13.3″ PocketBook CAD Reader Features a Lighter, Thinner E-Ink Fina Display

E-Ink has announced its new E-Ink Fina, a new thin and lightweight electronic paper display (EPD) technology, has been embedded into PocketBook CAD Reader, the first Fina ePaper Android device designed specifically for displaying drawings generated with Autocad from Autodesk. PocketBook CAD Reader integrates a 1GHz dual-core CPU (probably Freescale i.MX6 DualLite) running Android 4.0.4 with 2 GB of RAM and 16 GB of storage allowing it to hold plans for up to 200 constructions projects. The product also comes with built-in Wi-Fi & 3G modules, and a 8000 mAh battery. The built-in touch screen and  Wacom digitizer support both touch and a stylus for fine detail work. But that’s the display that make it stand out. E-Ink claims that Fina displays weigh less than 50% of the weight of an equivalent glass based TFT and are less than 50% of the thickness, and the 13.3″ display module installed in […]

Boston Ships Viridis ARM Server Based on Calxeda EnergyCore Cortex A9 SoC

At the end of 2011, Boston, a British IT company, announced plans for an ARM server based on Calxeda Quad Core Cortex A9 Server-on-Chip, and now the company recently announced they started to ship the server (called Viridis) to their first customers. We now have further details about the server including the key features: Ten times the performance at the same power in the same space Cut energy and space by 90% Easily scalable to thousands of nodes 48 SoC devices delivered across 12 Calxeda EnergyCard modules Each EnergyCore SoC contains an ARM quadcore processing unit, providing a total of 192 cores per 2U enclosure Low power consumption: <300W with each SoC consuming between 0.5 to 5W depending on the load. Up to 24 SATA HDDs or SSD devices Up to 192GB of RAM per 2U enclosure A Calxeda EnergyCard (pictured below) features 4 Calxeda EnergyCore ECX-1000 SoC which can […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM

OpenMAX (Open Media Acceleration)

OpenMAX (Open Media Acceleration) is a royalty-free, cross-platform set of C-language programming interfaces that provides abstractions for routines especially useful for audio, video, and still images. OpenMAX standard is managed by the non-profit technology consortium Khronos Group. OpenMAX allows developers to take advantages of hardware media decoding/encoding. For example, If you want to play video using Raspberry Pi hardware (VideoCore IV GPU in Broadcom BCM2835) you’ll have to use OpenMAX IL. OpenMAX provides three layers of interfaces: Application Layer (AL): Open standard for accelerating the capture, and presentation of audio, video, and images in multimedia applications on embedded and mobile devices. Integration Layer (IL) : API defining a standardized media component interface to enable developers and platform providers to integrate and communicate with multimedia codecs implemented in hardware or software. Development Layer (DL): APIs containing a comprehensive set of audio, video and imaging functions that can be implemented and optimized […]

OMG! Quad Core Nvidia Tegra 3 Has Actually 5 Cores

We’ve been deceived ! All along we thought the new quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 (codename Kal-El) would just have 4 cores…right… But Nvidia has just posted a blog entry talking about a mysterious fifth core. There is also the 12-core GPU, but we already knew about that. Here’s what Nvidia has to say about the fifth core: This extra core – which we call the “companion core” – runs at a lower frequency and operates at exceptionally low power. During less power-hungry tasks like web reading, music playback and video playback, Kal-El completely powers down its four performance-tuned cores and instead uses its fifth companion core. For higher performance tasks, Kal-El disables its companion core and turns on its four performance cores, one at a time, as the work load increases. The Variable SMP architecture is also completely OS transparent, which means that operating systems and applications don’t need to […]

Near Field Communication (NFC) in Public Transport

The NFC Forum, a non-profit industry association that advances the use of Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, has recently published a White Paper entitled “NFC in Public Transport” and show how you can leverage NFC technology in such environment. The whitepaper mainly focuses on mobile phones, readers and smart posters. If you need an introduction about NFC, including starting points for developing hardware and software, please read our previous blog entry first. What can NFC do in public transport ? After a short NFC introduction, the whitepaper deals with the possible applications related to public transport including: Transport timetables Link to an up-to-date weather report website Special discounted travel offers Location relevant maps Next bus arrival time Taxi services Emergency calls Phone-to-phone transfer of destination addresses and maps to taxi driver and how NFC can be used before the journey (e.g. paying for parking, using smart poster for products/services promotions […]

Resources for NVidia Tegra 2

NVidia Tegra 2 is currently one of the most powerful processor used in smartphones and tablets such as the upcoming LG Optimus 2X smartphone or the new version of Samsung Galaxy Tab. NVidia describes the processor as follows: NVIDIA® Tegra™ 2 is the world’s most advanced mobile processor, featuring the world’s first mobile dual-core CPU for up to 2x faster Web browsing; the world’s only ultra-low power (ULP) NVIDIA® GeForce® GPU for up to 5x faster gaming; and the world’s first mobile 1080p HD video processor for flawless HD video conferencing and playback. Get never-before-seen experiences on a mobile device with NVIDIA Tegra. NVidia Tegra 2 is based on a dual core Cortex A9 running up to 1GHz, supports 32-bit DDR2 RAM and features NVidia Geforce GPU with OpenGL ES 2.0 support. Contrary to many other companies finding the development kit, documentations and tools is straightforward. Once you get to […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025
Boardcon CM3588 Rockchip RK3588 System-on-Module designed for AI and IoT applications