Android News - Page 263 of 363 - CNX Software

March 4, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

BroadLink SP2 Wi-Fi Smart Socket for iOS and Android Adds Support for Energy Monitoring, Motion Sensing

Broadlink SP1, a low cost Wi-Fi smart socket released last year, allows you to control your electric appliance with your mobile device running iOS or Android. You could turn it on or off, set timers, and so on. An updated model is now available, Broadlink SP2, that adds energy monitoring to the features found in the previous model, to track your historic and live power consumption on your smartphone or tablet, as well as a motion sensor to automatically turn off the lights, for instance, if you are away (Auto Home / Auto Away feature). The hardware specifications are very similar to SP1 except it’s using a case made of polycarbonate plastic instead of ABS, and the device is a bit bigger: Material – PC Wi-Fi – 802.11 b/g/n Power Plug – Three flat-pin plug (Australia type) Voltage – 100~265V @ 50-60 Hz Output Current – 10A Output Power – […]

March 4, 2014March 4, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

$37 GK328 Android mini PC Powered by Rockchip RK3028 Dual Core Processor

Rockchip RK3028 is a low cost dual core Cortex A9 processor pin-to-pin compatible with RK2928 single core Cortex A9, I first heard about at Hong Kong Electronics Fair 2013. It’s now found in a few kids tablets, as well as GK328, an Android 4.2 HDMI TV dongle, that sells for about $37, or a few dollars cheaper than similar AllWinner A20 or Rockchip RK3066 based devices. GK328 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3028 dual core Cortex A9 @ 1.0 GHz with Mali-400 GPU System Memory – 512MB RAM Storage – 4GB NAND flash + microSD card slot Video & Audio Output – HDMI Connectivity – 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi USB – 1x USB HOST 2.0, 1x micro USB OTG, 1x micro USB for power Misc – Fn button (for recovery?) Power – 5V/1A via micro USB port The device runs Android 4.2 and sells with a power adapter, a USB cable, an HDMI […]

March 3, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

$60 MarsBoard RK3066 (Partially) Open Source Hardware Development Board Supports Android & PicUntu

Until now if you wanted a low cost Rockchip development board you’d have to go with Radxa Rock (Quad core RK3188) or WaxBerry Pi2 (Dual core RK3066). Thanks to Haoyu Electronics , the company who made MarsBoard A10, there’s now another option with MarsBoard RK3066 powered by Rockchip RK3066 dual core Cortex A9 SoC with 1 to 2 GB RAM, 4 to 8 GB Flash and lots of ports and expansion connectors. MarsBoard RK3066 is composed of a baseboard (SOM-RK3066) and a computer on module (CM-RK3066) with the following specifications: CM-RK3066 Computer-on-Module: SoC – Rockchip RK3066 dual core ARM Cortex A9 @ 1.6Ghz + Mali-400MP4 GPU System Memory – 1GB DDR3 SDRAM up to 2GB Storage – 4GB Nand Flash & eMMC FLASH Power Management Unit – TPS659102 Misc – TX indicator LED use for debug, Power Indicator LED 10/100M Ethernet PHY – LAN8720A SOM-RK3066 Baseboard: Storage – micro SD […]

March 3, 2014March 3, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Linaro Connect Asia 2014 Opening Keynote – Status and Future of ARMv8 Linux & Android [Video]

Linaro Connect Asia 2014 has just started in Macau today and will take place until Friday. You can follow the sessions live and/or their recordings via Linaro OnAir YouTube Channel. I’ve watched the opening keynote, and embedded the video at the bottom of this post. The keynote focuses on ARMv8 for Linux and Android on servers, mobile devices, digital home, and more, and involves two main speakers: George Grey, Linaro CEO , and Jon Masters, Chief ARM Architecture at Red Hat. The speaker beginning of the video provides some practical information and the schedule for Linaro Connect. The keynote itself really starts around 15:50 with George Grey who spends the first 10 minutes introducing the latest Linaro members: Qualcomm, Mediatek, ZTE, AllWinner and Comcast. He then talks about the new Mobile sub-committee (MOBSCOM) that will focus on big.LITTLE, Android optimization and Android on ARMv8, as well as the soon-to-be-announced Linaro […]

