Android Category - Page 357 of 456 - CNX Software

August 9, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Intel Education Tablets Come with a Temperature Probe, a Magnification Lens

Intel has recently announced 2 educational Android 4.x tablets: The 10″ Intel Education Tablet powered by Intel Atom Z2460, and the 7″ Intel Education Tablet based on the newer Intel Atom Z2420. Beside standard features such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, dual cameras, etc…, the tablets also come with items such as a temperature probe, and a snap-on magnification lenses for experimentation, as well as a educational software. The table below adapted from LinuxGizmos lists both tablets’ specifications side-by-side. 10.1″ model 7″ model Processor Intel single-core Atom Z2460 (“Medfield”) @ 1.6GHz Intel single-core Atom Z2420 (“Lexington”) @ 1.2GHz RAM 1G LPDDR2 Flash 16GB eMMC 8GB eMMC + microSD slot Display 1280 x 800 capacitive 5-point touch TFT LCD (16:10) with stylus 1024 x 600 multitouch TFT LCD (16:9) with optional stylus Wireless 802.11b/g/n; Bluetooth 2.1 EDR 802.11b/g/n; Bluetooth 3.0 (optional) Camera 2MP rear; 0.3MP front USB 1x micro USB 2.0 (Type B) […]

August 8, 2013August 8, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

NVIDIA Releases Source Code, Binaries, and Android Build Instructions for the SHIELD Gaming Console

This morning I’ve read bad news for the open source community. Jean-Baptiste Quéru, leader of the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) has decided to quit the project because AOSP cannot run on the latest Nexus 7 as Qualcomm (lawyers) impeded the project, and Google is unable to released factory images or necessary binary drivers for the GPU. But there’s also good news, as Nvidia has just released source code and binaries to allow developers to fully build an Android image for its SHIELD gaming console. If you want to build an image for the latest image available, following the steps below. Get the code

mkdir ~/shield-open-source
cd ~/shield-open-source
repo init -u git://nv-tegra.nvidia.com/manifest/android/binary.git -b rel-roth-ota-1-partner -m secureos/jb_roth.xml
repo sync -j5

mkdir ~/shield-open-source

cd ~/shield-open-source

repo init -u git://nv-tegra.nvidia.com/manifest/android/binary.git -b rel-roth-ota-1-partner -m secureos/jb_roth.xml

repo sync -j5

Build the Android image (Provided you’ve already setup your Linux PC do build AOSP):

cd ~/shield-open-source
export TOP=`pwd`
cd vendor/nvidia/licensed-binaries
./extract-nv-bins.sh
cd $TOP
. build/envsetup.sh
setpaths
lunch thor-userdebug
mp dev

cd ~/shield-open-source

export TOP=`pwd`

cd vendor/nvidia/licensed-binaries

./extract-nv-bins.sh

cd $TOP

. build/envsetup.sh

setpaths

lunch thor-userdebug

mp dev

Done (mp dev took about one hour for my machine). You should now have the required binary images in out/target/product/roth/ directory. Enter fastboot mode before flashing the binaries by one […]

August 8, 2013August 13, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

GizmoSphere vs Minnowboard – AMD and Intel x86 Embedded Boards Comparison

The Gizmo Explorer Kit is an embedded kit based on a development board powered by AMD G-Series G-T40E dual core APU that’s available since the beginning of the year. The Minnowboard is another new x86 embedded board, but this time based on Intel Atom E640 processor. Both cost $199, so a side-by-side comparison might be useful,and GizmoSphere team released a comparison table for both board, and is offering free shipping for the week with “Sharkweek2013”. Let’s have a look. The company only provided the table in image format, so I’ll reproduce it “as is” below, and see if there may be some correction or addition afterwards, the table has been designed by one of the competitors. The parts in yellow are supposed to highlight advantages of the GizmoShpere against the Minnowboard, but they conveniently “forgot” to highlight advantages of the Minnowboard. [Update 13/08/2013 – Gizmo guys have updated their table […]

August 7, 2013August 8, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

Miracast Adapters Coming Up with Mediatek MT8636 SoC

It’s already possible to use Android mini-PCs such as T428 as a Miracast adapters, and we’ve also seen low cost HDMI dongles based on Actions Semi ATV6003 and Rockchip RK2928 that should eventually work as Miracast adapters, and sell for less than $30 retail. But there’s now a new SoC targeting DLNA/Miracast adapter: Mediatek MT8636. I don’t have any details about the SoC itself, but I could find a few Chinese company working on the solutions, and the most common is the one shown below, which can be called W18, SH-18, or WFD-04 depending on the company. The device is said to have the following specifications: SoC – MT8636 highly integrated SOC System Memory – 128MB DDR3 (TBC) Storage – 128 MB Flash (TBC) Wi-Fi – MT7601 WiFi 802.11b/g/n with Wi-Fi direct Video Decode – 1080p H.264 (MPEG-4 AVC) CBP, MP, HP at L1 to 4.1 Audio Decode – LPCM […]

