CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

October 10, 2017October 10, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Industrial Shields Industrial Panel PCs are Based on Raspberry Pi, Banana Pi, or HummingBoard

Boot&Work Corp., S.L. is a company based in Catalonia that sells industrial automation electronic devices under “Industrial Shields” brand. What makes their product noticeable is that they all appear to be based on maker boards such as Arduino or Raspberry Pi. The company offers various Arduino based PLC modules with or without Ethernet that can be controlled with 10.1″ industrial grade panel PCs based on ARM Linux development boards. Currently three sub-families are available: HummTOUCH powered by Solidrun HummingBoard-i2 NXP i.MX 6Dual Lite board BANANATOUCH with either Banana Pi M64 (Allwinner A64 quad core Cortex A53) or Banana Pi M3 (Allwinner A83T octa core Cortex A7) TOUCHBERRY with Raspberry Pi model B or Raspberry Pi 3 model B Beside the different processors, the 10.1″ Panel PCs share some of the same specifications: Display – 10.1″ resistive multitouch LVDS, 315 nits, 170° viewing angle, 1280×720 resolution Video Input – MIPI CSI […]

October 10, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Purism Librem 5 Open Source Linux Smartphone Meets its 1.5 Million Dollars Funding Target

Back in the summer, we reported about Purism Librem 5, a privacy-focused, open source Linux smartphone. The hardware has not been developed yet, at the time the company was still considering either i.MX 6 Cortex A9 processor or i.MX8 Cortex A53 processor for the phone, and asked for 1.5 million dollars in their self-managed crowdfunding campaign to get the phone delivered in 2019. The project was interesting but with the current status for the project, amount to be raised, and delivery timeline, it was a long shot. But it turns out there’s some demands for smartphones outside of Android and iOS ecosystem, and since then, KDE and the GNOME foundation have joined the project leading to more coverage & people getting involved, and Librem 5 phone is now fully funded with 13 days to go. The processor will likely be NXP i.MX 8M Quad quad core Cortex A53 SoC, as […]

October 9, 2017October 9, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

$290 DERE A3 Air Intel Celeron J3455 Apollo Lake Notebook Comes with 64GB SSD, 512GB HDD

We’ve already seen several laptops and notebooks powered by Intel Apollo Lake processors such as CHUWI LapBook 14.1, Voyo VBook A1, or Acer Spin 1. However, most of the time those models only come with 32 or 64GB eMMC flash for the operating system, which – for my needs at least – is clearly not enough, as I need extra space for data. Some allow for M.2 or mSATA card expansions but that’s usually expensive, and I’d prefer the combination of an eMMC flash (or ideally a similarly sized SSD) for optional performance, together with the capacity and cheaper price of an hard drive. DERA A3 Air notebook appears to provide just that as it includes a 64GB SSD and a 500GB HDD. The device also comes with a 14.1″ display, and is powered by an Intel Celeron J3455 quad core Apollo Lake processor. DERA A3 Air notebook specifications: SoC […]

October 9, 2017October 9, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

$57 Samgle 3G 3310 3G Feature Phone Looks like Nokia 3310

Let’s say you have a product, and need to create a brand or company name… Just think about two world famous brands or companies such as Samsung and Google, and with clever string manipulation come up with your own original brand: Samgle! Now you need a product name… Find a product from a third brand that’s similar to yours, for example Nokia 3310 3G phone, and you’ve got all your names sorted! Meet Samgle 3G 3310 feature phone with 2G and 3G connectivity. Samgle 3G 3310 specifications: SoC – TBD System Memory – 64MB RAM Storage – 128MB flash, micro SD slot up to 32GB (or is it 64GB?) Display – 2.4″ curved 320×240 display Camera – 2.0M rear camera Cellular connectivity 2G GSM – 850/600/1800/1900 MHz 3G WCDMA – 900/2100 MHz SIM Card Type – SIM + SIM/micro SD card; Dual SIM dual standby Other Wireless Connectivity – Bluetooth […]

October 9, 2017October 9, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Google’s Teachable Machine is a Simple and Fun Way to Understand How Machine Learning Works

Artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning, neural networks… are all words we hear more and more today, as machines get the ability to recognize objects, answer voice requests / commands, and so on. But many people may not know at all the basics of how machine learning works, and with that in mind, Google launched Teachable Machine website to let people experiment and understand the basics behind machine learning without having to install an SDK or even code. So I quickly tried it with Google Chrome, as it did not seem to work with Mozilla Firefox. It’s best to have audio on, as a voice explains how to use it. Basically you connect your webcam, authorize Chrome too use it, and you should see the image in the input section on the left. After you’re being to train the machine in the learning section in the middle with three difference […]

October 8, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

NComputing RX300 Thin Client Review – Part 2: Hardware Setup, Windows Server 2016

Ncomputing RX300 is a thin client based on Raspberry Pi 3 board, allowing to run Windows operating systems on a powerful server with the Raspberry Pi 3 handling the display, audio, and keyboard/mouse inputs. The company sent me a sample for review, and I checked out the hardware and accessories in the first part entitled “NComputing RX300 Thin Client Review – Part 1: Unboxing and Teardown“, so in the post I’ve started the thin client, and connected it to vSpace Pro server. Hardware Setup RX300 uses the same peripherals as any mini PC, so I connected USB keyboard and mouse, an Ethernet cable (WiFi is also possible), and the power adapter. You could also connect other devices, and I added a USB flash drive which, as we’ll see later, will be properly recognized by the server. I was also sent a USB to VGA adapter that you can connect to […]

October 7, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Intrinsyc Launches Open-Q 660 HDK Snapdragon 660 Development Kit

For many years now, Intrinsyc has been releasing Qualcomm mobile development platforms that that are used by companies wanting to design and manufacture smartphones or other products based on Snapdragon processors. Those are usually full featured, including a smartphone display, and well suited to such product development. Their latest development kit is the Open-Q 600 HDK (Hardware Development Kit) powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 SoC, an upgrade to Snapdragon 653 with about 20 percent improvement in CPU performance, and 30 percent in GPU performance. The kit is also equipped with 6GB RAM, 64GB flash, a display, wireless modules, sensors, camera interfaces, expansion headers, and more. Intrinsyc Open-Q 600 specifications: SoC – Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 octa-core processor with Four Kryo 260 performance cores @ up to 2.2GHz, four Kryo 260 low power cores @ up to 1.8GHz Adreno 512 GPU @ up to 650 MHz supporting OpenGL ES 3.0/3.2, Vulkan, DX12 FL […]

October 6, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Hologram Unveils Nova 3G USB Dongle and Python SDK; 200 Raspberry Pi Zero W Kits Given Away to Developers

This summer I discovered Hologram global cellular IoT SIM card, and since they provided free developer samples with 2MB of monthly data includes, I decided to get one to try it out. I received it a few weeks later, and to my surprise it worked, despite my country of residence having some strict requirements with regards to SIM card registration. The SIM card uses roaming, but with a low fixed worldwide pricing, and does not come with a phone number by default, so maybe that’s why I did not have to register. The company is now back with Nova, an open source hardware cellular modem certified by OSHWA (ID #US000077). It’s basically 2G/3G USB dongle that’s controlled by Hologram Python SDK, specifically suited to Debian systems like Raspberry Pi 3 or BeagleBone Black. Hackster.io is also involved in the launch with a worldwide contest offering 200 free kits comprised of […]