Linaro 12.04 Release with Kernel 3.4 and Android 4.0.4

Linaro has just released version 12.04 based on Linux Kernel 3.4-rc3 and Android 4.0.4_r1.1. This release already provides Ubuntu 12.04 LTS images for Pandaboard, Snowball, Origen and Versatile Express, and all community builds (nano, ALIP…) are based on Ubuntu Precise Pangolin as well. This should provide significant performance boosted compared to Ubuntu 11.10 thanks to hard-float support and other optimization (See Phoronix Benchmarks). A lot of work since to have gone into big.LITTLE implementation, HTML5 is now supported in Firefox, and it seems Linaro is still working on ARMv6 as they provided VP8 optimizations and improved the toolchain for this architecture. Here are the highlights of the release: Android Finished Snowball Multimedia enablement. Updated all builds to AOSP ICS 4.0.4_r1.1. Switched all builds to 4.7. Updated base toolchain components MPFR and GMP. Ported htop to Android. Ported stressapptest to Android for big.LITTLE Testing. Implemented and ran weekly big.LITTLE tests. Integrated […]

Olimex A13-OLinuXino Could Become a Proper Raspberry Pi Alternative

Olimex recently announced they produced the first 10 prototypes of iMX233-OLinuXino Development Board, a low-end Linux development board that will cost 30 Euros, with specifications inferior to the Raspberry Pi. They have now announced their plan to design A13-OLinuxXino development board based on the new AllWinner A13 chipset, a strip down version of AllWinner A10 without HDMI nor SATA. Thanks to the low cost of AllWinner A13 (5 USD for very large orders / 10 USD in smaller quantities), Olimex plans to sell the new A13-OLinuxXino board for the same price as the iMX233-OLinuXino but with a faster 1GHz Cortex A8 processor and 256 or 512 MB RAM. I assume their will be 2 versions as well, the MINI for 29,95 Euros and the MAXI version with 2 more USB 2.0 host ports and 10/100Mbit Ethernet for 44.95 Euros. This board could be a very interesting alternative to the Raspberry […]

199 USD iWave Systems Freescale i.MX508 RainboW-G13S Development Board

iWave Systems has just uploaded a new video of its new Freescale .i.MX508 low cost development board RainboW-G13S Quick Start Board, an alternative to the original Freescale i.MX53 QSB. This board targets the development of eReaders, industrial kiosks, home/industrial/office automation, portable medical devices and appliance control applications. Here are the specifications of this development board: CPU – Freescale i.MX508 processor  (Cortex A8) @ 800MHz System Memory – 256MB LPDDR2 Storage – 2/4 GB micro SD card loaded with boot code and Linux, 4MB SPI Flash (optional) and 8 GB eMMC (optional) Connectivity – 10/100Mbps Ethernet USB – Micro USB 2.0 Device port, 2x USB 2.0 Host Type A port Standard SD port for SDIO expansions Video Output – VGA Audio – Audio IN & OUT port Debug Ports –  DB9 Debug Serial port &  JTAG connector Expansion connector port for EPD & LCD expansion. The company provides Board Support Packages […]

Ziilabs MandelMark Benchmark Shows ZMS-40 GPU Compute Performance is 18 Times Faster than Nvidia Tegra 3

Ziilabs released comparative GPU compute benchmark results for its ZMS-40 stem cells processor and made available its MandelMark floating point benchmark for Android 4.0 as an apk file. Since Ziilabs is using its own benchmark tool, which they released as a binary but did not open source, the results should be taken with a grain of salt. GPU Compute (aka GPGPU – General Purpose computing on GPU) is a technique to use the GPU to perform complex calculations usually performed by the CPU. MandelMark benchmark visualizes the solutions to the Mandelbrot to measure the floating point performance of mobile processors. Ziilabs compared their ZMS-40 Quad Core Cortex A9 processor with 96 stemcell cores to the following competitors: IPAD 3 – Apple A5X processor with a quad-core PowerVR SGX543MP4 GPU Galaxy Tab 7+ – Samsung Exynos 4210 processor with a quad-core ARM Mali-400 GPU Galaxy Nexus – TI OMAP 4460 processor […]

