PicoClaw: Ultra-Lightweight Personal AI Assistant Operates on Just 10MB of RAM – CNX Software

PicoClaw lightweight personal AI Assistant embedded systems

PicoClaw is an ultra-lightweight personal AI Assistant designed to work on less than 10 MB RAM and suitable for resource-constrained embedded boards such as the Sipeed LicheeRV Nano SBC going for around $15 and powered by a SOPHGO SG2002 RISC-V SoC with 256MB on-chip DDR3. I keep reading news about the OpenClaw personal AI assistant, after first finding out about it when the Cubie A7S SBC was launched. OpenClaw (previously ClawdBot) clears your inbox, sends emails, manages your calendar, and checks you in for flights from WhatsApp, Telegram, or any chat app. It’s been shown to run a range of hardware platforms, but it can be resource-intensive, and HKUDS created the nanobot ultra-lightweight personal AI assistant with about ~4,000 lines of Python code, or roughly 99% smaller than Clawdbot’s 430k+ lines. PicoClaw further builds on the nanobot project, and has been “refactored from the ground up in Go through a […]

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VU GPSDR: Affordable GPS-Disciplined SDR Expansion Board for Vivid Unit RK3399 Touchscreen SBC – CNX Software

UUGEAR VU-GPSDR

UUGear’s VU GPSDR is a low-cost GPS-disciplined SDR expansion board designed specifically for the Vivid Unit, a palm-sized Rockchip RK3399-based touchscreen SBC we covered back in 2024. The VU GPSDR is built around the RTL2832U ADC and Rafael Micro R860 tuner, but what makes it different from SDRs like the PhaseLatch Mini and DeepRad SDR  is the integration of a u-blox NEO-M8N GPS module. This module provides a GPS-disciplined 24 MHz clock reference to the Si5351 local oscillator, which ensures high frequency stability and timing accuracy that is typically only found in much more expensive SDR hardware. VU GPSDR specifications: Supported Platform – UUGear Vivid Unit via Vivid Unit Extender Gen 1/2 (See details below) MCU – STM8S003F for board-level controls RF Tuner – Rafael Micro R860 ADC – Realtek RTL2832U Frequency Range – 500 kHz to 1.766 GHz Bandwidth – Up to 3.2 MHz (2.4 MHz recommended for stability) HF […]

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PiLink PL-R5/R5M Series: IP20/IP65 Industrial PCs with Raspberry Pi CM5 – CNX Software

PiLink PL-R5 DIO CAN IP65

Made by Japan-based PiLink, the PL-R5 and PL-R5M Series are compact industrial PCs powered by a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5 (CM5) and offered with either IP20 or IP65 ingress protection rating. The PL-R5 Series provides one USB 3.0 port, one Gigabit Ethernet port, and 9V to 40V DC input, while the PL-R5M Series offers one USB 2.0 port, one 100 Mbps Ethernet port, an optional extra Gigabit Ethernet port, and a 10.7V to 28.8V DC input range. Both include optional WiFi 5 and Bluetooth, an M.2 B-Key socket for cellular, optional RS-232, RS-485, I2C interfaces, and more. The IP65 models are offered in Basic, Basic Plus (adds 4x analog inputs, 4x DI/DO), and USB (3x USB ports) configurations. The PL-R5 also adds a DIO CAN IP65 variant with two DI, two DO, and two CAN Bus interfaces. The IP20 variants have an even wider choice of options. PiLink PL-R5/R5M […]

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ESP32 Marauder 5G: Apex 5 Module for Flipper Zero Integrates ESP32-C5, Dual Sub-GHz Radios, nRF24, and GPS – CNX Software

ESP32 Marauder 5G

Designed by HoneyHoneyTrading, the ESP32 Marauder 5G – Apex 5 Module is an ESP32-C5-based hacking and penetration testing tool for the Flipper Zero, with dual-band WiFi 6 (2.4GHz and 5GHz), two Sub-GHz radios (868MHz and 433MHz), an NRF24 radio, and a built-in GPS. This new Flipper Zero module can be considered an upgrade from the ESP32 Marauder – Double Barrel 5G, as it does not rely on a dual-chip configuration for 5 GHz operation, leveraging the ESP32-C5 dual-band capabilities instead. A microSD card slot handles storage, and the device can also save data directly to the Flipper Zero’s microSD card. It also features five antennas, including WiFi, Sub-GHz, nRF24, and GPS, along with dedicated LED indicators for the Sub-GHz radios and nRF24 activity. There is also a hardware button to toggle 433 MHz and 868 MHz Sub-GHz operation, a USB-C port, and a side button for power management and firmware […]

