This is the Qualcomm 48-core (custom Qualcomm Falkor cores) Centriq 2400 ARM Server reference evaluation board. Featuring 48-cores with 12 DIMM slots of DDR4 RAM memory, dual PCI riser boards for fully customizable setup. At Linaro Connect SFO17, the ARM team is demonstrating an ELK big data demo with ElasticSEarch, Logstash and Kibana for graphic visualization running on Qualcomm Centriq 2400 processor. The Qualcomm Centriq 2400 processor is designed for cloud computing running these microservices in containers seamlessly. There is a 2nd demo of Linuxkit with NGINX running in a container. Both demos use Docker containers running on Ubuntu 16.04.
Category: Qualcomm
Qualcomm ARM Server Centriq 2400 at Linaro Connect San Francisco 2017
Posted by – September 30, 2017
LG V30 with Plastic OLED
Posted by – September 15, 2017
Here’s my view on the LG V30, a quite nice looking phone with Bang and Olufsen high quality DAC audio, FullVision Plastic OLED nearly bezel-less LG Display (see my LG Display video filmed at SID Display Week 2017 featuring LG’s Plastic OLED display here), it has a nice fingerprint reader on the back (unlike iPhone X). The price is possibly going to be very high (depending on LG’s pricing strategy), something like $699 or $799 maybe.
Sony Xperia XZ1, Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact
Posted by – September 3, 2017
Sony has launched the same functionality as in the 5.5 Sony Xperia XZ Premium (which I filmed here) but in a more compact 5.2″ form factor in the Sony Xperia XZ1 and in a 4.6″ form factor in the Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact. One new feature is the 3D Creator which uses Sony’s stacked image sensor to create a 3D scan of any object or person in front of the camera. The Sony Xperia XZ1 has a 19 MP Motion Eye camera with Super slow motion, 5.2” Full-HD HDR display, IP65/68 water resistant2 design and runs on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 Mobile Platform.
TechNexion Factory Tour
Posted by – June 16, 2017
Category: Tablets, Factory Tours, PCB Design House, Robots, Internet of Things, Development Boards, Exclusive videos, Qualcomm, NXP, TechNexion, Android, Ubuntu
TechNexion is a design and manufacturing company showing in this video its engineering team, that designs IoT smart devices, development boards for the needs of projects like the ARM powered Android Things ecosystem by Google or Amazon Alexa Voice-Recognition development platform and its advanced manufacturing capabilities. In the video, we get a direct glimpse of how ARM modules and systems are designed and how much automation is being utilized in a smart SMT factory. The video tour takes you through all production stages from the module design to SMT manufacturing to post production functional testing. The factory churns out up to 250K PCBA per month. Filmed on location at the TechNexion factory in Taipei, Taiwan in June 2017.
Google Keynote at SID Display Week 2017, Clay Bavor, VP of Google VR/AR
Posted by – June 9, 2017
Category: Displays, Wearables, VR, Smart Glass, 4K UHD, Exclusive videos, Qualcomm, SID Display Week, Google, Android
Google is Enabling rich and immersive experiences in virtual and augmented reality, presented by Clay Bavor (at Google since 2005), Google Vice President of Virtual Reality where Google works to create an efficient and scalable software platform for rich VR and AR services to be powered by high performance, power-efficient ARM CPUs, GPUs, sensors, and where Google is also working with the Display insutry to bring amazing new ultra high resolution VR and AR displays to the market. As you can see in this video of the keynote, at the SID Display Week, Google announced they are working with Sharp to create ultra-high resolution LCD displays for VR optimized for very low lag time. Google also works to create 20megapixel per eye prototype VR and AR displays, amounting to 2.5x 4K resolution per eye. And Google is working with ARM and other companies to bring foveated rendering technology to not require the 100-150Gbit/s bandwith for VR and AR content once the microdisplays have such high resolution, this method involves using a camera to track where the eye is focusing and render a very high resolution of exactly what you’re looking at while keeping the resolution and detail lower for where you are not looking at directly, and doing all that accurately with minimal lag time.
Synology NAS at Computex 2017
Synology shows their newest NAS, networking, security and backup products at Computex 2017:
– Diskstation DS418j is a 4 bay network attached storage solution featuring a 1,4ghz realtek 64 bit Dual Core ARM A53 Processor, 1gb of ram, gigabit ethernet, support for 40tb of storage and 16 ip cameras.
