Author: 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 later in 2011.
Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on Android Debugging on MIPS Platform with Viosoft Arriba Debugger

Android Debugging on MIPS Platform with Viosoft Arriba Debugger

I’ve recently attended a webinar organized by EETIMES with MIPS and Viosoft entitled “Android Platform: It’s Not Just For Handsets Anymore” on the 26th October 2010. You can now register for the on demand version at http://seminar2.techonline.com/s/mips_oct0610 The purpose of this web conference was to explain the status of Android for Set-top-box and MID development, the complexity of debugging kernel, java and application in an Android system as well as showcasing Viosoft Arriba to debug Android on MIPS. If you ever develop Android on Sigma Designs SMP864x/SMP865x platforms you’ll probably use Viosoft Arriba. You may refer to the following material Comprehensive Development and Debug Coverage for Linux and Android on the MIPS Architecture that contains the slides used during the presentation. Rick Leatherman – Vice President, Development Tools at MIPS Technologies, Inc – firstly described Android architecture with the application level, Library/Android (Dalvik), and the kernel. He then explained the […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on See-through OLED & LCD Displays

See-through OLED & LCD Displays

Samsung Electronics and LG exhibited see-through LCD displays and Samsung Mobile Display see-through  OLED displays at FPD (Flat Panel Display) International 2010/Green Device 2010, Chiba City, Japan. Samsung Electronics brought 2 different displays 23 inch and 46 inch LCD displays while LG Display showcased a 47-inch LCD display. See-through displays use natural light as backlight during the day and use a transparent backlight system attached to the back of the panel during the night. Samsung Mobile Display exhibited 2 OLED displays (14 inch  and 19 inch). The main applications of such displays can be: Digital signage. This is the number 1 application for such displays. You could have a real product at the back and the see-though display at the front displaying some product info and/or promotional videos. In the picture below, Samsung created a setup with real wine bottles and grapes in the background and a see-through display in […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on Nufront 2GHz ARM Cortex-A9 for Desktop, Laptop and Netbook – NuSmart 2816

Nufront 2GHz ARM Cortex-A9 for Desktop, Laptop and Netbook – NuSmart 2816

Nufront (新岸线) is a high tech company based in Beijing, dedicated to wireless broadband communication and broadcast, IC design, video search and digital imaging technologies. Nufront showed off their “low-power high performance” mini-PC based on their new NuSmart 2816 chipset at ARM Techcon 2010. NuSmart 2816 is based on a dual-core Cortex-A9 @ 2GHz with Mali-400 GPU. They plan to sell the chip for around 30 USD and expect ARM-based mini-PC to sell for around 200 USD retail. You can download NuSmart 2816 Product Brief for further details. As you can see from the diagram below, NS2816 can support all features (Ethernet, Wifi, GPS, USB, I2S Audio, SATA II, MMC/SD support, VGA, HDMI or LCD video output) that are now expected in modern desktops or laptops. Video playback currently uses around 2 Watts (chip samples) and they target 1.5 Watt for video playback in the final release of their chipset […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on Installing Google MarketPlace on Archos Gen8 Devices

Installing Google MarketPlace on Archos Gen8 Devices

Update: Please now use the files and instructions at http://code.google.com/p/archos-apps-installer/ instead of the instructions below. Currently the Archos Gen8 devices (Archos 28, 34, 43, 70 and 101) are only shipped with AppLibs that contains “only” 10,000 applications. I believe it’s because Google requires tablets to be mobile devices (with GSM or 3G capabilities) to fully access Google MarketPlace. But do not despair, since the guys at Archosfans found a way to install Google MarketPlace on the new Archos android tablets and you’ll be able to use an APK file to install the marketplace. Here are the steps: Simply download gApps4Archos.apk here, here or here. (Firmware version before 2.0.54) Copy gApps4Archos.apk file to your Archos disk. Install it by selecting this file using the device file manager Run the installed package and follow the installation steps Bear in mind, that this has been tested on Android 2.1 and it may or […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on ARM Based Embedded Server – Marvell ARMADA XP

ARM Based Embedded Server – Marvell ARMADA XP

A few years ago, nobody would have considered using an embedded system to run a server. But now, with the advance of technology, more and more servers are running embedded systems from the lower end such as home-based NAS (Network Access Storage) to higher-end for data-centers, cloud computing, web 2.0… This is the higher-end that Marvell targets with its Quad Core ARM ARMADA XP MV78460 running at 1.6GHz with “16,600 DMIPS performance at less than 10 watts”. Please checkout Marvell ARMADA XP Product Brief for further details. The main selling point of such solution is the power consumption compared to traditional Intel x86 based servers. According to Marvell, 50% of the cost of running a data-center is the electricity bill to run the server and especially to cool the room with air-conditioners. So let’s do a little exercise. Let’s take the estimated power consumption of Google data-center in Oregon that […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments on Xibo Open Source Digital Signage Tutorial / Demo

Xibo Open Source Digital Signage Tutorial / Demo

This is the second blog entry about Xibo, in case you have missed the first you can read XIBO: An Open Source Digital Signage Server/Client to make yourself familiar with Xibo and learn how to install it in a Windows XP computer. This mini-tutorial follows the instruction in Xibo’s training documentation and Xibo’s Introduction and Basic Operation The video below shows how to create a layout with a background, different zones with videos, images, html pages and an RSS feed and schedule it for a specific Xibo player. Here’s the resulting output in Xibo’s player. (The audio does not match. Since I had some problems during recording, I simply used a background music instead). You can get obtain free backgrounds at the Layout exchange section of Xibo’s website. We used Blue Boxes – 1920×1080 – for the background image of our tutorial. The RSS Feed is http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/114751985.rss from CNXSoft twitter […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on ARM Android Based Rubiks Cube Solver

ARM Android Based Rubiks Cube Solver

David Gilday – a chip designer at ARM – has got two hobbies: Playing Lego and Rubik’s Cube. He must have been tired to turn the sides of the game manually so he designed a robot to solve the Rubik’s Cube within an average of 15 seconds. So here’s how it works: A Robot built with Legos using 6 motors and an Android phone connected to it. He’s using an ARM11 platform running Android (Looks like a Google Nexus One to me). You mix the Rubik’s Cube, place it in the middle of the robot, then it starts.. the smartphone scans all faces of the Rubik’s Cube (with the back camera of the phone), an algorithm calculates the moves (using a 300MB database), then the robot turns the Rubik’s Cube to solve the puzzle and finishes with a nice spin once the 3D-puzzle is solved. The algorithm is written in […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on Samsung Orion ARM Cortex A9 – Nexus S

Samsung Orion ARM Cortex A9 – Nexus S

Samsung recently showed off its dual-core Cortex-A9 Orion featuring quad-core Mali-400 GPU at Techcron 2010. The Samsung Orion (model name: S5PV310XH) will run at 1GHz (this frequency might be increased later on: I’ve read 1.2 GHz, 1.5GHz or even up to 2 GHz.) and use 45nm lower power manufacturing technology. Samsung already have a BSP using Linaro kernel and the development board having the following characteristics: Samsung Orion SoC Low power audio subsystem Embedded GPS 2D Graphics Acceleration TFT 24-bit true color LCD Controller MALI-400 3D Graphics TV-out and HDMI interface support Multi-format codec up to 1080p @ 30fps The device would runs Android on top of Linaro kernel which takes care of all the low level stuffs. If you are interested in developing for this platform, you can already download and play around with Linaro 10.11 which already supports Cortex A8 and A9 platforms. The Samsung Orion is rumored […]