Formnext 2023 is approaching, and Prusa3D is excited to showcase their industrial 3D printers under the Prusa Pro brand at the event. While Prusa Research remains committed to their current line of products, the expansion into industrial additive manufacturing makes sense for the company.

The Prusa Pro line of industrial machines incorporates the latest technologies developed by Prusa3D. These machines feature a range of advanced features, including a heated chamber, ultralight print heads made of duralumin, automated print collection, image recognition, high-pressure turbine cooling, 500 °C print heads, 48V motors, and automatic resin handling. These advancements in the Prusa Pro line have a positive influence on the technology used in their other products.

In turn, the Prusa Pro machines benefit from the feedback and expertise gained from the hundreds of thousands of Original Prusa printers in use worldwide. The Prusa Pro line aims to provide the same ease of use as their other printers, with features such as removable print sheets, automated calibrations, and fine-tuned profiles in PrusaSlicer. Additionally, the Prusa Pro line is compatible with third-party materials, ensuring no vendor lock-in.

The Prusa Pro product line operates as a separate, independent team within Prusa Research. The team has been in operation for over four years and includes specialists hired specifically for this branch of the company, as well as developers from the acquired companies FUTUR3D and TRILAB. The Prusa Pro team has its own manufacturing capacity, either in a separate building or even in another town, to ensure the continued production of the popular Original Prusa printers.

At Formnext 2023, Prusa3D will be showcasing three brand-new machines from the Prusa Pro line. The Prusa Pro HT90 is a large format, industrial delta kinematics 3D printer with an actively heated chamber capable of reaching up to 90 °C, closed-loop HEPA filtration, and a nozzle temperature of up to 500 °C. It is suitable for printing high-temp materials like PCCF or PA11CF and offers fast printing for materials like PLA, PETG, and ABS.

The Prusa Pro SLX is a concept for their future MSLA 3D printer. It features a 12K MONO LCD panel for ultra-fine printing, a vat tilting mechanism for fast layer transitions, and automated material handling. The Prusa Pro SLX has several features not currently available on other SLA printers on the market.

The Prusa Pro AFS, the latest iteration of their Automatic Farm System, will also be showcased at Formnext. The AFS includes an Intelligent Shelving System that moves print sheets to a modular shelving system after printing, ensuring efficient storage. It also features an optical monitoring system with image recognition for automatic print issue detection. The AFS is powered by Prusa Connect, their internally-made farm management system.

In addition to these machines, Prusa3D will also be displaying the Prusa Pro Medical One, their certified SLA printer for biocompatible resins, which is now integrated into Exocad, a leading CAD software for digital dentistry.

For those unable to attend Formnext, Prusa3D offers the option to schedule a call with their sales team to learn more about the Prusa Pro HT90, AFS, SLX, and other products. They have provided price quote forms for each machine on their website.

Formnext attendees can find Prusa3D’s booth in hall 12.1, booth G39. In addition to the new machines, visitors can also see the XL printer, including a prototype enclosure, the MK4, MINI+, and new recycled Prusament colors. And for those interested, there will be beer available at the booth.

EDATEC has released two fanless cases for the Raspberry Pi 5 single-board computer (SBC), filling the gap for official fanless cases for this latest SBC. The two cases, ED-Pi5Case-B and ED-Pi5Case-O, offer different designs and cooling solutions.

Both cases are made of aluminum and are available in either silver or black. They provide easy access to all ports and interfaces of the Raspberry Pi 5, including the GPIO header, MIPI connectors, PCIe FPC connector, and PoE header. However, the closed enclosure blocks the battery and UART connectors, while both cases block the fan connector.

EDATEC claims that the ED-Pi5Case-B can reduce the temperature by 20 to 25°C, while the lighter ED-Pi5Case-O can reduce it by up to 15°C. Both cases come with three thermal pads to cover the Broadcom BCM2712 CPU, the wireless module, and the PMIC. They also add thermal conductive silicon on the bottom of the board.

The ED-Pi5Case-B features a low-profile, closed design with a small black plastic window on the top right for wireless connectivity. EDATEC states that this case benefits from strong WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity, enhanced by the semi-transparent wireless window. On the other hand, the ED-Pi5Case-O is an open case with two heatsinks placed on the top and bottom of the Raspberry Pi 5.

Source: CNX Software – Embedded Systems News.

MediaTek has taken a different approach with its new Dimensity 9300 processor by opting for “big” cores instead of the usual big.LITTLE technology that combines high-performance cores with energy-efficient cores. This decision could make the Dimensity 9300 more competitive with flagship-class processors from Qualcomm and other companies. The chip features four Cortex-X4 CPU cores and four Cortex-A720 cores, which could give it an edge in tasks that utilize all eight CPU cores simultaneously. However, it is important to note that the CPU frequencies differ between MediaTek’s chip and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chip, which has one Cortex-X4 core and five Cortex-A720 cores. Additionally, without lower-power cores, the energy efficiency of Qualcomm’s chip remains to be seen.