– Diskstation DS1817 is an 8 bay network storage solution featuring a Annapurna Al-314 Quad Core 1.7ghz processor, 4 or 8gb of ram, and dual 10 gigabit ethernet ports. There is an expansion unit for an additional 10 drives.
– Diskstation DS718+ is a dual bay network attached storage with gigabit ethernet and a Intel Celeron processor.
– Diskstation DS918+ is a nine bay network attached storage with gigabit ethernet, dual M.2 drives for ssd cache, and an Intel Celeron processor.
– Diskstation DS3018xs is an 6 bay network attached storage solution with a quad core Intel Pentium processor, dual M.2 sdd cache, gigabit ethernet, and 8gb – 32gb of ECC memory.
– Flashstation FS1018 is 12 2.5″ bay all-flash NAS solution, with expansion up to 36 drives. The FS1018 features a Dual Core Pentium, gigabit and 10 gigabit ethernet, and ECC memory ranging from 8 – 32gb.
– Network Video Recorder NVR1218 can support point of sale systems as well as up to 12 cameras and records surveillance footage on up to 7 drives.
– Visualstation V960HD is a Surveillance Station with Live View Companion of 96-Channel 720p HD up to 960FPS.
Security Gateway SG1000 is a security gateway for small companies, which is similar to router. The SG1000 features four RJ45 sockets, SD card slot and a USB port for memory extensions.
Synology also had routers which are capable of controlling and waking up their network attached storage solutions.
– Synology provides a lot of software for controlling their NAS solutions and security gateways over their network as well as backing up and recovering data.
– Synology NAS solutions can run Windows Virtual Machines on Intel based NAS devices.
– Synology Mailplus is a private email solution for enterprise to control their email.
You can read more about these and other NAS solutions at http://www.NASCompares.com and watch the videos at http://youtube.com/SPANdotCOM
Microsoft Keynote: Windows 10 on Qualcomm Snapdragon 835
Posted by – June 4, 2017
Here’s the part of the Microsoft keynote at Computex 2017 where they talk about Windows 10 support on Qualcomm Snapdragon 835, announcing that HP, Lenovo and Asus are going to build thin and light ARM Powered Windows 10 devices with built-in e-SIM LTE support.
Full Windows 10 on ARM 64bit 10nm Qualcomm Snapdragon 835
Qualcomm demonstrates a full version of Windows 10 running every x86 application through emulation technology that Microsoft and Qualcomm have worked on very hardly to hopefully be able to show good performance running any x86 Windows app on ARM, as the Snapdragon 835 is the fastest ARM processor in the world, at least the fastest ever from Qualcomm. The marketing angle will also position every ARM Powered Windows 10 Laptop as being with built-in Gigabit LTE through an eSIM meaning you will be able to click and subscribe to any Data plan or with your telco agreeing add your Laptop simply to your existing LTE Smartphone package. Consumers will be able to expect amazingly fast LTE connectivity, very long battery life, always connected always standby functionality (checking emails etc in the background even while the Laptop is closed), compatibility with all x86 Windows apps (win32), it will be interesting to see if apps like GIMP, Adobe Photoshop, Sony Vegas, Adobe Premiere and other more demanding x86 Windows .exe apps if they can install and run with decent enough performance through this emulator. It will be interesting to see if Microsoft and Qualcomm are able to utilise all the hardware acceleration such as the GPU and all 8 cores of the Snapdragon 835 big.LITTLE “Built on Cortex Technology” platform to speed up the performance even of advanced apps and games to somehow magically perform well through the emulator. Possibly that Qualcomm even designed a specific area on the Snapdragon 835 SoC that is specifically designed to further accelerate the x86 Windows app emulation functionality? Windows 10 on ARM devices will hopefully start shipping at prices around $600-700 in extremely thin and light form factories to be made by Lenovo, HP and Asus and hopefully released worldwide before the end of the year.
Fairphone2 with Ubuntu Touch ported by UBPorts
Posted by – May 8, 2017
UBports has ported Ubuntu Touch to the Fairphone 2 smartphone. The Fairphone 2 is designed to be ethical, repairable, upgradeable, and controlled by the user. The Fairphone 2 has a Snapdragon 801 processor, 2mp front camera, 8mp back camera, 5″ 1080p display, 32GB of storage, 2gb of ram, MicroSD and Micro-USB.
