CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

January 28, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

QNAP TS-251D 2-Bay NAS Comes with an Intel Celeron J4005 SoC, HDMI, PCIe Expandability

QNAP has introduced a 2-bay NAS powered by an Intel Celeron J4005 Gemini Lake SoC coupled with 4 GB SO-DIMM DDR4 memory. QNAP TS-251D also offers the option of getting an extra 5 or 10 Gigabit Ethernet port via PCIe card and supports video playback and output thanks to an HDMI 2.0 port. QNAP TS-251D specifications: SoC – Intel Celeron J4005 dual-core Gemini Lake processor @ 2.0 GHz / 2.7 GHz (Burst) with Intel UHD Graphics 600 System Memory – 2x SO-DIMM DDR4 memory slots (8GB max) fitted with 2GB RAM for TS-251D-2G model 4GB RAM for TS-251D-4G model Storage 4GB flash memory with dual boot OS protection Drive Bay – 2x 3.5-inch SATA 6Gb/s slot compatible with both 2.5″ and 3.5″ drives; hot-swappable M.2 SSD slot available via optional QM2 PCIe adapter for SSD cache acceleration Connectivity 1x Gigabit Ethernet Port (RJ45) Optional PCIe adapter with 5-Gbps or 10-Gbps […]

January 28, 2020February 29, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

ASUS Tinker Edge T SBC Launched for $168 and Up

ASUS unveiled Tinker Edge T & CR1S-CM-A SBCs based on Google Coral Edge TPU system-on-module featuring both NXP i.MX 8M processor and Google Edge TPU co-processor for AI acceleration in May 2019, but at the time none of the boards were available. But earlier this month, ASUS officially announced the board, and it can now be purchased on various sites including Provantage (~$168.35) and Physical Computing (21,600 JPY ~ $200). It is also listed on Connection for about $198 but currently out of stock. Edge TPU module SoC – NXP i.MX 8M quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor with Arm Cortex-M4F real-time core, GC7000 Lite 3D GPU ML accelerator – Google Edge TPU coprocessor delivering up to 4 TOPS System Memory – 1 GB LPDDR4 RAM Storage – 8 GB eMMC Flash memory Wireless Connectivity – Wi-Fi 2×2 MIMO (802.11b/g/n/ac 2.4/5GHz) Bluetooth 4.2 Baseboard Storage – MicroSD card slot Networking – Gigabit […]

January 27, 2020January 27, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Linux 5.5 Release – Main Changes, Arm, MIPS and RISC-V Architectures

Linux 5.5 has just been released by Linus Torvalds: So this last week was pretty quiet, and while we had a late network update with some (mainly iwl wireless) network driver and netfilter module loading fixes, David didn’t think that warranted another -rc. And outside of that, it’s really been very quiet indeed – there’s a panfrost driver update too, but again it didn’t really seem to make sense to delay the final release by another week. Outside of those, it’s all really tiny, even if some of those tiny changes touched some core files. So despite the slight worry that the holidays might have affected the schedule, 5.5 ended up with the regular rc cadence and is out now. That means that the merge window for 5.6 will open tomorrow, and I already have a couple of pull requests pending. The timing for this next merge window isn’t optimal […]

January 26, 2020January 26, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

ESP Open Source Research Platform Enables the Design of RISC-V & Sparc SoC’s with Accelerators

FOSDEM 2020 will take place next week, and there will be several interesting talks about open-source hardware and software development. One of those is entitled “Open ESP – The Heterogeneous Open-Source Platform for Developing RISC-V Systems” with an excerpt of the abstract reading: ESP is an open-source research platform for RISC-V systems-on-chip that integrates many hardware accelerators. ESP provides a vertically integrated design flow from software development and hardware integration to full-system prototyping on FPGA. For application developers, it offers domain-specific automated solutions to synthesize new accelerators for their software and map it onto the heterogeneous SoC architecture. For hardware engineers, it offers automated solutions to integrate their accelerator designs into the complete SoC. If we go to the official website, we can see ESP (Embedded Scalable Platform) actually supports both 32-bit Leon3 (Sparc) and 64-bit Ariane (RISC-V) cores, and various hardware accelerators from the platform or third parties. Highlights: […]

