CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

November 12, 2015November 12, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

GTEK GP100 Rugged Waterproof Bluetooth Speakers Can Be Used in the Bathroom and Outdoors

I normally put my smartphone on a shelf to listen to music while taking a bath or showering, and a few years back I thought about using Bluetooth speakers, but few solutions were waterproof, and/or the price must have been high, so I forgot about it. Following a post on ARMDevices.net about GTEK speakers, I found out there are now many waterproof Bluetooth speakers to choose from with prices starting as low as $7. But I found GTEK GP100 speakers quite interesting, as beside being waterproof (IPx7), there are also rugged and suitable for outdoor activities, come with a 3,000 mAh battery good for 8 to 10 hours, and can fit into your bicycle bottle’s holder. Some of key features of GTEK GP100 (GT-D201): Connectivity – Bluetooth 3.0 (Website also says Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR); 10 meter range Speakers – 2x 5W (or 3W?); 80db+ SNR; 80Hz – 18Khz frequency […]

November 12, 2015November 12, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

Newracom NRC6101 802.11ah WiFi SoC Promises up to 1 km Range for Smart Grid and Automation

802.11ah is a new WiFi standard operating in the 900 MHz range that targets low power & long range connectivity, as required by many IoT & M2M applications. According to this low power WAN standards comparison table, 802.11ah also supports up 1km range outdoor, 150 Kbps to 346 Mbps transfer rates, up 8191 clients per access points, and a 2016 launch is planned. However, I had not seen any implementations based on the new standard, except a demonstration by Antcor on a DSP in 2014. A Korean startup, Newracom, may however soon launch the first 802.11ah chip with NRC6101 SoC. I was tipped about this new solution via a Korean website, where I got the picture above from, but there’s no information about NRC6101 on the web, except for a small mention on Wikidevi.com redirecting to the product page, where NRC6101 name is not even mentioned, but with some specifications […]

November 12, 2015November 19, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

Run x86 Linux and Windows applications in Raspberry Pi and other ARM Linux Devices with Exagear

A few weeks ago, I finally decided to buy a Raspberry Pi 2 board as it could always be useful for some testing, at least for comparison purposes. I ended up buying it from Ebay for $40, as it’s $3 to $5 more expensive locally. Nevertheless, I was not sure what I’ll use it first for, but after seeing a tweet for Exagear Desktop software that allows ARM boards to run x86 Linux or Windows applications, the latter through wine. The program is available for Raspberry Pi, Raspberry Pi 2, and ARMv7 devices for $19.95 to $29.95. I asked for a version for testing purposes, and I was given a Google Drive link to download Exagear for Raspberry Pi 2, as well as a 3-month trial key. Installation is very easy. I started by downloading and installing Raspbian Jessie the usual way on a 32GB micro SD card. It went […]

November 12, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Samsung Exynos 8890 Octa-core Processor to Feature Custom ARMv8 Cores and Mali-T880 GPU

Samsung Exynos 7420 processor is at the top of benchmark charts for smartphones, but the company is still pushing for more performance and power efficiency with their upcoming Exynos 8890 processor that promises 30% improvements in performance, and 10% in power efficiency. While Exynos 7 Octa was made with ARM’s own Cortex A53 and A57 cores, Samsung did not go with Cortex A72 in 8890, but instead decided to design their own ARMv8 cores and coupled for of these with four low power ARM Cortex A53 cores, and a Mali-T880 GPU. Samsung also included a LTE Rel.12 Cat.12/13 modem that enables speeds up to 600Mbps DL (Cat.12) and 150Mbps UL (Cat.13), and the processor will be manufactured using 14nm FinFET process technology. Excluding the custom cores, and the manufacturing process, this configuration is similar to the recently unveiled Huawei Kirin 950 processor using four Cortex A72 cores and TSMC 16nm […]

November 11, 2015November 11, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