Allwinner VR9, 6K30p, 4K60p for VR, Allwinner A63, 28nm Quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 with Mali-T760MP2
Posted by – April 18, 2017
Category: Tablets, VR, Smart Glass, Speakers, 4K UHD, Development Boards, Exclusive videos, Allwinner, Qualcomm, China Sourcing Fair, Android, POS
Allwinner launches their new Allwinner VR9 Octa-core ARM Cortex-A53 with Mali-T760 GPU for higher performance All-in-one VR. 6K VR can render about 6000×3000, thus upcoming VR displays with something around 3000×3000 for each eye. Then Allwinner A63 is Allwinner’s new Quad-core 64bit ARM Cortex-A53 with Mali-T760MP2 GPU with support for 2K displays, on a lower power consuming 28nm process, for longer battery life, to come to the marketing within the next 1-2 months from now. At the Allwinner booth is the Seegene.com Allwinner H8 Octa-core ARM Cortex-A7 powered Augmented Reality headset with dual 1280×800 OLED micro-displays reflected through a prism for sale for about $1000. Allwinner also shows some of their latest tablets, kids tablets, AI speakers with Amazon Alexa API support, baby monitoring tablet and camera, panning camera tablet, A64 Powered Tablets and 2-in-1 with Android 7.0 GMS tested. The Aikun Morphus X300 having features like the Nintendo Switch but having been released a while before Nintendo. POS machines, the new Allwinner Y10 quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 for interactive connected photo frames with gesture control support. All-in-one VR. A64 development board by Occocci, LTE connected solutions with Qualcomm, and solutions for the Smart Assistant Speakers market.
OpenMandriva ARM Powered Laptop at the OpenMandriva Summit in Budapest
Posted by – April 11, 2017
At the OpenMandriva meeting in Budapest with Bernhard Rosenkränzer and Colin Close, President of OpenMandriva, showing off the ARM Powered laptop that could run Open Mandriva at the Open Mandriva meeting in Budapest. This video was taken at the OpenMandriva annual meeting which this year took place in the City of Budapest where the OpenMandriva team met to talk about their plans to workw to move their distro forward. One of the major decisions taken was to move fully to the Clang compiler suite by using lld as their default linker. This is in line with their efforts to create a distro that can be used on more modern architectures. The Clang compiler/linker suite brings with it built in cross-compilers which make the creation of packages for alternate processors such as on their prototype laptop using hardware for 64bit ARM architecture using the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 Extended 96Boards, they have built sufficient core software to be able to provide a distro for it. Recently a key element required for them to bring this project to fruition was the demonstration of freedreno graphics driver running on the latest Adreno GPU. The OpenMandriva team are looking forward to test this new driver alongside the OpenMandriva software compilation. Another major discussion point was the OpenMandriva package management system. A decision was taken to start using the dnf package manager for the core management function, they will however provide a wrapper script so that users will still be able to use familiar command to perform package management. These changes will have a major impact on their distributed build farm as it will require restructuring the repository metadata on their ABF (Automated Build Farm) while they are doing this they will take the opportunity to incorporate a QA system and a method for building multiple dependent packages within a container. They hope these changes will improve the overall quality of the OpenMandriva distribution. If you would like to to join the OpenMandriva Association either as a user or as a developer you can visit their website http://www.openmandriva.org or contract them through the developer irc channel on freenode #openmandriva-cooker, if you have no packaging experience there are plenty of interesting jobs to do that don’t require coding skills.
Linaro CEO George Grey at Linaro Connect Budapest 2017
Posted by – April 11, 2017
Linaro CEO George Grey interview on the last day of the Linaro Connect in Budapest 2017, talking about Google joining Linaro as a club member, some of the latest developments at Linaro, the high amount of contributions from Linaro into Linux and open source, IoT, Servers, Mobile, Networking, Kernel, Gateways, Set-top-boxes, Smart TVs, Android, and a lot more. Other new Linaro members are HXT a joint venture between Qualcomm and the CHinese Government, Fujitsu with their new ARM Powered Supercomupter. You can watch George Grey’s opening keynote at Linaro Connect Budapest 2017 here.
