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Giveaway Week – Eny M8S Android TV Box

Today, I’m going to give away Eny M8S, an Android media player based on Amlogic S812 processor with 2GB RAM and 8GB NAND flash that runs Android 4.4, and supports H.265 video playback up to 3840×2160 at 30 fps. How does the device perform? Well, I don’t really know because I postponed the review due to many problems including HDMI going on and off, lack of Google Play Store, some power issues, and eventually the box refused to boot. When I finally got a new firmware, I did upgrade it, but so many months had passed, that I postponed the review indefinitely… Having said that, I tested its 4K capabilities later on, and again before this giveaway to reset the box to factory settings, and it booted fine… The box is not abandoned, as the company released a new firmware at the beginning of this month, so the lucky winner […]

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Huawei Kirin 950 Octa-core Processor Comes with 4 Cortex A72 Cores, 4 Cortex A53 Cores, and a Sensor Hub

Smartphone based on MediaTek Helio X20 (MT6797) processor with 10 cores including two Cortex A72 cores should start shipping next month, but MediaTek will soon be joined by another Asian company with a mobile SoC with Cortex A72 cores with Huawei that has recently demonstrated their Kirin 950 Octa-core processor with four Cortex A72 coers and four Cortex A53 cores, achieving over 82,000 points in Antutu 5.6 (why an older version?) on a reference board. For reference the top 10 Antutu scores so far in 2015, only got as high as ~77,000 points fro Meizu Pro 5.  Since the benchmark was run on a reference, it’s possible the score will drop once it’s in a tighter package. Some key features of Kirin 950 processors: CPU – 4x Cortex A72 cores @ 2.3 GHz, 4x Cortex A53 cores @ 1.8 GHz GPU – ARM Mali-T880MP4 GPU @ 900 MHz Co-processor – […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM
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Espressif ESP32 Dual Core SoC Features Faster WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0 LE, and More Peripherals

Espressif teased us about a successor to ESP8266 a few months ago that would support both WiFi and Bluetooth Low Energy, and John Lee, working for Espressif Systems, has now sent a letter to ESP8266 developers announcing the new wireless SoC with two Tensilica L108 cores and called ESP32. Espressif ESP32 key improvements over ESP8266: Faster WiFi – Wifi has been upgraded to support HT40 speed (144.4 Mbps) and has a new RF architecture to simplify the application schematics Bluetooth Low Energy and Classic Dual core processor – 2x Tensilica L108 processors clocked at up to 160 MHz Low Power Mode Improvements – ADC conversions, level thresholds, etc.. can now be performed in deep sleep Peripherals – Capacitive touch, ADCs, DACs, I2C. UART, SPI, SDIO, I2S, RMII, PMW, etc… but no USB. More RAM – ~400 KB on-chip RAM Security – Hardware accelerated AES and SSL, and more undisclosed improvements. […]

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Wind River Introduces Free Cloud-based Operating Systems for IoT Applications

After Google Brillo operating system was officially launched last week, another company has announced free operating systems for IoT. What’s peculiar is that the company is Wind River a vendor of commercial operating systems whose typical business model is to sell licenses for their operating systems and fees for their development services. Nevertheless, the company has now introduced Wind River Rocket real-time operating system, and Wind River Pulsar Linux operating system.  Both OSes will interface with the company’s Helix Cloud software-as-a-service (SaaS) products, which is probably how the company intends to monetize their work, on top of customization services. Wind River Helix App Cloud is currently made of three products: Helix App Cloud cloud-based development environment for building IoT applications Helix Lab Cloud cloud-based virtual hardware lab for simulating and testing IoT devices and complex systems. Helix Device Cloud cloud-based platform for managing deployed IoT devices and their data. Some […]

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Manifold mini PC Powered by Nvidia Tegra K1 Processor is Designed for Drones

DJI is known for their high-end drones such as Phantom 3 quadcopter, but the company has now launched Manifold mini PC powered by Nvidia Tegra K1 quad core Cortex A15 processor and running Ubuntu 14.04 in order to allow developers run their own applications performing complex computing tasks and advanced image processing “on the fly”. DJI Manifold specifications: SoC – Nvidia Tegra K1 quad core Cortex-A15 processor @ up to 2.2 GHz with 192-core Kepler GPU System Memory – 2GB DDR3L Storage – 16GB eMMC 4.51 flash, micro SD slot Video Output – mini HDMI port Audio I/O – mini HDMI, combo audio jack for microphone and headphone Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet port USB – 2x USB 3.0 ports, 2x USB 2.0 host ports, 1x micro USB port (supports Force Recovery mode and Host mode) ,  and a non-standard USB 2.0 interface with the drone. Camera – Camera In and […]

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Linux 4.3 Release – Main Changes, ARM and MIPS Architectures

Linus Torvalds released Linux Kernel 4.3 last week-end: So it *felt* like the last week of the rc series was busy, to the point where I got a bit worried about the release. But doing the actual numbers shows that that really was just my subjective feeling, probably due to the kernel summit and travel back home from Korea. It wasn’t actually a particularly busy week, it’s just that the pull requests were more noticeable in the last couple of days. We had a network update and a late fix for a x86 vm86 mode bug introduced by the vm86 cleanups, but other than that it’s just a collection of various small one-liners all over. Ok, the vm86 mode thing was a one-liner too, it was just slightly more nerve-wracking because it looked scarier than it was before people (Andy) figured out what was going on. The changes from rc7 […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025
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Teclast X16 Tablet Comes with an Intel Atom x7-Z8700 Processor and 8GB RAM, Dual Boots Android 5.1 and Windows 10

There’s been a few Cherry Trail devices launched recently, but the Intel Atom x5-Z8300 processor found in most new devices does not offer that much over the older Intel Atom Z3735F, and only an handful of devices have been released based on the more powerful Atom x7-Z8700 processor such as Microsoft Surface 3 tablet and Magicstick TV stick. I can also often read people complaining 2GB RAM is not enough, but Teclast X16 Power 11.6″ tablet addresses these two issues with an Atom x7-Z8700 quad core processor, 8GB RAM, and 64GB storage for dual booting Windows 10 and Android 5.1. Teclast X16 Power specifications: SoC – Intel Atom x7-Z8700 “Cherry Trail” quad core processor @ 1.6 GHz (Bust freq: 2.4 GHz) with Intel Gen8 HD graphics with 16EU @ 600MHz (2W SDP) System Memory –  8 GB LPDDR3-1600 Storage – 64 GB eMMC + micro SD slot up to 64GB […]

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How to Use Nextion Serial Touchscreen Displays – Part 1: Standalone Mode

Itead Studio launched an Indiegogo campaign earlier this year for their Nextion TFT displays that can be connected to external board such as Arduino or Raspberry Pi via the serial interface, or even a standard computer provided you have a USB to TTL debug board. The campaign was successful with over 1,700 backers, and the company recently sent me two samples for review: a 2.4″ display and a 5″ display. In this post, I’ll look at the boards, and make a small standalone demo with Nextion Editor in Windows. Nextion NX3224T024 2.4″ Display The first item is a 2.4″ TFT display called NX3224T024_011N (non-touch) or NX3224T024_011R (Resistive touch) with 65536 color, 320×240 pixel resolution, LED backlight and up to 200nit brightness. It ships with a cable for the serial connection (5V, Tx, Rx, and GND). The back of the display features the serial connector, a micro SD used to load the […]

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