CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

July 26, 2018July 27, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

AS923 LoRa GPS Tracking with MatchX MatchBox Gateway and RAK811 LoRa GPS Tracker Board

Earlier this month, I installed Match MatchBox LoRa outdoor gateway close to the roof, and showed how easy it was easies to setup with MatchX Cloud. Basically, you just register to the cloud, enter the serial number, and the gateway is automatically based on your location. I’m in South East Asia, so the gateway was configured with AS923. I’ve now had time to play with the gateway using Rak Wireless RAK811 LoRa tracker board, and eventually managed to get the tracker location to show up on a map. It was my first experience with LoRaWAN, and I had to learn a lot, and overcome many issues from outdated software development tools, different data formats, and some interoperability issues between all components involved. I’ll document all that in this review, and hopefully it will help others. RAK811 LoRa GPS Tracker Unboxing Before going into LoRa configuration, I’ll show what I got […]

July 26, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Google Titan Security Key Prevents Phishing Attacks

Phising is a social engineering method that aims to trick users into giving their passwords. This can normally be mitigated with things called “brain” and “paying attention”, but since we are all humans mistakes may happen on a bad day. Even Google employees who should be tech savvy fell for the tricks from time-to-time, so Google made employees use 2-factor authentication with a hardware security key since January 2017, and none of Google workers failed for a phising attack since then. CNET was provided with a sample of Google’s “Titan Security Key”, which comes in both USB and Bluetooth/NFC versions, and will be available for sale in Google’s online store within the next few months. The full technical details have not been provided for the key, but we do know Titan Security Keys support FIDO protocol, and are built with a secure element and a firmware written by Google that […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM

July 26, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Google Unveils Edge TPU Low Power Machine Learning Chip, AIY Edge TPU Development Board and Accelerator

Google introduced artificial intelligence and machine learning concepts to hundreds of thousands of people with their AIY projects kit such as the AIY Voice Kit with voice recognition and the AIY Vision Kit for computer vision applications. The company has now gone further by unveiling Edge TPU, its own purpose-built ASIC chip designed to run TensorFlow Lite ML models at the edge, as well as corresponding AIY Edge TPU development board, and AIY Edge TPU accelerator USB stick to add to any USB compatible hardware. Google Edge TPU (Tensor Processing Unit) & Cloud IoT Edge Software Edge TPU is a tiny chip for machine learning (ML) optimized for performance-per-watt and performance-per-dollar. It can either accelerate ML inferencing on device, or can pair with Google Cloud to create a full cloud-to-edge ML stack. In either case, local processing reduces latency, remove the needs for a persistent network connection, increases privacy, and […]

July 26, 2018September 7, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Olimex Unveils ESP32-POE Board with… PoE Support

One of the differences between ESP8266 and ESP32 is the latter adds an Ethernet MAC, and as a results we have seen a few ESP32 boards with an Ethernet jack offering 10/100M connectivity, including Olimex ESP32-GATEWAY, Olimex ESP32-EVB, or ESP32 Monster Board. ESP32 Ethernet enabled boards are definitely in the minority however, and what’s even more difficult to find is an ESP32 board with Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) support. The good news is that if you’re looking for such type of board, Olimex is working on one based on requirements from their customers. Olimex ESP32-POE board specifications: Wireless module – ESP32-WROOM-32 module with 802.11 b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth LE External Storage – micro SD card socket Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet with PoE power management based on Si3402 IEEE 802.3at Type 1-compliant chip Expansion UEXT connector for Olimex modules 2x GPIOs stripes spaced at 1″ on 0.1″ step Debugging/Programming – micro USB port […]

July 25, 2018July 25, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

MakerAsia KBX is a Cool Extension Case for KidBright ESP32 Board

Last week, I wrote about KidBright32, an ESP32 board aiming to teach STEM to students in Thailand, a bit like BBC Micro:bit but with more advanced features, and all KidBright training course and tutorial in Thai language. The project also been partnering with MakerAsia to create a cool-looking extension enclosure for the board calld KBX (KidBright Extension) with display, USB, I/O ports etc… MakerAsia KBX case specifications: TFT Display with Touch USB OTG port with support for Keyboard and JoyStick SD Card slot I/O Extension port with support for I2C, SPI, UART/PGM, and 15 GPIO’s Various buttons and LEDs The two LED dot Matrix displays, plus buttons, LEDs, and + buzzer around are already part of KidBright32 board. It’s unclear whether a battery is included in the kit, or you can somehow fit one inside, as the photos show a micro USB cable connected to the box. They also appears […]

July 25, 2018July 26, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 25 Comments

FriendlyELEC NanoPC-T4 Board Kit Unboxing and Assembly

FriendlyELEC introduced NanoPC-T4 RK3399 SBC (Single Board Computer) last May for $129. The board comes with a Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core processor, 4GB RAM, 16GB eMMC flash, dual-band WiFi module and an M.2 socket with NVME (PCIe) SSD support. The company has now sent me the device with accessories for review / evaluation. In this post, I’ll check out all items received, and show how to assemble all components. NanoPC-T4 Board Kit Unboxing Let’s getting started, and open the package… I received two identical kits with two NanoPC-T4 boards, acrylic enclosure with spacers, screws and nuts, 12V/2A power supply, heatsink, and an RC-100 IR remote control. In theory, I also expected two WiFi antennas per kit since that’s part fo the kit in their website, but I did not see any. The remote control is an optional item. [Update: Ooops. I found the antennas inside the package for NanoPC-T4 board.] I’ve […]

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

July 25, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Coocox CoIDE and GCC Arm Embedded Toolchain Download Links

I’ve been playing with RAK811 LoRa GPS tracker last week-end and earlier this week, and Rak Wireless provides open source firmware for the board that can be work on with Arm Keil or Coocox CoIDE tools. The former requires registration, and the latter is freeware and appears to be preferred by Rakwireless guys. The only problem is that CooCox website have been down for several days, so I could not download the IDE from the official website. So instead I downloaded it from Softpedia together with a GCC toolchain. Sadly the version in Softpedia and the toolchain are outdated, so the firmware won’t build. I had installed CooCox CoIDE v 1.7.8 with GNU Tools ARM Embedded 4.7 2013q. Rakwireless engineers informed me they used CoIDE v 2.0.6 with gcc-arm-none-eabi-5_4-2016q3-20160926-win32. I could not find it online, so they added both to their RAK811 documentation. You’ll find the two files under Tools: […]

July 24, 2018September 9, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Khadas Edge is Both a Standalone Board and a System-on-Module powered by Rockchip RK3399

One of the two most common type of Arm boards are single board computers with everything from processor to memory/storage to ports is placed on a single PCB, and system-on-modules with processor, memory and storage, and sometimes some extra chips with for network connectivity, audio and power management that are supposed to be inserted into a baseboard exposing connectors and headers. The upcoming Khadas Edge board is a little different since it combines both categories into one board with USB receptacles and HDMI output as well as 314-pin MXM3 edge connector to connect to Khadas Captain baseboard, or any other custom compatible baseboard. Khadas Edge will come in three variants (Basic/Pro/Max) with the following specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3399 hexa core processor with 2x Arm Cortex-A72 up to 1.8GHz, 4x Cortex-A53 up to 1.5GHz, Arm Mali T864 GPU with support for OpenGL ES1.1/2.0/3.0/3.1, OpenVG1.1, OpenCL, DX11, VPU with4K VP9 and 4K […]

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