ODROID-C1 board and enclosure pre-installed and configured with openHAB open source home automation software. There are not that many technical details about the EFM32 modules, but they come into two variants: standalone & DF11-10 I/O, the latter allowing you to vertically stack multiple modules. This video shows how DF11-10 IO connectors work. The modules are said to be programmable with the Arduino IDE. The openHAB server is a standard ODROID-C1 board (Amlogic S805, 1GB RAM) with 4GB flash (eMMC or micro SD), and a black enclosure. If you value your money more than your time, and/or already have another computer or board (Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone Black…) that runs Linux, you could also install and configure openHAB by […]

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Radxa Rock Lite Board Price Drops to $39

When the new Radxa Rock Lite was announced for $59 in September 2014, it was one of the most inexpensive quad core ARM Linux development board available on the market. But ODROID-C1 board in December 2014, and especially Raspberry Pi 2 board in February 2015 changed all that, as these two quad core boards sell for $35 before shipping and taxes. So the company has now decided to drop the price to $39 for the Radxa Rock Lite board. Let’s remind us of Radxa Rock Lite specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3188 ARM Cortex-A9 quad core @ 1.6Ghz + Mali-400 MP4 GPU System Memory – 1GB DDR3 @ 800Mhz Storage – micro-SD SDXC up to 128GB Video Output – HDMI 1.4 up to 1080p@60hz, and AV output. LVDS interface. Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet port, WiFi 150Mbps 802.11b/g/n with antenna Audio I/O – Audio S/PDIF, headphone jack Camera – CSI interface USB […]

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