Specifications:

• CPU:

  • MediaTek Dimensity 9300:
    • 1 x Cortex-X4 @ 3.25 GHz
    • 3 x Cortex-X4 @ 2.85 GHz
    • 4 x Cortex-A720 @ 2 GHz
  • Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3:
    • 1 x Cortex-X4 @ 3.3 GHz
    • 3 x Cortex-A720 @ 3.2 GHz
    • 2 x Cortex-A720 @ 3 GHz
    • 2 x Cortex-A520 @ 2.3 GHz

• GPU:

  • MediaTek Dimensity 9300: Immoratlis G720-MC12
  • Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3: Adreno 740

• RAM:

  • MediaTek Dimensity 9300: LPDDR5T (up to 9600 MB/s)
  • Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3: LPDDR5x (up to 9600MB/s)

• Wireless:

  • MediaTek Dimensity 9300:
    • WiFi 7 (6.5 Gbps)
    • Bluetooth 5.4
    • 5G Sub-6 GHz/mmWave (up to 7.9 Gbps)
  • Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3:
    • WiFi 7 (5.8 Gbps)
    • Bluetooth 5.4
    • 5G Sub-6 GHz/mmWave (up to 10 Gbps)

• Camera:

  • MediaTek Dimensity 9300:
    • Up to 320MP (single camera)
    • Up to 4K @ 60 fps (video)
    • Up to 8K @ 30 fps (video)
    • 18-bit ISP
  • Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3:
    • Up to 200MP (single camera)
    • Up to 4K @ 120 fps (video)
    • Up to 8K @ 30 fps (video)
    • 18-bit ISP

• Display:

  • MediaTek Dimensity 9300:
    • Up to 4K @ 120 Hz
    • Up to WQHD @ 180 Hz
  • Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3:
    • Up to 4K @ 60 Hz
    • Up to QHD+ @ 144 Hz

MediaTek claims that the Dimensity 9300 offers several improvements over its predecessor, the Dimensity 9200, including faster CPU and GPU performance, as well as improved AI performance.

Source: Liliputing.

Phoronix reports that after more than two years of work, a patch series has been posted for a “fully functional” ffmpeg multi-threaded command-line application with multi-threaded transcoding pipelines being wired up. This is great news for the multimedia industry as FFmpeg is widely used. The run-time overhead of threading is said to be negligible in typical cases. The announcement on the mailing list notes that users can expect better CPU utilization and speedup on multicore systems whenever transcoding isn’t dominated by a single component and the components aren’t already multithreaded.

Source: Phoronix.

The Geniatech XPI-3566-Zero is a new Raspberry Pi Zero clone that offers improved specifications and features. While most Raspberry Pi clones mimic the larger Raspberry Pi Model B, the XPI-3566-Zero takes inspiration from the smaller Raspberry Pi Zero.

The Geniatech XPI-3566-Zero has a similar form factor to the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, measuring 65 x 30mm. However, it boasts a faster processor, enhanced wireless connectivity, built-in eMMC storage, and support for more RAM.

In terms of processing power, the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W is equipped with a 1 GHz Broadcom BCM2710A1 quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 processor with VideoCore IV graphics. In contrast, the XPI-3566-Zero features a more powerful 1.8 GHz ARM Cortex-A55 processor and Mali-G52 2EE graphics. The chip also includes a neural processing unit with up to 1 TOPS of AI performance.

Like the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, the Geniatech XPI-3566-Zero includes a mini HDMI port for video output, a MIPI-CSI camera connector, and a 40-pin GPIO header. However, it deviates from the Raspberry Pi design with two USB-C ports instead of micro USB ports.

The XPI-3566-Zero supports WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0, offering improved wireless connectivity compared to the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W’s WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 4.2. The entry-level model of the Geniatech board comes with 512MB of LPDDR4 memory and 8GB of eMMC flash storage, but it can be configured with up to 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage.

One notable difference is that the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W has a microSD card reader, which the Geniatech XPI-3566-Zero lacks.

Overall, the Geniatech XPI-3566-Zero offers an attractive alternative to the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, with a more powerful processor, improved wireless capabilities, and expanded memory and storage options.

Source: Liliputing.

Element announced that they will be forking Synapse and Dendrite, two long-standing projects in the Matrix community. This news has raised questions and concerns, but the Foundation is committed to addressing them and finding a way forward together.

Synapse and Dendrite have been around since 2014 and 2017, predating both the Foundation and Element. Element, the creators of Matrix, invested in the development of these projects and transferred them to the Foundation when it was formed. While individual contributors retained their copyright, Element assigned the projects to the Foundation. Both projects are licensed under the permissive ALv2 license, but Element’s forks will now use the reciprocal AGPLv3 license with a Contributor License Agreement (CLA).

Since 2019, the Foundation has been responsible for holding the assets and providing infrastructure for Synapse and Dendrite. While the adoption and use of Matrix and these projects have grown significantly, the contributor ecosystem for Synapse and Dendrite has not seen the same level of growth. Most of the maintenance and development work has been done by individuals working at Element.

Moving forward, the Foundation does not plan to actively fund the development of the current Synapse and Dendrite projects due to limited resources. Instead, the Foundation will focus on funding research and development for the Matrix ecosystem, addressing gaps, and providing community infrastructure. The Foundation does not wish to compete with actively maintained open source projects.

It is expected that the forks of Synapse and Dendrite will be widely adopted, and the Foundation wishes them success. However, there are still many unanswered questions, and the Matrix community will need to navigate this new territory together. Matrix is more than just these two projects - it is an open protocol and a whole ecosystem.

For most users, including the 115 million plus Matrix users on the open federation, there will be no significant changes. Those who run a Synapse or Dendrite server should continue to receive upstream releases from Element’s repositories.

Source: Matrix.