CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

May 1, 2019May 1, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Facebook Oculus Quest Standalone VR Headset Launched for $399 and up

One year ago, Facebook introduced their very first standalone virtual reality headset with Oculus Go. At $199 the price was fairly attractive, but the headset only supported 3DOF motion tracking. The company announced a new model at F8 2019. Oculus Quest is equipped with a more powerful Snapdragon 835 processor, two 1600 x 1440 displays, and support for 6DOF (degrees of freedom) virtual reality thanks to two handheld motion controllers. Oculus Quest specifications: SoC – Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 octa-core processor with 4x high performance Kryo 280 cores @ 2.20 GHz/ 2.30 GHz (single core operation), 4x low power Kryo 280 cores @ 1.9 GHz, Adreno 540 GPU System Memory – 4GB RAM Storage – 64GB or 128GB flash storage Display – 2x 1600×1440 OLED displays up to 72 Hz Camera – 4x wide-angle tracking cameras for inside-out position tracking Audio – Integrated speakers, 2x 3.5mm audio jacks Battery – Lithium-Ion […]

May 1, 2019May 1, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 16 Comments

VORKE GT-King Amlogic S922X TV Box Sells for $114

One of the first Amlogic S922X TV box to show up in our news feed was Beelink GT1-K “King” with 4GB LPDDR4, 64GB eMMC flash, and all interfaces and features you’d expect from a higher end TV box including 4K HDR, HDMI 2.1 output, Gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0 and so on. The Android 9.0 TV was only unveiled at the time, and we had yet to know about pricing. The media player has now started to sell on Aliexpress under the VORKE brand for $114 including shipping. VORKE GT-King specifications: SoC – Amlogic S922X hexa-core big.LITTLE processor with 4x Arm Cortex A73 cores @ up to 1.8 GHz, 2x Arm Cortex A53 cores @ 1.9 GHz, Arm Mali-G52MP4 GPU @ 846MHz; 12nm manufacturing process System Memory – 4GB LPDDR4 RAM Storage – 64GB eMMC flash, microSD card slot Video Output – HDMI 2.1 up to 4K @ 75 Hz, AV […]

Graperain Samsung, Rockchip, and Qualcomm CPU modules, SBCs, and carrier boards

April 30, 2019April 30, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments

Rockchip RK1808 Datasheet, TRM, Schematics and Linux SDK Released

Rockchip RK1808 is the first chip from the company fully dedicated to artificial intelligence applications. The Neural Processing Unit (NPU) features an accelerator delivering up to 3.0 TOPS and is coupled with two low power Arm Cortex-A35 cores allowing it to run Linux. We’ve had the specifications for RK1808 for a while, but the company has recently posted hardware and software resources on their open source website. On the hardware side we’ve got: RK1808 Technical Reference Manual (TRM) RK1808 datasheet PDF Schematics for the company’s official RK1808-EVB On the software side we can get the Linux SDK from Github as explained in the Wiki:

git clone https://github.com/rockchip-linux/repo
mkdir linux
cd linux
../repo/repo init --repo-url=https://github.com/rockchip-linux/repo -u https://github.com/rockchip-linux/manifests -b master -m rk1808_linux_release.xml
../repo/repo sync

git clone https://github.com/rockchip-linux/repo

mkdir linux

cd linux

../repo/repo init --repo-url=https://github.com/rockchip-linux/repo -u https://github.com/rockchip-linux/manifests -b master -m rk1808_linux_release.xml

../repo/repo sync

Finally configure the build and start the build process:

sudo apt install liblz4-tool build-essential
source envsetup.sh rockchip_rk1808
./build.sh

sudo apt install liblz4-tool build-essential

source envsetup.sh rockchip_rk1808

./build.sh

After a while, or more accurately close to two hours on a Laptop with Ryzen 7 2700U processor, 8GB RAM, and hard drive, we’ll get U-boot, Linux, buildroot based rootfs, and firmware files and in […]

April 30, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Battery powered MEGO Portable Power Supply fits into Breadboards

Breadboard power supplies like MB102 have been around for years, and some even designed a variable power supply for breadboards, but EVO-IN-MOTION MEGO looks much neater as a fully enclosed power supply, 4 to 24V output, fitted with a LiPo battery, and a display to show current voltage. MEGO enabled on-the-go breadboard projects without any cables for the power supply. Just connect the power supply, and you’re good to go with power delivered from the built-in battery. MEGO power supply specifications: Output Voltage – 4-24V DC Maximum Power – 6W Safety – Overload protection; short circuit protection Typical Power Efficiency – 88% Voltage Display Accuracy – <1% Ripple Voltage – <1% Load Regulation – 270mV Battery – 7.4Whs (2,000 mAh @ 3.7V) Misc – Power button;, adjust knob for output voltage; low battery and charging LEDs Dimensions – 73 x 59 x 32 mm Weight – 100 grams Temperature Range […]

