CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

July 28, 2018July 28, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

NEC VersaPro VU-3 is a Gemini Lake Tablet with Optional Keyboard, USB type C Dock, LTE Connectivity

There aren’t a lot of tablets based in Intel Gemini Lake processor, and so far we only covered Alldocube Knote5 Gemini Lake tablet powered by an Intel Celeron N4100 processor and equipped with a 11.6″ display. There’s now another option with NEC VersaPro VU-3 & VersaPro J VU-3 tablets with a 10.1″ display, powered by the same Celeron N4100 processor, but running Windows 10 Enterprise/Education/Pro, and shipping with a USB type C dock, and optional LTE connectivity. All information is in Japanese, so it’s likely the tablet only targets the Japanese market, but let’s go through the specs: SoC – Intel Celeron N4100 quad core processor @ 1.10 / 2.40 GHz (burst) with Intel UHD graphics 600, 4MB L2 cache System Memory – 4GB LPDDR4 Storage – 64 or 128GB eMMC flash, 1x microSD (SDHC / SDXC) slot Display – 10.1″ IPS 10-point touchscreen display with WUXGA resolution (1,920 x […]

July 27, 2018July 27, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

Banana Pi BPI-R64 Router Board is Powered by Mediatek MT7622, Supports 802.11ac WiFi, Optional PoE Module

SinoVoIP launched several Banana Pi router boards in the past starting with Allwinner A20 based Banana Pi BPI-R1 in 2014, and followed by Banana Pi BPI-R2 board powered by a Mediatek MT7623 processor last year. Such boards normally include multiple Gigabit Ethernet ports, as well as at least one SATA connector, and in some cases an mPCIe connector for WiFi or LTE cards. THe company also launched Banana Pi BPI-W2 board a few months ago, but that model is more geared towards multimedia router use cases. The company has now unveiled Banana Pi BPI-R64 router board based on Mediatek MT7622 dual core Arm Cortex-A53 processor, five Gigabit Ethernet port, on-board 802.11ac WiFi, one “laptop” SATA port, as well as an optional PoE (Power-over-Ethernet) add-on board.Banana PI RPI-R64 board specifications provided by the company – which has not always shown to be accurate -: SoC – MediaTek MT7622 dual-core Arm Cortex-A53 […]

July 27, 2018July 30, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Meet EWEAT R11, the $1,200 High-End 4K Media Player

A few months ago, Zidoo released two high-end 4K media players based on Realtek RTD1296DD processor with Zidoo X20 going for around $500, and Zidoo X20 Pro for about $865. Those are quite expensive with dual hard drive support, large metal case, XLR connectors, and high-end audio chips. EWEAT has upped the ante with their R11 model, also based on Realtek RTD1295DD SoC instead, and going for about $1,200 on Aliexpress, and also listed on Amazon US but with no price at the time of writing. [Update: GeekBuying has it for $699.99 shipped]. So let’s see what it has to offer. EWEAT R11 specifications: SoC – Realtek RTD1295DD quad core Cortex A53 processor with ARM Mali-T820 MP3 GPU System Memory – 2 GB DDR4 Storage – 16 GB eMMC flash, 1x SATA 3.0 bay for 3.5″ drives, external SATA port; FAT32, NTFS, EXT3, EXT4, and HFS supported on SATA drives […]

July 27, 2018July 27, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Lenovo Launches the First Smart Display with Google Assistant for $200 and Up

Android Things based smart displays were announced at CES 2018 with companies like Lenovo, LG, JBL, and Sony promising products later this year. In May, Google announced Google Assistant was now supporting smart displays, and released Android Things 1.0, the first production-ready version of the operating system. With all main software components released a few months ago, the first smart displays with Google Assistant support have now started selling for $199.99 and up courtesy of Lenovo. The smart display is available with either a 8″ or 10″ display. Lenovo Smart Display specifications: SoC – Qualcomm Home Hub Platform based on Snapdragon 624 octa-core Cortex A53 processor @ 1.8 GHz System Memory – Up to 2GB RAM Storage – Up to 4GB eMMC flash Display (one or the other) 8″ IPS display with 1280 x 800 resolution, 86° Wide Angle 10″ IPS display with 1920×1200 resolution, 86° Wide Angle Audio 8″ […]

