CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

October 28, 2018October 28, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Sigfox Introduces Access Station Micro Sigfox Gateway

There are plenty of long range LPWAN standards for the Internet of Things, but the most common ones include LoRaWAN, NB-IoT, and Sigfox. LoRaWAN lead the way in terms of deployments, while NB-IoT and eMTC leverage existing cellular infrastructure but cost a bit more to operate. Sigfox works with $2 modules, but AFAIK so far you had to subscribe to the company network, and if your area was not covered you were out of luck. Sigfox Access Station Micro gateway promises to change the situation, as companies can now add their own Sigfox gateway(s) where coverage is not available, and this could make Sigfox more popular, especially if one or more communities similar to The Things Networks form(s) around it. Sigfox Access Station Micro SMBS-T4 specifications: Radio characteristics: Standard – Sigfox Ultra Narrow Band Protocol for M2M and IoT Max range of operating frequencies – 865 to 928 MHz Max […]

October 27, 2018April 16, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

One Mix 2S Yoga Amber Lake “Pocket” Laptop Up for pre-order for $720 and up

One Mix 2 Yoga mini Laptop powered by a Kaby Lake Core-m3 processor may have launched just about 10 days ago, but the company is now already taking pre-orders for One Mix 2S Yoga mini portable computer with a faster Intel Core M3-8100Y Amber Lake Y-Series processor. Otherwise, the new model has very much the same look and feel as the earlier models. One Mix 2S Yoga specifications: SoC – Intel Core M3-8100Y dual core / quad thread Amber Lake-Y processor @ 1.1 GHz (base) / 3.4 GHz (Turbo) with 4MB cache, 24EU Intel HD graphics 615 @ 300 MHz / 900 MHz (Turbo); 5W TDP System Memory – 8GB DDR3 RAM Storage – 256GB PCIe SSD, micro SD slot up to 128 GB Display – 7″ 1920×1200 IPS panel with touchscreen, 360° hinge Video Output – micro HDMI Audio – Built-in speakers and microphone, 3.5mm headphone & mic jack […]

October 26, 2018October 26, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

$94 MAKERphone DIY Mobile Phone Supports MicroPython, Arduino IDE, and Scratch (Crowdfunding)

If you ever wanted to buy a mobile phone that you can assemble yourself, RePhone Kit Ctreate going for $59 is a nice option, but in truth it does not exactly look like your typical phone with its almost square shape. It’s also good to have more option, that’s exactly what MAKERphone is offering with a DIY mobile phone targeting the educational market. Beside the educational value of the assembly also involving some soldering skills depending on the selected kit, kids will be able to learn to program the phone with MicroPython, the Arduino IDE (C language), and/or Scratch visual programming. MAKERphone kit content and specifications: MAKERphone circuit board with 8x user LEDs for backlight (and special effects), 4-way mechanical joystick, 12-button numeric keypad, A, B, C, D, E, and F buttons, DS3231 RTC chip, vibrator… Main microcomputer module based on Espressif Systems ESP32 WiSoC with 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth […]

October 25, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 21 Comments

EACHLINK H6 Mini Allwinner H6 TV Box Sells for $39.99 (Promo)

Allwinner H6 TV box SoC was announced last year with some interesting specifications with a quad core Cortex A53 processor clocked at up to 1.8 GHz, 4K & 6K HDR video playback Gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0, PCIe, etc… and was launched exclusively on Zidoo H6 Pro TV box, which delivered good performance and video playback capabilities, but at $99 was quite more expensive that RK3328 or Amlogic S905 based TV boxes. Lateron we started to find the processor in low cost development board such as Pine64 Pine H64 and Orange Pi One Plus, but I don’t think those become popular, and Allwinner H6 PCIe appears to have been botched. Nevetheless, Allwinner H6 is still a good platform for what i was designed for: TV boxes, and thanks to GearBest, it’s currently possible to purchase EACHLINK H6 Mini for just $39.99 including shipping. EACHLINK H6 Mini specifications: SoC – AllWinner H6 quad-core […]

