Poland-based supplier Modulowo has introduced an embedded development board for Intel’s small form factor IoT module, known as Edison. Modulowo Explore E It takes the form of a breakout board for Intel Edison Compute Module providing interfaces and connectors to additional modules, such as sensors, touch switches, motor controllers and LED drivers and GPS. It is likely to be used for IoT design prototyping but can also be used as an educational aid. Called...

Cisco’s corporate venture capital arm is making an investment in Kii, the Japanese cloud services provider used by internet of things (IoT) device developers. Cisco sees potential in Kii's cloud software approach to facilitating the development of both business/industrial and consumer-focused IoT applications. A new Kii cloud software, dubbed the Thing Interaction Framework, focuses on common IoT use cases around sensor-cloud-app interactions (like sensor...

Connected cars with wireless communications links, telematics and vehicle advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) will require increasing levels of electronic test, write John Russell, Bill Mckinley and Matt Hodgetts Figure 1 gives an idea of how the percentage that the electronics content contributes to the total cost of a car has been steadily rising, and is expected to keep rising. The technological sophistication of modern automobiles means that they are...

Qualcomm and Intel have announced interoperability between their WiGig products. This will help pave the development of 802.11ad WiGig devices that connect at speeds of up to 4.6 Gbps. Bringing spectrum in the 60 GHz band to Wi-Fi 802.11ad will address rising dimageata demand in homes, enterprises and carrier networks. 802.11ad enables 4K display connectivity to tri-band (2.4 GHz, 5 GHz and 60 GHz) Wi-Fi networking and high-speed cellular offlo...

If you think CES is an obvious place to showcase Bluetooth innovation, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group agrees. The SIG has announced the winners for the 2016 Bluetooth Breakthrough Awards, which were held in Las Vegas, off the back of CES. The overall winner was the Fliegl Tracker, a Bluetooth beacon-based vehicle detection system. The idea is that it reduces food safety concerns by making the agricultural distribution cycle more transparent and the production...

This one caught Gadget Master’s eye – or should I say, ear? – as I remember hearing about aptX for the first time at a CSR audio demo a couple of years ago. Anyway, Qualcomm has officially unveiled aptX HD, an enhanced version of the codec that offers 24-bit music data, over low-power wireless links, compared with the 16-bit (“CD-quality”) of the original aptX. The original CSR VibeHub demo, back in 2014, was effectively a CES Preview, and the latest Qualcomm...

Check out this video, which Sony claims is the “world’s first 48K 360° video”. Its filmed with the Sony Xperia Z5 Compact, which supports 4K imaging. It’s 360° but is it 4K or 48K? It was filmed at the Rise Ski & Snowboard Festival in Les Deux Alpes, France, with the 360 degree video shot on twelve Xperia Z5 Compact devices. Each device filming simultaneously in 4K. By Sony's count that makes it a 48K video! In a post on the official Sony blog, Anthony...

With software giant Microsoft still desperately trying to win the favour of mobile users with the latest Windows 10 – which launched in late July last year – Android, the world’s most used mobile OS, is looking to encroach on the company’s coveted PC market. And this time it is not Google at the helm, writes Tom Wilson. Jide Technology Ltd, a Beijing based software and hardware company founded by three ex-Google employees (Jeremey Chau, Ben Luk and David Ko) has...

Apropos of nothing, but maybe a handy bookmark reference – I was just catching up on the Qualcomm smart home reference platform demoed at CES earlier this month and came across a very detailed spec comparison for processors in the Snapdragon series, the engine room of many an Android device. See the Snapdragon series comparison. It covers all the 800, 600, 400 and 200 series. You can drill down on the modem characteristics, GPU, video/audio capture and playback,...

Google has officially unveiled the next generation of Android, version 6.0, codenamed “Marshmallow”. At a launch event in San Francisco, also beamed around the world, CEO Sundar Pichai ran through an overview of the latest platform. Pixel, Nexus, Chromecasts Android-6-marshmallow (1)In what was a plethora of announcements, there was also a release of a Google designed Android tablet-laptop, the Pixel C, which will be the hardware flagship for Marshmallow...

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) has announced the general availability of its Bluetooth Developer Studio. This a free development environment for developers get to grips with Bluetooth technology, aiming to cut developer learning time for Bluetooth technology and speed product development. It makes building for the IoT simple for developers, from the novice to the experienced, boasts the SIG, in terms of adding smart wireless connectivity. "The...

Android Wear will now enable cellular comms, Google has announced, in addition to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. It means users will be able to take calls direct from their watch. The first Android Wear watch with cellular support? Not the new Intel-powered, Android Wear-based TAG Heur Connected . The answer is the LG Watch Urbane 2nd Edition LTE. The smart watch from LG has an LTE modem inside which means it can connect to the mobile phone network directly and not...

Qualcomm has updated its CPU profiling tool, App Tune-up Kit, which gives a view into the hardware performance behind an app, if it’s running on the company’s hardware. It’s SnapDragon processor, is rather prevalent in Android devices, of course. It's described as a "One-Touch Application Profiling" tool that works in 60 seconds. Qualcomm's App Tune-up Kit You can evaluate an app's performance in five areas: CPU, GPU, power, thermal and network data. You can...

Perfect for Gadget Master. Aimed at individuals experimenting at home with ways to connect their lives via their smartphones, IDT has teamed up with Digi-Key to run a new competition. It's to create wirelessly powered devices using IDT’s wireless power reference kits for creative market applications. The companies have invited electronics experts and hobbyists to find creative ways to incorporate wireless charging capability into products using IDT’s 5W kits. Sponsored...

A new Arduino is joining the devboard lineup. Welcome the MKR1000, and yes there's an IoT focus. According to the Arduino team it's a board that combines the functionality of the Zero and the connectivity of the Wi-Fi Shield. "It's based on the Atmel ATSAMW25 that is part of the SmartConnect family of Atmel Wireless devices, specifically designed for IoT. It offers the ideal solution for makers seeking to add Wi-Fi connectivity with minimal previous experience...

Sometimes the old and trusted interfaces are best. How about a good old-fashioned dial to exactly control your input to your work? Anything you can control with your mouse or cursor, that is. This is the premise of the nOb, a project on KickStarter. From analogue to digital. There are also two switches for further control and tweaking. Flick a switch, and twist the dial, but not too much... There's adjustable rotation resistance for the aluminium knob,...

It’s a competitive space, modular programming elements for kids, but check out this new entry: the Robo Wunderkind robot. It’s a robotics and coding kit for “kids of all ages”, described as “the smartest building blocks”. Build, code, and play is the slogan. You build your robot simply by snapping the Robo Wunderkind blocks together and then programme your robot via the visual interface on an associated app. The fun bit should then be controlling your build remotely...

Toshiba has launched a single-chip 15W wireless power receiver IC with the Qi v1.2 specifications defined by the Wireless Power Consortium (WPC). The receiver, TC7766WBG, has been designed for use in mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets and a range of mobile industrial devices. The TC7766WBG enables fast wireless charging, with charging times similar to, and in some cases less than, wired charging. It accomplishes this by increasing the power reception...

I must be honest. I’ve never used the Google Cardboard camera myself, or seen it in action, and I’m not a particularly keen advocate of Virtual Reality. Which kind of explains my scepticism about Google’s low-cost device. But I do salute its low-fi approach and potential ingenuity, and it does seem a good fit with Gadget Master. More importantly, there is new functionality with the new Cardboard Camera app for Android. Apparently you now just have to move your phone...