CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

June 28, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

DisplayPort 2.0 to Support 16K Displays thanks to its 80 Gbps Bandwidth

4K monitors and TVs are now very common, and 8K displays, media players and camera are just coming to market and there’s still pretty expensive and content is basically nonexistent. 8K displays must be quite large or viewers must sit really close to get any benefit over 4K, but some people think 16K displays will be a thing in the not-to-distant future. Announced in 2016, DisplayPort 1.4 took care of 8K 60Hz output thanks to a 32.4 Gbps link bandwidth and compression, but the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) has now announced DisplayPort 2.0 standard with support for one 16K display at up to 60 Hz, or two 4K displays at up to 144 Hz with HDR thanks to a 80 Gbps link bandwidth / 77.4 Gbps payload bandwidth. DisplayPort 2.0 will work with either native DP connectors or USB Type-C connectors with DisplayPort Alt Mode for video and audio. […]

June 28, 2019July 28, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Chuwi HiPad LTE Tablet Review – Part1: Specs and Unboxing

Chuwi HiPad LTE is an 10.1″ tablet running Android 8.0 Oreo on a MediaTek Helio X27 deca-core processor coupled with 3GB RAM, 32GB flash, and offering both dual band WiFi and LTE connectivity. The company just sent me a sample, and today I’ll quickly go through the specifications, before unboxing the two packages I received. Specifications SoC – Mediatek Helio X27 (MT6797) deca-core processor with 2x Cortex-A72 cores @ 2.6 GHz, 4x Cortex A53 cores @ 2.0 GHz, and 4x Arm Cortex-A53 cores @ 1.6 GHz, as well as an Arm Mali-T880 GPU clocked at up to 875MHz System Memory – 3GB RAM Storage – 32GB eMMC flash, microSD card socket up to 128GB Display – 10.1″ IPS capacitive screen with 1920 x 1200 resolution Audio – 3.5mm headphone jack, built-in stereo speaker and microphone Camera – 5.0MP rear camera, 5.0MP front-facing camera Connectivity Dual band 802.11a/b/g/n/ac WiFi 5 Bluetooth […]

June 28, 2019January 3, 2020 by Stephen Vicinanza - 4 Comments

THEC64 a Retro Functional Commodore 64

Retro Games has set December 2019 as the release date for their reimagined full-size fully functional C64, named THEC64. This somewhat smaller version of the original Commodore 64 comes with 64 games, a joystick and may include a handheld game console. THEC64 computing power is limited, but Basic is still functioning and can be booted, as well as Vic20 Basic. The original replica was a small keyboard facsimile of the original keyboard, called the C64 mini. The keyboard was just for “show” but did have 64 games included, which many people suspect are the same games that will be available on the “full-size” reissue. There are quite a few people willing to help out with the launch of the THEC64, offering video tutorials of how to program the fully functioning retro computer. There is a website called 64Bites, devoted to the Commodore 64 and it’s Basic programming, and this leads […]

June 27, 2019June 30, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 25 Comments

Raspberry Pi 4 Benchmarks – Heatsink Edition

A few days ago, I ran some benchmarks in Raspberry Pi 4, and quickly found out that using the board without a cooling solution will cause serious performance issues, as in some cases my board was slower than Raspberry Pi 3 model B due to severe overheating. After playing with LibreELEC yesterday, I’ve now reinstalled Raspbian Buster Desktop on the board, and fitted it with a largish heatsink and some old thermal paste. So I’ll run benchmarks again with and without heatsink. I’ll only run sbc-bench this time. SBC Bench Installation Open a terminal windows or connect to the board through SSH and run:

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ThomasKaiser/sbc-bench/master/sbc-bench.sh

1	wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ThomasKaiser/sbc-bench/master/sbc-bench.sh

Raspbian Buster will automatically fetch the latest operating systems packages upon first boot, but apparently not the latest firmware:

/opt/vc/bin/vcgencmd version
Jun 20 2019 16:04:31 
Copyright (c) 2012 Broadcom
version 407b1da8fa3d1a7108cb1d250f5064a3420d2b7d (clean) (release) (start)

/opt/vc/bin/vcgencmd version

Jun 20 2019 16:04:31

version 407b1da8fa3d1a7108cb1d250f5064a3420d2b7d (clean) (release) (start)

So I ran rpi-update to get the very latest firmware as well, and rebooted the board:

