The Linux NFC Subsystem – ELCE 2011

Lauro Ramos Venancio, Instituto Nokia de Tecnologia and Samuel Ortiz, Intel give a presentation about the NFC subsystem in Linux at Embedded Linux Conference Europe 2011. Abstract: NFC (Near Field Communication) is a wireless protocol mostly designed for fast information reading and writing from nearby devices and tags. It also allows NFC devices to establish a transport layer link and exchange larger chunks of data. While Android ships with its own multi platform NFC stack writing HCI frames to a raw character device and supporting one single device, Linux is currently missing any kind of generic and clean NFC support, from both kernel and user space (cnxsoft: Since end of last month, this is not the case as Linux 3.1 supports NFC). Therefore, a new socket family for NFC, along with a kernel netlink API for high level NFC commands passing is being developed. An NFC user space daemon abstracts […]

Yocto Project Release 1.1 Announced

The Linux foundation announced Yocto Project Release 1.1 today. This release codenamed “Edison” and based on Poky 6.0 is the the second release of the project, one year after it was announced in October 2010 to provide developers with greater consistency in the software and tools they’re using across multiple architectures for embedded Linux development. The Yocto Project reached the following milestones during the last year: Alignment of OpenEmbedded technology and the inclusion of OpenEmbedded representation in the Yocto Project governance structure. The projects share a common core that consists of software build recipes and core Linux components that prevent fragmentation and reinforce the OpenEmbedded methodology as an open standard for embedded Linux build systems. Contribution of tools and technologies such as Cross-prelink, EGLIBC, Pseudo, Shoeleather Lab (for automated testing) and Swabber have been contributed from Intel, Mentor Graphics, MontaVista Software and Wind River. Commercial adoption with examples such as […]

Current and Future Intel Atom Processors Promotion Video

Intel upload a new promotion video about the application made possible by Intel Atom processors: home and building management, intelligent displays, retail, IVI, communications devices, digital signage and more. You’ll see applications built around Intel Atome6xx, e6x5c, z6xx as well as future Intel Atom processors using 32nm process (Cedar Trail?) 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

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 […]

Intel Unveils Cedar Trail Atom Processors: N2600, N2800, D2500 and D2700

Intel recently published the Intel® Atom™ Processor D2000 Series and N2000 Series Datasheet (PDF). The D2000 and N2000 Series (Codenamed ” Cedar Trail”) includes four new CPUs targeted at Desktops (D2000 Series) and Netbooks (N2000 Series): Atom N2600 @ 1.86 GHz – Up to 2 GB memory – 42 USD Atom N2800 @ 2.13 GHz – Up to 4 GB memory – 47 USD Atom D2500 @  2.13 GHz- Up to 4 GB memory – 42 USD Atom D2700 @  2.40 Ghz – Up to 4G memory – 52 USD Those processors will be manufactured using 32nm technology and the D2000 series will replace the existing Atom N475 and N455. The CPUs will also feature an integrated GPU  (SGXS45 PowerVR Core)  that supports DirectX 10.1 technology and OpenGL 3.0. The processors will support Blu-Ray 2.0 and resolution up to 1080p (1920×1080) and even 2560×1600 for D2000 series via the DP […]

Embedded MasterClass Conference Schedule in Cambridge, UK

Embeded MasterClass will take place in Cambridge on the 5th of October 2011. This conference will give you the chance to meet with embedded systems engineers from many of the world’s leading vendors and you’ll be able to attend presentations and workshops free of charge. Here’s the presentations’ schedule for the event: Time Stream 1 Stream 2 8.30 – 9.30 Tea/Coffee – Meet the Exhibitors 9.30 – 10.15 1: Leveraging the Performance of Intel® Architectures in low power, fan-less solutions with the latest Intel® Atom™ processor-based platform. Regis Cheval CEng MIET, Intel® Atom™ Platform Application Engineer – Intel 10.30 – 11.15 2: Proving your code quality. Barry Lock – Lauterbach 3: Developing reliable embedded systems using COTS and custom processors. Michael Pont, CEO – TTE Systems 11.15 – 11.45 Coffee and Exhibition 11.45 – 12.30 4: Strategic Research Agenda. Helen Finch – Artemis and Infineon 5: Safely from Conception to […]

Tizen: Linux Based OS with HTML5 Application Programming Interfaces

Earlier this week, the Linux Foundation announced yet another new Linux-based open source operating system for mobile and consumer devices based on Web standards called Tizen. This project is backed by Intel and Samsung who have already been involved with Linux based operating systems before, respectively with MeeGo and Bada. Both companies will be part of the technical steering team. It looks like Tizen will replace Meego overtime. Meego developers blasted the move and posted  angry comments especially in relation to Qt support and the fact that all the previous work put into the project has probably gone to waste. My take is that using HTML5 is probably not such a bad ideas as many applications are currently developed in HTML5/Javascript for Chrome Webstore for example, and it could make porting those to Tizen straightforward. Tizen will support multiple device categories including: Smartphones Tablets Smart TVs Netbooks In-vehicle infotainment devices […]

OpenCL (Open Computing Language) Overview and SDKs

OpenCL (Open Computing Language) is a multi-vendor open standard for general-purpose parallel  programming of heterogeneous systems that include CPUs, GPUs and other processors. OpenCL provides a uniform programming environment for software developers to write efficient, portable code for highperformance compute servers, desktop computer systems and handheld devices. OpenCL standard is managed and defined by the Khronos Group. The latest version (OpenCL 1.1) was ratified by the Khronos Group on the 14th of June 2010 and adds significant functionality for enhanced parallel programming flexibility, functionality and performance including: Host-thread safety, enabling OpenCL commands to be enqueued from multiple host threads. Sub-buffer objects to distribute regions of a buffer across multiple OpenCL devices. User events to enable enqueued OpenCL commands to wait on external events. Event callbacks that can be used to enqueue new OpenCL commands based on event state changes in a non-blocking manner. 3-component vector data types. Global work-offset which […]

UP 7000 x86 SBC