Renault R-Link In-Vehicle Infotainment System

During LeWeb 11 exhibition, Renault announced the R-Link, a 7″ touchscreen tablet that will equip Renault’s cars starting with the Zoe Electric car and the new Clio (Clio 4) in 2012 for a cost of between 500 to 1000 Euros. The R-Link features a 7″ resistive touchscreen display and comes with steering wheel-mounted controls and speech recognition to make sure the driver keeps an eye on the road. This tablet is said to be running a modified version version of Android 2.2 on a Texas Instruments ARM Cortex A8 processor clocked at 800 Mhz. Renault says the R-Link covers all the car’s functions and data while offering access to a menu of useful and community applications already available on Smartphone such as Tom Tom GPS, Emails, an application finding available parking (Apila),  public transport routes (Metro), multimedia applications to play music & video and display picture… At the time of its […]

Ubuntu Smartphone and Television UI Mockups

Ubuntu developers announced they wanted to port their OS beyond desktop by 2014, and would like to use it on smartphones, tablets and televisions. Following the announcement, the community has made a few mockup. Here are a few samples: Unity Mobil Mockup by JMMING: I quite like this design (Samsung Nexus Series U) similar to Android with the Ubuntu theme. My Ubuntu Phone by Musl1m: muls1m mockup is also based an icon grid, but keeps the Ubuntu icon bar on the left.  Ubuntu with mobile Unity by ginjaninja405 This mockup is similar to the one above, but the icon bar can be located either to the left or to the right, and  the bottom image shows phone related notifications such as missed phone calls, SMS and Facebook messages and notifications. There are also other interesting Ubuntu smartphones mockup, including a full phone design (casing + UI) based on Ubuntu theme. If […]

Metaio Releases Mobile Augmented Reality SDK

Yesterday Qualcomm released QCAR SDK 1.5 Beta, and today Metaio announces its Mobile SDK 3.0 for augmented reality application development on Android and iOS. The metaio Mobile SDK brings with it patented gravity-awareness and visual tracking technology for 2D and 3D objects, now three times more robust than the previous version. These features combined will ensure AR experiences that are more natural, more intuitive, and more realistic, says the company. Metaio recently announced formal collaborations with ARM, ST-Ericsson and Texas Instruments to fully take advantage of the GPU hardware provided by those companies and the Mobile SDK is optimized for ARM Mali GPU (both graphics and compute), ST Ericsson Nova and NovaThor mobile processors and TI OMAP processors. The metaio Mobile SDK also includes its own 3D rendering engine – now with advanced shader support – and a plugin to make use of Unity3D (3D game engine). You can watch […]

Demo of Archos 101 G9 Turbo 1.5Ghz Powered by OMAP4460

After Android ICS Preview on Archos G9, Charbax has uploaded another video showing the new Archos 101 G9 Turbo with TI OMAP4460 clocked at 1.5GHz running Android 3.2 (Honeycomb) and comparing it to the Archos 101 G9 Classic (OMAP4430 @ 1.2 GHz). The quadrant score is about 38% percent faster for the Turbo version (2176) compared to the Classic version (1576). He then does some side by side web browser benchmark comparison between the Archos 101 G9 Classic and Turbo and the Turbo version appears to be much faster. However, the web browser tests were done with sites hosted on the internet (amazon and cnn sites), so there are a quite of lot of factors than can affect the loading times and these types of benchmark are better performed in the local network. Archos plans to release the Turbo version (at 1.5Ghz) in January 2012 for a recommend retail price […]

Qualcomm Releases Augmented Reality SDK 1.5 Beta for Android

Qualcomm has just announced the availability of QCAR SDK version 1.5 Beta 1 for Android. is now available for download. The Key features and improvements in this version of the QCAR SDK include: Video background texture access: The SDK now provides a simple and streamlined way of accessing the video background texture. Developers can now write custom special effects using powerful shaders resulting in far more exciting application experiences. Swapping datasets at runtime: If your app needs to augment more than 60 images, you can now create multiple datasets – using the web-based Target Management System (My Trackables tool)- and load the appropriate dataset at runtime. You no longer have to upgrade your app to change the target dataset, and you can now build AR experiences that work on a large number of images. Improved tracking performance: The new SDK features several enhancements that reduce jitter in the augmentations, speed […]

Use Your Desktop Computer to Control Your Android Device

AirDroid is a free application that allow you to control your Android smartphone (or tablet) with your computer via WiFi. You simply need to install the app on your smartphone and to connect to the interface with your desktop web browser. You’ll then be able to manage your files, pictures, contacts.. or send SMS with your computer keyboard. You can watch the video below for an overview of AirDroid features: You can download this application at http://market.android.com/details?id=com.sand.airdroid 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

99 USD Android 4.0 Tablet (Novo 7) Powered By MIPS Processor

MIPS has just announced the Novo 7 a low cost Android ICS tablet powered by Ingenic’s JZ4770 mobile applications processor that leverages a MIPS-BasedTM XBurstTM CPU running at 1GHz. The new tablet is available with a 7″ capacitive multi-touch screen. 8″ (Novo 8 ) and 9″ (Novo 9) form factors will be available soon. All versions include support for WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, USB 2.0, HDMI 1.3 and microSD, as well as 3D graphics with the Vivante GC860 GPU, 1080p video decoding and dual front/rear cameras (2 MPixel). The XBurst processor’s power-efficient architecture provides extended battery life-the 7″ tablet draws less than 400mA during active web browsing. The Ingenic JZ4770 SoC inside of this (ultra) low cost tablet is one of the first MIPS-based systems-on-chips (SoCs) targeted for mobile devices that delivers 1GHz+ frequency. The JZ4770 SoC is powered by a MIPS32 compatible XBurst CPU designed by Ingenic. The XBurst CPU […]

World’s First Android 4.0 Tablet is based on Rockchip RK2918

Rockchip has announced Android 4.0.1 (ICS) would be ready by the first week of December with Rochchip RK2918 based tablets shipping with the new OS available later in December. The company claims this will be the first Android 4.0 tablet available in the market. That also means that owners of Archos Arnova G2 tablets should be able to run Android 4.0 very soon. The demo below seems relatively smooth compared to other demos I have seen on development boards such as ST Ericsson Snowball, so I suppose Rockchip has already enabled hardware acceleration. 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

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