● 11.28.13

● Links 28/11/2013: Devices/Embedded News

Posted in News Roundup at 7:23 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

• Faraday Technology has begun shipping a system-on-chip dev kit aimed at developers of custom SoCs. The “SoCreative! IV” kit’s baseboard is built around Faraday’s A380 SoC, which boasts a dual-core ARM Cortex A9 processor, a Faraday-developed RISC core, and a high speed expansion bus for interfacing with FPGA daughtercards, and comes with Linux 3.3 and Android 4.x BSPs.

• If you enjoy creating your own electronic projects you might be interested in a new modular development platform called the Improv which is a modular engineering kit that comes with a CPU card and a separate feature card to connect it to.

• The Stir Kinetic Desk promises to be a piece of office equipment for the modern age of sensors, the quantified self, and lots of trans fat. On the other hand, its sticker price may shock you into rigor mortis before obesity will. Check out our hands-on.

• Really Simple Software has begun accepting pre-orders for the second generation of its Linux-powered networked DVR. The new model, known as “Simple.TV by SiliconDust” and priced at $250, adds a second TV tuner and is expected to ship by the end of the year, by which time Android and iOS apps for both generations of the product will be available for free download.

• Whereas Raspberry Pi was the pioneer of very small Linux systems, the Arduino is the 800-pound gorilla in the micro-controller arena.

• Olimex’s OLinuXino project announced a tiny, Android- and Linux-ready single board computer based on Allwinner’s 1GHz, Cortex-A8 based A10 processor, and the first one to be offered with a mini-PC enclosure. The open source A10-OLinuXino-Lime offers 512MB of DDR3 RAM, an optional 4GB of NAND flash, plus HDMI, SATA, USB, and Ethernet, starting at only $40.

• Slovakia-based Fedevel and its Voipac manufacturing partner are prepping an open source computer-on-module and baseboard built around Freescale’s dual-core i.MX6 system-on-chip. The credit-card sized i.MX6 Rex module is equipped with up to 4GB of soldered DDR3 RAM, as well as I/O including gigabit Ethernet, SATA, HDMI, USB, and PCI Express.

• An IHS Automotive market study projects that by 2020, Linux will push past QNX and Microsoft to lead a 130 million unit in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) market with a 41.3 percent share. The report follows last week’s revelation that Toyota and Jaguar/Land Rover are working on IVI systems that run the Linux-based Tizen OS.

• Despite a slow start, Linux is all set to lead the automotive infotainment operating system (OS) market in 2020 surpassing Microsoft and BlackBerry. As the auto industry seeks an OS platform in which it can control direction and features, it is attracted by the advantages offered by Linux for some obvious reasons. Also, proprietary OS platforms don’t allow the auto industry to control and set its own system architecture.

• Linux is increasingly being used for cutting-edge robotics – opening up the field to anyone interested in learning more

• RS Components is stocking Arduino Yún, the first in a family of wireless products that integrate the open-source Arduino architecture with Linux.

• Arduino Yún combines the existing Arduino Leonardo, based on Atmel’s ATmega32u4 8-bit microcontroller, with an embedded Atheros AR9331 Wi-Fi system-on-chip (SoC) running Linino, a MIPS GNU/Linux variant of OpenWRT.

• The Sitara Linux Board Porting online series is comprised of one introduction and nine, 10-minute modules (3 Lecture and 6 Lab) that provide an introduction to porting U-boot and the Linux Kernel to custom hardware platforms.

• A startup called BiggiFi is approaching its Indiegogo funding goal for a $79 HDMI dongle that essentially turns HDTVs into supersized Android tablets. The BiggiFi device is claimed to let users run unmodified Android apps on their TVs using their phone or tablet as the TV’s touchscreen — including motion input for games — without screen-mirroring overhead latency.

• Mouser has begun distributing Olimex’s open source A20-OLinuXino-Micro single board computer, which is based on Allwinner’s dual-core, Cortex-A7 system-on-chip. The community backed, Linux and Android compatible board is equipped with 1GB of DDR3 RAM, is supported with optional touchscreen and UETX expansion I/O modules, and is available for $75.

• Olimex’s OLinuXino products are some of the most “open” SBCs in the growing community of community backed hacker boards. All CAD files and sources and are available, and with their Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license, there are no restrictions on manufacturing and sales, says the Olimex-sponsored OLinuXino project.

• MSC announced a Linux-ready development kit for a new Qseven format computer-on-module (COM) featuring single-, dual-, or quad-core Freescale i.MX6 Cortex-A9 based system-on-chips clocked at up to 1.2GHz. The kit includes a 3.5-inch SBC form factor baseboard with real-world I/O connectors, Yocto-built embedded Linux on a bootable SD card, and a DC power supply, and is available with optional LCD panels.

• Axiomtek released two rugged, Linux-ready box computers with IP40 compliance, anti-vibration support, and extended temperature ranges. The tiny rBOX610 is a din-rail computer built around a Freescale ARM9-based i.MX287 processor, featuring CAN buses and isolated Fast Ethernet ports, while the eBOX660-872-FL offers 3rd generation Intel Core processors, four gig-Ethernet ports, and dual display support.

• Innovative Integration announced a turnkey 3mentation computer for signal processing and data acquisition. The Mini-K7 combines a Linux-ready COM Express Type 6 computer-on-module based on an AMD G-Series processor, a user-programmable Xilinx Kintex-7 FPGA, a Spartan 6 FPGA, and dual VITA 57 FMC expansion slots for the addition of application-specific I/O.

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