AMD VEK385 Versal AI Edge Gen 2 FPGA evaluation kit plugs directly into a PCIe Gen5/Gen4 slot

AMD has introduced the VEK385 Evaluation Kit built around the Versal AI Edge Gen 2 XC2VE3858 SoC FPGA, which combines eight Cortex-A78AE cores, ten Cortex-R52 cores, FPGA fabric with 543,104 LUTs, 144 AI Engine-ML v2 tiles (up to 184 INT8 TOPS), 2,064 DSPs, a Mali-G78AE GPU, and an integrated ISP. The kit features 20 GB of LPDDR5X memory, a PCIe x8 edge connector supporting Gen5 x4 and Gen3/4 x8, and two HDMI 2.1 RX/TX ports for video. There is also an SFP28 port for 25–100 Gb/s Ethernet, and CAN-FD alongside PL/PS Ethernet for deterministic control applications. The board is designed...

Atom E3950 Powers WINSYSTEMS SBC-ZETA-3950 Rugged Mini SBC

WINSYSTEMS’ SBC-ZETA-3950 is a rugged mini single board computer based on the Intel Atom Apollo Lake E3950, designed for industrial and space-constrained applications. It combines a COM Express Mini Type 10 module with a rugged carrier board in an 84 x 55 mm form factor. The SBC-ZETA-3950 uses the quad-core Intel Atom E3950 processor running […]

AAEON UP Squared Series Gains Mainline Linux Support for 40-Pin GPIO in Linux 6.18

AAEON announced that full mainline Linux support for the 40-pin Raspberry Pi-compatible GPIO header on its UP Squared series has been merged into Linux 6.18. The work, completed in collaboration with Bootlin, removes the need for the previously required out-of-tree DKMS driver. The UP Board family combines Intel processors with a 40-pin expansion header routed […]

The Ambient IoT Alliance aims to promote and develop standards for batteryless IoT devices using energy harvesting

The Ambient IoT Alliance, or AIoTA, is a global, cross-industry coalition working to promote and develop standards for batteryless IoT devices relying on energy harvesting for power. Ambient Internet of Things (IoT) refers to a class of IoT devices powered by radio waves, light, motion, heat, or any other viable ambient energy source. It is an evolution of legacy IoT and RFID technologies that promises lower costs and high scalability through Bluetooth, 5G Advanced, and the IEEE 802.11bp ambient power communication (AMP) standard. The alliance says its mission is to “promote and support the development of an open, harmonized, and...

OnLogic Factor 101 – A fanless industrial edge AI computer with Qualcomm QCS6490 SoC, 10GbE networking

The OnLogic Factor 101 (FR101) is an ultra-small form factor, fanless industrial computer built around the Qualcomm QCS6490 platform for edge AI and data gateway applications. Designed for space-constrained applications, it targets light machine vision, inspection, monitoring, and low-speed autonomous systems. The octa-core Qualcomm Kryo 670 (Cortex-A78/A55-class) processor is paired with 8GB LPDDR4x memory and 128GB UFS flash storage. The fanless system features 10GbE and Gigabit Ethernet ports, five USB ports, and HDMI and USB-C (DisplayPort) video output. Its compliance with various standards makes it suitable for general office and industrial edge deployments. OnLogic Factor 101 specifications: SoC – Qualcomm Dragonwing...

Play CDs with HomePods: Add AirPlay to a Vintage CD Player

In this project, I’ll show how to convert a bog-standard CD player into a fully self-contained AirPlay CD player that “just works”. No external boxes. No fiddly startup rituals. Put …

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Taalas HC1 hardwired Llama-3.1 8B AI accelerator delivers up to 17,000 tokens/s

Taalas HC1 is an AI accelerator hardwired (i.e, implemented in hardware) with Llama-3.1 8B and delivering close to 17,000 tokens/s of AI performance with the model, outperforming datacenter accelerators such as NVIDIA B200 or Cerebras chips. The Taalas HC1 is about 10x faster than the Cerebras chip, costs 20x less to build, and consumes 10x less power. The main downside is that it only works with the model hardwired into the hardware, currently Llama-3.1 8B, although we’re told it “retains flexibility through configurable context window size and support for fine-tuning via low-rank adapters (LoRAs)”. Hardware accelerators usually come with memory...

CHUWI CoreBook Air Plus 16 review – Part 2: An AMD Ryzen 5 6600H-powered, mid-range laptop tested with Windows 11 Pro

I’ve already checked out the hardware of the CHUWI CoreBook Air Plus 16 laptop in the first part of the review, so today, I’ll report my experience using the AMD Ryzen 5 6600H laptop with the pre-installed Windows 11 Pro operating system. We’ll start with a software overview and a test of key features, followed by benchmarking, evaluation of WiFi 6 performance, and measurement of fan noise, power consumption, and battery life. Software Overview and Features Testing The CoreBook Air Plus 16 ships with Windows 11 Pro 64-bit 24H2 operating system, upgraded to the 25H2 version after running Windows updates....

2.1-channel audio HAT for Raspberry Pi features Texas Instruments TAS5825M class-D amplifier

Previously, we wrote about the Louder Raspberry Pi, an open-source media center that integrates the Louder Raspberry Hat based on a 25W TAS5805M Class-D amplifier. Now, the developer has introduced the Louder Raspberry Hat Plus, upgrading from the TAS5805M amplifier to the more powerful TAS5825M, capable of driving up to 53W in mono (PBTL) mode while offering improved efficiency and thermal performance. The Louder Raspberry Hat Plus is compatible with all Raspberry Pi models and comes in 1X and 2X variants. The 1X version delivers up to 2×32W at 8Ω or 2×45W at 4Ω, the 2X version, on the other...

Кустарные вакуумные триоды Клода Пайяра. Часть 5. Конструкция лампы

Продолжим знакомство с работой современного французского энтузиаста-электровакуумщика Клода Пайяра [1], воссоздавшего в своей мастерской кустарное микропроизводство ранних высоковакуумных триодов — варианта легендарного ТМ [2]. Ранее мы уже рассмотрели его огневое оснащение [1], технологическую печь, контактную сварку [3] и ламповый аппарат ТВЧ [4], полюбопытствовали, чем Клод откачивает свои лампы [5]. С воображаемой лупой в руках посмотрим же, как устроен его вариант триода, чем он похож и чем отличается от исторических прототипов; по характерным примерам последних проследим часть эволюции этой выдающейся лампы.