Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft), Author at CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

July 10, 2012July 29, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

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 […]

July 10, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

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:

repo init -u https://android.googlesource.com/platform/manifest -b android-4.1.1_r1
repo sync

1 2	repo init -u https://android.googlesource.com/platform/manifest -b android-4.1.1_r1 repo sync

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 Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering […]

July 10, 2012May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 23 Comments

72.90 USD AK802 Android Mini PC with AllWinner A10 and 1GB RAM

No, it’s not a typo in the title, and I did not mean to write “MK802”, but a company (which does not appear to be Rikomagic) released a product called AK802 which looks very similar (not to say exactly) the same, but comes with 1GB by default. Here are the specifications of the device partially taken from Dealextreme, so there must be an error somewhere, we just need to find out where ;). CPU AllWinner A10 @ 1.5GHz + Mali 400 GPU Memory 1 GB RAM Storage 4 GB Flash microSD slot (Up to 32 GB) Connectivity WiFi 802.11b/g USB micro USB 2.0/OTG port USB 2.0 Host port Video output HDMI (up to 2160p) Video Codecs & Containers WMV, ASF, MP4, 3GP, 3G2M4V, AVI, MJPEG, RV10, DivX/VC-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, H.263, H.264/1280*720P HD 30 fps, 1080P/720*480 D1 30fps Audio Codecs AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, AMR-NB, AMR-WB, QCP, MP3, WMA, WAV, MIDI, M4A […]

July 9, 2012July 9, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Jolla Smartphones To Run Meego (Born Again) Operating System

I saw a tweet about Jolla 2 days ago, but did not pay much attention because there was no info available. And to some extend, there isn’t much more info now, but a lot of hype about Jolla, a Finnish company recently founded and composed of ex-Nokia employees that aims to design, develop and sell smartphones based on the (thought-to-be-dead) Meego operating system. Jolla’s Meego will be based on the Mer Project & Qt and will feature a “brand new UI” designed by Jolla. The company has been working on the phone since late 2011 and a demo will be available later this year. You can follow the company on LinkedIn or Twitter, as it does not have a website yet. 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 […]

July 9, 2012July 9, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Olimex Offers Up to 50% Discount on OLinuXino Boards to Open Source Developers

Olimex has been providing low cost MCU devkits for many years, and this year they started offering more powerful embedded Linux development boards called OLinuXino. The first family (iMX233-OLinuXino) is based on Freescale i.MX233 ARM9 processor @ 454 Mhz and comes in three form factor: iMX233-OLINUXINO-MAXI – 2x USB host, Ethernet, TV-out, GPIOs, SD-CARD, Audio-In, Audio-Out, UEXT – 44.95 Euros. iMX233-OLINUXINO-MINI – 3x USB host, TV-out, GPIOs, SD-CARD, Audio-In, Audio-Out, UEXT – 34.95 Euros iMX233-OLINUXINO-MICRO – USB host, TV-out, GPIOs, SD-CARD, ready for breadboaring – 23.95 Euros They are also working on A13-OLinuXino board featuring AllWinner A13 Cortex A8 processor. To promote their new boards (and reward open source developers – cf comment below), the company company has decided to offer discount to open source developers. The way I understand it: you need to buy a board first, publish the source code somewhere and write about it on your own […]

July 7, 2012July 7, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments

Equiso Smart TV: 69 USD Android mini PC with Wireless Remote

Here’s yet another Android mini PC HDMI Stick. Equiso has started a KickStarter compaign to raise funds to complete development and manufacture the Equiso Smart TV, an Android mini PC based on Telechips TCC8925 Cortex A5 processor. It looks very similar to CX-01 mini PC with Android 4.0 running on a TCC8925 processor, 512 MB RAM and the lack of a microSD card slot. The only hardware differences are that it includes 8GB internal storage (vs 4GB for CX-01), and it features an HDMI 1.4 port (vs 1.3 for others). Here are the specs of the device: Telechips TCC8925 Arm Cortex A5 Processor @ 1GHz + Mali 400 3D Graphics Processor 512 MB DDR3 RAM 802.11 N wireless radio 8 GB Memory Internal (WiFi) 1.4 HDMI Plug n’ Play Interface, 3D, ESD protection, CEC USB 2.0 port microUSB 2.0 port to power the device Dimensions – 80mm x 30mm x […]

July 6, 2012July 6, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Quick Binary Debugging in Linux with Strace System Call Tracer

I’ve recently come across strace, a debugging utility for Linux that “monitor the system calls used by a program and all the signals”. It may not be that useful if you have the source code and can run other debugging tools such as gdb, or simply add printf to your code. But if you don’t have source code of the program, or you are a system administrator who wants to check if the program fails due to file access reasons, for example, this is really a great tool as it may help you find out which file causes problem. In my case, I was trying OpenGL ES on an ARM platform, and at least part of the code comes in libraries that are only available in binary form. I got the following error message running es2_info (part of mesa-utils-extra): UMP: ump_arch_open() failed to open UMP device driver ********************************************************************* ERROR: In […]

July 5, 2012July 6, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Kontron Unveils KTT30/mITX Nvidia Tegra 3 Mini-ITX Board

Kontron has today unveiled the KTT30/mITX, its first embedded ARM based Mini-ITX board (and the first ARM mini-ITX board I’ve ever heard of). The motherboard is powered by Nvidia Tegra 3 quad core processor @ 900 MHz with up to 2 GB DDR3L memory, and consumes less than 7W. Storage is available via 2 SD Card slots, one bootable eMMC, and one SATA 2.0 port. The company expects this ARM Mini-ITX motherboard to be used in applications such as thin clients, Panel PCs, digital signage and Mini-Box PCs. The solution is also suitable for industrial (rail road, instrumentation…) and medical fields as it will be available for at least seven years. By using the Mini-ITX form factor, Kontron KTT30/mITX board can be easily integrated in existing embedded solutions using (x86) mini-ITX boards. Here are the key features of Kontron KTT30/mITX motherboard: SoC – Nvidia Tegra 3 ARM Cortex-A9 Quad Core […]