CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

September 5, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Connect Watch Runs AsteroidOS Open Source Operating System (Crowdfunding)

At the beginning of last year, we discovered AsteroidOS (hobby) project aiming to provide a Linux based open source operating system working on some Android Wear smartwatches. At the time the OS relied on Android drivers working with libhybris, Qt5/QML for apps, and only supported LG G Watch. Since then, Florent Revest has continued development, with more watches being supported from Samsung, Asus, and other brands, and a French startup has decided to design and bring to market Connect Watch running AsteroidOS. Connect Watch specifications: SoC- Mediatek quad core processeur @ up to 1.39GHz MTK System Memory – 512MB or 1GB RAM Storage – 4 or 8GB flash Display – 1.39″ round Amoled display with 400×400 resolution Audio – Built-in speaker Connectivity Bluetooth Optional GSM ( 850/900/1800/1900MHz) and 3G WCDMA (850/2100MHz) support with nano SIM card slot GPS Camera – 2.0 MP; records to 720p Sensors – Heart rate monitor […]

September 4, 2017September 5, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Orange Pi 2G IoT Board Can Now Boot Linux from NAND Flash

Orange Pi 2G IoT is a $10 development board with a 2G cellular modem that was launched last March. The board is based on RDA Micro RDA8810PL processor designed for cheap Android phones, but Linux support was also promoted, and an RDA8810 Android SDK was released in April. It was the first time RDA8810 was used in a development board, and unsurprisingly it was, and still is, a challenge to use such board, as software support is on-going… So people who purchased the board has troubles with controlling GPIOs, or booting Linux from the SoC’s built-in NAND flash, instead reverting to booting from a micro SD card. Luckily, Orange Pi forum’s user surfero75 worked on the latter, found a solution, and posted instructions in Spanish. He wrote those instructions leveraging the work done by Aib user, and I summarized the main steps below explaining how install and boot from NAND […]

September 4, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Linux 4.13 Release – Main Changes, ARM & MIPS Architectures

Linus Torvalds has just announced the release of Linux 4.13 and a kidney stone…: So last week was actually somewhat eventful, but not enough to push me to delay 4.13. Most of the changes since rc7 are actually networking fixes, the bulk of them to various drivers. With apologies to the authors of said patches, they don’t look all that interesting (which is definitely exactly what you want just before a release). Details in the appended shortlog. Note that the shortlog below is obviously only since rc7 – the _full_4.13 log is much too big to post and nobody sane would read it. So if you’re interested in all the rest of it, get the git tree and limit the logs to the files you are interested in if you crave details. No, the excitement was largely in the mmu notification layer, where we had a fairly last-minute regression and […]

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

ESPDUINO-32 & Wemos D1 R32 ESP32 Boards Support (Most) Arduino UNO Shields

The compact ESP32 NodeMCU like board are great for many project, but in case you plan to leverage your existing Arduino shield, it’s more convenient to have a compatible board. We’ve previously seen Noduino Quantum board sold for 99 RMB on Taobao, and $25.90 on AnalogLamb, but doit.am has designed a cheaper model called ESPDUINO-32 that supports shields compatible with Arduino UNO, and sold for $13.73 on DealExtreme. ESPDUINO-32 board specifications: Wireless Module – ESP-WROOM-32 based on Espressif ESP32 dual core Tensilica LX6 processor with 802.11 b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth 4.2 LE Expansion – Arduino UNO headers with SPI, I2C, digital I/Os, 1x analog input up to 3.2V, 5V, GND USB – 1x USB device port Misc – Button Power Supply – 5 to 12V input via DC jack or Vin pin Dimensions – 66 x 53.3 x 13.5 mm The board can be programmed with the Arduino IDE selecting […]

September 4, 2017September 4, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

Geniatech ATV495 Max & ATV598 Max TV Boxes Run Android TV OS

Most TV boxes coming from Chinese manufacturers are running Android operating systems based on the mobile version, which gives you more flexibility, but for some use cases such as watching online videos, is not as user-friendly as Android TV operating systems that’s developer by Google specifically for a TV experience. However, it looks like there’s a shift now, as I’ve heard several companies are in the process of applying for an Android TV License from Google, and Geniatech is one of the first to unveil two boxes running Android 6.0 TV operating system, that should soon be certified by Google, with ATV495 Max and ATV598 Max. [Update: The company has now removed the link to the press release (see cache), since certification is not complete yet] Those models are updated from their ATV495X and ATV598E models running Android 6.0, with apparently the same hardware but upgraded to Android TV OS. […]

September 3, 2017September 3, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments

Huawei Introduces Kirin 970 Mobile SoC with Built-in Neural Processing Unit for Artificial Intelligence Applications

Huawei has unveiled their latest Kirin 970 SoC for premium smartphone at IFA 2017. The processor features an 8-core CPU, and a new 12-core GPU, but what makes this new processor stands apart it a dedicated Neural Processing Unit (NPU) to accelerate tasks used for artificial intelligence, with the company claiming the NPU delivers 25 times the performance with 50x greater efficiency compared to a quad core Cortex A73 processor for AI computing tasks. In practical terms, Kirin 970 could process 2,000 images per minute in an unnamed benchmark image recognition test. The press release also mentions the processor will pack 5.5 billion transistors packed into 1 cm² and be manufactured using a 10nm “advanced processor”. But they did not go into much further details about the specs, so instead, I used info from Anandtech and the slide above to derive Kirin 970 technical specifications: CPU – 4x ARM Cortex […]

September 2, 2017October 21, 2017 by Karl Johnson - 6 Comments

2017 Tevo Tarantula Dual Extruder 3D Printer Review – Part 2: Auto-Leveling, Dual Color Prints, Flex Filament

Karl here with final part of Tevo Tarantula dual extruder 3D printer review. The kit that was sent by Gearbest has a large bed, auto leveling, dual extrusion, and flex extruder of which I only found the flex extruder appealing to me. I have had this printer for a while now. It was relatively easy to setup, but near the end of the build it did not cover every aspect. There are lots of videos and a big Facebook group if you run into any troubles. Overall it is a good printer, but some of the features I initially thought I would like turned out to not be very useful. Auto leveling I tried my hardest to get this to work even going as far as to upgrade the firmware, but because they had a printed bracket on it, it drooped on my first high temp ABS print. I removed […]

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 […]