March 2, 2014March 2, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

Yeelight Blue and Yeelight Sunflower Bluetooth Low Energy and Zigbee Smart Light Bulbs for iOS and Android

When it comes Smart light bulbs, which can be dimmed and made to change color, the most popular product must be Philips Hue, using the Zigbee protocol, which you can control via iOS and Android devices though a Zigbee gateway, and costs about $60 on Amazon. Alternative have started to show up such as iLumi Bulbs, with Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy (BLE) technology, that you can control with recent iOS and Android 4.3+ device without the need for a gateway, but with a price starting at $89. If you’re looking for cheaper alternatives, you’d have to turn to Chinese companies such as Yeelight which provides both Bluetooth LE and Zigbee light bulbs, respectively called Yeelight Blue and Yeelight Sunflower. Yeelight Blue does not require a gateway, but you’ll need a smartphone or tablet that supports Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy. Recent iOS 5.0+ devices should support it. If your Android device […]

February 28, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Linaro 14.02 Release with Linux Kernel 3.14 and Android 4.4.2

Linaro 14.02 has just been released with Linux Kernel 3.14-rc3 (baseline), Linux Kernel 3.10.30 (LSK), and Android 4.4.2 r2. There are been a lot of patches for Linaro members boards, and including the latest GTS big.LITTLE processing patch, as well as speeds up to Android 4.4 performance. There’s also a Linux image (password protected) for Huawei D01 board with a 16-core ARM Cortex A15 @ 1.5 GHz SoC with up to 64 GB memory, that must be an unannounced SoC for base stations or other network equipment. This month Linaro also made two important announcements: Qualcomm is now a Linaro member, and the Linaro Security Working Group (SWG) has been setup to develop open source secure software for the ARM architecture. The first projects will be reference implementations of the W3C Embedded Media Extension (EME), and secure boot for the 64-bit ARM Cortex-A series processors. They’ll also work on security […]

February 26, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 14 Comments

Livefan F3C Intel Baytrail-T Z3740D Tablet Running Windows 8.1 or “MS-DOS” Sells for $324 and Up

It’s now pretty difficult to find an Intel Bay Trail Z3740 or Z3770 running anything else than Windows 8.x, and even if you just want to try running a Linux distribution or Android on the device, you’d still have to pay around $60 for the Windows license. There’s now a solution thanks to Geekbuying which sells Live F3C tablet with Windows 8.1 for $382.99, and with “MS-DOS”, probably FreeDOS, for just $323.99. Livefan F3C specifications: SoC – Intel Baytrail-T Z3740D quad core processor @ 1.33 GHz (Turbo freq. : 1.8GHz) System Memory – 2GB DDR3 Storage – 32 GB NAND Flash + microSD card slot Display – 10.1″ IPS Capacitive touch screen (1280×800) Video Output – mini HDMI Audio – Built in stereo speakers and microphone. 3.5 mm earphone jack Camera – Dual Camera, 2.0MP+2.0MP Connectivity – Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, and Bluetooth 4.0. 3G via USB dongle. USB – […]

February 25, 2014February 25, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

$65 Cheerlink B712 and B716 Android Media Players Powered by Actions Semi ATM7029

Actions Semi ATM7029 is a quad core ARM Cortex A5 class SoC usually found in low cost Android tablets. A manufacturer, which might be Egotronics, has decided to make Android STBs with the processor, and B712 and B716 are now sold for about $65 on dx.com under the brand Cheerlink. This price should make them one of the cheapest full size quad core Android TV boxes on the market, albeit with much lower performance compared to devices based on Rockchip RK3188 or AllWinner A31. Cheerlink B712/B716 specifications: SoC – Actions Semi ATM7029 Quad Core ARM Cortex A5 @ 1.2 GHz with Vivante GC1000 Plus GPU System Memory – 1GB SDRAM DDR3 (512MB as an option) Storage – 4 GB NAND Flash (8GB/16GB as options) + microSD slot up to 32GB Video & Audio Output – HDMI 1.4A, AV (3.5mm jack) Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi USB – 2x […]