July 26, 2018July 27, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

AS923 LoRa GPS Tracking with MatchX MatchBox Gateway and RAK811 LoRa GPS Tracker Board

Earlier this month, I installed Match MatchBox LoRa outdoor gateway close to the roof, and showed how easy it was easies to setup with MatchX Cloud. Basically, you just register to the cloud, enter the serial number, and the gateway is automatically based on your location. I’m in South East Asia, so the gateway was configured with AS923. I’ve now had time to play with the gateway using Rak Wireless RAK811 LoRa tracker board, and eventually managed to get the tracker location to show up on a map. It was my first experience with LoRaWAN, and I had to learn a lot, and overcome many issues from outdated software development tools, different data formats, and some interoperability issues between all components involved. I’ll document all that in this review, and hopefully it will help others. RAK811 LoRa GPS Tracker Unboxing Before going into LoRa configuration, I’ll show what I got […]

July 26, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Google Titan Security Key Prevents Phishing Attacks

Phising is a social engineering method that aims to trick users into giving their passwords. This can normally be mitigated with things called “brain” and “paying attention”, but since we are all humans mistakes may happen on a bad day. Even Google employees who should be tech savvy fell for the tricks from time-to-time, so Google made employees use 2-factor authentication with a hardware security key since January 2017, and none of Google workers failed for a phising attack since then. CNET was provided with a sample of Google’s “Titan Security Key”, which comes in both USB and Bluetooth/NFC versions, and will be available for sale in Google’s online store within the next few months. The full technical details have not been provided for the key, but we do know Titan Security Keys support FIDO protocol, and are built with a secure element and a firmware written by Google that […]

July 26, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Google Unveils Edge TPU Low Power Machine Learning Chip, AIY Edge TPU Development Board and Accelerator

Google introduced artificial intelligence and machine learning concepts to hundreds of thousands of people with their AIY projects kit such as the AIY Voice Kit with voice recognition and the AIY Vision Kit for computer vision applications. The company has now gone further by unveiling Edge TPU, its own purpose-built ASIC chip designed to run TensorFlow Lite ML models at the edge, as well as corresponding AIY Edge TPU development board, and AIY Edge TPU accelerator USB stick to add to any USB compatible hardware. Google Edge TPU (Tensor Processing Unit) & Cloud IoT Edge Software Edge TPU is a tiny chip for machine learning (ML) optimized for performance-per-watt and performance-per-dollar. It can either accelerate ML inferencing on device, or can pair with Google Cloud to create a full cloud-to-edge ML stack. In either case, local processing reduces latency, remove the needs for a persistent network connection, increases privacy, and […]

July 26, 2018September 7, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Olimex Unveils ESP32-POE Board with… PoE Support

One of the differences between ESP8266 and ESP32 is the latter adds an Ethernet MAC, and as a results we have seen a few ESP32 boards with an Ethernet jack offering 10/100M connectivity, including Olimex ESP32-GATEWAY, Olimex ESP32-EVB, or ESP32 Monster Board. ESP32 Ethernet enabled boards are definitely in the minority however, and what’s even more difficult to find is an ESP32 board with Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) support. The good news is that if you’re looking for such type of board, Olimex is working on one based on requirements from their customers. Olimex ESP32-POE board specifications: Wireless module – ESP32-WROOM-32 module with 802.11 b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth LE External Storage – micro SD card socket Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet with PoE power management based on Si3402 IEEE 802.3at Type 1-compliant chip Expansion UEXT connector for Olimex modules 2x GPIOs stripes spaced at 1″ on 0.1″ step Debugging/Programming – micro USB port […]