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Star Cloud PCG02U Ubuntu TV Stick Unboxing and Teardown

Star Cloud PCG02U is one of the rare device selling pre-loaded with Ubuntu 14.04, and MeLE, who owns Start Cloud brand, sent me one sample for review. While many Android & Windows devices can be “hacked” to run Linux distributions such as Ubuntu, Star Cloud PCG02U is the first device that I’ve ever received that’s actually shipped with Ubuntu 14.04. So it will be very interesting to find out how it performs, but today, I’ll check the device and its accessories, as well as the hardware design. Star Cloud PCG02 Unboxing The TV stick ships  in a Ubuntu orange retail packaging with Star Cloud branding, and mention of Ubuntu and Intel. I had already published the specifications in my first post, a confirmation on the package is always good. The TV stick ships with a 5V/2A power adapter and multi-country plug adapters, a female to female HDMI adapter, a Quick […]

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VoCore2 WiFi IoT Module Features Mediatek MT7628AN Processor

When Vocore WiFi module launched in 2014 on Indiegogo, it quickly became popular as at the time it was hard to find cost effective and small WiFi modules with GPIOs, and its compact Ethernet dock solution was also a hit. The developer has now been working on VoCore2 for several months, and recently announced a beta testing program. Vocore2 preliminary specifications: SoC – Mediatek MT7628AN MIPS processor @ 580 MHz System Memory –  64 or 128 MB DDR2 Storage – 16MB NOR FLASH, 1x SDXC via I/O pins Connectivity – WiFi 802.11n 2T2R up to 300 Mbps with either 2 u.FL connector or 1 u.FL connector + on-board chip antenna (Max signal output >19.5dbm peak); 2x 10/100M Ethernet interfaces via I/O pins I/Os – About 30 GPIOs multiplexed with 3x UARTs, 1x I2C, 1x I2S, 1x reference clock, 1x USB 2.0, 1x PCIe 1.1, 1x high speed SPI (40Mbps max), […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM
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How to Run Ubuntu 16.04 Aarch64 (64-bit ARM) Cloud Images on Your Intel/AMD Linux Computer with QEMU

With the recent launch of several low cost Cortex A53 development boards, 64-bit ARM hardware is now pretty common and inexpensive, but if you want to run 64-bit ARM code on your x86 Linux computer, Riku Voipio, a software engineer working for Linaro, wrote some instructions to run Ubuntu 16.04 Aarch64 Cloud image in QEMU. Ubuntu cloud images are “the official Ubuntu images and are pre-installed disk images that have been customized by Ubuntu engineering to run on public clouds that provide Ubuntu Certified Images, Openstack, LXD, and more. ”  So the instructions are also useful if you want to easily try such packages on 64-bit ARM platform. I’ve tried those instructions myself on my Ubuntu 14.04 machine with and AMD FX8350 processor, and they worked pretty well, and the only things I had to find out by myself was to install a recent version of qemu. First, we’ll need […]

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LX IoT Cores Are Made for IoT and Wearables with Bluetooth LE, ANT+, 2G/3G, Sigfox, LoRa, and More

LX Group, an Australian company specializing in electronics design and embedded systems, has introduced three wireless modules for IoT and wearables which they call “LX IoT Cores”, and embeds various wireless protocol such as Bluetooth LE/Ant+, 2G/3G connectivity, WiFi, Lora, Sigfox, Taggle, etc… Let’s go though the main technical specs for the three modules, one of which it itself modular (hence the max and min size) depending on your requirements. LX Cellular Core (Right) MCU – STMicro STM32F217IGH6 ARM Cortex-M3 MCU @ 120 MHz with 1MB flash, 128kB RAM Storage – 1x micro SD card reader Communication Interfaces Radios – 2G/3G,  WiFi,  BLE,  ANT+,  provision for LoRa,  Taggle,  SigFox, optional GPS via daughter board Wired – USB,  RS485, UART, SPI,  I2C, Digital IO, ADC Sensors – Ambient Luminosity, accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, temperature, humidity, air pressure, microphone USB – 1x micro USB port Misc – Reset and 2x user buttons, 2x […]

