CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

June 2, 2016June 7, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Xiaomi Mi Band 2 Fitness Tracker Adds an OLED Display, Promises 20-day Battery Life

I’m not a big fan of fitness trackers without display that require you to monitor your daily progress on your smartphone, and that’s probably why when Xiaomi released their first fitness band I was not quite as interested, but now the Chinese company has released Mi Band 2 with an OLED display, an heart rate monitor, IP67 ingress protection rating, and a 20-day of battery life for just 149 RMB ($23). Mi Band 2 key features: Fitness, heart rate and sleep tracker OLED display, view time, step count, heart rate 20-day battery, IP67 water resistant ADI accelerometer and optical heart rate sensor Anodized 0.05mm ultra-thin button Upgraded pedometer algorithm Hypoallergenic silicone band 2nd gen Bluetooth 4.0 for faster, stable connections It’s still good to be able to gather your fitness data over time, and you can do so with Mi Fit app for Android or iOS. The downside with an […]

June 2, 2016June 2, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Axiomtek Braswell pico-ITX Board Fearures Pentium N3710 or Celeron N3060 Processor

Axiomtek has just announced PICO300 pico-ITX board, an update of their PICO842 board replacing Bay Trail processors by Braswell ones. The board supports either Intel Pentium N3710 or Celeron N3060 processors with up to 8 GB memory via a SO-DIMM socket, and includes HDMI or VGA, SATA and Gigabit Ethernet interfaces among others. Axiomtek PICO300 pico-ITX motherboard specifications: SoC Intel Celeron N3060 dual core processor @ 1.6 / 2.48 GHz with 12 EU Intel HD Graphics 400 @ up to 600 MHz (6W TDP) OR Intel Pentium N3710 quad core processor @ 1.6 / 2.56 GHz with 16 EU Intel HD Graphics 405 @ up to 700 MHz (6W TDP) System Memory – 1x 204-pin SO-DIMM DDR3L-1600 up to 8GB Storage – 1x SATA-600, 1x mSATA (shared with PCIe mini card) Video Output – 1x LVDS, and 1x HDMI or 1x VGA Audio – MIC-in/Line-out; Realtek ACL662 audio codec Connectivity […]

June 1, 2016 by TLS - 6 Comments

ECS previews Intel Apollo Lake based Liva-Z mini PC at Computex 2016

If anything is clear from having walked around this year’s Computex, then it is that the mini PC is here to stay. Beyond plenty of socketed boards using Intel’s new STX form factor from just about every vendor, there are also plenty of other mini PC’s on display. One that caught our eye at the show was ECS’ new Liva, tentatively named the Z. The following specifications were revealed by ECS: SoC – Intel Apollo Lake System Memory – 2x DDR3L SO-DIMM’s Storage – 32GB/64GB eMMC flash + 1x M.2 2280 for SSD (unclear if it supports PCIe drives) Video Output – Mini DisplayPort, HDMI (no revisions mentioned) Audio – DisplayPort, HDMI and 3.5mm headphone jack Connectivity – 2x Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11ac WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0 USB – 1x USB 3.0 Type-C, 3x USB 3.0 ports Power Supply – 19V/2.1A It’s so far the only Intel Apollo Lake system we’ve […]

June 1, 2016June 1, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Meizu Pro 5 Ubuntu Edition Now Supports Desktop Mode via Wireless Display

Meizu PRO 5 Ubuntu Edition is a powerful smartphone running Ubuntu based on Samsung Exynos 7420 octa-core processor, 3GB RAM and 32 GB internal store. However, the main disappointment at the time of the launch was that it did not feature any physical video output interface, so convergence (desktop mode) was not available at the time, but Canonical has now implemented wireless display support with OTA11, and the phone will switch to desktop mode when connected to a WiDi adapter. That’s what the company had to say about the release: The latest Over-The-Air update has landed and this is a special one. We’ve introduced wireless display capabilities, which means that you can enjoy the full Ubuntu PC experience running from the latest Ubuntu smartphone, the Meizu Pro 5. And the best bit is, it will be available for all future Ubuntu smartphone and tablet devices (with supporting hardware)! The Product […]

