Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft), Author at CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

March 19, 2014March 19, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Here Comes Android Wear, Android for Wearables

Google has just unveiled Android Wear, a project that extends Android to wearables, as well as the developer preview. At first, Google will start with watches, but the project may eventually support other wearables. The smartwatch will be smartphone companion with easy access to voice and contextual data. Google explains Android Wear will provide timely and useful information such as important social updates, or news. You’ll be able to use the familiar “Ok Google” to ask questions or complete tasks (call, SMS, alerts…) with your watch, Android Wear devices will be able to act as health and fitness bands, and they’ll also be used a smart remote to voice-control your phone, TV or Hi-Fi. Some of the first devices to use Android Wear will be Motorola Moto 360 and LG G Watch.But Google plans to work with Asus, HTC, and Samsung as well, chip makers Broadcom, Imagination, Intel, Mediatek and Qualcomm, […]

March 19, 2014March 19, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

MicroView is a Tiny Arduino Compatible Board with an OLED Display (Crowdfunding)

Last year, we’ve been presented with many small Arduino compatible boards such as MicroDuino, RFDuino, BLEDuino, Spark Core, Olimexino-Nano and more… All these boards have been own strength and connectivity options, but if you want to see what going on in your board, you’d either need to connect it to your computer, or connect some LEDs or an external display. Geek Ammo’s MicroView fixes that by providing an Arduino compatible board nicely combined with a built-in OLED display. This allows you to display stats, weather, play games, create wearable projects (watch, necklace), and all sort of other projects that may require a small display. MicroView specifications: MCU – Atmel ATmega328P @ 16 MHz with 32KB flash, 2 KB SRAM, and 1KB EEPROM Display – 64×48 OLED Display Digital I/O – 12 (of which 3 provide PWM output) Analog Input – 6 Operating Voltage: 5V Input Voltage: 3.3VDC to 16VDC, no […]

March 18, 2014March 18, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

Huawei D01 Server Board Features 16 ARM Cortex A15 Cores with up to 64 GB RAM, 3 SATA, 2 GbE Ports

During Linaro 14.02 release, I noticed a Huawei D01 board with 16 ARM Cortex A15 core, but details were lacking. Charbax was a Linaro Connect Asia earlier this month, and he could film the board in action, and interview the development team about this server board, and software development. Huawei D01 specifications: Processor HiSilicon SoC with16 x ARM Cortex-A15 CPU Core @ max. 1.5GHz (up to 84000 DMIPS) Support for CPU configuration as AMP/SMP Configurable Big or Little endian. Default: Little endian System Memory – 2x 64bit DDR3 DRAM Dual Inline Memory up to 1600 MHz, Module(DIMM) sockets:(2)&(3) . Default capacity: 8GB, upgradeable to 64GB Storage – 2x 1Gb NOR Flash, 2x 512MB NAND Flash, 3x SATA III for 2.5″ hard drives or SSD, 1x SD card Connectivity – 2x 10/100/1000Mbit/s Gigabit Ethernet ports, 1x 10/100Mbit/s FE port Other Peripheral Interfaces 2x USB 2.0 Host ports 2x UART, 4x I2C, […]

March 18, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Tizen Software Development Kit for Wearables is Now Available for Download

Samsung Electronics has just announced today that Tizen Software Development Kit (SDK) for Wearables 1.0.0 Beta1 is now available for download on Tizen Developer website. The SDK can be used to develop application for the Gear 2 or Gear 2 Neo smartwatches announced by Samsung at Mobile World Congress 2014. The Tizen SDK for Wearable is comprised of tools to develop Tizen wearable applications, including the Tizen wearable IDE, an Emulator, a toolchain, sample applications, and documentation. This SDK is compatible with Ubuntu 12.04 or 12.10 (32- or 64-bit), Microsoft Windows XP (32-bit) Service Pack 2 or later, Microsoft Windows 7 (32- or 64-bit), Apple Mac OS X 10.7 Lion (64-bit), Apple Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion (64-bit), and Apple Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks (64-bit). Samsung claims to have over 100 partnerships that will bring apps to their Tizen smartwatches. Existing apps including Atooma (tasks automation), Banjo (social […]

March 18, 2014March 20, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

Mi World PCS is a Portable ARM mini PC with the Specifications of an High-end Smartphone (Crowdfunding)

Most ARM based mini PCs sell because they are cheap, low power and come in a small form factor. At about $600, Mi World PCS (Portable Computer System) is not cheap, but thanks to its battery it’s fully portable, and it has specifications similar to the latest flagship smartphones with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 quad core processor, 2 GB RAM, wireless charging support, and more. Mi World PCS specifications: SoC – Qualcommon Snapdragon 800 (8074) quad core Krait processor up to 2.4 GHz with Adreno 330 GPU, Hexagon QDSP6 DSP System Memory – 2 GB DDR3 memory Storage – 64 to 512 GB hot swappable SD RAID storage Video Output – Micro-HDMI for output in displays up to 4k Connectivity – Wi-Fi (802.11 AC), Bluetooth 4.0, and GPS IZat location technology USB – USB 3.0 Battery – Capacity N/A, up to 30 hour battery life Dimensions – N/A Weight – […]

March 17, 2014March 17, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Opendive – Low Cost DIY Open Source 3D Virtual Reality Kit for Smartphones

About 10 days ago, I wrote about solution to record and play 360 degrees panoramic videos. One of the itmen was vrAse virtual reality case for your smartphone, and allows you to enjoy immersive 3D experience. If you’d rather do your own, than buy a kit for about 100 Euros, there’s an open source project called OpenDive that does about the same thing, and allows you to play games in 3D. All you need to do is to download the 3D files, print the head-mounted glasses it with your 3D printer, and buy the lense kit (6.99 Euros) to get a complete working system. You may have to modify the design, and adapt it to your phone dimensions. And if you don’t have a 3D printer, somebody provided instructions to do your own by cutting wood or plastic sheets. You then should be able to watch 360 deg. panorama videos, and […]

March 17, 2014March 17, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

Selecting the Best Adobe Flash Player in Linux for x86 and ARM

I’ve had countless and recurrent crashes caused by Adobe flash plugin either in Firefox and Chromium, mainly while playing videos from YouTube or other online video services that still mostly use flash, instead of HTML5. Adobe flash death is certain, but up to now it has been soooo slow, so I doubt that thing will truly die any time soon, and unfortunately it will probably be with us for many years to come. To work around the issue, I started by enabling Youtube HTML5 player, and try to play embedded videos inside YouTube instead of the orignal website. I still had crashes from time to time, and this method did not help with other video services. So I decided to check out what I could do to fix the issue. When you go to http://www.adobe.com/software/flash/about/ you can check your flash version, and Adobe will also list the player version for […]

March 14, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Mediatek Hotknot is a Low Cost Alternative to NFC for Chinese Phones

NFC first started to be found in phones running Android 2.3 in 2010, and most flagship smartphones integrate NFC. But in China, at least, the story is different with about 10 percent of smartphones enabled with NFC, according to Mediatek. That’s partly why the company has designed Hotknot proximity technology, which is in theory capable of anything NFC does, but comes at a lower cost. Contrary to NFC, Hotknot it does not require RF transceiver and antenna, but instead relies on a new type of capacitor touch driver IC designed for touch screens combined with data from a gravity sensor (G-sensor) to ensures the actual contact, and a proximity sensor (P-sensor) to detects the presence of nearby objects. It’s not clear when the first smartphone with the technology will hit the “e-store”, but HaoJung Li, product marketing manager of MediaTek’s wireless communications business unit, told EETimes, that every MediaTek customer, […]