LG Unveils 8K, HDMI 2.1 Capable TVs Powered by Alpha 9 Gen 2 Processor

LG 8K TV HDMI 2.1

Last year Samsung unveiled their first 8K TV right before CES 2018 with a 85″ QLED model that can now be yours for a cool $15,000, and capable of upscaling SD / HD content to 8K using artificial intelligence since 8K content was not – and still is not – broadly available. One year has passed, and now LG has announced two new 8K TVs with HDMI 2.1 inputs just before CES 2019. Both 88″ Z9 OLED TV and 75″ SM99 8K LCD TV are powered by the company’s α9 (Alpha 9) Gen 2 processor running  deep learning algorithms to deliver enhanced picture and sound. The press release gives an overview of how AI works on both video and audio as follows: In addition to content source detection, the new processor finely adjusts the tone mapping curve in accordance with ambient conditions to offer optimized screen brightness, leveraging its ability […]

Samsung Exynos Auto V9 Octa-core Cortex A76 Processor Targets Automotive Infotainment Systems

Samsung Exynos Auto V9

Samsung Exynos processors are well known for their use in mobile processor, but the company has now announced their first automotive grade processor with Exynos Auto V9 SoC featuring eight Cortex A76 cores clocked at up to 2.1 GHz, a Mali G76 GPU, a HiFi 4 audio digital signal processor (DSP), an intelligent neural processing unit (NPU), and a safety island core that supports Automotive Safety Integrity Level (ASIL)-B standards. Exynos Auto V9 does not come with the latest Cortex-A76AE cores for autonomous driving, as instead the processor is specifically designed for in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) systems, and will be found in Audi cars starting in 2021. The processor also supports LPDDR4 and LPDDR5 DRAM, can control up to six independent displays and twelve cameras. Three separate sets of Mali G76 GPU cores will enable simultaneous support for the cluster display, central information display (CID) and rear-seat entertainment (RSE). The NPU […]

Khadas Edge2 Arm mini PC

ESP-EYE ESP32 AI Development Board Supports Face detection, Voice wakeup

ESP-EYE Board

Sometimes last month, Espressif Systems contacted me to send a mysterious new development kit together with a 10-year anniversary T-shirt, an offer I found hard to decline 🙂 So I got a new year present this morning delivered by DHL… The letter lists the main specifications of ESP-EYE development board: WiSoC- ESP32 dual core Tensilica LX6 processor with WiFi and Bluetooth Memory – 8MB PSRAM Storage – 4MB flash Camera – 2MP OV2640 camera Audio – Microphone USB – 1x micro USB port for power and programming Misc – Reset, boot and function buttons, 2x LEDs Dimensions – 41 x 21 mm It reminds me of ESP32-CAM camera board, except it adds a microphone, it’s even smaller, and as an official Espressif board, software support might be better. AI features such as face recognition or detection, and voice wake-up are supported out of the box. The board ships with a […]

FOSDEM 2019 Open Source Developers Meeting Schedule

FOSDEM 2019

FOSDEM – which stands for Free and Open Source Software Developers’ European Meeting – is a free-to-participate event where developers meet on the first week-end of February to discuss open source software & hardware projects. FOSDEM 2019 will take place on February 2 & 3, and the schedule has already been published with 671 speakers scheduled to speak in 711 events themselves sorted in 62 tracks. Like every year, I’ll create a virtual schedule based on some of the sessions most relevant to this blog in tracks such as  open hardware, open media, RISC-V, and hardware enablement tracks. February 2 10:30 – 10:55 – VkRunner: a Vulkan shader test tool by Neil Roberts A presentation of VkRunner which is a tool to help test the compiler in your Vulkan driver using simple high-level scripts. Perhaps the largest part of developing a modern graphics driver revolves around getting the compiler to […]

Year 2018 in Review, Top 10 Posts, and Some Stats

cnx software year 2018 review

That’s it, we’ve already reached the last day of 2018, and it’s time to have a look back at what happened during the past year. On the mini PC front, Gemini Lake based mini PCs took over from Apollo Lake with some performance improvements, but I expected the price point to be a bit lower than it is today.  Apart from further developments with regards to mobile processors, it feels 2018 was an off-year for processors, such as the ones found in TV boxes and development boards, with mostly more of the same. Allwinner and Rockchip did not release any really interesting processor, and Amlogic only launched S905X2 and S905Y2 which are mostly evolutions of their previous generation with an OpenGL 3.x capable GPU and USB 3.0. Rockchip RK3399 stood out this year, as despite being launched in 2016, it suddenly became popular again with many RK3399 SBCs coming to […]

This Amplifier Board Features Beken BK3266 Bluetooth 5.0 Audio SoC

Bluetooth 5 audio board

I’ve been writing about a few Bluetooth 5.0 solutions this year, but in most case those were based on Nordic Semi nRF52 chips which do support BT 5.0 Low Energy, but not Bluetooth classic which means they are suitable for HID devices, but not for all applications such as potentially some Bluetooth audio application. I’ve just come across a $10.59 audio amplifier board on IC station that is supposed to support Bluetooth 5.0 via Beken BK3266 Bluetooth audio chip. Specifications and features listed for the board: Bluetooth 5.0 Connectivity Up to 6 paired devices Bluetooth protocols – HFPV1.7, A2DPV1.2, AVRCPV1.5, AVCTPV1.2, AVDTPV1.2 Range up to 10 meters Transmission Power – Class2, 4dbm Sensitivity – -81dBm < 0.1% BER Frequency Range – 2.402GHz – 2.480GHz Audio MP3/WMA/WAV music format Speaker Impedance – 4 to 8 Ohm Output Power –  2x15W at 16V/4A, 2x10W at 12V/4A Audio signal to noise ratio >75dB […]

UP 7000 SBC

LAPSCREEN Ultralight Ultrathin 12.5″ Display Works with USB-C, HDMI, WiFi, and More

LAPSCREEN

If you want to add an extra screen to your laptop, we’ve previously covered DUO add-on display, a full HD 12.5″ display that can be placed on the left or the right of the display, and it was launched via a crowdfunding campaign that ended up being popular with over $800,000 raised from more than 4,000 backers. The display is however 1.2 cm thick and weights 680 grams, which does not seem too bad until you hear about LAPSCREEN. Developed over several years by Mr. Black (Michél Haese), LAPSCREEN is also a 12.5″ display with Full HD resolution, but it only weights 200 to 300 grams depending on whether you select the non-touch or touch version, and comes with a 4 to 8 mm thickness. Such displays enable what Michél calls the “portable office”, so you’d have your laptop for example, and if you ever needed four extra screens as […]

Millitronic MG360 is a WiGig 802.11ad USB Adapter

Millitronic 802.11ad USB adapter

802.11ad was announced in 2016 as a new WiFi standard supporting 60 GHz frequency and up to 7 Gbps throughput, but it has recently been superseded by the backward compatible but further improved 802.11ay allowing up to 100 Gbps bandwidth, and 300 to 500 meters range in theory. The new standard is supported by Qualcomm QCA64x8 and QCA64x1 WiFi chipsets that can handle up to 10 Gbps, and found in Snapdragon 855 mobile processor. If you want your network to benefit from 802.11ad WiFi – 802.11ay is not quite available yet – , you’ll first new a compatible router such as NETGEAR Nighthawk X10 AD7200 router, and end nodes supporting 802.11ad WiFi as well as. But most device on the market don’t, and in theory you should be able to add 802.11ad WiFi to any device with a USB 3.0 port, but it turns out there aren’t that many 802.11ad […]

Khadas VIM4 SBC