ARM TechCon 2012: Software & System Design Schedule

ARM Technology Conference (TechCon) 2012 will take place on October 30 – November 1, 2011, in Santa Clara, and UBM Electronics has already posted the detailed schedule for the event. The first day (October 30) will be Chip Designs day  and the other 2 days will focus on Software & System Design. Even if, like me, you are not be able to go there, it’s still interesting to know what will be discussed at the conference, to have a better idea where ARM is going, and what new technologies and/or development techniques are (or will become) available. There will be around 70 sessions categorized in 15 tracks: Android / Open Source –  Development tools, middleware for native application development, and optimized drivers for Android, Linux, FreeRTOS etc … Compute Platforms – Development and implementation of standards and specifications, from board/module design to consumer and server designs Developing / Debugging – […]

XBMC for Android on Mele A1000 Media Player (Video)

Following this morning announcement, I’ve started to build XBMC for Android using the instructions on XBMC Android github repository, but it takes hours on my machine. In the meantime, I’ve found a prebuilt apk that I’ve tried on my Mele A1000 and shot a (super blurry) video. This is still a development version, so there are a lot of bugs, but it shows good progress. The user interface renders at 28 fps and it’s very smooth, although CPU usage is about 65%. The remote control can work properly, but XBMC does not respond to mouse clicks and keyboard input. It can find UPNP servers (Windows) and locate your file. SMB client crashes XBMC on my system I’ve tried Big Buck Bunny 480p, 720p and 1080p, and none of the sample can play smoothly, so NEON software decoding does not appear to be fast enough to play videos smoothly. The APK […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM

WiFi Tank Based on EEE PC, Arduino, Ubuntu and Node.js

Eight computer and electrical engineers built a WiFi Tank (Node.js robot) as part of a senior design project at Northeastern University, in Boston, Massachusetts. The robot brain is an EEE PC running Ubuntu, together with an Arduino board and is programmed using node.js. Each tank is equipped with a camera and 2 customized Wi-Fi repeaters (which it can drop it extend range), and it’s targeted at military operations or disaster-affected areas where network infrastructure is not available. Here are the key characteristics of this robot Robot controlled over WiFi 102 cm long, 71 cm wide, 41 cm tall, about 68 kg. Custom-built (except for treads) out of aluminum Range: 1 km with one on-board router and two droppable long-range repeater modules Running time: ~12 hours On-board webcam with microphone, night vision, pan and tilt On-board GPS for location tracking Custom-made remote user interface, works on any device with a web […]

Frontier FT103 21.5″ Android SmartDisplay

Frontier, a Japanese company, launched a 21.5″ Smartdisplay running Android 4.0 powered by Texas Instruments OMAP4428 application processor with 1 GB RAM and 8 GB Flash. Here are the specifications of this giant Android tablet: Processor – Texas Instruments OMAP 4428 dual core Cortex A9 @ 1 GHz System memory – 1 GB Storage – 8 GB Flash + SD card slot (Up to 32 GB) Display – 21.5″ TFT LCD touch panel (maximum resolution: 1920 x 1080) USB – microUSB (stereo mini jack) USB2.0 + 2x USB 2.0 Host ports. Audio I/O – Built-in Microphone, built-in stereo speakers (1W + 1W) and headphone jack. Connectivity 10/100 MBit Ethernet Wifi 802.11 b/g/n Bluetooth ® Ver.2.1 + EDR Camera – 1.2 MP Webcam Power Supply – AC adapter (19V, 2.1A) Dimensions – 512.8 x 353 x 24.8 mm Weight – 5.0 kg The company does not expect you to carry this […]

NXP Unveils JenNet-IP-EK040 Evaluation Kit for the Internet of Things

NXP Semiconductors announced the availability of JenNet-IP-EK040 evaluation kit featuring JenNet-IP wireless network layer software for the Internet of Things. This evaluation kit based on NXP’s JN514x single chip wireless MCU provides all the components needed to create applications for IPv6-based networks for lighting and home automation. The JenNet-IP EK040 evaluation kit includes the following: 4 wireless sensor nodes, including modules based on JN5148-J01 and JN5142-J01 chips (single chips with MCU and IEEE802.15.4 transceiver) , USB micro-B connectors, a JN514x IO expansion port, support for USB, battery or an external power supply unit (not included), and 2 USB cables. 4 plug-in shields with an Arduino-compatible footprint featuring 3 dimmable white LEDs, as well as temperature, light level and humidity sensors. 2 high-power JN5148-J01 modules for extended range 2 high-power USB dongles for sniffer and coordinator A router providing connection to Ethernet, with a custom Open WRT Linux distribution and power supply. […]

$99 OUYA Android 4.0 Open Source Hackable Video Game Console

More and more new games are targeted to mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets running Android and iOS, and less games are developed for standard gaming console. To work around this issue, OUYA is working on a gaming console based on Android ICS called .. well… OUYA, and posted the project on Kickstarter to complete development and start manufacturing. Here are OUYA 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 USB 2.0 port Wireless controller with standard controls (two analog sticks, d-pad, eight action buttons, a system button), a touchpad Android 4.0 Although you may just think it will just run existing Android games, the company expects the device to bring higher end games such as the ones available on console. Each box will be a development kit, and developers […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025

iPPea TV Android 4.0.3 HDMI Stick Based on Ingenic JZ4770 (MIPS) Sells for 50 USD

iPPea Inc announced iPPea TV, an Android 4.0 dongle based on Ingenic JZ4770 MIPS SoC that “brings the ‘smart’ Android experience to any HDMI-enabled DTV for $50 US”. This is the first MIPS based Android mini PC that I’ve seem among all the ARM based floating around. Here are iPPea TV specifications: Ingenic JZ4770 applications processor (MIPS-Based XBurst CPU)  @ 1.2 GHz. 2GB storage with support for up to 32 GB external storage via a microSD slot. 512 MB of DDR2 RAM HDMI ouput (up to 1080p) 802.11b/g/n Wifi USB 2.0 port and micro USB 2.0 OTG port Video format – AVI,MKV(XVID/px/H.264),MOV,TS,M2TS, RM/RMVB,FLV,3GP,MPEG,DAT,MP4 Audio format – AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, AMR-NB, AMR-WB, QCP, MP3, WMA, WAV, MIDI, M4A Picture format –  GIF, BMP, JPEG, PNG Ebook format: PDF,EPUB,HTML,TXT Dimensions – PCB: 80 mm x 20mm x 6.5 mm | mini PC: As small as 95.5 mm x 31.5 mm x 12 […]

Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean Source Code Released

Jean-Baptiste Queru, Android Open Source Project lead, announced that Android 4.1.1, Jelly Bean has been released to AOSP and uses the android-4.1.1_r1 tag. Proprietary binaries are available for Nexus 7 and Galaxy Nexus right now, and Nexus S (GSM and CDMA) and Xoom will be available later. If AOSP repo has not changed since the first Android 4.0 release, you should be able to get the source as follows:

There is also a development branch (jb-dev) with the latest improvements and features. Once you get the code, you may want to build and run it. Instructions to build and run Android 4.0 (not yet updated to Android 4.1.1 with Galaxy Nexus 7) are available at http://source.android.com/source/building.html. Factory images for Android 4.1.1 for Nexus devices will eventually show up at https://developers.google.com/android/nexus/images

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