Android

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments on 96Boards Hikey Development Board is Now Officially Supported in AOSP

96Boards Hikey Development Board is Now Officially Supported in AOSP

Hikey is a one of the first 96Boards compliant development board manufactured by either LeMaker in China and CircuitCo in the US, and while the hardware requirements of 96Boards specifications are rather easy to meet, the software requirements including “bootloader (open source), accelerated graphics support (binary or open source), a Linux kernel buildable from source code based from mainline, or the latest Google-supported Android kernel version” are much harder to comply with. Linaro had a very good news for Linaro Connect Bangkok as they announced Hikey board was supported in Android Open Source Project (AOSP). So that means Hikey board will run the latest version of Android like Google Nexus devices, with the advantage of also getting more recent devices. If you want to build an Android image from AOSP just retrieve the source code:

Grab & extract vendors binaries for Hikey from Google.com. and complete the build:

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Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments on Unuiga S905 TV Box Runs Remix OS 2.0 on Amlogic S905 Processor (Crowdfunding)

Unuiga S905 TV Box Runs Remix OS 2.0 on Amlogic S905 Processor (Crowdfunding)

There are many Android TV boxes based on Amlogic S905 processor on the market selling for as low as $40 shipped, and hardware-wise Unuiga S905 and S905+ TV boxes look quite similar to their competitors with respectively 1GB RAM and 16GB flash, and 2GB RAM and 32GB flash, but the main differentiating factor is official support for Remix OS 2.0. Unuiga S905 and S905+ specifications: SoC –  Amlogic S905 quad core ARM Cortex-A53 @ up to 2.0GHz with  penta-core Mali-450MP GPU System Memory – S905: 1GB RAM; S905+: 2GB RAM Storage – micro SD slot; S905: 16GB flash, S905+: 32GB flash Video Output – HDMI 2.0, AV Audio – HDMI, AV, coaxial S/PDIF Connectivity Gigabit Ethernet WiFi – S905: 802.11 b/g/n; S905+: dual band 802.11 b/g/n/ac Bluetooth 4.1 (according to comment on YouTube) USB – 2x USB 2.0 host ports Misc – IR receiver, touch button for power on/off and […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 14 Comments on BeagleBone Enhanced Adds Gigabit Ethernet, More Memory & USB Ports, and Sensors (Crowdfunding)

BeagleBone Enhanced Adds Gigabit Ethernet, More Memory & USB Ports, and Sensors (Crowdfunding)

It’s nice to see BeagleBone Black‘s open source hardware  being leveraged by third parties, as we’ve already seen designs such as BeagleBone Green and BeagleBone Black Industrial 4G in the past, and now UK based SanCloud has decided to launch BeagleBone Enhanced on Indiegogo (flexible funding). BeagleBone Enhanced board specifications with bold highlights showing improvements over the BeagleBone Black Rev. C: SoC – Texas Instruments Sitara AM3358 Cortex A8 @ 1 GHz + PowerVR SGX530 GPU System Memory – 1GB DDR3 RAM @ 800 MHz Storage – 4GB eMMC flash + micro SD slot, optional 1MB SPI NOR flash USB – 2x USB 2.0 host port (A type), mini USB OTG port, 2x USB interfaces via expansion header Serial Port – UART0 via 3.3V TTL header Ethernet – Gigabit Ethernet Video Output – micro HDMI with EDID support, up to 1280×1024 resolution. Audio Output – Via HDMI Sensors Optional 6 […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments on Android N Developer Preview Released with Multi-Window Support, PiP, Background Apps Optimizations…

Android N Developer Preview Released with Multi-Window Support, PiP, Background Apps Optimizations…

Google has just released an early developer preview of Android 7.0 N (Nutella?) before the OS officially launched later this summer with new features such s multi-window support, TV recording,  Picture-in-picture, bundled notifications, and efficiency improvements. So let’s have a look at some of improvements: Multi-window – A new manifest attribute called android:resizableActivity is available for apps targeting N and beyond, allowing your activity to be launched in split-screen modes on phones and tablets. In addition, activities can also go into picture-in-picture mode on devices like TVs by setting android:supportsPictureInPicture to true. Direct reply notifications: Initially an Android Wear only features, the RemoteInput notification API has now been added for smartphones and tablets, and allows user to reply directly within the notification shade. Bundled notifications – The Notification.Builder.setGroup() method can be used to bundle notifications from the same app together. Efficiency Improvements – Doze has been further improved to save […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 24 Comments on Amlogic 2016 Roadmap Reveals Upcoming S905D Processor, Android 6.0 for Amlogic S905 and S912 SoCs