October 24, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

MediaTek Helio P70 Launched as an Upgrade to Helio P60 Processor

MediaTek Helio P60 processor was introduced earlier this year as one of the first Arm Cortex A73 processors from the company, and also integrated NeuroPilot AI technology for faster or more complex A.I. workloads. The company has now launched an upgrade with Helio P70 that comes with many of the same features combined with incremental performance and power consumption improvements. MediaTek Helio P70 key features and specifications with highlights in bold showing differences over Helio P60: CPU – big.LITTLE octa-core with four Arm Cortex-A73 up 2.1 GHz and four Arm Cortex-A53 up to 2.0 GHz GPU – Arm Mali-G72 MP3 at 900MHz Multi-core AI processing unit (Mobile APU) – 280 GMAC/s; offers deep learning facial recognition, object and scene identification, user behavior-informed performance and other AI and AR application enhancements. System Memory – Up to 8GB, dual-channel LPDDR4x @ 1800 MHz, up to 4GB LPDDR3 @ 933 MHz Storage – […]

October 24, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Embedded Recipes 2018 Videos and Slides Released

Upstream Multimedia Amlogic-SoC-Embedded Recipes 2018 Videos

Embedded Recipes 2018 happened in Mozilla building in Paris, France on September 24 & 25, where developers talked about “open source solutions in the embedded world: developer, contributor, tools, platforms…” We previously mentioned the event in a post about an open source video decoder driver for Amlogic S905, S905X and S912 processors with BayLibre scheduled to talk about their work there. There’s now released slides and videos for the event for all sessions including: SoC+FPGA support in 2018 by Marek Vasut Shared memory and telemetry by Yves-Marie Morgan Updating an embedded system with swupdate by Charles-Antoine Couret Finding sources of latency in your system by Steven Rostedt Io(M)T Security: A year in review by Rayna Stamboliyska Using yocto to generate container images for yocto by Jérémy Rosen linuxboot by Jean-Marie Verdun and Trammell Hudson End-to-end software production for embedded by Guy Lunardi WooKey: the USB Battlefront Warrior by Mathieu Renard, […]

October 24, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 18 Comments

$16 ESP32-A1S ESP32 Audio Development Kit Comes with 2 Microphones, Audio Jacks & Headers

Espressif ESP32 WiSoC can be integrated into various applications, and earlier this year Espressif Systems released ESP32 LyraTD MSC Audio Mic HDK (Hardware Development Kit) which I could test with Baidu DuerOS using Mandarin. Since then the company released the ESP-ADF Audio Development Framework that beside Baidu DuerOS, now supports Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa, so you don’t need to speak or learn Chinese to use the kit! 🙂 Another ESP32 audio board was the similarly named ESP32-LyraT, and now we have at least more more option with Seeed Studio selling ESP32-A1S WiFi + Bluetooth ESP32 audio development kit for $16.90 on their store. ESP32-A1S ESP32 audio development kit specifications: Wireless Module A.I. Thinker ESP32-A1S module based on ESP32 dual core Tensilica CPU clocked at up to 240MHz with 520 KB SRAM, and 8MB on-module PSRAM 802.11 b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth 4.2 LE Storage – Micro SD card slot up […]

October 23, 2018October 23, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 Cortex-A76 based Processor Targets High-Tier Mid-Range Smartphones

Last August, Qualcomm unveiled Snapdragon 670 processor with performance and efficiency Kryo 360 cores believed to be based on Cortex-A75 and Cortex-A55 cores, but the company has just announced an update with Snapdragon 675 mobile platform powered by Kryo 460 cores which are based on Arm Cortex-A76 according to Anandtech, and so far, Cortex-A76 was only found in “premium” processors such as HiSilicon Kirin 980. Beside the upgrade cores, the company also claims the processor brings “outstanding gaming, a leap in artificial intelligence (AI) capability and a cutting-edge camera”. Snapdragon 675 main specifications: CPU 2x Kryo 460 (Cortex-A76 based) @ 2.0GHz with 256KB L2 6x Kryo 460 (Cortex-A55 based) @ 1.8GHz with 64KB L2 GPU – Adreno 612 DSP – Hexagon 685, Qualcomm AI Engine Display – Support for FHD+ display Camera – Spectra 250L ISP with triple-camera support Audio – Qualcomm aptX and Aqstic Modem – Snapdragon X12 LTE […]