January 25, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

NEXCOM In-vehicle Computers Enable 24/7 Monitoring of Trains, Buses, and Trucks

Taiwan based NEXCOM has introduced two new mobile computing solutions specifically designed for transportation with nROK 6222/VTC 6222 Intel Apollo Lake computers enabling 24/7 monitoring of trains, buses, trucks, and other vehicles. The computers come with five Ethernet ports, including four PoE enable, in order to connect IP cameras, and two HDMI output, one VGA output to let drivers monitor the front and back of the vehicle, and passengers view travel-related or other information. NEXCOM nROK 6222/VTC 6222 key features and specifications: SoC – Intel Atom x7-E3950 quad-core Apollo Lake processor clocked at 1.6 GHz / 2.0GHz with Intel HD Graphics 505 System Memory – 4GB DDR3L 1866 SO-DIMM (default) up to 8GB Storage – 2x 2.5″ SATA 3.0 SSD up to 15mm thick, SD card slot, internal USB DOM Video Output – VGA, 2 x HDMI Connectivity nROK 6222 – 1x Gigabit Ethernet (M12) port, 4x Ethernet (M12) ports […]

January 24, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 31 Comments

$210 MOTILE Performance Laptop is Powered by AMD Ryzen 3 3200U Processor

Wallmart may have the cheapest Ryzen laptop around with “MOTILE Performance Laptop”, a 14″ laptop powered by AMD Ryzen 3 3200U dual-core/quad-thread processor, coupled with 4GB RAM and a 128GB SSD. Price? $209 shipped to the US. MOTILE Performance Laptop (M141-RG) specifications: SoC – AMD Ryzen 3 3200U dual-core/quad-thread processor @ 2.6GHz / 3.5GHz (Max boost clock) with Radeon Vega 3 Graphics @ 1200 MHz; 15W TDP System Memory – 4GB DDR4 RAM, upgradable up to 16GB (1x SO-DIMM slot) Storage – 128GB SSD Display – 14” 1920×1080 display with LED backlight Video Output – HDMI Audio – 2x 2W speakers and microphone, 3.5mm headphone jack, THX Spatial Audio Camera – 720p IR webcam Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet port, 802.11b/g/n/ac WiFi 5, Bluetooth 4.2 USB – 1x USB-C 3.0 port, 2x USB 3.0 ports, 1x USB 2.0 port Battery – 4,100 mAh Power Supply – 19V/3.42A (65W) Dimensions – 320.2 […]

January 24, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Arduino Education Unveils Four New STEAM Kits for Pupils and Students

We briefly mentioned the Bett Show 2020 in an article about a Snapdragon 7c laptop for education that Microsoft will showcase at the event, but Arduino Education is also present and introduced four new educational kits for pupils and students at different stages of their curriculum. Education Starter Kit – Age: 11+ This kit is for secondary school pupils with no prior experience with electronics or programming. It comes with Arduino boards, breadboard, a multimeter, and other accessories to get started. The kit also includes teacher guides and lessons to wire projects and start programming. IoT Starter Kit – Age: 14+ The IoT starter kit (no photo provided) requires some basic knowledge and targets advanced secondary school and university students who want to learn about the Internet of Things with the kits including various sensors and step-by-step tutorials for ten different projects to help students get introduced to automation, logging, […]

January 24, 2020July 25, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

Hisense A5 5.84″ e-Paper Android Smartphone Promises Up to 10-Day Battery Life

We’ve previously covered smartphones with a black and white e-Paper display usually placed on the back of the phone, while a traditional full-color display is placed at the front. Some models include Yotaphone 2 and Hisense A2, and the advantage of the e-Ink display is that you can extend battery life, quickly check notifications without unlocking your phone, reads book even in bright lights, etc.. but the cost goes up quite a bit since the manufacturers have to integrate two displays in their devices. Hisense A5 does completely away with the traditional color display and replaces it with a 5.84″ e-Paper display with 1440×720 resolution. The display is black and white, and the slow refresh rate of such display will make it impractical to watch videos and play most games, but if all you do is check emails, browsing the web, reading e-books, accessing social networks, and making phone calls […]