Month: December 2010

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on Top Ten Digital Signage Trends for 2011

Top Ten Digital Signage Trends for 2011

As 2010 comes to a close, Digital Signage Today released their top 10 trends for 2011. Here’s a summary of those trends: Cross-media platform and technology integration: Digital signage systems and mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets will communicate more and more be it through QR Code, Near Field Communication (NFC), smartphone gestures, etc… Content will continue to be at or near the top of the list: More and more companies are involved in content creation for digital signage / digital out of hone (DOOH) and more diverse and complex content formats will be available. M & A and investment – The big shakeout of 2011: Expect more acquisitions that in 2010. Even larger amounts of ad dollars will migrate to DOOH: Digital Signage Ad growth spending will carry on, after a 14.8% growth in 2010. Experience, engagement and interaction: Instead of simply being an ad to promote a […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on P2P for embedded systems: BitTorrent and Emule – Part 2

P2P for embedded systems: BitTorrent and Emule – Part 2

In part1, I explained how to build and install aMule for mips platorm, in part2, we’ll build and install Transmission BitTorrent client for devices based on Sigma Designs SMP8634/SMP8635. Transmission BT is already used in quite a few NAS and media players including Syabas Networked Media Tank, Western Digital WD MyBook, ReadyNAS, D-Link DNS-323 & CH3SNAS… as you can see at the bottom of the transmission download page. Building Transmission 2.13 daemon and client First download Transmission 2.13 source code and required dependencies: OpenSSL 1.0.0c, cURL 7.21.3 and libevent 1.4.14b (do not use libevent 2.0.x). You’ll also need zlib 1.2.5 that we compiled in part1. Extract them: tar xjvf ../Downloads/transmission-2.13.tar.bz2 tar xzvf ../Downloads/openssl-1.0.0c.tar.gz tar xjvf ../Downloads/curl-7.21.3.tar.bz2 tar xzvf ../Downloads/libevent-2.0.9-rc.tar.gz Build OpenSSL 1.0.0c: ./Configure no-asm –prefix=/home/jaufranc/edev/libs linux-generic32 make CC=”mipsel-linux-gcc” AR=”mipsel-linux-ar r” RANLIB=”mipsel-linux-ranlib” make install Build cURL 7.2.13: ./configure –prefix=/home/jaufranc/edev/libs –build=mipsel-linux –target=mipsel-linux -host=i686 –disable-ipv6 –without-random –with-ssl=/home/jaufranc/edev/libs –with-zlib=/home/jaufranc/edev/libs CC=mipsel-linux-gcc LDFLAGS=-ldl make make install […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on P2P for embedded systems: BitTorrent and Emule – Part 1

P2P for embedded systems: BitTorrent and Emule – Part 1

Whether your device is a Network Access Storage (NAS) or a media player with network capabilities, you may consider adding P2P to allow downloads of files as you would do on your computer. Two of the most used P2P protocols are BitTorrent and eMule, but most of the client have a UI designed for Linux or Windows and may not be easily ported to an embedded system. So what we need to look for here are command line based clients or daemons that can be compiled and run in an embedded platform. After some research, here are the 2 programs we’ll use: aMule 2.2.6 a multiplatform eMule-like client Transmission 2.13 running as a daemon for BT dowloads Today, I’ll show how to use aMule 2.2.6 in Sigma Designs SMP863X target, for example in Popcorn Hour A-100. But a similar method (just a different compiler mips-linux-gnu-gcc and setting Little endian (-EL)) […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments on Near Field Communication (NFC) Introduction and Software Development

Near Field Communication (NFC) Introduction and Software Development

Android 2.3 features near field communication (NFC) in order to allow payment through your phone as it is already implemented in Japan with FeliCa (Felicity Card), a contactless RFID smart card system from Sony, direct communication between NFC devices, RFID reader, etc… NFC is already supported in Samsung / Google Nexus S. In this blog post, we’ll see what near field communication is, which hardware is needed and what needs to be done at the software level (driver and NFC stack). What is Near Field Communication ? Extract from Wikipedia: Near Field Communication or NFC, is a short-range high frequency wireless communication technology which enables the exchange of data between devices over about a 10 centimeter (around 4 inches) distance. The technology is a simple extension of the ISO/IEC 14443 proximity-card standard (proximity card, RFID) that combines the interface of a smartcard and a reader into a single device. An NFC […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on CES 2011 Main Attractions

CES 2011 Main Attractions

CES 2011 will be held in Las Vegas 6-9 January 2011 featuring 2700 exhibitors, including manufacturers and service providers for the audio, digital imaging, home theater, wireless, content and gaming markets. Here are what may be the main attractions to look for at the event: Lots of Tablets: Motorola is expected to demo Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) with a 10″ tablet based on NVidia Tegra 2 and announcement about Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (probably using the Tegra 2 as well) . Here’s a list of companies that will exhibit their tablets at CES 2011: Acer – 7″/10″ Tablets running Android and Windows 7 Archos – Archos Gen 8 Devices: Archos 28/32/43/70/101 running Android Asus – Eee Pad running Windows 7 and Android (March 2011 release) Creative – ZiiO Pure Wireless Entertainment Tablets running Android. Dell – 7″ Dell Streak running Android. Entourage – Dual screen tablet (similar to the Kno) called […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on Android Remote Control App for Google TV

Android Remote Control App for Google TV

Google has just released a new app in Android Marketplace to be able to control your Google TV compatible set-top box or TV with your Android Smartphone. It just looks like a normal remote control, but you’ll also be able to use voice recognition to select your channel and videos, select a video on your phone to be played on the TV, etc… I wonder if this will engender family or friend’s wars since several Android phones can be used with one TV. Oh.. and also Google is offering 100 46″ Sony Google TV to the best videos. Deadline for submissions 22-12-2010, so it will end later today. Anyway, have a look at Google TV Remote App video below: Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on HTTP Server for uCLinux

HTTP Server for uCLinux

You may need a web server on your no-MMU embedded system in order to allow remote configuration or possibly provide external access to some files. Usually, you’ll need a lightweight webserver (e.g. not Apache) with the required features and in case of no-mmu system, source that can accommodates uClinux limitations such as no fork support. You’ll also take into account the programming language or the server: e.g. C/C++. Java, Ruby, Perl… If your system does not support Java or Perl for example, that may not be the best solution to add one of those only for the web server and it also depends on the resources (Flash/RAM) available. There are plenty of C/C++ lightweight http servers such as thttpd or lighttpd, however those are using fork in their code. One open source http server that is lightweight and uses vfork (instead of fork) is mathopd. At the time of writing, […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on Digital Signage TCO Calculator

Digital Signage TCO Calculator

AMX has recently released a Total Cost of Ownership Calculator for digital signage comparing two different setups by taking into account the following parameters: Digital Signage Requirements: Number of Players Hours per Day Days per Week Weeks per Year Expected life in years US State Deployed (For electricity rates) Cost of Development for 2 products: Media Player Cost Per Unit Initial Software Cost Initial Subscription Fee Monthly Subscription Fee Energy Efficiency: Player Power Consumption in Watts Hardware Design: Type of storage: Solid State / Hard Disk Fan: With or Without The result of the calculation will show you the total cost in a graph, with the lifetime electricity cost, total subscription cost, total software cost and total player cost. If you purchased the players and plan to manage the devices by yourself, you won’t have to pay any subscription fees. However,  you’ll still have to consider the maintenance costs. In […]