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Google Releases Android O Developer Preview 2, Announces Android Go for Low-End Devices, TensorFlow Lite

After the first Android O developer preview released in March, Google has just released the second developer preview during Google I/O 2017, which on top of features like PiP (picture-in-picture), notifications channels, autofill, and others found in the first preview, adds notifications dots, a new Android TV home screen, smart text selection, and soon TensorFlow Lite. Google also introduced Android Go project optimized for devices with 512 to 1GB RAM. Notifications dots (aka Notification Badges) are small dots that show on the top right of app icons – in supported launchers – in case a notification is available. You can then long press the icon to check out the notifications for the app, and dismiss or act on notifications. The feature can be disabled in the settings. Android TV “O” also gets a new launcher that allegedly “makes it easy to find, preview, and watch content provided by apps”. The […]

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MQMaker MiQi & ASUS Tinker Boards Get Linux 4.11 with 3D Graphics Acceleration

One day after the release of Linux 4.11, developer “Miouyouyou” has released Linux 4.11 for Rockchip RK3288 platforms such as MQMaker MiQi and ASUS Tinker boards with some patchsets for ARM Mali r16p0 kernel drivers, ARM fbdev, and to improve performance. The kernel has been tested with the Mali User-space r12p0 drivers for fbdev and wayland written for Firefly-RK3288, and some OpenGL ES 3.1/3.2 samples could successfully run on the board. 3D graphics acceleration does not work in X11 however. Miouyouyou also plans to add support for Rockchip VPU code, as well as ARM gator, and document how to use ARM DS-5 Streamline for OpenGL ES 2.x/3.x debugging. If you have a MiQi or Tinker board running Debian, you can try the kernel by adding beta.armbian.com Debian repository to your apt source file, and installing the following packages:

Via linux-rockchip G+ community.

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Selecting a Micro USB Cable to Power Development Boards or Charge Phones

Yesterday one person contacted me on Facebook asking me whether there was any chance of me doing a “which usd-micro usb cable is best”, as there’s not much clear information on the Internet. His purpose was to charge his phone, but many development boards come with a micro USB port, and I’ve read many comments about powering the board. It also happened to me, and the main cause can either be the power supply which does not work as rated (usually 5V/2A), or the micro USB cable which may have a resistance a little to high leading to voltage drops. You’ll know you may have a power problem when the board refuses to boot, and usually boot loop, or randomly reboots especially under high load. The first solution is to get a power supply that provide the right voltage and amperage, and you can test that with USB Charger doctor […]

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UDOO BLU and BLU SENSE IoT Modules Integrate Bluetooth LE, Zigbee, and 6LOWPAN Connectivity

UDOO is known for their Linux boards based on NXP and Intel processors for makers and the education market such as UDOO NEO or UDOO x86, but the company has now developed UDOO BLU and BLU SENSE battery powered modules based on Texas Instruments CC2650 ARM Cortex M3 microcontroller, both with Bluetooth LE, Zigbee, and 6LOWPAN connectivity, and the SENSE model adds some extra sensors. UDOO BLU and BLU SENSE specifications: Wireless MCU – Texas Instruments CC2650 ARM Cortex M3 MCU @ 48 MHz with 128KB flash, 8KB SRAM with 2.4 GHz radio Connectivity – Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), ZigBee, 6LoWPAN Sensors (BLU SENSE only) –  NXP FX0S8700CQ accelerometer & magnetometer sensor, NXP FXAS21002C gyroscope & temperature sensor Expansion 1x 5-pin sensors Snap-In I2C connector for UDOO Bricks 2x 10-pin headers with 8x Digital GPIOs, 6x ADCs, 1x I2C, 1x SPI, 1x UART Misc – 3x User Configurable LEDs (Red, […]

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MQMaker Koala is a Features-Packed Development Board Powered by Rockchip RK3288 Processor

