Movidius Neural Compute Stick Shown to Boost Deep Learning Performance by about 3 Times on Raspberry Pi 3 Board

Intel recently launched Movidius Neural Compute Stick (MvNCS)for low power USB based deep learning applications such as object recognition, and after some initial confusions, we could confirm the Neural stick could also be used on ARM based platforms such as the Raspberry Pi 3. Kochi Nakamura, who wrote the code for GPU accelerated object recognition on the Raspberry Pi 3 board, got hold of one sample in order to compare the performance between GPU and MvNCS acceleration. His first attempt was quite confusing as with GoogLeNet, Raspberry Pi 3 + MvNCS achieved an average inference time of about 560ms, against 320 ms while using VideoCore IV GPU in RPi3 board. But then it was discovered that the “stream_infer.py” demo would only use one core out of the 12 VLIW 128-bit vector SHAVE processors in Intel’s Movidius Myriad 2 VPU, and after enabling all those 12 cores instead of just one, […]

Nordic Semi nRF52840 vs nRF52832 vs nRF52810 Comparison for Bluetooth 5 Applications

Bluetooth 5 was formally introduced earlier this year with promises of four times the range, and twice the speed. Several companies offer chips that are compatible with the new standard, and among them Nordic Semi offers Bluetooth 5 ready solutions via nRF52840, nRF52832, nRF52810 Bluetooth SoCs. However, if you thought – like I did – that all three would provide the same Bluetooth 5 support with just some differences in memory, storage and performance, a comparison table put together by Raytac Corporation will show that among the three SoCs only nRF52840 will support the longer range, while the two older SoC only support the extra bandwidth offered by Bluetooth 5. I could find a blog post about a long range demo that confirms the above: Two nRF52840 Preview Development Kits (PDK) or nRF52832 Development Kits. A combination of the two different kits can also be used. Notice that if the […]

Khadas Edge2 Arm mini PC

Sonoff Wireless Switches & Light Bulbs Now Work With Google Home

ITEAD Studio Sonoff wireless switches can be controlled by voice commands using Amazon Alexa or Google Home, but so far, the latter was only possible by emulating Belkin Wemo switch in alternative open source firmwares such as ESPurna or Sonoff-Tasmota. For people who don’t want to update the firmware themselves, and instead prefer to use the stock firmware with eWelink mobile app, the manufacturer has now announced support for Google Home, on top of the already supported Amazon Alexa service. The instructions are explained in details in ITEAD’s blog post, but basically, you need to start Google Home app in your mobile, select your Google Home device, go to Home Control to add Devices, select Smart We Link, login to eWelink with your username/phone number and password, name the devices you want to control and you’re done. You should now be able to control devices or rooms with voice commands […]

Work on VideoCore V GPU Drivers Could Pave the Way for Raspberry Pi 4 Board

I’ve come across an article on Phoronix this morning, about VideoCore IV GPU used in Broadcom BCM283x “Raspberry Pi” processors, but part of the post also mentioned work related to VC5 drivers for the next generation VideoCore V GPU, written by Eric Anholt, working for Broadcom, and in charge of the open source code related to VideoCore IV GPU for Raspberry Pi. This led me Eric’s blog “This Week in VC4/VC5” and articles such as “2017-07-10: vc5, raspbian performance“, where he explains he committed Mesa drivers for VC5. I’ve just pushed a “vc5” branch to my Mesa tree (https://github.com/anholt/mesa/commits/vc5). This is the culmination of a couple of months of work on building a new driver for Broadcom’s V3D 3.3. V3D 3.3 is a GLES3.1 part, though I’m nowhere near conformance yet. This driver is for BCM7268, a set-top-box SOC that boots an upstream Linux kernel. I’m really excited to be […]

SKATE-212 Snapdragon 212 Development Kit with 7″ Display is now available for $349

Last month, I wrote about two boards based on Snapdragon 212 processor that can be used for smart speakers, IoT applications, industrial automation, etc..: Intrinsyc Open-Q 212 SBC selling for $595 without LCD, and Kaynes Technology SKATE-212. We did not have that much information about the latter at the time, but the company has now published some photos, more details, and revealed pricing. SKATE-212 single board computer specifications: SoC –  Qualcomm Snapdragon 212 quad core Cortex A7 @up to  1.3GHz with Adreno 304 GPU supporting OpenGL ES 3.0, OpenCL, DirectX System Memory – 1 GB LPDDR3 (Expandable upto 2GB) Storage – 8 GB eMMC flash (Expandable up to 16GB) +  micro SD slot Video Output / Display  – 7″ capacitive touchscreen, full size HDMI port (Only one or the other can be used at a given time) Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi + Bluetooth 4.x LE, GPS with […]

Zidoo H6 Pro 4K HDR TV Box with Allwinner H6 SoC Launched for $99

When I first wrote about Zidoo H6 Pro TV box powered by Amlogic H6 “6K” media processor last week, I expected the launch to take place in several weeks or months, as no other company listed their Allwinner H6 TV box(es) on Alibaba. So today, I was surprised to find out GearBest and GeekBuying are both taking pre-orders for $99, with shipping expected around August 11 – 15 according to the page on GearBest, and in around 3 days according to GeekBuying. The specifications have not changed since last week…: SoC – AllWinner H6 quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 processor up to 1.8GHz with Mali-T720MP2 GPU System Memory – 2GB DDR4 Storage – 16GB eMMC flash, micro SD card reader up to 32 GB Video Output – 1x HDMI 2.0a up to 4K @ 60hz with HDR support, AV port (composite) Video Playback Support H.265/HEVC Main/Main10 profile @ level 5.2 high-tier up to […]

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How ARM Nerfed NEON Permute Instructions in ARMv8

This is a guest post by blu about an issue he found with a specific instruction in ARMv8 NEON. He previously wrote an article about OpenGL ES development on Ubuntu Touch, and one or two other posts. This is not a happy-ending story. But as with most unhappy-ending stories, this is a story with certain moral for the reader. So read on if you appreciate a good moral. Once upon a time there was a very well-devised SIMD instruction set. Its name was NEON, or formally — ARM Advanced SIMD — ASIMD for short (most people still called it NEON). It was so nice, that veteran coders versed in multiple SIMD ISAs often wished other SIMD ISAs were more like NEON. NEON had originated as part of the larger ARM ISA version 7, or ARMv7, for short. After much success in the mobile and embedded domains, ARMv7 was superseded by […]

ROCK64 Board Review – Part 2: Quick Start Guide with Ubuntu 16.04.3 MATE, Multimedia Features, Some Benchmarks

Pine64 ROCK64 is the first maker board based on Rockchip RK3328 processor, and is potentially interesting for various applications including network storage thanks to USB 3.0 and Gigabit Ethernet, multimedia applications with 4K HDR video support, as well as other applications requiring I/Os. I’ve already tested Rock64 board with Android 7.1 operating system, so today I’ll report by finding and experience with Ubuntu 16.04.3 with MATE desktop. Selecting and Flashing a Linux Image You’ll find several operating systems in the Wiki, but you’ll also find more cutting edge images in ayufan’s github. But first let me explain some vocabulary used for Pine64 firmware files: Engineering version – Becomes with release build based on the stock build develop by Pine64 and the SoC vendor. It’s supposed to be more stable, but get less updates Community versions (currently managed via ayufan) are more frequently updates, and comes with more recent features. You’ll find […]

Khadas VIM4 SBC