Sunlike UMPC-1021: 85 USD AllWinner A10 Based 10.2″ Android 4.0 Netbook

Sunlike, a Shenzhen-based manufacturer, showcased their UMPC-1021 Android 4.0 netbook at the China sourcing fair last week. This netbook is powered by an AllWinner A10 (ARM Cortex A8) processor with 1GB RAM and 4GB flash and features a 10.2″ LCD display (but not a touchscreen), a 1.3MP front camera and a 2100mAh battery. Here are the specifications of Sunlike UMPC-1021 Android netbook. CPU AllWinner A10 @ 1.2 GHz Operation system Android 4.0 ICS or WinCE Memory 1G RAM Storage Device 2/4/8G NAND Flash LCD 10.2″ PANEL 16:9 wide screen. 1024×600 Resolution LAN 10/100M Ethernet WIFI 802.11b/g USB Port 3x USB 2.0 Host External Storage SD Card Slot Build-in camera 1.3 MPixel Audio Build-in stereo speaker Microphone Dimensions 280 x 189 x 25 mm Battery 7.4V 2100 mAh – 3 to 5 hours usage The company also explains that this netbook can be used for 5 hours with the “default” 2,100 mAh battery, but they can extend that to 10 hours with a 4,000 mAh battery. Watch the video below to see […]

Texas Instruments Releases Android 4.0.3 DevKit for Beagleboard-XM and Beaglebone

After collaborating with arowboat, android-porting and Linaro communities, Texas Instruments has released Android 4.0.3 development kits for Sitara microprocessors which support Beagleboard-XM (Sitara DM3730) and Beaglebone (Sitara AM335x) low cost development boards, as well as other Sitara-based evaluation modules and development boards. Android 4.0.3 Devkit for Beaglebone If you have a Beaglebone (and an LCD or DVI-D cape), you can use TI Android ICS 4.0.3 DevKit v3.0.1, a release providing an Android ICS 4.0.3 distribution for TI’s Sitara AM335x ARM Cortex A8 Processors. This DevKit provides Android sources with pre-integrated SGX (3D graphics accelerator) drivers, TI hardware abstraction for Audio, WLAN & Bluetooth for TI WL1271 chipset, USB mass storage, etc, as well as development and debugging tools such as a toolchain, TI CCSv5, ADT plugins and more, which are provided to build custom Android solutions for the embedded market more easily. The pre-built images includes Android default apps, multimedia […]

Nakamichi Android VoIP Phone at Hong Kong Electronics Fair 2012

M3 Electronics (HK) showcased an Android VoIP phone they designed for Nakamichi at HKTDC Electronics Fair on April 13-16, 2012. The current model based on Rockchip RK2818 (Cortex A8) features a 7″ resistive touchscreen and a camera for video conferencing and runs a customized version of Android. This VoIP phone is especially targeted at home use as it offers multimedia functions such as Internet Radio, music playback and YouTube, as well as Calendar and Contact applications.  You can make calls via PSTN or Internet (e.g. Skype or some SIP clients). Nakamichi VoIP phone currently sells in Europe and the US for 259 USD, and should be sold in China via China Telecom this year. A new model of the phone powered by Freescale i.MX535 is currently designed with a capacitive touchscreen and a 5 MPixel camera, USB host port for external storage and HDMI output. This VoIP phone can also […]

Rockchip Unveils RK3066 Dual Core Cortex A9 Processor

Rockchip announced the RK3066 processor featuring a dual core Cortex A9 with a quad-core Mali-400 GPU and the company is currently showcasing tablets, e-Readers and set-top boxes powered by RK3066 at Hong Kong Electronics Fair on 13-16 April, 2012. Information is sparse, but I managed to find more information on Engadget China website which shows the key features of RK3066: Dual Core A9 + Quad Core GPU 2 banks, 8/16 bit Nor flash / SRAM interface 8 banks, 8/16 bit async NAND flash, LBA NAND flash and 8-bit sync ONFI NAND flash, all up to 60-bit hardware ECC 2 GB space for 2 ranks, 16-bit / 32-bit DDR3-800, LPDDR2-800 and LVDDR3-800 3 channels SD/MMC interface to support MMC 4.1 and SD3.0 2 channels TFT LCD interface with 5 layers and 3D display with resolution up to 1920×1080 HDMI 1.4 to support 1080p@30 3D video 2 channels 8-bit CCiR656 interface and […]

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