CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

September 21, 2018September 21, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Skoobot is a Tiny Robot with BLE Connectivity and Sensors (Crowdfunding)

If you want to get started with robotics either for yourself, or maybe teach children, Skoobot robot could be an interesting option. It’s extra small with a 2.5 cm cubic shape, support Bluetooth Low Energy, and includes some sensors like ST VL6180 distance and ambient light sensor, and a microphone. Skoobot hardware specifications: MCU – Nordic Semi nRF52832 Arm Cortex M4F microcontroller with 512KB flash, 64KB SRAM Connectivity – Bluetooth Low Energy (built into nRF52832) Sensors ST VL6180X distance sensor (0 to 10 cm range) and ambient light level sensors Knowles microphone for word and beep recognition Two motors and wheels Misc – Buzzer Battery – Yes (no capacity specified) Dimensions – 2.5 x 2.5 x 2.5 cm A separate companion board is also provided to handle charging, UART and J-Link mode debugging and programming. The robot can be controlled from an Android app, or a Raspberry Pi board using […]

September 21, 2018September 21, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Amazon Fire TV Recast DVR Records up to 150 Hours of Video

Amazon has a hardware event yesterday where the company announced new Alexa smart speakers with better audio, Echo Input similar to ChromeCast audio and to be plugged into your own speakers, a new revision of Amazon Echo Show smart display, and some completely new Alexa powered products like Echo Wall Clock, Echo Auto connecting to your smartphone and your car’s speakers, and even an Alexa Microwave selling for $59.99. But I’m going to focus in another of their new product in this post: Amazon Fire TV Recast digital video recorder and media streamer with up to four ATSC tuners. Amazon Fire TV Recast will be available in two configurations: 500GB storage with two tuners, or 1TB storage with four tuners. Specifications: SoC – Unnamed dual core processor System Memory – 2GB RAM Storage 500 GB hard drive storing up to 75 hours of HDTV OR 1TB hard drive storing up […]

Graperain Samsung, Rockchip, and Qualcomm CPU modules, SBCs, and carrier boards

September 20, 2018September 20, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Sony PlayStation Classic To Launch for $99.99 in December

Nintendo started to offer smaller replica of their older popular games consoles with Nintendo NES Classic Edition in 2016, followed by Nintendo SNES Classic Edition in 2017. Both devices came with recent interfaces like HDMI, a limited (and fixed) number of games, but being powered by Allwinner R16 SoC they soon became hackable. Both game consoles also became very popular selling in millions despite the underwhelming hardware, and limited games. Another company that has been doing game console for many year is Sony, and they must have liked Nintendo’s idea and sales numbers, as they’ve just unveiled Sony PlayStation Classic, a smaller replica of the original PlayStation with a limited number of games, and modern interfaces such as HDMI and USB… Sony PlayStation Classic specifications have not been fully disclosed but we can see two USB ports for the game controllers, an HDMI output port, and power, open, and reset […]

September 19, 2018September 19, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

Retro-uC Open Source MCU Brings ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 Back to Life (Crowdfunding)

If you’ve started your computing experience in the early eighties, you’ve probably used a ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, and/or Atari ST home computers. Those products are long gone, except for collectors, but thanks to chips4makers project’s Zilog Z80, MOS 6502, and Motorola M68K cores are coming back to life via Retro-uC open source microcontroller. As a bonus, developers also worked on Retrino, a board following Arduino Mega form factor, and featuring Retro-uC MCU, as well as Retro-uC ProtoPlus with the chip fitted to a large Perf+ 2 style prototyping board, and Retro-uC Breadboard which can be inserted into a standard breadboard. Retro-uC Microcontroller Retro-uC specifications: Open source microcontroller with a Z80, MOS 6502 and Motorola 68000 core 4 kB of on-chip RAM 72x 5V digital general purpose I/O pins JTAG interface for programming the device Optionally bootable from external I2C flash memory I/O pins that can select the enabled core […]

