CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

September 1, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Intel Pentium Silver N5000 “Gemini Lake” Notebook Shows Up in Benchmarks

We all know that Gemini Lake processors will succeed Apollo Lake family, we have a good idea of the supported features. and even know that Intel is expecting 10 to 15% CPU integer performance improvement between the two generations. I’ve now been informed that an Intel Gemini Lake notebook powered by Intel Pentium “Silver” N5000 quad core processor clocked at 1.09 GHz was spotted in SiSoftware Sandra benchmark database. If we compare those results to the ones for Intel Pentium N4200 Apollo Lake processor with the same 1.1 GHz base frequency, we can indeed see some progress, and the results, albeit early, are quite encouraging, except for the GPU part with similar results. Intel Pentium N5000 Intel Pentium N4200 Delta Processor Arithmetic 31.11 GOPS 21.42 GOPS 1.45x Processor Multi-Media 44.65 MPix/s 41.38 MPix/s 1.08x .NET Arithmetic 11.5 GOPS 7.31 GOPS 1.57x Processor Crypto 2.8 GB/s 1.41 GB/s 1.99x It’s quite […]

September 1, 2017November 17, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

AutoPi is a 4G & GPS OBD-II Dongle Based on Raspberry Pi Zero W Board (Crowdfunding)

We’ve previously covered Macchina M2 OBD-II dongle based on an Arduino compatible MCU, and with 4G LTE support for the maker market, and iWave Systems OBD-II dongle with 4G LTE and LTE running Linux on NXP i.MX6 for the B2B market, but so far I had not seen an hackable OBD-II dongle running Linux for the maker market. AutoPi dongle fills that void as it is based on Raspberry Pi Zero W board, runs Raspbian with Autopi software (AutoPi Core), supports 4G LTE, GPS, etc,.. and connects to your car’s OBD-II socket. AutoPi dongle specifications: SoC – Broadcom BCM2835 ARN11 Core processor @ up to 1 GHz System Memory – 512MB LPDDR2 SRAM Storage – 8GB micro SD card Cellular Connectivity 4G Cat 1 modem with 3G/EDGE fallback working worldwide (but region locked) 4G bands – Region specific 3G fallback (WCDMA) – B1, B2, B4, B5, B8 EDGE fallback – […]

September 1, 2017September 10, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Google Assistant News – AIY Voice Kit For Sale, Offline Support, 3rd Party Smart Speakers Announced

There’s been a lot of development related to Google Assistant in the last few days. First, Google provided an update for AIY Projects, with their AIY Projects Voice Kit now available for pre-order on Micro Center for $35 including a Raspberry Pi 3 board, making the kit virtually free, although you may also purchase it. Note that Micro Center blocks traffic originating from some countries, so I had to use Zend2 to access the site. [Update 10/09/2017: You can also get it from Seeed Studio for worldwide shipping] Google also announced the Speech Commands Dataset with 65,000 one-second long utterances of 30 short words, which they are in the process of integrating with the next release of the Voice Kit, and will allow the devices to respond to voice commands without the need for an Internet connection. So if you lose your Internet connection, or want to isolate your Voice […]

August 31, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

Bben MN10 Apollo Lake PC Stick Comes with 3GB RAM, 64GB Flash, Windows 10 Home or Pro

Back in April, BBen showcased their “Micro computer”, an Apollo Lake mini PC in stick form factor, at the Hong Kong Global Sources Electronics Fair, which was scheduled to launch in July. With about one month delay, the company is now selling Bben MN10 PC Stick starting at $157.30 including with an unlicensed Windows 10 installation, but also offer Windows 10 Home, and Windows 10 Pro for an extra $21.39 and $30.33 respectively. BBen MN10 HDMI TV stick specifications: SoC – Intel Celeron N3350 dual core processor @ 1.1 GHz / 2.4 GHz, 12 EU Intel HD graphics 500 @ 200 MHz / 650 MHz; 6W TDP System Memory – 3 GB DDR3 Storage – 64 GB eMMC flash + micro SD slot up to 128 GB Video Output – HDMI port Audio – HDMI + 3.5mm headphone jack Connectivity – Dual band 802.11 b/g/n/ac WiFi, and Bluetooth 4.0 USB […]