April 30, 2019May 7, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 41 Comments

Giggle Score Says ODROID-N2 Best Value, Raspberry Pi Zero Worst Value

[Update May 7, 2019: Giggle Score has been updated to use 7-zip to benchmark the boards instead of sysbench, and the “best value” rankings are now quite different] People like to compare single board computers, and usually want to have a simple answer as to which is better than the others. But in practice it’s impossible, because the beauty of SBCs is that they are so versatile and can be used in a wide variety of project, and that means in some cases the “best board” may be completely useless to you since it lacks a critical feature and interface for YOUR project be it H.265 video encoding or a MIPI DSI display interface. Still, it’s still always fun to look at benchmark scores and trying to compare SBCs, and for projects that mostly require CPU processing power it may also be useful. Robbie Ferguson has been developing and maintaining […]

April 29, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

UNISOC Unveils Tiger T310 Quad Core Cortex-A75/A55 DynamIQ Processor for 4G Phones

UNISOC, a company born out of the merger between RDA Micro and Spreadtrum Communications, has recently introduced Tiger T310 processor for 4G smartphones. The quad core processor is somewhat unique as it comes with a single Cortex-A75 core coupled with three Cortex-A55 cores using dynamIQ technology. UNISOC Tiger T310 key features include: CPU – 1x Arm Cortex-A75 core @ up to 2.0 GHz, 3x Arm Cortex-A53 cores @ up to 1.8 GHz in dynamIQ configuration GPU – TBD Cellular Connectivity – TDD-LTE, FDD-LTE, TD-SCDMA, WCDMA, CDMA, GSM Camera – Dual and triple camera support Security – TEE, face unlocking Manufacturing Process – TSMC 12-nanometer process UNISOC Tiger T310 is said to deliver a 120% single-core performance improvement over the current mainstream 4-core processor, and a 20% multi-core performance improvement. The processor’s battery life is said to be 20% better than mainstream 8-core processors, and 15% higher than mainstream 4-core processors […]

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

April 29, 2019April 29, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Alipay Dragonfly F1 PoS Enables Payments with Face Recognition

We’re being told the traditional way of paying for purchases – cash – is going away, so we’ll soon have to rely exclusively on electronics payment means such as debit cards, credit cards, contactless stored value smart cards, smartphones, our own face, etc… Wait? I could pay by just showing up my face? Apparently yes, as Alipay recently installed 12 Dragonfly POS (Point-of-Sales) devices with biometric technology at Hong Kong airport. The systems started operating at the airport on April 2nd, but similar devices were allegedly deployed in more than 300 cities in mainland China previously. I’m not entirely sure of the exact model operating at Hong Kong airport, but a quick web search reveals Alipay Dragonfly F1 matches the description. Hardware specifications: Processor – Quad-core Arm Cortex A53 processor @ 1.3GHz System Memory – 2GB RAM Storage – 8GB FLASH Display – 10.1″ TFT touch screen display with 1280×800 […]

April 29, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

Huawei Launches 2U 4-node Taishan X6000 V2 Server with Kunpeng 920 Arm Processor

Back in January, Huawei announced Kunpeng 920 64-core Armv8 server processor as well as three Tianshan servers based on the SoC. But a recent tweet from James Lin, Vice director, Center of HPC, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, claims Huawei launched a 2U 4-node “Taishan” server with Kunpeng 920 (Hi1620) Arm chip a few days ago. That probably means Huawei is now ready to take orders for their new Arm servers. The server pictured above appears to be Taishan X6000 V2 with the following specifications: Form Factor – 2U, 4Node high-density server Server Nodes – Up to 4 XR320 servers with X6000 universal chassis or 4 XA320 V2 servers with X6000 super chassis Power Supply Units 2x 1,500W enhanced hot-swappable AC PSUs for XR320 server nodes 2x 3,000W hot-swappable AC PSUs for XA320 V2 server nodes supporting 1+1 redundancy Power Supply – 100V to 240V AC; 24V DC Fan Modules – […]

Boardcon LGA3576 Rockchip RK3576 System-on-Module designed for AI and IoT applications