MQMaker launched MiQi board based on Rockchip RK3288 quad core Cortex A17 processor last year with the hardware aimed at hobbyists and makers, but the company has been developing a higher-end board – named Koala – based on the same processor, featuring many more ports and features, and geared towards the enterprise market. Koala board preliminary specifications: SoC – Rockchip 3288 quad core ARM Cortex A17 up to 1.8 GHz with Mali-T764 GPU supporting OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0 /3.0, and OpenCL 1.1 System Memory –  2GB DDR3 (default) Storage – 16 GB eMMC flash (default) + micro SD slot Video Output / Display Interface – HDMI 2.0, header for eDP, MIPI, LVDS, LCD backlight header, touch panel header Audio – HDMI out, optical S/PDIF, 3.5mm analog stereo audio jack, microphone header, audio L/R header Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet, WiFi or WiFi + Bluetooth module, mini PCIe slot for 3G/4G card + SIM card slot USB – 4x […]

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ODROID-XU4 Development Board Price Drops to $59, Now Supports Linux 4.9 LTS

ODROID-XU4 development board powered by Samsung Exynos 5422 octa-core processor launched in summer 2015, but even after two years, it’s one of the fastest, if not the fastest, low cost development board on the market. It is also equipped with Gigabit Ethernet and USB 3.0 ports, but so far at $74, it was quite much expensive than slower peers. Hardkernel has now decided to lower the price to $59 plus shipping, which is really a good deal in terms of price/performance, and you’ll also benefit from close to two years development, as the board now supports Linux 4.9 with updates promised until early 2019. Here’s a reminder of the technical specifications: SoC – Samsung Exynos 5422 quad core ARM Cortex-A15 @ 2.0GHz + quad core ARM Cortex-A7 @ 1.4GHz with Mali-T628 MP6 GPU supporting OpenGL ES 3.0 / 2.0 / 1.1 and OpenCL 1.1 Full profile System Memory – 2GB […]

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LibreELEC is Now Running on Ugoos UT3+ (Rockchip RK3288) TV Box

Rockchip RK3288 may have launched over two years ago, but the quad core 32-bit processor is still much more powerful than many 64-bit platforms on the market, and ASUS selected the processor for their upcoming – and not officially launched – Tinker Board. The processor was found in several Android TV boxes, but people also installed Linux on the devices, and ported Kodi 14.2 Linux to RK3288 with hardware video decoding back in 2015. The news here is that Omegamoon has recently started working on LibreELEC 8.0 port for RK3288 with a Linux 4.4 kernel, and tested it on Ugoos UT3+ TV box. Full HD movie playback is said to be smooth, Ethernet, and sound work, but WiFi still needs to be worked on. Omegamoon has released an update.img firmware which can be flashed with upgrade_tool in Linux, or AndroidTool in Windows, replaces whatever operating system you have on the […]

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Samsung Introduces Artik 530 IoT Module & Development Kit with WiFi, BLE, and Zigbee/Thread

Samsung unveiled Artik 1, Artik 5, and Artik 10 IoT modules & development board families in 2015, but since then they dropped the Artik 1 family, and instead launched Artik 0, Artik 5, and Artik  7 modules and boards late last year. More recently the company canceled the more powerful Artik 1020 development board, but the Artik project is still going on, as they’ve just added Artik 530 module & development kit to their Artik 5 family. Samsung ARTIK 530 module specifications: SoC – Unnamed Quad core ARM Cortex A9 processor @ 1.2 GHz with a 3D graphics accelerator System Memory – 512 MB DDR3 Storage – 4GB eMMC v4.5 flash Connectivity – Dual band SISO 802.11 a/b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 4.2 LE + Classic, 802.15.4/Zigbee/Thread, 10/100/1000M MAC (external PHY required) Other Interfaces and peripherals Camera – 4-lane MIPI CSI up to 5MP (1920×1080 @ 30fps) Display – 4-lane MIPI DSI […]

Boardcon MINI1126B-P AI vision system-on-module wit Rockchip RV1126B-P SoC