CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

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 […]

August 30, 2017August 30, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Google Releases ARCore Augmented Reality Preview SDK for Android

Augmented reality has been a thing for many years, and Qualcomm released an Augmented Reality SDK working with Android as soon as 2011, but Google has only just released a preview of ARCore augmented reality SDK for Android in order to bring AR capabilities to existing and future Android phones. ARCore works without any additional hardware (e.g. no 3D depth camera needed such as Tango), relies on Java/OpenGL, Unity or Unreal engines, and focuses on three things: Motion tracking – ARCore determines the position and orientation of the phone as it moves using both the phone’s camera to observe feature points in the room and IMU sensor data, in order to keep virtual objects accurately placed. Environmental understanding – This handles placement of AR objects on surface like a table or a floor, with the SDK detecting horizontal surfaces using the same feature points it uses for motion tracking. Light […]

August 30, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 14 Comments

A First Look at ESP32 PICO Core Development Board Powered by ESP32-PICO-D4 SiP

Last week, I wrote about ESP32-PICO-D4 system-in-package (SiP) that contains ESP32 WiSoC, 4MP SPI flash, a crystal oscilloscator and some passive components in a single 7×7 mm package in order to allow smaller designs based on ESP32. The company noticed the post, and asked me whether I’d be interested in receiving “some development boards based on ESP32 PICO”, an offer hard to refuse :), and within a couple of days I received the package below. So I ended up with 10 identical development kits, the company probably thought it was no worth paying for DHL to only send one or two development boards… The boards may also be part of some contests… We’ll see 😉 So let’s take two, and have a closer look at “ESP32_PICO_Core_Board_V3″… It comes with two rows of 20 pins with access to all I/Os, and features three main chips: ESP32-PICO-D4 SiP, AMS1117 voltage regulator, and Silabs […]

August 30, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Save Power, Hibernate Your Embedded Linux System

This is a guest post by Tharma Rajan G, Project Lead, e-con Sytems. What is the best way to save power consumption of your embedded Linux system? Is there any way to save max power and resume operation ? Yes. It is ‘hibernate’ mode, one of the Power Modes in Linux. This article talks about how we utilized this ‘hibernate mode’ in our Reference Platform Kit Meissa-I with eSOMiMX6-micro SOM. Meissa-I is a dual board solution that features eSOMiMX6-micro Computer on Module & carrier board. Meissa-I development board runs Linux and Android Marshmallow (under development). eSOMiMX6-micro is based on Dual/Quad core ARM CortexTM-A9 based CPU @ 800MHz/Core. It has 1GB LPDDR2 and 4GB eMMC FLASH (expandable upto 32GB). The eSOMiMX6-micro module also has the Wireless LAN and Bluetooth module. Linux Power Modes Power Management is a key feature in embedded Linux system and there are two types for implementing the […]

August 30, 2017August 30, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

$6.10 Loraduino Board Combines LoRa and Atmega328P MCU

We’ve previoulsy seen low costs SX1278 LoRa modules @ 433 MHz which you could connect to your own board, but Electrodragon is now selling Loraduino board with an Atmega328P MCU and SX1278 for just $6.10 / 5 Euros plus shipping, and using a layout similar to Arduino Pro Mini. Loraduino specifications: MCU – Microchip / Atmel Atmega328P MCU with Arduino pro mini bootloader Storage – 16Mbit SPI flash for data LoRa Semtech SX1278 IC with 433mhz, or 470mhz central frequency 10 km max range 20dbm max power rate (configurable by software) Tx current: 120 mA @ + 20 dBm; 90mA @ + 17dBm; 29mA @ + 13dBm Data Rate – 1.2K to 300Kbps with FSK; 18 bps to 37.5Kbps with LoRa Expansion SX1278 Lora: leadout for pins IO1, IO2, IO3 Atmega: 14x digital input/output pins (including 6x PWM outputs), 6x analog inputs (TBC) Misc – Programmable LED (D7), power LED, […]

August 30, 2017August 30, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

The Stress Terminal UI (s-tui) is a Pretty CPU and Temperature Monitoring Terminal App

While it’s possible to do monitoring with tools like RPI-Monitor on headless or remote systems, top and htop are likely the commonly used tools to monitor CPU and process usage in the terminal. There’s now a new and different option with the Stress Terminal UI that display pretty charts for frequency, CPU usage, and temperature in the terminal, and as its name implies it can also stress the system. I’ve first installed it in my main computer running Ubuntu 16.04.2 as follows:

sudo pip install s-tui

1	sudo pip install s-tui

and then just started it

s-tui

s-tui

It took the screenshot above after enabling stress operation for a few seconds, and while frequency and CPU utilization in percent are updated properly, temperature is not, at least on my system. I had to enable “Smooth Graph” option to see any changes in the first two charts. I tried to run the app again with sudo, but still no temperature […]

August 29, 2017September 25, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 38 Comments

$8 NanoPi Duo is a Tiny Breadboard Compatible Linux Board powered by Allwinner H2+ Quad Core SoC

It’s very easy to find breadboard compatible boards in the market with products based on Espressif chips such as NodeMCU or ESP32 boards, as well as OpenWrt board like Onion Omega2, or LinktIt 7688. However, it’s much more difficult to find powerful quad core boards in this form factor, but that’s exactly what FriendlyELEC has done with their NanoPi Duo board featuring an Allwinner H2+ quad core processor in a form factor slightly smaller than a Raspberry Pi Zero. NanoPi Duo specifications: SoC – Allwinner H2+ quad core Cortex A7 processor @ 1.2 GHz with Mali-400MP2 GPU @ 600 MHz System Memory – 256 or 512 MB DDR3-1866 SDRAM Storage – micro SD card slot, footprint for SPI flash Connectivity – 802.11 b/g/n WiFi (Allwinner XR819 module) with chip antenna, and u.FL/IPEX connector for external antenna USB – 1x micro USB OTG port Expansion headers – 2x 16-pin breadboard compatible […]

August 29, 2017August 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

Zidoo X7 Review – Part 2: Android 7.1 Firmware, ZDMC, WiFi, and More

Zidoo X7 is an Android TV box powered by Rockchip RK3328 processor similar to Bqeel MVR9 with 2GB RAM, but instead of provide Gigabit Ethernet, and 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, it comes with Fast Ethernet, and 802.11 b/g/n/ac WiFi, so is better suited to people using WiFi instead of Ethernet for media streaming. You’ll find plenty of photos in the first part of the review entitled “Zidoo X7 TV Box Review – Part 1: Unboxing & Teardown“, and I’ll report my experience with Android 7.1.2 firmware in this second part. First Boot, Setup, and First Impressions I connected two RF dongles for MINIX NEO A2 Lite air mouse and Tronsmart Mars G01 gamepad via a USB hub, a USB keyboard to take screenshot, and a Seagate USB 3.0 hard drive to the single USB 3.0 port on the box. I perform tests with Ethernet in most reviews, but with Zidoo X7, […]