CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

July 4, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Android Transporter Enables WiFi Display Mirroring (similar to Miracast) of Android Devices

E.S.R.Labs is a German embedded software company mainly working for the automotive industry. But this time, they’ve started to work for the consumer market with Android Transformer, a software solution that can mirror an Android display to another Android device display via Wi-Fi in a similar fashion to what WiFi Miracast will do. Eventually, the company plan to make Android Transporter compatible with Wi-Fi Miracast, but in the meantime they rolled out their own solution by taking advantage of H.264 hardware encoders and decoders on Galaxy Nexus S and the Raspberry Pi. If they use standard APIs, I assume any hardware running Android that with H.264 hardware encode/decode should support their platform. I hope it will be work on (or be ported to) CX-01 mini PC which can be bought as low as $40 inc. shipping. It would make an even cheaper hardware than the Raspberry Pi (Up to 33% […]

July 2, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Mozilla Renames Boot 2 Gecko to Firefox OS and Partners with ZTE & TCL

Mozilla announced it would rename its Boot 2 Gecko (B2G) HTML5 mobile operating system to Firefox OS, and that ZTE and TCL (under the Alcatel brand) would manufacture the first devices running Firefox OS using Qualcomm Snapdragon Processors. The first devices should be available early 2013, at first in Brazil through Vivo, Telefónica’s commercial brand. The company also said that telecom operators such as Deutsche Telekom, Etisalat, Smart, Sprint, Telecom Italia, Telefónica and Telenor are planning to sell Firefox OS based smartphones. The platform is said to be optimized for entry-level smartphones thanks to the removal of unnecessary middleware layers among other things. This should allow mobile operators to provide low-cost handsets with “richer experiences” for the developing markets. Firefox OS will be fully open source and the reference implementation of the required Web APIs is being submitted to W3C for standardization. Internally, the project still appears to be referred to […]

July 2, 2012July 2, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Use GNU Parallel to Speed Up Script Execution on Multiple Cores and/or Machines

I attended BarCamp Chiang Mai 5 last week-end, and a lot of sessions were related to project management, business apps and web development, but there were also a few embedded systems related sessions dealing with subjects such as Arduino (Showing how to blink an LED…) and IOIO board for Android, as well as some Linux related sessions. The most useful talk I attended was about “GNU Parallel”, a command line tool that can dramatically speed up time-consuming tasks that can be executed in parallel, by spreading tasks across multiple cores and/or local machines on a LAN. This session was presented by the developer himself (Ole Tange). This tool is used for intensive data processing tasks such as DNA sequencing analysis (Bioinformatics), but it might be possible to find a way to use GNU Parallel to shorten the time it takes to build binaries. Make is already doing a good job at […]

July 1, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

webOS Community Edition Release for HP TouchPad

Open webOS 1.0 is planned to be released in September 2012, but in the meantime, the development team has released an intermediate webOS “Community Edition” for the HP TouchPad. This code is different from the Open webOS project, and is composed of additional components from the current release of webOS for the TouchPad. The open webOS project team has been working with WebOS Internals to bring this release out for legacy TouchPad devices. Thanks to the release of the webOS Community Edition, it is now possible to learn how the TouchPad works, modify your TouchPad experience and then apply that to Open webOS 1.0 once it is released. The Community Edition only supports HP TouchPad, whereas Open webOS 1.0 release will enable the community to port webOS to different hardware platform, and add more features by using open source stacks such as BlueZ bluetooth and GStreamer. You’ll need to download […]

July 1, 2012July 1, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Linaro 12.06 Release with Kernel 3.5 and Android 4.0.4

Linaro has released version 12.06 based on Linux Kernel 3.5-rc3 and Android 4.0.4 (r2.1). This release brings further multimedia enablement for Android as well as some improvement to perf for Android, improved instructions & scripts for multi-arch on Ubuntu, and lots of little improvements and bugs fixes. Here are the highlights of the release: Android Multimedia enablement on AOSP, patches are in review. Most of the benchmarking applications have been automated via Monkeyrunner, working on PandaBoard and Snowball. Update panda-ics-gcc47-tilt-tracking-blob build to the TI LT 3.4 kernel. USB camera preview and still capture forward ported to tilt-tracking. 3D graphics and multimedia working on tilt-stable. IOMMU for Origen’s Multi format codec (MFC) enabled. IOMMU for Origen’s FIMC enabled. (FIMC stands for Fully Interactive Mobile Camera, and it’s used for camera input). Snowball upgraded to Android 4.0.4. Cortex strings landed in Linaro Android and submitted to AOSP (https://android-review.googlesource.com/#/c/38031/). This is part of […]

June 28, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Mediatek Unveils MT6577 Dual Core Cortex A9 Application Processor

MediaTek has announced the availability of the MT6577, a dual-core Cortex A9 application processor with a PowerVR Series5 SGX GPU that targets sub-$200 smartphones. The successor of MT6575 single core Cortex A9 mobile processor also includes MediaTek’s 3G/HSPA modem. The processor supports Android 4.0, and the company claims browser performance improvement by up to 40% compared to single-core platforms. The MT6577 also supports 8MP camera sensors, can handle 1080p video playback and has the ability to support HD720 (1280×720) resolution displays. The platform also embeds MediaTek 4-in-1 connectivity combo that provides 802.11n Wi-Fi & BT4.0 connectivity, GPS and FM. The MT6577 is pin-to-pin compatible with MT6575, so handset manufacturers can just use existing designs to upgrade to dual core, or design a single PCB with both single and dual core handsets. The first smartphones featuring MT6577 should be available in Q3 2012. That’s all information I have for now.

June 28, 2012June 28, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Download Android 4.1 Jelly Bean Update for Galaxy Nexus Smartphone

Slashgear has reported that some people have found Android 4.1 update for Google Nexus on Google’s servers before the official release next month. You can download it here. This is a leak, so it’s not 100% sure that it would work as expected, but it is said that it’s the same as the one installed on the Google Galaxy Nexus smartphones given away to all Google I/O 2012 participants. Via: Slashgear

June 28, 2012June 28, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Google Launches TI OMAP4460 Powered Nexus Q Media Player

Beside their first tablet and Android 4.1, Google also announced Google Nexus Q media player running Android 4.0 (ICS), and powered by Texas Instruments OMAP4460 processing with 1 GB RAM and 16 GB Flash. Here are the specifications of the device: CPU – Texas Instruments OMAP 4460 dual core Cortex A9 @ GHz + PowerVR SGX540 GPU System Memory – 1GB LPDDR RAM Storage – 16GB NAND flash memory Micro HDMI (Type D) TOSLink Optical audio (S/PDIF) 10/100BASE-T Ethernet (RJ45) Wireless Connectivity: Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n Bluetooth NFC Micro AB USB (for service and support) Banana jack speaker outputs Amplifier – 25W class D (12.5 watt per channel) Power Supply – Integrated 35W switching power supply Dimension – 116mm (diameter) Weight – 923 grams The device also features a rotating top dome volume control, a capacitive touch sensor for mute, 32 RGB perimeter LEDs and 1 RGB LED for mute indicator, and […]