Amlogic 2016 Roadmap Reveals Upcoming S905D Processor, Android 6.0 for Amlogic S905 and S912 SoCs

A new Amlogic roadmap reveals the company will release at least three new processors this year: Amlogic S905X, Amlogic S912 and Amlogic S905D all based on four to eight ARM Cortex A53 cores, and that Android 6.0 support is coming to Amlogic S905 X/D and S912 processors. Since the processors are in development, there are always some tweaks and new information about the specifications, as now Amlogic S905X and S912 quad and octa core processors will be clocked at 2.0 GHz (instead of just 1.5GHz as previously reported), and S905X will support 2-layer PCB, while all other recent Amlogic processors require 4-layer, which promises some very cheap 4K TV boxes with H.265 and VP9 support. Amlogic S912 will apparently not support USB 3.x since the new document only shows 3x USB 2.0 interfaces for the SoC. Amlogic S905D is similar to S905X except it supports Gigabit Ethernet (RGMII), TS video […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 23 Comments on 10-bit H.264 and H.265 Video Playback in MXQ-4K Rockchip RK3229 TV Box

10-bit H.264 and H.265 Video Playback in MXQ-4K Rockchip RK3229 TV Box

Rockchip RK3229 is an exciting media processor because it’s found in ultra low cost TV Boxes such as MXQ-4K, outputs up to 4K @ 60 Hz, and supports 4K video decoding of 10-bit H.264, 10-bit H.265 and VP9, including videos with very high bitrates (200+ Mbps). That’s the theory, which I’ve put to the test with MXQ-4K TV box. Since the network interfaces of the device are limited to 100M Ethernet and 802.11n WiFi, and some videos are well above 100 Mbps, I’ve decided to test video playback from a USB hard drive instead. I’ve tried the three pre-installed video player apps: Kodi 15.1, “Video”, and “Video Player” , and they all have similar capabilities except Kodi is a little less stable on this device. The system detected my 4K TV (LG ) and automatically set the resolution to 3840×2160 @ 60 Hz, which I used for the remainder of […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 28 Comments on WeTek Hub Android & OpenELEC TV Box Features Amlogic S905-H Revision C Processor

WeTek Hub Android & OpenELEC TV Box Features Amlogic S905-H Revision C Processor

WeTek has been working not on one, but two four new devices recently. I’ve already covered WeTek Play 2S (previously known as WeTek Play+) based on Amlogic S905 Rev. C , running Android 5.1 or OpenELEC, and featuring digital TV tuners (ATSC, DVB-S2, DVB-T2/C), which should become available in Q2 2016. The company has unveiled another model called WeTek Hub with features closer to the ones found in other Amlogic S905 TV boxes I’ve reviewed so far, except it is based on Amlogic S905-H revision C,  comes with Widewine and Microsoft PlayReady DRM, and supports both Android 5.1.1 and OpenELEC. WeTek Hub specifications: SoC –  Amlogic S905-H revision C quad core ARM Cortex-A53 @ up to 2.0GHz with penta-core Mali-450MP GPU @ 750 MHz System Memory – 1 GB DDR3 Storage – 8 GB eMMC flash + micro SD card slot Video & Audio Output – HDMI 2.0 up to […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 20 Comments on How to Resize Partitions and Update Firmware in MXQ-4K TV Box (Rockchip RK3229)

How to Resize Partitions and Update Firmware in MXQ-4K TV Box (Rockchip RK3229)

Since I’ve received MXQ-4K Android TV box yesterday, I have started to play with it, and so far I can’t say I’m impressed, as while the device automatically detected the maximum resolution (3840×2160 @ 60 Hz) for my television, I could not play any of my 4K samples smoothly with either the pre-installed Kodi 15.2, Video and Video Player apps, there’s no power off mode (only standby), and the “internal partition” is only 0.96GB large which can quickly become an issue if you plan on installing several apps. Since GeekBuying has released the stock firmware, I decided to try to adapt the method to resize the partitions for GeekBox (RK3368) to MXQ-4K. Rockchip RK3229 Firmware Modding I’ve used a computer running Ubuntu 14.04, and assume you have most tools pre-installed. The first step is to download the firmware (MXQ-4K_ota_ok_20160127.img update.img), and install the tools to extract it :

The […]

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