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OSD3358 SiP Integrates TI Sitara AM3358 SoC, Memory, PMIC, LDO and Passive Components into a Single BGA System-in-Package

Octavo Systems has created a BeagleBone Black reference design that’s exactly like the original board, except for one detail: It’s based on the company’s OSD3358 system-in-package (SiP) that combine Texas Instruments AM3358 Cortex A8 processor with up to 1GB RAM, TI LDO and PMIC, and over 140 passive components into a single 400-ball BGA package. The only three other main components on the reference design are the eMMC flash, Ethernet transceiver and HDMI framer. Key specs of OSD3358 SiP: Texas Instruments AM335x (AM3358 or AM3352) Cortex A8 processor @ 1 GHz 256MB, 512 MB or 1GB DDR3 memory Texas Instruments TPS62217C PMIC Texas Instruments TL5209 LDO Over 140 passive components Package – 400 1.27mm pitch BGA – 27 x 27 mm package size Temperature Range – Base version: 0 to 85°C; Industrial version: -40° to 85° C Some of the advantages of a SiP package over using multiple chips include faster […]

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SkinTrack Controls Your Smartwatch with Gestures on Your Skin or Clothes

A group of researchers of the Future Interface Group, Carnegie Mellon University in the US, has worked on SkinTrack technology which enables continuous touch tracking on the skin by using a ring emitting high frequency AC signal, and a sensing wristband with multiple electrodes. They’ve created sensor band and ring prototypes to demonstrate the technology. The ring includes an oscillator that generated a 80Mhz sine wave at 1.2Vpp. It consumes 7mA during operating meaning that they could get 15 hours out of the 100 mAh battery used in the prototype. The wristband features four pair of electrodes coupled with AD8302 RF/IF gain and phase comparator chips in order to derive X and Y coordinates from the phase of the signal. The sensing board produces eight analog values which are sampled by Atmel ATMega328 microcontroller’s 10-bit ADC inputs, and transmitted to the watch using a  Nordic NRF8001 Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025
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PocketCHIP Hackable & Portable Linux Game Console Can Be Pre-ordered for $49

If you are interested in portable game consoles to run emulator, but can’t quite justify paying hundreds of dollars for device like Pyra or GPD Win, and Android game consoles don’t exactly fit your needs or match your expectations, PocketC.H.I.P based on the $9 C.H.I.P board, and part of the original Kickstarter campaign could be an interesting option, as it is now available for pre-order for $49. PocketCHIP specifications: SoC – Allwinner R8 Cortex A8 processor @ 1 GHz with Mali-400 GPU System Memory – 512 MB RAM Storage – 4GB NAND flash Display – 420 x 272 LED backlit display Keyboard – QWERTY keyboard Connectivity – 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi + Bluetooth 4.0 Video Output – 3.5mm jack for composite video and audio (HDMI and VGA available via adapters) USB – 1x USB host port, 1x micro USB OTG port Expansion – Through holes on the top giving access to […]

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Pyra Open Source Debian Handheld Computer & Game Console is Now Available for Pre-order

The development of Pyra open source portable gaming console started in 2014, and after over two years of hard work, the developers are now ready to take pre-order of the Texas Instruments OMAP 5 powered device running Debian Linux. Pyra handheld specifications have changed a little bit since the announcement two years ago: SoC – Texas Instruments OMAP 5432 SoC with 2x ARM Cortex-A15 @ 1.7Ghz with NEON SIMD, 2x ARM Cortex-M4, Imagination Technologies PowerVR SGX544-MP2 GPU for 3D graphic, and Vivante GC320 GPU for 2D graphics System Memory – 2GB or 4GB RAM Storage – 32 GB eMMC flash, 2x SDXC card slot, 1x internal micro SDXC card slot Display – 720p 5″ LCD with resistive touchscreen Video Output – micro HDMI Audio I/O – High-quality speakers, analog volume wheel, headset port, built-in Mic Gaming controls – D-Pad, 4x shoulder buttons, 6x face buttons, 2x accurate analog controls with […]

Boardcon CM3588 Rockchip RK3588 System-on-Module designed for AI and IoT applications