CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

January 4, 2011January 24, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Android App Inventor – Develop Android App Without Coding

[Update: Google phased out App Inventor, but made it open source. It is now hosted by MIT at http://appinventoredu.mit.edu/welcome-to-app-inventor-edu“] We have previously shown how to setup your environment to develop Android application using Eclipse. However, if you are not into Java programming and learning Android API but still want to develop (simple) Android applications, that’s still possible thanks to App Inventor. App Inventor will allow you to create the application UI in your web browser (The Designer), configure how your application behaves via a Java JNLP (Java Network Launching Protocol) applet (The Block Editor) and run your application in your Android phone/tablet or if you don’t have hardware in an emulator (The emulator). For Windows XP + Emulator, all you’ll have to do is to follow the instructions in http://appinventor.googlelabs.com/learn/setup/setupwindows.html and then you’ll be able to create some “Hello Kitty” application. First download the installer. Run appinventor_setup_installer_v_1_1.exe to install the […]

January 3, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 14 Comments

Installing Android SDK on Windows XP – Hello World Application

You’ll find the full details for installing Android SDK at http://developer.android.com/sdk/installing.html. The purpose of this blog entry is to summarize what I had to do to install Android development environment (Android 2.3 SDK (Gingerbread)) on Windows XP. Before installing the Android SDK per se, you’ll need to install some set of tools used by the SDK. Here are the steps to setup your Windows XP computer for Android development: 1. Install Java Developer Kit (JDK) You need to go to http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html, select your OS (e.g. Linux, Windows, MAC…) and the file you want to download. I selected Java Platform (JDK), then downloaded Java SE Development Kit 6u23. I got the jdk-6u23-windows-i586.exe which I installed in the default directory, i.e. C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_23). 2. Install Eclipse Classic Then you’ll need to install Eclipse, and open source IDE. Several versions are available at http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/, but since Google recommends Eclipse Classic, I just download […]

December 31, 2010 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Top Ten Digital Signage Trends for 2011

As 2010 comes to a close, Digital Signage Today released their top 10 trends for 2011. Here’s a summary of those trends: Cross-media platform and technology integration: Digital signage systems and mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets will communicate more and more be it through QR Code, Near Field Communication (NFC), smartphone gestures, etc… Content will continue to be at or near the top of the list: More and more companies are involved in content creation for digital signage / digital out of hone (DOOH) and more diverse and complex content formats will be available. M & A and investment – The big shakeout of 2011: Expect more acquisitions that in 2010. Even larger amounts of ad dollars will migrate to DOOH: Digital Signage Ad growth spending will carry on, after a 14.8% growth in 2010. Experience, engagement and interaction: Instead of simply being an ad to promote a […]

December 30, 2010June 18, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

P2P for embedded systems: BitTorrent and Emule – Part 2

In part1, I explained how to build and install aMule for mips platorm, in part2, we’ll build and install Transmission BitTorrent client for devices based on Sigma Designs SMP8634/SMP8635. Transmission BT is already used in quite a few NAS and media players including Syabas Networked Media Tank, Western Digital WD MyBook, ReadyNAS, D-Link DNS-323 & CH3SNAS… as you can see at the bottom of the transmission download page. Building Transmission 2.13 daemon and client First download Transmission 2.13 source code and required dependencies: OpenSSL 1.0.0c, cURL 7.21.3 and libevent 1.4.14b (do not use libevent 2.0.x). You’ll also need zlib 1.2.5 that we compiled in part1. Extract them: tar xjvf ../Downloads/transmission-2.13.tar.bz2 tar xzvf ../Downloads/openssl-1.0.0c.tar.gz tar xjvf ../Downloads/curl-7.21.3.tar.bz2 tar xzvf ../Downloads/libevent-2.0.9-rc.tar.gz Build OpenSSL 1.0.0c: ./Configure no-asm –prefix=/home/jaufranc/edev/libs linux-generic32 make CC=”mipsel-linux-gcc” AR=”mipsel-linux-ar r” RANLIB=”mipsel-linux-ranlib” make install Build cURL 7.2.13: ./configure –prefix=/home/jaufranc/edev/libs –build=mipsel-linux –target=mipsel-linux -host=i686 –disable-ipv6 –without-random –with-ssl=/home/jaufranc/edev/libs –with-zlib=/home/jaufranc/edev/libs CC=mipsel-linux-gcc LDFLAGS=-ldl make make install […]

December 29, 2010June 18, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

P2P for embedded systems: BitTorrent and Emule – Part 1

Whether your device is a Network Access Storage (NAS) or a media player with network capabilities, you may consider adding P2P to allow downloads of files as you would do on your computer. Two of the most used P2P protocols are BitTorrent and eMule, but most of the client have a UI designed for Linux or Windows and may not be easily ported to an embedded system. So what we need to look for here are command line based clients or daemons that can be compiled and run in an embedded platform. After some research, here are the 2 programs we’ll use: aMule 2.2.6 a multiplatform eMule-like client Transmission 2.13 running as a daemon for BT dowloads Today, I’ll show how to use aMule 2.2.6 in Sigma Designs SMP863X target, for example in Popcorn Hour A-100. But a similar method (just a different compiler mips-linux-gnu-gcc and setting Little endian (-EL)) […]

December 28, 2010June 12, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Near Field Communication (NFC) Introduction and Software Development

Android 2.3 features near field communication (NFC) in order to allow payment through your phone as it is already implemented in Japan with FeliCa (Felicity Card), a contactless RFID smart card system from Sony, direct communication between NFC devices, RFID reader, etc… NFC is already supported in Samsung / Google Nexus S. In this blog post, we’ll see what near field communication is, which hardware is needed and what needs to be done at the software level (driver and NFC stack). What is Near Field Communication ? Extract from Wikipedia: Near Field Communication or NFC, is a short-range high frequency wireless communication technology which enables the exchange of data between devices over about a 10 centimeter (around 4 inches) distance. The technology is a simple extension of the ISO/IEC 14443 proximity-card standard (proximity card, RFID) that combines the interface of a smartcard and a reader into a single device. An NFC […]

December 27, 2010December 31, 2010 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

CES 2011 Main Attractions

CES 2011 will be held in Las Vegas 6-9 January 2011 featuring 2700 exhibitors, including manufacturers and service providers for the audio, digital imaging, home theater, wireless, content and gaming markets. Here are what may be the main attractions to look for at the event: Lots of Tablets: Motorola is expected to demo Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) with a 10″ tablet based on NVidia Tegra 2 and announcement about Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (probably using the Tegra 2 as well) . Here’s a list of companies that will exhibit their tablets at CES 2011: Acer – 7″/10″ Tablets running Android and Windows 7 Archos – Archos Gen 8 Devices: Archos 28/32/43/70/101 running Android Asus – Eee Pad running Windows 7 and Android (March 2011 release) Creative – ZiiO Pure Wireless Entertainment Tablets running Android. Dell – 7″ Dell Streak running Android. Entourage – Dual screen tablet (similar to the Kno) called […]

December 23, 2010 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Android Remote Control App for Google TV

Google has just released a new app in Android Marketplace to be able to control your Google TV compatible set-top box or TV with your Android Smartphone. It just looks like a normal remote control, but you’ll also be able to use voice recognition to select your channel and videos, select a video on your phone to be played on the TV, etc… I wonder if this will engender family or friend’s wars since several Android phones can be used with one TV. Oh.. and also Google is offering 100 46″ Sony Google TV to the best videos. Deadline for submissions 22-12-2010, so it will end later today. Anyway, have a look at Google TV Remote App video below: