Texas Instruments OMAP 4 / OMAP 5 Update at ARM Techcon 2011

Katie Morgan interviews Brian Carlson, OMAP Product Line Manager – TI, at ARM Techcon 2011. They talk about current products using OMAP4 such as the Amazon Kindle Fire, Motorola Bionic, Motorola Razr and Toshiba AT200. Then they discuss about OMAP 5. Brian explains that OMAP 5 is an extension of OMAP 4 so that once you write software for OMAP 4 it will run on OMAP 5, so the transition is very easy. Products using OMAP 5 will start shipping end of 2012, beginning of 2013. They also talked about the new Cortex-A7 and big.LITTLE processing, but it seems there is no formal announcement from TI on the matter, right now. Finally, they showed two demos: an OMAP4 platform streaming 1080p video stream from Netflix and an augmented reality demo where you show a picture to the camera to start a video on the phone. Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)Jean-Luc started CNX […]

Archos 80/101 G9 Firmware Version 3.2.6.1 Released

Archos has just released a new firmware for Archos 80 G9 / 101 G9. The most important fix is for Android Marketplace that did not work properly for everybody. Here’s the changelog: Version 3.2.61 – October 21st, 2011 Google apps: new Honeycomb release 4 integrated. It contains the new Market (v3.1.7) that solves the issue of some Google accounts not being able to install applications. Power save: disable 3G USB host port by default Power: fix device sometimes not rebooting properly MTP: fix Video folder listed empty from host PC happening sometimes Audio: better volume management when a notification occurs during music playback Input method: disable switch to Arabic keyboard when Android default keyboard gets killed The firmware can be downloaded at http://update.archos.com/9/gen9/gen9_3.2.61/firmware_archos_it4.aos 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, […]

Galaxy Nexus Promotion Video

After Google / Samsung Galaxy Nexus  and Android 4.0 Presentation this morning, here’s the Galaxy Nexus Promotion Video. 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. www.cnx-software.com

Google and Samsung Galaxy Nexus Android 4.0 Smartphone

Samsung and Google jointly announced the very first Android 4.0 (ICS) smartphone in Hong Kong. They did not get too original to name the device. Remember the Nexus S and Galaxy S series? Well, the smartphone is named Galaxy Nexus. The phone features a dual-core Texas Instruments OMAP4460 processor, a 4.65″ super AMOLED plus display (1280×720),  LTE/HSPA+ network support, 1080p video recoding, NFC, barometer and more. It will be sold in the US, Europe and Asia (including Japan and China) in November. After Samsung showcased the smartphone, Google presented the new Android 4.0 (ICS). 3 Design principles: Beautiful: Enchant me Easy: Simplify my life Powerful and Smart Here are the main points I gatherer of Android 4 presentation: The new UI uses the Roboto font. They removed the physical buttons on the smartphone. Everything is now done with gestures. It looks like Honeycomb for smartphone with stacks and widgets. Widgets […]

Archos G9 GPL Source Code

Archos has released the GPL source code for the Archos G9 Tablets on their Gitorious account. This is obviously the same source code for Archos 80 G9 and Archos 101 G9. There are two git repositories for the G9: archos-gpl-gen9 – Archos generation 9 GPL release archos-gpl-gen9-kernel – Archos generation 9 GPL linux kernel 2.6 release The GPL “userspace” source code is divided into 4 directories: buildroot – Buildroot to generate a cross-compilation toolchain, a root filesystem, a kernel image and a bootloader image. hardware – Direcotory containing hardware related source: WL1283 “Wlan” Driver (WiLink 7.0 single-chip WLAN, GPS, Bluetooth and FM solution) packages: libf2m – Library to convert flash videos (FLV) to AVI, MOV or MP4 libmms – Library for streaming video/audio with mmst / mmsh protocols external- Utilities and libraries (Bold indicates external sw not released/used with Archos G8 Source Code) alsa-lib – Audio library alsa-utils – Audio […]

Variscite System On Module based on TI OMAP4460

Variscite – an Israeli company specialized in embedded systems manufacturing, development and consulting – announced the VAR-SOM-OM44 system on module (SOM) based on TI OMAP4460 processor (dual core Cortex-A9 cores @ 1.2 ~ 1.5GHz). This SOM features 512MB of DDR2 SDRAM and a microSD socket, I/O including gigabit Ethernet, USB 2.0, 3D camera, and HDMI. Variscite also announced  the VAR-OM44CustomBoard, a development board that can be customized to match specific customers requirement as well as the VAR-DVK-OM44, a complete development kit with touchscreen for evaluation and application development purposes. Here are the VAR-SOM-OM44 SOM specifications: CPU: Texas Instruments OMAP4460 Processor (1.2GHz – 1.5GHz) dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore GPU: PowerVR™ SGX540 graphics core @384MHz Memory: 512-1024MB 400MHz LPDDR2 Built-In micro-SD Socket Display: LCD interface – Supporting 24bpp resolutions up to WXGA HDMI interface – Supporting 1080p 4-wire touch screen panel interface Audio: Line-in Stereo Headphone out Digital microphone S/PDIF Out Network: 10/100/1000Mbps […]

Embedded Linux Conference Europe 2011

Embedded Linux Conference Europe (ELC-E 2011) will take place on October 26 – 28, 2011 at Clarion Congress Hotel in Prague, Czech Republic. The event will be co-located with LinuxCon Europe 2011 and GStreamer Conference. The day before the official opening of the conference, two tutorials will be offered on Tuesday 25th of October:b Outside the Box: An Introduction to Embedded Linux and Hardware Interfacing Using the Snowball Board – 9:00 – 17:00 – Trainer: Chris Simmonds – Cost: 350 USD. Embedded Android Workshop – 9:00 – 17:00 – Trainer: Karim Yaghmour- Cost: 300 USD. ELCE consists of 3 days of presentations, tutorials and sessions. There will be over 50 sessions during those 3 days. I’ll highlight a few sessions that I find particularly interesting. October 26 10:45 – 11:45 – Linaro’s Android Platform by Zach Pfeffer, Linaro Android Platform team leader. Linaro uses components from the Android Open Source […]

Linaro 11.09 Release with Linux Kernel 3.0.4

Linaro has just released version 11.09 based on Linux Kernel 3.0.4. Here are the highlights of the release: Android Ethernet Configuration Manager from the x86 Android project is now available in all builds. Ethernet now works on Panda, Staging Panda, Beagle, Beagle xM, Staging Snowball. QA on all boards for the 11.09 Linaro Android Builds. Daily builds of Android toolchain against gcc-linaro bzr repository is provided. Android is now compiled with GCC4.6 with -O3. Busybox is built from source in all Android builds. glmark2 added to all the official builds for Android. Powertop is now available on Android. Linaro’s 11.09 toolchain has been benchmarked. All Android builds are running with the 11.09 toolchain. The MLO that Panda and Staging Panda uses for Android uses gets built from source from the upstream git. An OMAP4460 Android build is available from android-build. Panda supports Bluetooth. Panda supports Wi-Fi. Snowball Android A-release from […]