Author: 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 full time later in 2011.
Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on Android 4.0 For Blind or Visually Impaired Users

Android 4.0 For Blind or Visually Impaired Users

Android 4.0 (ICS) has some interesting features for blind or visually impaired users. With accessibility mode enabled, smartphones such as the Galaxy Nexus will dictate the name of the icons has you touch them and instruct you to tap it if you want to use this application. You can also use 2 fingers to scroll the current and you’ll get audible feedback to know where you scroll. Google has setup a YouTube channel (EyesFreeAndroid) to showcase features and applications available to blind and visually impaired users. Here’s an example below showing the touch exploration tutorial. 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 full time later in 2011. www.cnx-software.com

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on Android Variants, Hacks, Tricks and Resources – AnDevCon II

Android Variants, Hacks, Tricks and Resources – AnDevCon II

The second Android developer Conference (AnDevCon II) took place about 10 days ago. Karim Yaghmour of OperSys published the presentation slides he used during his two Android presentations. The first presentation was Embedded Android Workshop, the same presentation he did at Android Open 2011. The second presentation “Android Variants, Hacks, Tricks and Resources” slides can be found below. Those 48 slides cover the following: AOSP’s limitations: Rigid, closed development model, excludes many things… Tearing AOSP apart Forks: Cyanogenmod: After-market handset firmware with custom launcher and lots of tweaks and mods… Replicant: 100% open souce with FDroid marketplace. MIUI: Closed source with UI enhancements. Ports: RIM Playbook:  OMAP4 Tablet based on AOSP. Bluestacks: Android on Windows 7. Alien Dalvik: Android SDK + Meego SDK integration. Mods: XDA Developers. Melding with “Classic” Linux Stack: Rationale: Lots of available stacks in Linux, Android does not provide everything. Road blocks: File system, Bionic C […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments on Turn your TV into a Computer with FXI Technologies Cotton Candy USB Stick

Turn your TV into a Computer with FXI Technologies Cotton Candy USB Stick

FXI Technologies has unveiled a USB stick that turns any screen into an a computer running Android or Ubuntu, and in the future Windows 8 will also be supported. The Cotton Candy will include a Samsung Exynos 4210 dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 CPU clocked at 1.2GHz, with a Quad Core Mali 400MP  GPU, like the Samsung Galaxy S2 smartphone. It will also feature 1GB of RAM, a microSD slot capable of holding up to 64GB of flash memory, Wifi and Bluetooth connectivity and an HDMI port. This small device (it measures 8cm x 2.5cm) has decent multimedia capabilities as it can support 1080p decode of MPEG4-SP/H.263/H.264 AVC/MPEG-2/VC1, as well as MP3, AAC, AAC+, Real Audio decoding and JPG, GIF, BMP, PNG pictures. Extra third party codec can also be added. There are 2 main use cases for the Cotton Candy: Connection to a HDMI-capable TV or Display: Connect an HDMI monitor/TV […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on WebP Image Format Could Replace JPEG, PNG and GIF

WebP Image Format Could Replace JPEG, PNG and GIF

In September 2010, Google announced the WebP image format with lossy compression.  Since last month, WebP can also support animation, ICC profile, XMP metadata and tiling. Today, it announced lossless compression and transparency support. WebP could be used as an alternative to JPEG, with 25–34% better compression compared to JPEG images at equivalent SSIM index as well as PNG as it now supports lossless compression and transparency – also known as alpha channel – in both the lossless and lossy modes. On average, Google got a 45% reduction in size when starting with PNGs found on the web, and a 28% reduction in size compared to PNGs that are re-compressed with pngcrush and pngout. Photos typically encoded as JPEG can be encoded in WebP lossy mode to achieve smaller file size. Icons and graphics can be encoded better in WebP lossless mode than in PNG. WebP lossy with alpha can […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on Qualcomm Announces Snapdragon S4 Liquid Mobile Development Platform Tablet

Qualcomm Announces Snapdragon S4 Liquid Mobile Development Platform Tablet

Following their new Snapdragon S4 processors announcement, Qualcomm also unveiled the Snapdragon S4 Liquid MDP Tablet for developers based on MSM8960 with 2GB LPDDR2 system memory, 32 GB eMMC and 1 MB NOR Flash. This reference design features a 10.1-inch 1366 x 768 (16:9) 10-finger capacitive multitouch display,  on-die LTE modem, dual 1080p cameras (front:13 MP / rear: 2MP) and another two for 3D, 7 (!) microphones, surround stereo speakers and lots of sensors: dual 3D accelerators, 3-axis gyro, a compass, ambient light and proximity sensor, temperature and pressure sensor and a fingerprint sensor. It also supports haptic feedback thanks to two dual independently-controlled linear vibrator motors. Although Android Honeycomb and ICS can do without, the S4 MDP comes with its fair share of (physical) button: combo volume / zoom rocker, power button, screen rotation lock, home button and reset button. External connectors include a docking station port, micro USB […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on Archos Unveils Arnova 9 G2 Android Tablet

Archos Unveils Arnova 9 G2 Android Tablet

Archos has announced another low cost Arnova Android tablet, the Arnova 9 G2, featuring a 1GHz single core ARM Cortex A8 (most probably Rockchip RK2918)  and a 9.7 inch capacitive touchscreen IPS display with a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels (4:3 Aspect Ratio) that supports 5-point multi-touch. The display characteristics are almost exactly the same as the IPAD 2, luckily Apple has not filled a patent for screen size and resolution yet… 🙂 The device also features 8GB flash and a microSD card slot which can take up to 32GB cards. There is no mention of the RAM capacity of this tablet. Arnova 9 G2 includes a front facing camera for video chat, a pair of stereo speakers, a stereo audio jack, a microphone, a standard USB 2.0 port as well as a micro USB port and it comes with 802.11 b/g/n WiFi and is 3G ready thanks to […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on MIPS Releases Kernel 3.0.8, plans for Android 4.0

MIPS Releases Kernel 3.0.8, plans for Android 4.0

MIPS has just released Linux Kernel 3.0.8 port for MIPS SoC, the kernel version used by Android 4.0.1. The latest kernel is available on MIPS developer website at http://developer.mips.com/linux/. You can use Git to get the latest kernel source code for MIPS Technologies cores (with hardware fixes and improvements) as follows:

Although git is recommended to ensure you have the latest commit, you can also download a snapshot version from linux-mips FTP site.:

Over the next several weeks, MIPS will be posting updates on the MIPS Developer website regarding Android 4.0 (ICS) with a release planned for mid-december 2011.   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 full time later in 2011. www.cnx-software.com

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on Technologies and Techniques to Accelerate Embedded Development

Technologies and Techniques to Accelerate Embedded Development

I’ve recently attended a webinar entitled “Accelerate Your Next Embedded Development Project: Essential Tools and Techniques for Every Phase of Your Project Lifecycle”  presented by Wind river and VDC Research. The two speakers were: Marc Brown, Wind River VP, Tools and Marketing Operation. Christopher Rommel, Senior Analyst at VDC Research. The webinar was composed of three sections: Industry Challenges. (Wind River) Embedded Development: Data and Trends. (VDC Research) New ways to accelerate development (Wind River) Industry challenges Marc describes the new challenges for device software drivers: Increased security, safety and quality requirements for connectivity Performance scalability: multi-cores, many cores and SoC support. Pressure to lower OPEX (Operating Expenses) Companies are now pushed to increase performance,  become more cost effective and provide a better connectivity while at the same time decrease time to market, project risks and security issues. Data and Trends Christopher first present a slide showing there are still […]

EmbeddedTS embedded systems design