$800 OUYA Development Kit Is Available for Pre-Order

As the OUYA is slowly (but surely?) nearing its launch in March 2013, the OUYA Dev Kit can be pre-ordered for delivery in January 2013. The kit costs $800 and includes an OUYA console, 2 controllers and the ODK ( OUYA Software Development Kit). This devkit is targeted at game developers (Users better just wait the $99 version) who will be able to test their games and apps on OUYA hardware before the official release. The ODK should be available for download and the developer portal launched in December, As a reminder, here are OUYA (updated) specifications: Nvidia Tegra3 quad-core cortex A9 processor 1 GB RAM 8 GB of internal flash storage HDMI port (up to 1080p HD) WiFi 802.11 b/g/n Bluetooth LE 4.0 Ethernet USB 2.0 port Wireless controller with standard controls (two analog sticks, d-pad, eight action buttons, a system button), a touchpad Android 4.1 Jelly Bean If […]

Google Nexus 7 Tablet (8GB) is Now Available Worldwide… for $330

If you do not live in one of the 8 countries where Google Nexus 7 is for sale, namely the US, Canada, the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Australia and Japan [Update: Actually it seems to be officially available in more countries now (e.g. South Kore, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong…) , but I can’t find an exact list], and still want to get your hands on a Nexus 7 tablet, there is now an option as the Google Nexus 7 (8 GB) can be bought via Dealextreme for $330.30 including (slow shipping) via Hong Kong Post. That’s about $100 more expensive than the original price on Google Play ($199 + ~$30 shipping + taxes), but it may be one of the only options, if you don’t live (or have friends) in the countries where Google Devices are available. The Nexus 7 (8 GB) is not for sale anymore on Google Play, […]

Motorola Announces ATRIX HD Smartphone Developer Edition

After 5 months after Motorola ATRIX HD hit the market, Motorola announced it would make a developer edition of the core Qualcomm MSM8960 Snapdragon based smartphone that comes with unlockable bootloader so that developers can play around and install their own firmware. Apparently the ability to unlock the bootloader is the only extra “feature” you get with this phone. You’ll then need to use a tool to unlock the device, lose your warranty, and start creating and flashing custom ROM to your phone. There is no plan to allow this on the “standard” edition of the phone  however, and efforts by the XDA developer community to unlock the bootloader do not appear to have been successful to date, except for some some Atrix HD bought from Ebay which already came unlocked.  Motorola ATRIX HD developer edition will be available soon for an undisclosed price, and only in the US. If […]

TI and AllGo Embedded Launch E-Tab Tablet Reference Design Powered by TI AM3354 Processor

Texas Instruments and Allgo Embedded jointly announced the availability of E-Tab, a tablet reference design based on Cortex A8 Sitara AM3354 processor that targets the healthcare, logistics, retail and education markets as well as hotels and restaurants. Here are the tablet reference designs specifications: Processor –  TI’s AM3354 ARM Cortex-A8 microprocessor (up to 1 GHz) Operating System – Android ICS 4.0 System Memory – 512 MB DDR3 RAM Storage – 512 MB Nand Flash and 4GB Micro SD card Display –  7″ WVGA TFT LCD with 5-Touch Capacitive Touch panel Audio –  Stereo Headphone, Internal MIC and Internal Mono Speaker Connectivity: WiFi 802.11 b/g/n + BT 2.1 Module Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR Ethernet 10/100Mbps (Optional) Camera – Internal USB Camera Module (Optional) USB Interfaces – USB High Speed Host Port and USB OTG (ADB and Debug purpose) Key/Button – Single Button for Back and Home screen, Reset Switch and Power […]

New Features in Android 4.2 Jelly Bean

As Google unveiled Nexus 4 smartphone and Nexus 10 tablet, they also announced Android 4.2, the latest version of Google operating system, that brings the following new features. Photo Sphere Camera Going beyond panoramic photo shots, photo sphere allows you to generate a 360 degrees panorama by taking pictures in all direction, up, down, right and left. Head over Google maps to see a few examples. Keyboard with Gesture Typing You can now just glides over the letters you want to type, and the new improved keyboard will find the word you want to type. The keyboard is also said to be able to anticipate the next word allowing to type a full sentence by just selecting suggested words.  Google also claims text-to-speech capabilities and voice typing have been improved, and you don’t need an internet connection to type with your voice anymore. Multiple User Profiles This is the most […]

Google Unveils LG Nexus 4 Smartphone and Samsung Nexus 10 Tablet Running Android 4.2

Event though it had to cancel the media event due to bad weather, Google made several important announcements yesterday with the LG Nexus 4 Smartphone based on Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 and Samsung Nexus 10 tablet powered by the latest ARM Cortex A15 Exynos 5250 processor. The company also announced Android 4.2 (still called Jelly Bean) which will run on both devices. I’ll provide more details on the new features of the latest version of Android in a separate post. Let’s see what kind of hardware the Nexus 4 has to offer: CPU – Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro @ 1.5 GHz (Quad Core) System Memory  – 2 GB RAM Storage – 8 or 16 GB internal storage Display – 4.7″ IPS display (1280×768) Camera – 8MP rear and 1.3 MP front cameras. Connectivity – Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, NFC (Android Beam) and Bluetooth Mobile Network – Unlocked GSM/UMTS/HSPA+, GSM/EDGE/GPRS (850, 900, 1800, […]

$249 Samsung Exynos 5 (Cortex A15) Arndale Development Board

Samsung has announced the first Cortex A15 development board available for purchase.  Like the Origen board, Arndale development board has been designed by InSignal and features a dual core Exynos 5 (5250) cortex A15 processor @ 1.7 GHz, 2 GB RAM, internal storage via eMMC and plenty of ports. The development kit is composed of a CPU module (Exynos 5 , RAM and PMC) and a baseboard. Here are Arndale development board specifications: CPU Board Exynos 5 [email protected] GHz dual core 2GB 32-bit 800 MHz LPDDR3/LPDDR2 Base Board Sensors Accelerator : Invensence MPU-6050 Gyro : Invensence MPU-6050 e-Compass : AKM -AK8963C Camera Interfaces: ITU 601, MIPI CSI Video Ouput: HDMI 1.4 interface (micro HDMI) 1 channel eDP output Single WQXGA MIPI DSI interface USB: 1x USB3.0 Host 2x USB2.0 Host 1x USB 2.0 OTG SATA 1.0/2.0/3.0 interface 1 channel eMMC 4.5 1 channel SDIO 3.0 2 channel SD 2.0 (microSD slot) 4 channel […]

Linaro 12.10 Release with Linux kernel 3.6 and Android 4.1.2

Linaro release 12.10 has recently been announced, and includes Linux Kernel 3.6.1 and Android 4.1.2. This release provides further improvement to big.LITTLE architecture and Linux can boot on TC2 (A Test Chip with 2 Cortex A15 and 3 Cortex a7 cores) and an ARMv8 (Aarch64) OpenEmbedded community build is now available for download.  Work has also be done on preparing demos for Linaro Connect (29 Oct – 02 Nov) in Copenhagen including a single ARM kernel booting on different boards. Here are the highlights of the release: Android Linaro Android 12.10 has been upgraded to 4.1.1_r6 and then to 4.1.2. Linaro Android builds are now shipped with improved instructions. AOSP Galaxy Nexus builds are available from http://android-build.linaro.org and include DS-5 support. Linaro Android toolchain has been updated to Linaro GCC 2012.10. Dalvik benchmarked against Hard-Float Open JDK and Java SE. Power meter improvements for LAVA automation. Prepared Connect demonstrations benchmarking […]

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