June 1, 2016June 1, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

STMicro Unveils Two Low Cost STM32F7 ARM Cortex M7 Development Boards

STMicroelectronics introduiced its STM32F7 ARM Cortex M7 micro-controller family in 2014, and they released a $49 STM32F746G discovery board later in 2015. The company has now launched two new low cost development boards with the $23 STM32 Nucleo-144 board based on STM32F767 MCU, and a $79 Discovery Kit powered by STM32F746 MCU with TFT-LCD and MIPI-DSI support. STM32 Nucleo-144 development board Key feature of NUCLEO-F767ZI board: MCU – STMicro STM32F767ZI ARM Cortex M7 microcontroller @ 216 MHz with FPU, DSP, MMU, 2MB flash, 512 KB SRAM, 16 KB instruction TCM RAM (for critical real-time routines), and 4 KB backup SRAM Connectivity – IEEE-802.3-2002 compliant Ethernet connector USB – 1x micro USB OTG or full speed device Extension: ST Zio connector including support for Arduino UNO v3 connectivity, and additional signals (A6 to A8, D16 to D72) ST morpho extension pin header footprints for full access to all STM32 I/Os On-board […]

June 1, 2016August 7, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 122 Comments

NEXBOX A95X Android TV Box Powered by Amlogic S905 Processor Sells for $27

Amlogic S905 Android TV boxes have been popular and inexpensive 64-bit ARM platform for Kodi, and other applications. But NEXBOX A95X must be the cheapest model I’ve come accross so far as it only sells for $26.99 including shipping on Banggood NEXBOX A95X specifications: SoC – Amlogic S905 quad core ARM Cortex-A53 @ up to 2.0GHz with penta-core Mali-450MP GPU System Memory – 1GB DDR3 Storage – 8GB NAND flash + micro SD card slot Video & Audio Output – HDMI 2.0, AV Video Codec – 4K@60 Hz video decoding 10-bit HEVC and AVS+ codec support; H.264 up to 4K 30 Hz Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi (no Bluetooth) USB – 2x USB 2.0 host ports Misc – IR receiver Power Supply – 5V/2A Dimensions – 93 x 93 x 11 mm The device comes pre-installed with Android 5.1 and Google Play support. Kodi or SPMC should work […]

June 1, 2016June 1, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Cavium introduces 54 cores 64-bit ARMv8 ThunderX2 SoC for Servers with 100GbE, SATA 3, PCIe Gen3 Interfaces

Cavium announced their first 64-bit ARM Server SoCs with the 48-core ThunderX at Computex 2014. Two years later, the company has now introduced the second generation, aptly named ThunderX2, with 54 64-bit ARM cores @ up to 3.0 GHz and promising two to three times more performance than the previous generation. Key features of the new server processor include: 2nd generation of full custom Cavium ARM core; Multi-Issue, Fully OOO; 2.4 to 2.8 GHz in normal mode, Up to 3 GHz in Turbo mode. Up to 54 cores per socket delivering > 2-3X socket level performance compared to ThunderX Cache – 64K I-Cache and 40K D-Cache, highly associative; 32MB shared Last Level Cache (LLC). Single and dual socket configuration support using 2nd generation of Cavium Coherent Interconnect with > 2.5X coherent bandwidth compared to ThunderX System Memory 6x DDR4 memory controllers per socket supporting up to 3 TB RAM in […]

June 1, 2016July 16, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments

You can now buy BBC micro:bit board for $19

BBC recently distributed micro:bit boards to UK schools to get student interested in electronics and help them learn more about this subject, but so far it was not for sale to the general public, but this has now changed since the British broadcaster now launched the board for 13 GBP (~$19) via Element14/Farnell and others distributors. The board is powered by Nordi Semi nRF51822 SoC with ARM Cortex M0 micro-controller and Bluetooth LE connectivity, features motion sensors, plenty of LEDS, a few buttons, a micro USB connector for power & programming, as well as a header for LiPo batteries. There are various ways to program the board either interpreted languages such as Python or JavScript, or graphical drag and drop programs such as Microsoft Block Editor. All technical details and example projects available on Micro:bit official website. Beside the board only, several kits are being offered included micro:bit Go with […]