ARM Introduces Cortex A35 64-bit Low Power Core, ARMv8-M Architecture for Secure MCUs

ARM TechCon 2015 has just started, and there have been a few announcements including the launch of a Cortex-A7 replacement with Cortex A35 providing 10% lower power consumption, 6 to 40% performance boost, and a better design flexibility making it suitable for SoC for smartphones to wearables. The main specifications of Cortex A35 cores: Architecture ARMv8-A (AArch32 and AArch64 ) Multicore 1-4x SMP within a single processor cluster, and multiple coherent SMP processor clusters through AMBA 5 CHI or AMBA 4 ACE technology ISA Support AArch32 for full backward compatibility with ARMv7 AArch64 for 64-bit support and new architectural features TrustZone security technology NEON Advanced SIMD DSP & SIMD extensions VFPv4 Floating point Hardware virtualization support Debug & Trace CoreSight DK-A35 The new core can both be used in quad core configuration at 1 GHz for a smartphone (90 mW per core), or in single core configuration at 100 MHz […]

November 11, 2015May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 21 Comments

Giveaway Week Winners (November 2015)

The third giveaway week, and the second in 2015, on CNX Software is now complete. I’ve just sent the packages this morning, including 4 Android TV boxes, 2 Linux media players, and a development board to the winners from Europe, North America, and for the first time, Oceania. The winners were selected randomly from the list of people who comments, and without any further due, here are the results: let’s go through the winners and their country of residence, with links to the original individual winner announcements: Zidoo X6 Pro – Marko, Slovenia ARNU Box Mach Q Pure Linux – Xavier, Belgium M-195 TV box – Fran, Spain A80 OptimusBoard development board – Gil, Portugal M8S TV box – Roel, Belgium Tronfy Telos MXIV – Treb “winners are grinners”, Australia Popcorn Hour VTEN – ax, USA While last time, people living in Canadians were the luckiest, this giveaway was kind to people […]

November 11, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 19 Comments

Nvidia Tegra X1 Development Board is Finally Available… for $599

When Nvidia introduced Nvidia Tegra X1 octa processor with a 256-core Maxwell GPU at the very beginning of the year, I was expecting Jetson TX1 is follow suit in the next few months, but instead the company launched Nvidia Shield Android TV box based on the processor. The company has now launched Jetson TX1 module and development board. Let’s check the module first and its main specifications and features: SoC – Nvidia Tegra X1 octa core processor with 4x ARM Cortex A57 cores, 4x ARM Cortex A53 cores, and a 256-core Maxwell GPU System Memory – 4GB LPDDR4 (25.6 gigabits/second) Storage – 16GB eMMC Connectivity – 802.11ac 2×2 Bluetooth ready, Gigabit Ethernet Video – 4K video encode and decode Camera – Support for 1400 megapixels/second Dimensions – 50mm x 87mm The module support Linux4Tegra operating system based on Ubuntu. Libraries and drivers to leverage the Maxwell GPU include cuDNN CUDA-accelerated […]

November 10, 2015May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 21 Comments

Allwinner A64 Datasheet and User Manual Released

Allwinner has two 64-bit ARM processors in the works: Allwinner H64 and Allwinner A64. Both are quad core Cortex A53 processors with a Mali-400MP2 GPU, H.265 4K video playback with basically the same interfaces and peripherals, but H64 also supports H.264 at 4K resolutions, while A64 is limited to H.264 @ 1080p, and H64 adds a TS interface. The first good news is that two boards are in development: Orange Pi Plus 3 with Allwinner H64 Olimex A64-OLinuXino update with Allwinner A64 Engineering samples have already been produced for the first board, but that’s about all the information we have now, as Shenzhen Xunlong has not built its reputation by releasing documentation early. One the other hand, A64-OLinuXino schematics have nearly been completed, but we already know more details, as not only Olimex boards are open source hardware, but the company defies conventional wisdom by involving the community in the […]