Yang Zhang, Director of 96Boards and Robert Wolff, Host of 96Boards Open Hours
Posted by – March 25, 2017
Yang Zhang is the Director of Linaro’s http://96boards.org with Robert Wolff host of http://96boards.org/openhours talk about the status of the 40+ 96Boards that are in development, the 96Boards standard and latest news, IoT boards, extended boards, Enterprise boards and what may happen in the future.
Qualcomm Dragonboard 410c at Linaro Connect Budapest 2017
Posted by – March 17, 2017
Following the http://96boards.org/openhours/ session at Linaro Connect Budapest 2017, Lawrence King, Engineer, Sr. Staff/Mgr at Qualcomm Canada, talks a bit about the history of Dragonboard (since my video of an early Dragonboard filmed with him at Computex 2011) leading to the Dragonboard 410c, the ecosystem that is being built around it and some of what’s to come from Qualcomm with Dragonboard.
Arrow Dragonboard 820c Extended 96Boards, the Enterprise Edition Oxalis NXP ARMv8 Layerscape LS1012A
Posted by – March 14, 2017
Arrow shows an early prototype of their upcoming Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 based extended edition 96Boards and they are showing their first Enterprise Edition 96Board named Oxalis. Based on NXPs latest ARMv8 Layerscape LS1012A Processor running at 800MHz, this board delivers up to date connectivity with two USB-3.0 ports, SATA, 2x Gigabit Ethernet and PCIe.
Arrow also has a whole bunch of other new development boards such as the Meercat, an i.MX7 based ARM Cortex-A7 board with ARM Cortex-M4 and the Chameleon, the first Intel / Altera FPGA based 96Boards. You can read Arrow’s article about maker’s experiences with the 96Boards here.
Also check back in the days to come as I will be filming Arrows presenting their latest 96Boards at the Embedded World in Nürnberg 14th-16th February, you can get your free pass here.
Robert Wolff featured in this video is the comunity manager at 96Boards hosting the weekly 96Boards Open Hours.
Freedreno enables Linux distros on Dragonboard 820c 96Boards
Posted by – March 14, 2017
Rob Clark, maker of the open source GPU driver Freedreno shows off his latest Freedreno open source GPU working on an upcoming Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 based Dragonboard 820c development board, one that is going to use an expanded 96Boards specification to add PCI-E and Gigabit Ethernet ports among other things to the development board. This Freedreno and 820 board provides a significant jump in performance for the GPU, possibly 4x to 5x between the Adreno 306 in a Dragonboard 410c and the Adreno 530 in a Snapdragon 820 based board. The availability of the Freedreno open source GPU driver on Qualcomm based development boards means that these development boards can run all sorts of Linux distributions, including Debian, not just Android. You can read more about the Dragonboard 820c here.
Linaro RDK with GStreamer-V4L2 video accelerator and Freedreno graphics overlay
Posted by – March 14, 2017
The Linaro Digital Home Group (LHG) has extensive experience working with the Comcast RDK. LHG has been instrumental in leading open source initiatives in the RDK. At Linaro Connect (BUD17), the LHG Director, Mark Gregotski, along with 2 Comcast assignee engineers (Siva Patchaiperumal and Kalyan Nagabhirava) are demonstrating a port of the RDK to the Qualcomm 96Boards Dragonboard 410c. This demo shows the RDK media framework taking advantage of the GStreamer-V4L2 support provided by the DBD410C to use the hardware video decoder. The HD video is scaled and then a rotating triangle is overlaid using the open source Freedreno graphics support available with DB410C. The demo shows smooth video playback without any stuttering with smooth graphics overlay. Since the video decode is offloaded to the video hardware, the CPU is not heavily loaded.
Oliver “Ogra” Grawert talks Ubuntu Core on Dragonboard 410c at Linaro Connect Budapest 2017
Posted by – March 7, 2017
Category: Internet of Things, Development Boards, Exclusive videos, Qualcomm, Linaro Connect, Ubuntu
Robert Wolff of the weekly 96Boards Open Hours show interviews Oliver “Ogra” Grawert of Canonical about the status of Snappy Ubuntu Core on the 96Boards including the Dragonboard 410c and more about Ubuntu Core, Canonical’s strategy in IoT, security and updates through the Build.Snapcraft.io platform. You can watch the 96Boards Open Hours episode featuring Robert Wolff and Ogra here.
