CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

August 23, 2016August 23, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 14 Comments

NanoPi NEO Board Gets Armbian Debian 8 & Ubuntu 16.04 with Linux 4.6 & 4.7 (Mainline), h3consumption Power Consumption Tool

We’ve been blessed with a wide range of low cost Allwinner H3 boards thanks to Shenzhen Xunlong Orange Pi and FriendylARM NanoPi boards. Recently, armbian developers have been focusing on NanoPi NEO board, and they’ve now released Debian Jessie and Ubuntu Xenial with Linux 4.6.7 and Linux 4.7.2. The latter is mainline kernel with some patchsets for Ethernet. You can download the Linux 4.6.7 based “beta” images from armbian NanoPi NEO page, and selected the “Vanilla” versions, then flash then one a micro SD card as you would normally do. Linux 4.7.2 based “experimental” images with USB OTG support and schedutil cpufreq governor can be found on the separate server in a temporary directory. Thomas Kaiser explains further: Ethernet and throttling are working (the latter not as efficient as with legacy kernel but at least it protects the SoC from overheating). Please note that all vanilla kernel images currently suffer from […]

August 23, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

Nvidia Provides More Details About Parker Automotive SoC with ARMv8 Cores, Pascal GPU

Nvidia demonstrated DRIVE PX2 platform for self-driving cars at CES 2016, but did not give many details about the SoC used in the board. Today, the company has finally provided more information about Parker hexa-core SoC combining two Denver 2 cores, and four Cortex A57 cores combining with a 256-core Pascal GPU. Nvidia Parker SoC specifications: CPU – 2x Denver 2 ARMv8 cores, and 4x ARM Cortex A57 cores with 2MB + 2 MB L2 cache, coherent HMP architecture (meaning all 6 cores can work at the same time) GPUs – Nvidia Pascal Geforce GPU with 256 CUDA cores supporting DirectX 12, OpenGL 4.5, Nvidia CUDA 8.0, OpenGL ES 3.1, AEP, and Vulkan + 2D graphics engine Memory – 128-bit LPDDR4 with ECC Display – Triple display pipeline, each at up to 4K 60fps. VPU – 4K60 H.265 and VP9 hardware video decoder and encoder Others: Gigabit Ethernet MAC Dual-CAN […]

August 23, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Android 7.0 Released, LG V20 Android Nougat Smartphone Coming Soon

Since Google has changed their way of releasing new version of Android, as they are now taking input from developers using preview releases, we’ve known the main changes in Android 7.0 for a while including multi-window support, improved security, virtual reality support, Vulkan API, a new JIT/AOT compiler, and so on. The company has now made it official, and released Android 7.0 earlier today. Nexus 6, Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, Nexus 9, Nexus Player, Pixel C, and Android One smartphones will receive an OTA update with the new firmware, and some other phones enrolled in Android Beta program will also get Android 7.0, but older Nexus 5 and Nexus 7 devices won’t. Google and LG also unveiled the upcoming LG V20, the first smartphone to ship with Android 7.0. Few details have been provided so far The LG V20 builds upon the premium and rich multimedia smartphone experience of last […]

August 22, 2016September 1, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 41 Comments

YOKATV KB2 Amlogic S912 TV Box Comes with 32GB Internal Storage

Most Android TV boxes now come with either 8 or 16GB, and in my experience it’s usually enough for most users. However, as we’ve seen recently, while not being as powerful as Nvidia Shield Android TV box, Amlogic S912 TV boxes are suitable for gaming, and games may use a lot of space, and for example a PSP street fighting game took 500 MB space when I tested it. So if you need more storage space, you may consider devices such as YOKATV KB2 that comes with 32GB eMMC flash. YOKATV KB2 specifications: SoC – Amlogic S912 octo-core ARM Cortex A53 processor @ up to 2.0GHz with ARM Mali-T820MP3 GPU @ up to 750MHz System Memory – 2GB DDR3 Storage – 32GB eMMC flash, micro SD slot up to 32GB Video Output – HDMI 2.0a with HDR, CEC and (maybe) HDCP 2.2 support + 3.5mm AV jack Audio Output – […]

