Linux 3.18 Released

Linus Torvalds released Linux Kernel 3.18 last Sunday: It’s been a quiet week, and the patch from rc7 is tiny, so 3.18 is out. I’d love to say that we’ve figured out the problem that plagues 3.17 for a couple of people, but we haven’t. At the same time, there’s absolutely no point in having everybody else twiddling their thumbs when a couple of people are actively trying to bisect an older issue, so holding up the release just didn’t make sense. Especially since that would just have then held things up entirely over the holiday break. So the merge window for 3.19 is open, and DaveJ will hopefully get his bisection done (or at least narrow things down sufficiently that we have that “Ahaa” moment) over the next week. But in solidarity with Dave (and to make my life easier too 😉 let’s try to avoid introducing any _new_ […]

Yotaphone 2 Smartphone Features an Improved AMOLED + ePaper Dual Display

About two years ago, Yota , a technology company based on Russia, introduced the Yotaphone, an Android smartphone with an innovative dual display solution comprised of a standard color display on the front, and an E-ink display on the back, in order to extend battery life. The idea was interesting, but the phone did not look that great. But with Yotaphone 2, the company upgraded the processor with a Snapdragon 800 processor, a larger 5″ display, and if the back ePaper display looks as crisp and clear in real life as in the picture below, you could have a winner, and copycats will eventually show up. Yotaphone 2 specifications: SoC – Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 quad-core Krait processor @ 2.2 GHz with Adreno System Memory – 2GB RAM Storage – 32GB eMMC Displays Front – 5″ AMOLED touch screen, 1920×1080 resolution,16M colors, 442ppi, with Corning Gorilla glass 3. Rear – 4.7”  […]

Compulab Utilite2 is a Snapdragon 600 Powered mini PC Running Android 4.4 or Ubuntu 14.04

Compulab Utilite is a family of mini PC based on Freescale i.MX6 processors that can run either Android or Ubuntu, and was launched in 2013. The company has now introduced the second generation of Utilite computer with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 quad core Krait 300 processor, with 2GB RAM, eMMC and mSATA storage, and various network connectivity options such as Wi-Fi, Gigabit Ethernet, and Cellular. Utilite2 will be 30% smaller than the original Utilite computer, and twice the performance of the Utilite Pro with I.MX6 quad.  There are two models: Utilite2 4GB, Utilite2 SSD, with the latter adding a 32 GB SSD. Apart from that both models share the same specifications: SoC – Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 APQ8064 quad-core Krait 300 @ 1.7GHz with Adreno 320 GPU compliant with OpenGL ES 1.1 / 2.0 / 3.0 and OpenCL System Memory – 2GB DDR3-1066 Storage – 4GB eMMC, mSATA socket (mini-PCie form-factor, […]

Intrinsyc Introduces Snapdragon 810 Powered Mobile and Tablet MDPs, DragonBoard Development Kit

Intrinsyc has recently announced availability for three development platforms based on Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 ARM Cortex A53/A57 processor, namely a smartphone Mobile Development Platform (MDP), a tablet MDP, and a DragonBoard development kit integration Open-Q 8094 system-on-module, making these one of the first ARM64 development platforms available to individual developers, or at least small software development companies (approved by Qualcomm). All three platforms will run Android 5.0 Lollipop. Intrinsyc Snapdragon 810 MDP Smartphone Intrinsyc MDP/S specifications: SoC – Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 (8994)  64-bit octa-core processor with 4x Cortex A57 cores, 4x Cortex A53 cores, Adreno 430 GPU, and Hexagon V56 DSP System Memory – 3 GB LP-DDR4 Storage – 32 GB eMMC 5.0  micro SD slot (under battery door) Display – 6.17” QHD (2560×1600) 490ppi, 10-finger multi-touch capacitive touchscreen Video Output – micro HDMI type D Audio Headset jack with ANC support 8 microphones (2 analog/ 6 digital) with support […]

Linaro 14.11 Release with Kernel 3.18, Android 5.0, & Ubuntu Utopic. Debian 8.0 Gets ARM64 Port

