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Another Monster Processor: Qualcomm Quad Core Snapdragon APQ8064

Qualcomm SnapDragon APQ8064 quad-core processor clocked at 2.5 GHz, will make NVidia Tegra 2 look like your (grand-) father processor and even make Texas Instrument OMAP 5 processor look slow. This new processor will available in earlier 2012 and will probably make it to devices by end 2012, beginning 2013. Here’s a press release excerpt: Barcelona, Spain – February 14, 2011 – Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ: QCOM) today announced its quad-core Snapdragon™ chipset designed to meet the requirements of next generation tablets and computing devices. The new quad-core APQ8064™ is the flagship chipset in the new family of Snapdragon chipsets and is based on the new micro-architecture code named “Krait.” With the purpose of being built for mobile devices, this 28nm micro-architecture will redefine performance, achieving speeds of up to 2.5GHz per core and minimizing power consumption and heat generation to enable new, thin and light form factors. The Snapdragon APQ8064 […]

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Texas Instruments OMAP 5 based on ARM Cortex A15 Core

Texas Instruments announced its new generation of mobile chips OMAP 5 based on the latest ARM core Cortex A15.  Press release excerpt: DALLAS (Feb. 7, 2011) /PRNewswire/ — Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) (NYSE: TXN) announced today the next generation of its popular OMAP™ family: the OMAP 5 mobile applications platform, which is positioned to transform how mobile devices, such as Smartphones, tablets and other mobile form factors are used, making them even more valuable in our daily lives. … The 28 nanometer OMAP 5 applications processors carry on the OMAP family tradition of delivering significant increases in performance and functionality, while lowering power consumption compared to their predecessors. Specifically, they offer up to 3x processing performance and five-fold 3D graphics improvement, yet provide a nearly 60 percent average power reduction compared to a sample user experience on the OMAP 4 platform. Additionally, the OMAP 5 platform’s software is designed for […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM
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Near Field Communication (NFC) in Public Transport

The NFC Forum, a non-profit industry association that advances the use of Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, has recently published a White Paper entitled “NFC in Public Transport” and show how you can leverage NFC technology in such environment. The whitepaper mainly focuses on mobile phones, readers and smart posters. If you need an introduction about NFC, including starting points for developing hardware and software, please read our previous blog entry first. What can NFC do in public transport ? After a short NFC introduction, the whitepaper deals with the possible applications related to public transport including: Transport timetables Link to an up-to-date weather report website Special discounted travel offers Location relevant maps Next bus arrival time Taxi services Emergency calls Phone-to-phone transfer of destination addresses and maps to taxi driver and how NFC can be used before the journey (e.g. paying for parking, using smart poster for products/services promotions […]

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Android 3.0 SDK Preview and Platform Highlights

Google has just released Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) preview SDK and platform highlights. Android 3.0 Highlights Summary New User Features: New UI designed from the ground up for tablets (larger screens) System Bar, for global status and notifications Action Bar, for application control: access to contextual options, navigation, widgets, or other types of content in the Action Bar, displayed at the top of the screen. Five Customizable Home screens with widgets, app shortcuts, and wallpapers using a dedicated visual layout mode. Recent Apps, for easy visual multitasking Redesigned keyboard to improve typing speed/accuracy on tablets. Improved text selection, copy and paste New connectivity options such as Media/Photo Transfer Protocol, USB / Bluetooth keyboards Updated set of standard apps for larger screens. Browser Improvements: Multi-tabs support,  “incognito” mode, better browsing experience at non-mobile sites through an improved zoom and viewport model, overflow scrolling, support for fixed positioning, and more. Camera and Gallery: […]

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How-to Make WordPress iNove Theme Adsense Friendly

When I initially selected my WordPress theme,  I did not really plan on using Adsense, so I just chose one which looked nice to me and fulfilled some other requirements. I finally went with iNove theme. However, after 3 or 4 months, I decided to give a go at Google Adsense and installed Advertising Manager plugin. I created a new Ad unit with a 300×250 resolution to put in the side bar, it was slightly cut on the right but was still looking OK. Later, I wanted to add a leaderboard ad (728×90) on top of the page to hopefully increase the CTR. However, that one was cut even more, although it looked OK in Chrome OS and Firefox, it looked awful in Internet Explorer. So I decided to adjust the size of the main section and the sidebar for iNove theme. Here are the steps to follow to resize […]

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OLPC XO 1.75 Hardware, Firmware and Software

OLPC demo’ed their 3rd generation laptop – OLCP XO 1.75 – based on Marvell Armada 610 at CES 2011. The good thing about this platform is that they opened most of it including the hardware, the software and for the first time the firmware. However, I found out it’s not so easy to find the hardware / software development information and source on the OLPC site, so I’ve decided to make a summary and provide links to the hardware, firmware and software for OLPC XO 1.75. OLPC XO 1.75 Hardware The XO-1.75 is powered by Marvell Armada 610 CPU (88AP610) with an ARM core clocked at 1Ghz. It has 1GB DDR3 SDRAM, 4GiB NAND Flash, a TFT display, an SD Card slot, Wi-Fi,  a few USB ports and a camera. I believe the touchscreen is not part of the current hardware, but the block diagram below should be close to […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025
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Qualcomm Snapdragon Mobile Development Platform Available

Qualcomm has just announced the SnapDragon Mobile Development Platform (MDP)  distributed by BSquare is now available for purchase. The development platform (SKU: EA-OBQ8655MDPAN) is based on Snapdragon MSM8655 and comes with Android 2.2. It costs 995.00 USD. The development kit contains: MDP device (preloaded with Qualcomm’s Deep Sea 3D UI, Qualcomm’s Power Profiling application (Trepn Profiler),  3D Graphics Adreno Profiler, Tactel’s Navigation application and SouthEnd Interactive’s ilomilo OpenGLES Game) 8GB SD card HDMI A/V USB cable Battery charger Quick Start Guide One hour of support Here are the MDP Technical Specifications: MSM8655 1 GHz central processing unit (CPU) 3.8″ WVGA Display HDMI port Multi-touch capacitive touch screen WVGA 3D/2D capable Adreno™ 205 graphics processing unit (GPU) 12MP Camera/Camcorder 720-pixel HD video decode and encode Stereo 16mm loudspeakers 512 MB of RAM (2x 32b ports) 4GB on-board Flash Keys: On/off key, Rotary wheel, including key press, Up to 6 side keys for […]

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AMD First Embedded Systems APU: AMD Fusion G-Series

Yesterday, AMD announced the first APU (Accelerated Processor Unit) specifically aimed at embedded systems: AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced immediate availability of the new AMD Embedded G-Series processor, the world’s first and only Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) for embedded systems. The AMD Embedded G-Series, based on AMD Fusion technology, delivers a complete, full-featured embedded platform and incorporates the new low-power, x86 CPU based on the “Bobcat” core with a world-class DirectX® 11-capable GPU and parallel processing engine on a single piece of silicon. This new class of accelerated processor combines more compute capabilities on a single die than any processor in the history of computing and represents opportunity for major advancements in embedded systems. No solution with this level of advanced computing is available for the embedded market today. Numerous embedded systems based on the AMD Embedded G-Series are available today or expected to launch in the coming weeks from […]

Boardcon CM3588 Rockchip RK3588 System-on-Module designed for AI and IoT applications