August 22, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Learn the Basics of Humanoid Robots with InMoov Finger Starter Kit

In a not so distant future, most humans will live off their government provided basic income, relaxing and drinking their robot brewed, drone delivered beer or soda, opened and served by their humanoid robot maid. Well, maybe… In the meantime, it might be interesting to learn how to make humanoid robots such as InMoov, but since it’s quite complicated, it might be better to start small… with a single finger. That’s exactly what InMoov Finger Starter Kit offers you to do in order to understand the basics principles of the complete robot. The kit includes: 1x 3D printed base support in ABS 3D printed finger parts in ABS 1 meter braided 200 LB tendon 1x 5cm filament for peg/pin use to assemble finger joints 1x wheel horn adapter (Servo Pulley) 4x screws to fix the servo to the base support. You’ll also need to provide your own Arduino Uno (or […]

August 22, 2016August 23, 2016 by Ray - 55 Comments

Mini Review of MECOOL BM8 TV Box with Android 6.0 and Kodi 17.0

CNXSoft: An other review by Ray for an Amlogic S905X powered TV box provided by Videostrong. MECOOL BM8 specifications The specifications are pretty standard, except for the large flash: SoC – Amlogic S905X quad core Cortex A53 @ 2.0GHz with a penta-core Mali-450MP GPU Memory – 2GB DDR3 RAM Storage – 32GB eMMC flash + card reader for SD/SDHC/MMC cards Video Output – HDMI 2.0 up to 4K*2K “super HD video” with HDR support and AV outputs Audio Output – HDMI, AV, and optical S/PDIF Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet, dual band WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, and Bluetooth 4.0 USB – 2x USB 2.0 port Supports HEVC (H.265) decoding The TV box runs Android 6.0. Unboxing The box comes with 3 different Power Adapters, a HDMI cable, power supply and a completely oversized (20cm/5cm) remote control with “learning modes ability”. No manual was inside the box. The Videostrong MECOOL BM8 is a […]

August 21, 2016August 22, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

Using M12N Android Amlogic S912 TV Box as a Game Console (Video)

When Amlogic announced S912 processor, they mentioned it would target not only 4K OTT and IP set-top boxes, but also gaming consoles thanks to a faster and better Mali-T820MP3 GPU compared to the Mali-450MP GPU found in their previous S905 and S805 processor, and we’ve already seen that S912 is indeed faster in 3D benchmarks. So I decided to play several games to show the performance, the pre-loaded retro gaming app, and for people who have never used a TV box to play games show what it looks like, and how to play using M12N TV box, in conjunction with MINIX NEO A2 Lite air mouse and Tronsmart Mars G01 wireless gamepad. I played four games downloaded from the Play Store or Amazon Underground: Candy Crush Saga with air mouse Beach Buggy Racing and Riptide GP2 with the gamepad Dead Trigger with the air mouse in menus, and the gamepad […]

August 20, 2016August 22, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

Realtek RTL8710 Witty-like WiFi IoT Board with micro USB Port Sells for $8 / 35 RMB

Realtek RTL8710 could eventually become a serious competitor to ESP8266, as it’s based on ARM Cortex M3, provides many of the same features, and sells for roughly the same price. While currently software support is still work in progress and community is very small, I’ve recently written a quick start guide using AT commands to control RTL8710 connectivity in station and access point mode, and commands are also available for GPIO, OTA firmware updates, servers… This however requires some soldering and a USB to TTL debug board, and is not quite as convenient as ESP8266 board like NodeMCU. Some RTL8710 and RTL8195 development boards are already available but they cost over $25, but I’ve been informed of a cheap no-name RTL8710 board with a micro USB port for programming and power, and well as headers with GPIOs, UARTs, NFC, and power pins, that looks somewhat similar to ESP8266 Witty board. […]