/opt/vc/bin/vcgencmd version
Jun 26 2019 17:42:42 
Copyright (c) 2012 Broadcom
version 1186f932808ed601ddd583a30a3ce055477b1a26 (clean) (release) (start)

/opt/vc/bin/vcgencmd version

Jun 26 2019 17:42:42

version 1186f932808ed601ddd583a30a3ce055477b1a26 (clean) (release) (start)

Normally, you should not have to do it, […]

June 27, 2019June 27, 2019 by Tiwalade Joanna Okedara - 8 Comments

Vivo 120W Super FlashCharge Tops a 4,000 mAh battery in 13 minutes

Recently, the news of Vivo 120W Super FlashCharger which can power a 4,000 mAh battery in 13 minutes is on everyone’s lips. It sounds unreal, but it is. While it is not the first supercharge tech, it is one of its kind. According to reports it would be the world’s fastest charging tech for smartphones. Although no further details were revealed about the Super FlashCharge 120W technology. A Vivo product manager released a video on the Chinese social media platform Weibo. This video teased about the product. Furthermore, Vivo has not yet disclosed how they achieved this feat. Also, it is still a mystery how they developed the 120W super Flashcharge. It is also not really clear when this technology would be introduced into a commercially available smartphone. Remember that OnePlus was the first one to bring a 20W fast charge tech. In addition, it hit the 30W mark […]

June 27, 2019June 27, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 28 Comments

NanoPi M4 RK3399 SBC Price Drops to $50 and Up

The launch of Raspberry Pi 4 SBC has generated lots of interest, especially with the extra performance and low $35 price tag that has made most alternatives suddenly less interesting. However, Raspberry Pi 4 benchmarks show it’s not quite the fastest board around, and for example, Rockchip RK3399 platforms are still quite faster, sometimes as much as twice as fast. They do cost much more though, often more than twice, and so far one of the cheapest RK3399 boards was NanoPi M4 going for $65. FriendlyELEC has now decided, certainly in response to Raspberry Pi 4 offering, to lower the price to $50 for the 2GB RAM version which compares to $45 with Raspberry Pi 4 2GB, as well as $75 for the 4GB RAM version (was $95). NanoPi M4 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3399 big.LITTLE hexa-core processor with 2x Arm Cortex-A72 @ up to 2.0GHz, 4x Cortex-A53 @ up […]

June 27, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

MediaTek Helio P65 Octa-core Processor Combines Cortex-A75/A55 Cores with Arm Mali-G52 GPU

MediaTek Helio P65 is a mainstream’s octa-core processor with two Arm Cortex-A75 clocked at up to 2.0 GHz and six Cortex-A55 cores combined with an Arm Mali-G52 2EEMC2 GPU. What does 2EEMC2 mean you may ask? Well, I have absolutely no idea either, and MediaTek did not bother expanding on the subject. Nevertheless, Helio P65 is said to deliver 25% performance improvement over “competitor alternatives that use older generation cores”, and twice the AI performance over previous generation mainstream Helio series, and up to 30% faster performance versus direct competitor SoCs in AI-camera tasks such as object recognition (Google Lens). The processor also implements VoW (Voice on Wakeup) capability which the company claims “optimizes platform size and power use”, and separates the audio channels for voice commands and calls from media and games in order to deliver better audio quality. MediaTek Helio P65 specifications: Processor – 6x Arm Cortex-A55, 2x […]

June 27, 2019July 10, 2019 by Stephen Vicinanza - 2 Comments

Pi-Top [4] mini-PC runs the New Raspberry Pi 4

The features and design have changed, but the reliability and the advanced processing capability are all the well-known new Raspberry Pi 4, housed in the new Pi-Top [4]. The popular platform has come out with a portable design with expanded connectivity, scalability, and increased processing capabilities. It boasts an OLED display in a mini-PC form-factor that the company has announced will go on sale on Kickstarter. The SBC industry is seeing a general increase in features and processing ability. Added device connectivity, especially in multimedia capability. The Pi-Top [4] is no exception. The laptop version of Pi-Top is still a viable computer with many features for an SBC footprint. The new Pi-Top [4] mini-PC has expanded RAM, increased ports, and comes with an inventor’s kit. The Pi-Top [4] comes with a roster of accessories that include; sensors, LED’s, and potentiometers to get those just beginning their journey on the path […]