August 31, 2017August 31, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 14 Comments

When Your Code Lands You in Jail

You’ve probably heard about Volkswagen emission scandal that surfaced last year. Basically, the company used some tricks to detect when the vehicle was under test and ran in low emission mode during those tests, and normally on the road emitting up to 40 times over the U.S. pollution limits. Cheating is quite easy because testing is performed indoor with the car wheels on rollers as shown in the picture below, so all the software had to do is detect whether the car was actually moving forward to select the right mode. Several executives involved in the decision to rig the emissions tests got charged as expected, but what happened to the engineer who implemented the code following his boss(es)’ request? Reuters reports that he’s been sentenced to 40-month prison term, and a $200,000 fine, after pleading guilty early on, and collaborating with authorities. His lawyer argued that Jiang (Engineer surname) […]

August 31, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

LoFive is a Tiny Open Source Hardware Board based on SiFive FE310 RISC-V Open SoC

Do you remember HiFive1? It’s an Arduino compatible board based on the SiFive FE310 open source RISC-V SoC. Michael Welling has now started working on LoFive board using the same processor, but in a much smaller & breadboard friendly form factor. LoFive board specifications: MCU – SiFive Freedom E310 (FE310) 32-bit RV32IMAC processor @ up to 320+ MHz (1.61 DMIPS/MHz) Storage – 128-Mbit SPI flash (ISSI IS25LP128) Expansion – 2x 14-pin headers with JTAG, GPIO, PWM, SPI, UART, 5V, 3.3V and GND Misc – 1x reset button, 16 MHz crystal Power Supply – 5V via pin 1 on header; Operating Voltage: 3.3 V and 1.8 V Dimensions – 38 x 18 mm (estimated) The board will be programmable with Arduino IDE + Cinco just like HiFive1 board. The board is also open source hardware, so beside the aforelinked info on Hackster,io, you’ll also find the KiCAD schematics, PCB layout, and […]

August 31, 2017February 17, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

Those Charts Show The Benefits of Microphone Arrays for Hot Word Detection

Since I started looking more into smart speakers, including DIY ones such as the I made with Orange Pi Zero board + Google Assistant with a single microphone, I was told about the importance of microphone arrays, but so far, I had not seen any clear study or data about that. That changed today, as I came across a review of mic arrays by the makers of Snips Voice Platform. They tested five arrays connected to a Raspberry Pi 3 with the system, and also added a generic USB microphone to the mix. The results speak for themselves… In that experiment, they measured the rate at which a hot word was successfully detected by incrementally increasing the distance between 0.5 meters to 5 meters (16 ft), and for each distance, repeating the hot word 25 times at 3 second intervals using pre-recording to keep the voice level constant, and the […]

August 31, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

8K VR Headsets Are Coming, Starting with Pimax 8K

The user experience with current virtual reality headsets is far from ideal, because of a lack of content, the “screen-door effect“, and the screen resolution is not quite high enough since it’s so close from our eyes. 8K virtual reality headsets, with 4K per eye, should make the experience both more realistic, and minimize the screen-door effect. One of the first such products will be Pimax 8K VR headset. It’s still a prototype that the company will showcase at IFA Berlin 2017, but we already know that beside a twin 3840 x 2160 pixel display, it will also have a 200 degree field of view, and 18 ms MTP (Motion-to-Photon) latency. The headset will ship with two motion controllers to track your movements. With the kind of processing power required to handle 8K, it’s not a standalone headset, and instead will rely on (Windows) computers with NVIDIA GeForce GTX980 or […]