Linaro 14.11 has been released with Linux kernel 3.18-rc5 (baseline), Linux 3.10.61 & 3.14.25 (LSK, same versions as last month), and Android 4.4.2, 4.4.4, and for the first time Android 5.0 Lollipop. There’s also been some news with regards to Linux desktop distributions, as Ubuntu baseline has been upgraded to Utopic (14.10), and Debian 8.0 (Jessie) will officially support ARM64 with 93% of packages built as of November 5th. Android Lollipop images are said to be built for TC2, Juno, Nexus 7, Nexus 10, and FVP models, but I could not find the images. Finally, it’s the first time I’ve noticed Hisilicon X5HD2 development board with a dual core Cortex A9 processor, but apparently it’s the same as Hi3716cv200. Here are the highlights of this release: Linux Linaro 3.18-rc5-2014.11 updated GATOR to version 5.20 updated topic from Qualcomm LT (include IFC6410 board support) updated integration-linaro-vexpress64 topic by ARM LT (FVP […]

Linaro 14.10 Release with Kernel 3.17 and Android 4.4.4, Debian ARM64 Port Almost Complete

Linaro 14.10 has just been released with Linux kernel 3.17 (baseline), Linux 3.10.54 & 3.14.19 (LSK, same versions as last month), and Android 4.4.2 & 4.4.4. Most of the work is a continuation of previous months working member hardware, and ARM64, but one particularly interesting point is that 90% of Debian packages have been built for ARM64, and the next version of Debian should have an official ARM64 port. Here are the highlights of this release: Linux Linaro 3.17-2014.10 updated linaro-android topic. In particular, CONFIG_IPV6=y is no longer the requirement for linux-linaro tree builds GATOR version 5.19 (same version as in 2014.08 release). gatord is fixed to build for ARMv8. dropped multi_pmu_v2 topic by ARM LT (no longer used) updated topic from Qualcomm LT (include IFC6410 board support) replaced integration-linaro-vexpress topic by integration-linaro-vexpress64. Starting from 2014.10 release, linux-linaro kernel tree will use the mainline support for 32-bit vexpress boards. integration-linaro-vexpress64 […]

Qualcomm Releases Userspace Adreno 320 GPU Drivers for Ubuntu

Qualcomm Developer Network has just sent the October Newsletter by email, and they had some news specific to Ubuntu / Linux support on IFC6410 development board powered by a Snapdragon 600 processor. Firs they link to a guest blog post on Qualcomm website entitled “Video Conferencing on Linux with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 Processor“, where Qualcomm partner eInfochips stated: Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.’s leadership in mobile market with Linux Android support is well established. As the demand for Qualcomm Snapdragon processors, a product of Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., increase in adjacent markets, the need for non-Android Linux support becomes evident. Which is always good to read. The rest of the post blog provides a few more details about their a low-latency (50ms glass-to-glass) video conferencing solution based on OpenEmbedded build with Linaro Linux Kernel, and making use of Qt5, Gstreamer, and Sofia SIP library. Further improvements will be achieved with hardware video […]

Qualcomm Showcases 4K LTE HDMI TV Streaming Dongle

There are now many wireless display adapters supporting Miracast, EZCast, DLNA, Airplay…, and streaming videos from your smartphone to the TV over Wi-Fi in 720p or 1080p resolution. Qualcomm recently unveiled a prototype called “4K Stream Adapter (4SA)” that does about the same but instead support 4K UHD resolution, and allegedly supports LTE thanks to its Qualcomm Snapdragon 800+ processor. According to a PCWorld report, Qualcomm mainly expects the device to be used to stream 4K video captured with a phone to a 4k UHD television, but it might also ending up supporting online video services such as Netflix, and mirroring your mobile device’s display onto the big screen. It’s also said to use a “basic Universal Plug and Play protocol” to connect with other devices, and the company is working to support communication with media apps such as BubbleUPnP, VLC and MXPlayer. Currently 4SA is only a prototype to […]