September 19, 2018June 19, 2019 by Karl Johnson - 33 Comments

Genmitsu CNC 3018-PRO CNC Router Review – Part 1: Build & First Etches

Hey Karl here. Today we are going to look at something a little different. I am writing about my experiences with building Genmitsu 3018 CNC router upgraded version provided by Sainsmart for this review. While waiting on the unit to arrive I did some research and found that there are several different versions on the market labeled CNC xxxx. The xxxx represent the build volume in the x and y. So the one I was sent has a 300x180mm build volume. The 3018 is called upgraded because the new mounting for the X and Y rods and lead screws. On the previous version these had to be mounted and manually aligned which from what I read can be a pain. Building Genmitsu CNC 3018-PRO CNC Router The build went very well. The 3018 user manual was mostly pictures but they called out anything that might be questionable. I had been […]

September 18, 2018November 3, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

WisCellular Certified Global LTE IoT Arduino Shield Enters Beta Testing

RAK Wireless introduced WisLTE Arduino shield last year based on Quectel BG96 module with support for NB-IoT (Cat NB1), eMTC (Cat M1), and 2G fallback as well as GPS location. WisLTE worked globally, but the company did not go through the certification process, at least not for the global market, meaning the shield could not be used in commercial applications. That’s why Rak Wireless has been working on WisCellular shield, also based on Quectel BG96, but this time with global certification. WisCellular specifications: Cellular Module – Quectel BG96 (based on Qualcomm MDM9206) Cellular Network 2G/GSM (GPRS/EPGRS) 4G/LTE-M (Cat M1) NB-IoT (Cat NB1) Global Bands EDGE/EGPRS: 850/900/1800/1900MHz LTE FDD: B1/B2/B3/B4/B5/B8/B12/B13/B18/B19/B20/B26/B28 LTE TDD: B39 (For Cat M1 Only) Data Rate Cat M1: Max. 300Kbps (DL), Max. 375Kbps (UL) Cat NB1: Max. 32Kbps (DL), Max. 70Kbps (UL) EDGE: Max. 296Kbps (DL), Max. 236.8Kbps (UL) GPRS: Max. 107Kbps (DL), Max. 85.6Kbps (UL) Voice – […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025

September 18, 2018September 18, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

OpenMV Cam H7 MicroPython Machine Vision Camera Launched on Kickstarter

OpenMV team has launched an upgrade to their popular OpenMV CAM M7 machine vision camera, with OpenMV CAM H7 replacing the STMicro STM32F7 micro-controller by a more powerful STM32H7 MCU clocked at up to 400 MHz. Beside having twice the processing power, the new camera board also features removable camera modules for thermal vision and global shutter support. OpenMV CAM H7 camera board specifications: MCU – STMicro STM32H743VI Arm Cortex M7 microcontroller @ up to 400 MHz with 1MB RAM, 2MB flash. External Storage – micro SD card socket supporting up to 100 Mbps read/write to record videos and store machine vision assets. Camera modules Omnivision OV7725 image sensor (default) capable of taking 640×480 8-bit Grayscale / 16-bit RGB565 images at 60 FPS when the resolution is above 320×240 and 120 FPS when it is below; 2.8mm lens on a standard M12 lens mount Optional Global Shutter camera module to capture […]

September 17, 2018August 8, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

AV1 Video Samples Now Available on YouTube & Netflix

We first covered AV1 royalty-free, open source video codec in 2016, which with backing from companies like Google, Amazon, Intel, Microsoft, and many others with the aim to compete with H.265, and lower the cost of delivering video both thanks to a better compression ratio, and the lack of royalties. Since then progress has been made, with AV1 specifications released last March, and now both YouTube and Netflix are offering some beta AV1 video samples for testing. If you want to play some videos in AV1 format in YouTube as I did in the screenshot above, you’d need to install a very recent (beta) version of Chrome or Firefox, follow the other instructions as explained in YouTube’s AV1 beta playlist: Support for AV1 in MP4 within Media Source is available in Chrome 70, and Firefox 63 builds newer than September 13 with the media.av1.enabled pref set. Using a supported browser […]

Boardcon LGA3576 Rockchip RK3576 System-on-Module designed for AI and IoT applications