Try Windows Phone 7.5 on Your Android / iOS device or Desktop

If you own an Android smartphone or iPhone, and wonder what Microsoft Windows Mobile 7.5 looks like, you can now try it directly inside your phone without installing anything. Microsoft has setup a HTML5 website which offers a working demo of Windows Phone 7.5. It’s obviously not the same as the full OS, but it does allow visitors to experience the look and feeling of Window Phone 7.5 and access applications such as email and calendar. Simply visit http://aka.ms/wpdemo in your mobile phone browser to try the demo. If you don’t own a smartphone yet, you can also try it in your desktop browser. It did not work in Firefox for me, but works fine in Chrome. You can tap to access different menus. Once you are inside a menu, you’ll be asked to swipe or tap to discover the features of the operating systems. All demos are pre-recorded, so […]

Memo Touch: A Tablet for the Elderly

The Memotouch is a tablet based on Archos 101 IT designed for the elderly with short-term memory loss such as persons affected by Alzheimer. Memo helps people with memory loss remember important information by displaying it 24/7 on a 10″ tablet. The elder needs no computer knowledge or skills to benefit from the continual reminders displayed automatically. Messages, audio alerts, and other features are programmed remotely by caregivers (health professionals or family members) through a website. Memo is customizable via the web interface and you can select to either display a single message or also add the following items on the tablet: Calendar To Do List Weather Phone List Pill Box Photo Album Help Button The company sells the tablet for 299 USD, plus 29 USD a month for a 6-month subscription (174 USD Total) or 25 USD a month for a one year subscription (300 USD Total) providing a […]

Android 4.0.1 on x86 processors (Intel / AMD)

Last year, I wrote how to run Android 1.6 in a PC. Android-x86 has since made the newer Android versions available for the following devices: ASUS laptops and tablets. Netbooks such as the ASUS Eee PC Intel Atom tablets such as the Tegav2 Tablet HP Pavilion tx2500 AMD persimmon platform AMD Brazos platform such as the MSI 110W tablet. They now have made Android 4.0.1 available for the AMD Brazos Tablet. Android-x86 4.0-devel live and installation iso for AMD Brazos platform is only a developer’s version as it can not be considered stable just yet. Here are the instructions to get the source code if you want to build it yourself and possibly adapt it to your own hardware: $ repo init -u git://git.android-x86.org/manifest.git -b ics-x86 $ repo sync Android-x86’s Chih-Wei Huang says that WiFi, Multitouch ad OpenGL ES for AMD Radeon works, but sound, camera, Ethernet and hardware acceleration for […]

Android 4.0 Demo on Ziilabs Jaguar Tablet Reference Design

Yet another Android 4.0 demo on a development platform. This time, Android 4.0.1 runs on a Jaguar Tablet powered by Ziilabs ZMS-20 ARM Cortex A9 processor. It runs pretty smoothly. 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

ARM Releases Free DS-5 Community Edition For Android Developers

ARM announced a free version of its Eclipse-based  DS-5 tools for small development firms (with 10 or fewer developers) and individuals who publish applications for Android. The ARM Development Studio 5 (DS-5) Community Edition (CE) helps create performance- and power-optimized native software by integrating a graphical debugger for code generated for the Android Native Development Kit (NDK) and a basic version of the ARM Streamline performance analysis tool. DS-5 CE is designed to work with Android Virtual Devices ( AVDs), development boards and devices that run Android 2.2 and API 8 or higher. ARM Development Studio 5 (DS-5) Community Edition is distributed as plug-in for Eclipse and completes the app developer toolkit with a C, C++ and Assembly graphical debugger that builds on the Android Debug Bridge (ADB), a software performance profiler and system analyzer (ARM Streamline). To get started, you’ll need Eclipse IDE, the Android SDK and the Android NDK […]

World’s First Android 4.0 Tablet is based on Rockchip RK2918

Rockchip has announced Android 4.0.1 (ICS) would be ready by the first week of December with Rochchip RK2918 based tablets shipping with the new OS available later in December. The company claims this will be the first Android 4.0 tablet available in the market. That also means that owners of Archos Arnova G2 tablets should be able to run Android 4.0 very soon. The demo below seems relatively smooth compared to other demos I have seen on development boards such as ST Ericsson Snowball, so I suppose Rockchip has already enabled hardware acceleration. 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

400 Free Raspberry Pi (Development) Boards for Qt 5 Developers

Remember the 25 – 35 USD ARM11 board Raspberry Pi ? Nokia is now getting involved and plans to speed up Qt 5 development on this nice little hardware. The Raspberry Pi Foundation has announced that Nokia would purchase 400 boards next month and give them away to Qt 5 developers who are willing to port software, develop apps, and test and improve the Qt 5 Linux stack. Mostly likely it will be the “high-end” 35 USD version with Ethernet support and 2556 MB RAM as show below. Beside its ridiculously cheap price, the board key features include Linux support, embedded GPU and OpenGL ES libraries that makes it a usable multimedia device capable of outputting 1080p. Nokia and ICS engineers have already started to port Qt to the Raspberry Pi board using the alpha boards. You can see the Qt Quick 2 emitter demo below running on one of the […]

Linaro 11.11 Release with Kernel 3.1.1 and Android 4.0.1 Support

Linaro has just released version 11.11 based on Linux Kernel 3.1.1 and with support for Android ICS. The Android 4.0.1 Preview build for all low cost development boards supported by Linaro are available at http://releases.linaro.org/11.11/android/images-ics-preview/. Here are the highlights of the release: Android Linaro’s baseline has now been upgraded to 2.3.7. The first Versatile Express Android build has been completed. Pandaboard and Vexpress has been upgraded to kernel 3.1.1. A preview of Ice Cream Sandwich is released and running on Snowball, Origen, iMX53 and on Pandaboard with Linaro kernels. A NEON-optimized libpng has been itegrated in all builds. Preliminary DS-5 support has been integrated. Preliminary WiFi support on Android Origen. Kernel config for each build is available on android-build page. USB Ethernet works on Origen. Camera recording function works on Pandaboard. USB camera can be hotplugged on Pandaboard. Developer Platform Firefox can now be cross-built using multiarch. Instructions are available […]

UP 7000 x86 SBC