CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

October 29, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 17 Comments

NVIDIA Launches Upgraded Shield TV with Tegra X1+ Processor

Ever since NVIDIA launched the Shield TV in 2015 it features in lists of best Android TV boxes in the $200 budget range, although it can raise to close to $300 if you do not live in a country where the Shield TV is not officially sold. The company launched a more compact version in 2017, and NVIDIA just officially announced upgraded Shield TV and Shield TV Pro 2019 models with a more powerful Tegra X1+ Processor delivering a 25% boost, as well as Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision support. As you can see from the photo above the Shield TV now has a completely different cylindrical design, while the Shield TV Pro keeps the traditional design of the box. However, both share many of the same specifications: SoC – NVIDIA Tegra X1+ processor with a 256-core NVIDIA GPU Memory & Storage Shield: 2 GB RAM; 8GB eMMC flash; MicroSD card […]

October 29, 2019 by Ayo Ayibiowu - 8 Comments

The Arduino Pro IDE Targets Professional Developers

It is an underlying fact that Arduino changed or better still evolved the makers, electronics, DIY, open-source, or whatever ecosystem you can think of. It brought the power of creation to the average users irrespective of your current skill set or experiences. Engineers, Scientists, hobbyists, Professors, Makers, and others and have used the ecosystem Arduino has created to build and teach new things. Aside from the fantastic hardware that made all these possible, one of the significant contributors to this easy to use growing community is the IDE. The Arduino IDE is very simplified for newbies to use. Although the Arduino Classic IDE is a pretty decent IDE for building Arduino based projects, it doesn’t offer much for large scale projects or has the tools advance developers needs. I migrated to using Atmel Studio because of what the Arduino IDE was lacking, and others have considered using other IDEs like […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM

October 28, 2019February 29, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 17 Comments

NanoPi M4V2 Kit Review – Part 2: FriendlyCore Desktop

We’ve already seen how to assemble NanoPi M4V2 metal case kit which offers an Arm mini PC solution with support for NVMe SSD. The new NanoPi M4V2 Rockchip RK3399 SBC is an evolution of the M4 board that brings faster LPDDR4 memory and adds power & recovery buttons. Since we’ve already tested several RK3399 SBC‘s and TV boxes, I planned to focus the review on thermal design evaluation (i.e. see how well the board cools), and see how memory bandwidth evolved from LPDDR3 to LPDDR4. I wanted to do so both with Linux and Android, since I could compare NanoPC-T4 (LPDDR3) benchmarks in Android. But this requires an eMMC flash module, and I don’t own any. So instead I planned to run Armbian because of support for armbian-monitor for nice temperature chart but it’s not working just yet, so instead I’ve done all tests with FriendlyCore Desktop (rk3399-sd-friendlydesktop-bionic-4.4-arm64-20190926.img) based on […]

October 28, 2019November 30, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

MINIX NEO G41V-4 Fanless Mini PC Review – Part 1: Unboxing & Teardown

MINIX showcased two new Gemini Lake mini PCs running Windows 10 Pro at IFA 2019 namely MINIX NEO J50C-4 (64GB) actively-cooled mini PC with an Intel Pentium Silver J5005 that’s basically a variant of last year’s NEO J50C-4 mini PC with more storage, as well as MINIX NEO G41V-4 fanless mini PC powered by an Intel Celeron N4100 processor. I’ve already reviewed the former mini PC with Windows 10 Pro, and the company has just sent me a sample of their just-released NEO G41V-4 mini PC which as we’ll see is a completely new design (internally). MINIX NEO G41V-4 Unboxing The mini PC did not come alone, as 240GB M.2 SATA SSD’s for NEO G41V-4 and NEO J50C-4 were also included. The specifications match what we initially reported with an Intel Celeron N4100 quad-core processor, 4GB DDR4, 64GB eMMC flash, and so on. The new enclosure has plenty of ventilation […]

October 28, 2019February 16, 2020 by Stephen Vicinanza - 4 Comments

Xebec Converts Your Laptop into a Triple Monitor Laptop (Crowdfunding)

Xebec a Triple Screen Device Add-on for Laptops Xebec has developed a two-screen addon for laptops ranging from 10″ to 20″ effectively expanding any laptop into a triple monitor laptop. The idea of extending a laptop screen is not new. Mobile Pixels had developed an attachable extension screen called the DUO and we reported on it in a previous article. Xebec is a Sailing Ship A Xebec is a small three sail ship, with square sails, a very apropos term for this system of three small square screens. Go Anywhere With Triple the Screens The aim is to be able to attach the screens on-the-go and have them work as well as a full monitor. Xebec’s two-screen extension attaches to the back of any monitor screen. The pair of displays slide left and right so their screens are completely viewable. The System Is Lightweight The unit weighs 1.9 lbs […]

October 28, 2019October 29, 2019 by Ayo Ayibiowu - No Comments

Another GD32 RISC-V Development Kit with LCD By Seeed Studio

Recently we highlighted the $5 Longan Nano, a development kit released by Sipeed for the Gigadevice GD32V RISC-V family of microcontrollers. The Sipeed Longan Nano is powered by the GigaDevice’s GD32VF103CBT6, based on Nucleisys Bumblebee kernel (support RV32IMAC instruction sets and ECLIC rapid interrupt). Seeed Studio is currently on this quest for expanding the Gigadevice GD32V RISC-V ecosystem with the launch of the SeeedStudio GD32 RISC-V kit with LCD. The Seeed Studio development kit is based on the SeeedStudio GD32 RISC-V Dev Board and a 2.8 inch 240×320 pixel resistive LCD screen. The Seeed Studio GD32 RISC-V Dev Board is based on the 32-bit general-purpose GD32VF103VBT6 MCU, which can run at up to 108MHz. It comes with a 128KB on-chip Flash memory, and a 32KB SRAM memory. The development board comes with a total of 80 GPIOs, an onboard 8MB Flash and 256 Byte EEPROM, a staggering amount resources for this […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025

October 27, 2019October 27, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Changing Ubuntu Apt Mirror from the Command Line, and the Lack of Arm64 Mirrors

When you install Ubuntu on a computer, you’d normally go through the installation ISO which guides you through a wizard where you select your location among other things, and that means you get connected to the mirror closest to your location allowing timely updates. But for those of us who flash Ubuntu images on Arm SBC’s, the mirror is normally fixed to the one set by the developer be it in China or Slovakia, or defaults to the US mirror. It still works, but it can be slower than necessary. In a computer, an easy way to change that from Ubuntu desktop to launch Software & Update program and change the download from field to a mirror in your country or neighboring country as shown below. But I’ve found myself mostly connecting to boards over SSH since it’s easier that way for reviews. One way to change the mirror would […]

October 26, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

SiFive U8-Series Out-of-Order RISC-V Core IP Takes on Arm Cortex-A72 Core

Earlier this week, we wrote about SiFive Shield open security platform as the equivalent of Arm TrustZone security technology, but the company had had another important announcement this week with the introduction of SiFive U8-Series Out-of-Order (OoO) RISC-V Core IP with much higher performance than the company’s earlier U7-series core and competing with Arm Cortex A72 core. At first, the company will offer two standard cores with SiFive U84 RISC-V core optimized for power efficiency and area efficiency, and the SiFive U87 RISC-V core with vector processing. SiFive U84 Performance & Efficiency We do not have much information about U87, but SiFive already published some interesting details about U84 cores. SiFive U84 core offers about 3.1 times higher performance compared to their earlier U74 standard core thanks to a 2.3x increase in IPC combined with a 1.4x increase in maximum frequency. Compared to SiFive U54, U84 delivers 5.3x higher performance […]