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OpenStack Standalone 4G LTE IoT Board Utilizes RTOS on Quectel EC200U LTE Module (Crowdfunding) – CNX Software

Open Stack — Standalone 4G LTE IoT & Connectivity Module

Open Stack is a standalone 4G LTE IoT connectivity board designed to run RTOS-based C applications directly on the Quectel EC200U series LTE module, meaning you don’t need an external MCU like Arduino, ESP32, or Raspberry Pi. By removing the MCU, the board reduces power consumption, bill-of-materials (BOM) cost, and physical footprint. The board supports multi-band LTE with GSM fallback, GNSS, and Bluetooth 4.2, as well as IPv4/IPv6 client and server modes. It also includes a USB Type-C port, a Nano SIM card slot, LTE/GNSS/BLE antenna connectors, an OLED information display, status LEDs, control buttons, and a 40-pin Raspberry Pi HAT-compatible GPIO header. Networking support includes TCP/UDP, SSL/TLS, HTTP/HTTPS, MQTT, LwM2M, CoAP, FTP/FTPS, and PPP, making it suitable for asset tracking, industrial monitoring, BLE-to-LTE gateways, remote infrastructure, and always-connected IoT deployments without additional controller hardware. Open Stack specifications: Cellular Module – Quectel EC200U-CN series (EC200UCNAA-N05-SGNSA) module Cellular Connectivity: LTE FDD […]

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CHUWI CoreBook Air Plus 16 Laptop Review – Part 1: Specifications, Unboxing, Teardown, and First Boot – CNX Software

CHUWI CoreBook Air Plus 16 laptop review

It’s been a while since we’ve tested a laptop, but CHUWI sent us their latest CoreBook AirPlay 16 laptop for review. It’s powered by a mid-range AMD Ryzen 5 6600H hexa-core processor, paired with 16GB of LPDDR5 and a 512GB NVMe SSD, and features a 16-inch display with 1920 × 1200 resolution. I’ll start the CoreBook Air Plus 16 review by listing the specifications, going through an unboxing and a teardown to check out the hardware, and finally boot it to the pre-installed Windows 11 Pro. We’ll then test it in more detail with Windows 11 Pro and Ubuntu 24.04 or 26.04 (Snapshot 4) in the next parts of the review. CHUWI CoreBook Air Plus 16 specifications SoC – AMD Ryzen 5 6600H CPU – 6-core/12-thread Zen 3+ “Rembrandt” processor at up to 3.3 GHz / 4.5GHz (Turbo) GPU – AMD Radeon 660M clocked at up to 1,900 MHz with […]

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Creating AI Agents on the Frontend with Sam Bhagwat and Abhi Aiyer – Software Engineering Daily

Most AI agent frameworks are backend-focused and written in Python, which introduces complexity when building full-stack AI applications with JavaScript or TypeScript frontends. This gap makes it harder for frontend developers to prototype, integrate, and iterate on AI-powered features. Mastra is an open-source TypeScript framework focused on building AI agents and has primitives such as

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AMD’s Major OpenAI Deal, Intel’s Challenges, and Apple’s AI Strategy – Software Engineering Daily

SED News is a monthly podcast from Software Engineering Daily where hosts Gregor Vand and Sean Falconer unpack the biggest stories shaping software engineering, Silicon Valley, and the broader tech industry. In this episode, they cover the $1.7B acquisition of Security AI, LangChain’s massive valuation, and the surprise $300M funding” round for Periodic Labs. They

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Erik Seidel on Internet Architecture – Software Engineering Daily

The modern internet is a vast web of independent networks bound together by billions of routing decisions made every second. It’s an architecture so reliable we mostly take it for granted, but behind the scenes it represents one of humanity’s greatest engineering achievements. Today’s internet is also dramatically more complex and capable than in its

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Building an Open-Source Laptop with Bryan Huang – Software Engineering Daily

Byran Huang is a full stack developer who recently made headlines in the hacker space when he created the anyon_e, which is a highly integrated, open source laptop. The effort was a massive undertaking and showcased great design, hardware, and software. In this episode, Byran joins the show with Gregor Vand to talk about his

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