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USB type C to HDMI Cables Coming Soon thanks to HDMI Alt Mode for USB Type-C

Some devices already support video output over a USB type C connector, but they normally rely on DisplayPort over USB type C, so you’d either need a monitor that supports DisplayPort, or some USB Type C to HDMI converter. A DisplayLink dock is another solution, but again it converts video and audio signals. But soon you’ll be able to use a simple USB type C to HDMI cable between a capable device (camera, phone, computer, TV box…) and any HDMI TV or monitor. This is being made possible thanks to HDMI Alt Mode for USB Type-C  that supports all HDMI 1.4b features including: Resolutions up to 4K (@ 30 Hz) Surround sound Audio Return Channel (ARC) 3D (4K and HD) HDMI Ethernet Channel (HEC) Consumer Electronic Control (CEC) Deep Color, x.v.Color, and content types High Bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP 1.4 and HDCP 2.2) There’s no video or audio conversion inside […]

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NanoPi NEO NAS Kit Review – Assembly, OpenMediaVault Installation & Setup, and Benchmarks

NAS Dock v1.2 for Nano Pi NEO / NEO 2 is, as the name implies, a complete mini NAS kit for 2.5″ drive for NanoPi NEO or NEO 2 board. The NEO 2 board is strongly recommended, since it’s not much more expensive, but should deliver much better results due to its Gigabit Ethernet interface. I’ve received two of those kits together with several other boards & accessories from FriendlyELEC, and today I’ll show how to assemble the kit, configure OpenMediaVault, and run some benchmarks. NAS Kit V1.2 Assembly with NanoPi NEO 2 Board The only extra tool you’ll need is a screwdriver, and potentially a soldering iron as we’ll see further below. The metal box is stuff wih accessories so the first thing is to open one or two sides to take out the content. We have the mainboard, NanoPi NEO back plate, NanoPi NEO 2 back plater, a […]

Khadas Edge2 Arm mini PC
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HealthyPi Raspberry Pi HAT Measures ECG, Body Temperature, and Oxygen Saturation (Crowdfunding)

Bangalore based ProtonCentral has launched the third version of Healthy Pi, a vital sign monitor using the Raspberry Pi as its computing and display platform, and capable of measuring body temperature, oxygen saturation, and ECG/respiratory data. Healthy Piv3 board specifications: MCU – Atmel ATSAMD21 ARM Cortex M0 MCU, compatible with Arduino Zero Vital Signs Chips ECG and respiration front-end –  TI ADS1292R 24-bit analog front-end with SNR of 107 dB Pulse oximetry – TI AFE4490 Pulse Oximetry front-end with integrated LED driver and 22-bit ADC Temperature – Maxim MAX30205 digital body temperature sensor for skin temperature sensing Expansions Headers and Ports 1x 40-pin header to connect to Raspberry Pi 2x 3-pin connectors for temperature and BP/GLUCO DB9 connector for finger-clip Spo2 probe 3.5mm jack for ECG cable and probes 1x UART connector for an external blood pressure module USB – 1x micro USB port for power and programming Debugging – […]

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Intel Compute Card Apollo Lake and Kaby Lake SKUs, Block Diagrams, and Specifications

Intel Compute cards are the latest ultra-thin CPU cards introduced by Intel at the beginning of the year, with a concept similar to EOMA68 CPU cards, that it to allow  CPU card upgrades or replacements, and interoperability across compatible devices such as smart kiosks, IoT gateways, and so on. But at the time, Intel did not reveal that many details about the different cards, although we know NexDock is working on laptop dock compatible with Intel Compute Cards. But I’ve recently received some block diagrams for Apollo Lake Pentium/Celeron, and Kaby Lake Core M/Core i5 compute cards.There will two SKUs for Apollo Lake compute cards sharing the same specifications, except for the processor: SoC CD1C64GK SKU – Intel Celeron N3450 quad core processor @ 1.1 / 2.2 GHz (base/turbo) with 12EU Intel HD Graphics Gen9; 7.5W TDP CD1P64GK SKU – Intel Pentium N4200 quad core processor @ 1.1 / 2.5 GHz […]

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Cambrionix PowerPad 15S is a 15-Port USB Hub with 2.1A Output, Control API, Serial Console, Power Consumption Monitoring

Many development boards are powered over USB, usually via a micro USB ports, and if you have one board, you’d just use a 5V USB adapter with the right amperage, and it will work fine as long as you have a low resistance USB cable (AWG20 cables recommended for higher loads).  But when you start to running multiple boards using power strips with USB adapter start to take space, so USB hubs are much more convenient. However, you need to find one that delivers enough power, is reliable, and possible allows per port power control. The guys at LAVA (Linaro Automated Validation Architecture) are using a lot of boards to validate software developed by Linaro and their members, with the boards having to run 24/7, and they had various misfortunes with USB hubs, but as Dave Pigott reports they’ve now found that USB hub of their dream with a 15-port […]

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How to Reinstall Android Firmware on Realtek RTD1295 TV Boxes

I started playing with Beelink SEA I TV box nearly two weeks ago, but I soon realized there was a big problem, while I could get an IP address with both Ethernet or WiFi, I could not access Internet, nor the local network with the box, and even ping would not work. So I contact Beelink to find a solution, and they believed I may have a problem with the firmware on my box, and recommended to re-flash it. Great. I asked the firmware, and the company eventually provided me with two files: SEAI_101M0_32G_20170225.img (password: 879y) SEAI_101M0_16G_20170225.img (password: 2js2) Those are baidu link which may be slow to download outside of China, so the company also provided a mirror later. The customer representative told me those were “Lines brushes Pack” firmware, and after lots of email back and forth. I finally got proper instructions which should work for Beelink SEA […]

AAEON Intel Arc
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Remix Singularity to Bring Remix OS Desktop Optimized Operating System to Android Smartphones

Android is great to consume content, but is a real pain to create content, as operation like copy/paste and multi-tasking you take for granted in desktop OS like Ubuntu or Windows are not well supported in Android. But Jide Technology saw an opportunity and many users are familiar with Android on their phones and tablets, and some on Android TV boxes, so they created Remix OS, based on Android, but with desktop optimization such as better multi-tasking, multi-window support, improved mouse and keyboard integration and so on. They started with a tablet, and then also worked on ARM based Android TV boxes and laptops, as well as support for x86 computers. The company has now unveiled Remix Singularity which aims to bring Remix OS to smartphones in a similar manner to Windows Continuum or Ubuntu Convergence. But beside just mobile and desktop (PC) modes, Remix Singularity will also allow to […]

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How to Use CHIP Board as a Linux Printer & Scanner Server

We have a Canon Pixma MP250 series multi-function USB printer connected to a Windows 10 laptop at home, and for several years, I had no problems printing from my Ubuntu computer to that printer. However, this setup recently stopped to work, and whatever I would do, printing would never start from my Ubuntu PC, even though the file was (allegedly) successfully transfered to the Windows 10 laptop connected to the printer. So I decided to setup my own printer server, as well as a scanner server since it’s a multi-function printer, using one of the boards from my collection. As I opened my cabinet, I wondered whether I would use an Orange Pi board, Raspberry Pi board, or Nano Pi board, but I needed WiFi since there’s no Ethernet in the office where the printer is located, and I found that Next Thing CHIP board was the ideal candidate as […]

Khadas VIM4 SBC