The iF International Forum Design GmbH organizes a yearly design competition called the iF DESIGN AWARD. Hefei LCFC Information Technology’s Kaleido is one of this year’s winners. At first sight, I assumed it was a keyboard PC, but instead, it’s a portable computer without screen instead integrating a projector and a foldable keyboard. When the keyboard is unfolded the projector display can be seen straight ahead, but the triangular case allows the computer to project the display at a 30° angle, or straight ahead in “tower” mode which places the projector higher up and may be needed to align with the white curtain. The computer also integrates a loudspeaker and microphone which can be used for conference calls. It’s compact and light enough to be transported in a suitcase between meetings. We don’t have specifications as Kaleido appears to be at the design stage, but the date of launch is […]
Yeelight Smart LED Bulb 1S (Color) Review with Android App and Google (Local) Home
Last summer, Google released the Local Home SDK developer preview which allows developers to run actions and use resources on the local device rather than in the Cloud for lower latency. One company that updated its devices is Yeelight whose WiFi smart lights have now been enhanced with the Google Local Home SDK helping deliver a latency of less than 0.3 seconds, so you don’t need to wait after your voice command has been processed by Google Assistant. The company contacted me to test the new feature and had GearBest sent a sample of Yeelight Smart LED Bulb 1S (Color) for review. I have never tested Yeelight devices so I’ll start with an unboxing, testing with the Android app, before trying it out with Google Home and Google Assistant. Unboxing of Yeelight Smart LED Bulb 1S (Color) The package has some useful information about the light bulb including some specifications […]
20TB HAMR Hard Drives Coming in 2020, up to 80TB Drives Expected in a Few Years
We first wrote about HAMR technology in 2017. HAMR stands for “Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording” and aims at increasing data density in order for manufacturers to cram even more bytes into 2.5″ and 3.5″ drives. You can learn more about HARM technology in your previous article. At the time, Seagate had built over 40,000 HAMR drives for internal testing, and expected volume shipments of 20TB+ drives in 2019. There have been some delays, but Seagate recently announced their first formatted and fully functioning 3.5″ 16TB enterprise hard drive platform based on the technology. Bear in mind that those are only internal test units, and will not be brought to market in this configuration. Instead, the company plans to start selling its first HAMR drives with at least 20TB storage capacity later this year. The new drives behave just like existing PMR drives and are just plug-and-play in existing systems with SATA […]
Kontron Launches AMD Ryzen Embedded Mini-ITX Board for Graphics Applications
We’ve seen several AMD Ryzen Embedded boards launched over the last couple of years, but the only one we covered here that happens to follow the mini-ITX form factor was iBASE MI988 motherboard powered by a choice of Ryzen Embedded V1000 processors. But there are others including Sapphire IPC-FP5V 10GbE embedded mini-ITX motherboard, and Kontron has just announced the D3713-V/R mITX motherboard with AMD Ryzen Embedded V1000/R1000 processor and aimed at “demanding graphics applications” such as kiosks, infotainment, digital signage, professional casino gaming systems, medical displays, as well as thin clients and industrial PCs. Kontron D3713-V/R mITX specifications: SoC (one or the other) AMD Ryzen Embedded V1202B dual-core/quad-thread Zen processor @ 2.3 GHz / 3.2 GHz (Boost frequency) with RADEON VEGA 3 graphics; 12W to 25W TDP AMD Ryzen Embedded V1605B quad-core/octa-thread Zen processor @ 2.0 GHz / 3.6 GHz (Boost frequency) with RADEON VEGA 8 graphics; 12W to 25W […]
Register to the Embedded Online Conference for Free Before February 29th
Events such as the Embedded Linux Conference and Embedded Systems Conference take place in the US and Europe every year. There are plenty of talks and it’s certainly good for networking, but you need to travel to the event and the entrance fee to have access to all session costs several hundred dollars if you book early, and over one thousand dollars if you register close to the date of the event. Most ELC/ELCE videos usually end up on The Linux Foundation YouTube channel, but the Beningo Embedded Group and Embedded Related website decided to organize a similar conference happening online and simply called the “Embedded Online Conference“. The conference offers topics about embedded systems, DSP, machine learning and FPGA and will take place on May 20. There are currently 17 talks, but they are still calling for talks so more sessions may be added before the actual event. You’ll […]
Mustang-M2BM-MX2 M.2 Card Features Two Intel Movidius Myriad X VPUs
We’ve already seen M.2 cards based on one or more Intel Movidius Myriad X VPU with the likes of AAEON AI Core XM2280 M.2 card, but there’s now another option from Taiwan-based IEI Integration Corp with their Mustang-M2MB-MX2 card. Specifications: AI Accelerators – 2x Intel Movidius Myriad X MA2485 VPU Dataplane Interface – M.2 BM Key Power Consumption – Around 7.5W Cooling – Active Heatsink Dimensions – 22 x 80 mm Temperature Range – -20°C~60°C Humidity – 5% ~ 90% Just like other Myriad X devices, the card relies on Intel OpenVINO toolkit working on Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS 64-bit, CentOS 7.4 64-bit or Windows 10 64-bit operating systems, and supporting AlexNet, GoogleNetV1/V2, MobileNet SSD, MobileNetV1/V2, MTCNN, Squeezenet1.0/1.1, Tiny Yolo V1 & V2, Yolo V2, ResNet-18/50/101 topologies, as well as TensorFlow, Caffe, MXNet, and ONNX AI frameworks. The heatsink is really thick (~2 cm high), so it’s not something you’d just […]
Gumstix Raspberry Pi Zero Battery Board Takes AA Batteries, Offers Two-hour Battery Life
Gumstix Raspberry Pi Zero Battery IMU board is a “pHAT” add-on board for Raspberry Pi Zero that includes a holder for two AA rechargeable batteries providing up to two hours of battery life, as well as 6-axis motion sensor. Raspberry Pi Zero Battery IMU board key features and specifications: Storage – 256 Kbit I2C Serial Board EEPROM to store RPi HAT settings Sensor – Bosch BMI160 3-axis accelerometer and 3-axis gyroscope IMU Battery holder for 2x AA batteries Battery Charger – Linear Technology LTC4060 fast battery charger for single, 2-, 3- or 4-series cell NiMH/NiCd batteries. (See PDF datasheet for details) Switch slide for On/Off The battery can be charged through the Micro USB port found in Raspberry Pi Zero (W) board. This board would allow people to make a portable camera by adding the official RPi camera. It would be a nice board to use as UPS for short […]
Ugoos AM6 Plus Android TV Box is Powered by Amlogic S922X-J Processor
When I wrote about the official launch of MINIX NEO U22-XJ media hub yesterday, I mentioned it was the first Amlogic S922XJ that I knew of and the first Amlogic TV box to support Dolby Vision and Dolby Audio. But it was rightly pointed out to me that Amazon Fire TV Cube TV box already supported Dolby Vision with Amlogic S922Z processor that looks to be about the same as Amlogic S922XJ. Ugoos is now offering another Dolby Vision/Audio option with an upgrade to their existing Ugoos AM6 TV box replacing Amlogic S922X processor with S922X-J and increasing the memory and storage capacity. Ugoos AM6 Plus specifications: SoC – Amlogic S922X-J hexa-core processor with 4x Arm Cortex-A73 cores @ up to 2.2 GHz, 2x ARM Cortex-A53 cores, and an Arm Mali G52 MP6 GPU System Memory – 4GB LPDDR4 Storage – 32GB eMMC flash, MicroSD card slot up to 32GB […]