August 6, 2013August 6, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

LinuxCon North America 2013 Schedule

LinuxCon (North America) 2013 will take place on September 16 – 18, 2013 in New Orleans, LA. The event will be co-located with several other conferences: the Linux Plumbers Conference, the Xen Project User Summit, the OpenDaylight Mini-Summit, the Gluster Workshop 2013, the UEFI Plugfest, the Linux Wireless Summit, the Linux Security Summit, and CloudOpen 2013. LinuxCon consists of 3 days of keynotes, and legal, operations, and developers related sessions as well as tutorials and workshops. There will be around 150 sessions and keynotes during those 3 days. I’ve gone through developer sessions and selected one for each time period. Monday, September 16 10:35 – 11:25 – UEFI and Linux by Kirk Bresniker, HP UEFI has become ubiquitous on the PC client systems and is coming up on servers and ARM-based systems, it is becoming the converged firmware infrastructure. UEFI Secure Boot feature has attracted a lot of attention from […]

August 5, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments

MINIX NEO X7Mini vs NEO X7 Android Media Players Comparison

MINIX officially announced their first quad core Android media player, named NEO X7, in early July, and it’s now available for around $140 on sites such as Aliexpress and Geekbuying. More recently, MINIX posted pictures and specifications for MINIX NEO X7mini, a cost down version of MINIX NEO X7. Let’s compare the two. The first (very obvious) difference is the lack of external Wi-Fi antenna on the MINIX X7mini, but that’s not all as shown in the comparison table below. NEO X7 NEO X7mini Processor Quad-Core Cortex A9 Processor (RK3188) Quad-Core Cortex A9 Processor (RK3188) GPU Quad-Core Mali-400MP Quad-Core Mali-400MP System Memory 2GB DDR3 2GB DDR3 Storage 16GB NAND Flash + SD/MMC Card Reader 8GB NAND Flash + SD/MMC Card Reader Connectivity Bluetooth, Ethernet, Dual-Band Wi-Fi (2.4GHz and 5GHz) Bluetooth, Ethernet, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi External Antenna Yes No USB 3 x USB Ports + 1 x OTG 2 x USB Ports […]

August 5, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

MK809III Quad Core Android mini PC May Soon Be Available With 4GB RAM, 16GB Flash

The price of quad core Android mini PCs keeps dropping and MK809III (aka QC802) is now available for just over $60 with Rockchip RK3188 SoC, 2GB RAM, and 8GB flash. The recent price drop is not quite large enough to be newsworthy, but one reader (and commenter) noticed something interesting in one product description. So this seller is apparently able to sell MK809III with 4GB RAM and 16GB Flash. 4GB RAM is probably overkill for Android, but it could be useful for those who want to run Linux. The sellers told him MK809III with 4GB RAM (and 8GB Flash) is available for $75, but the minimum order quantity (MOQ) is 20 pieces. I’ve also contacted the seller myself, and initially was told about the “MOQ 20” requirement, and that both 4GB RAM/8GB flash and 4GB RAM/16GB Flash could be made available. But when I asked about the price and lead […]

August 3, 2013August 3, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

Leadcore Introduces LC1810, LC1811, LC1813, and LC1913 SoCs for Smartphones and Tablets

Mediatek, Rockchip, AllWinner among others are now well-known Chinese ARM SoC manufacturers for tablets, smartphones and set-top boxes. However, you may never have head about Leadcore Technology, a company based in Shanghai with over 1,000 employees, and a subsidiary of Datang Telecom Technology & Industry Group (Another company I had never heard of). The company has “recently” announced two dual core Cortex A9 SoCs for smartphones: LC1810 and lc1811, and two quad core Cortex A7 SoC for tablets: LC1813 and LC1913. LC1810 and LC1811 come with the following features: Dual-core Cortex A9 up to 1.2 GHz MALI-400 MP2 GPU LPDDR2 (both) and DDR3/LPDDR for LC1811 Maximum screen resolution: LC1810 – 1080p LC1811 – 1280×800 (WXGA) 1080p video encode and decode Camera: LC1810 – Up to 20MP LC1811 – Up to 8MP Video Out – HDMI 1.4a, 3D HD Network – GSM + GSM DSDA (Both), TD-HSPA+ (LC1810), and TD-HSPA (LC1811) […]