Processors Category - Page 1097 of 1122 - CNX Software

November 24, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Android 4.0 on ST Ericsson Snowball Development Board

Android 4.0.1 can now run on ST Ericsson Nova A9500 low cost development board “snowball”. The build is available at https://android-build.linaro.org/builds/~linaro-android/staging-snowball/. You can Android 4 (ICS) it in action in the Snowball board in the video build using build number 84. This is a bit sluggish since Android 4 currently lacks hardware acceleration on this development board but Linaro and the igloocommunity will implement it in the next few weeks. If you have an ST Ericsson snowball board, here are the instructions to try the latest Android 4.0 build for the platform: Get the images: wget –no-check-certificate https://android-build.linaro.org/jenkins/job/linaro-android_staging-snowball/lastSuccessfulBuild/artifact/build/out/target/product/snowball/boot.tar.bz2 wget –no-check-certificate https://android-build.linaro.org/jenkins/job/linaro-android_staging-snowball/lastSuccessfulBuild/artifact/build/out/target/product/snowball/system.tar.bz2 wget –no-check-certificate https://android-build.linaro.org/jenkins/job/linaro-android_staging-snowball/lastSuccessfulBuild/artifact/build/out/target/product/snowball/userdata.tar.bz2 Get the linaro-image-tools and create the image: bzr branch lp:linaro-image-tools ./linaro-image-tools/linaro-android-media-create –mmc /dev/sdc –dev snowball_sd –system system.tar.bz2 –userdata userdata.tar.bz2 –boot boot.tar.bz2 MINICOM settings: minicom -D /dev/ttyUSB0 -w -C minicom.txt You must setup the boot args as follows: U8500 $ setenv loadbootscript fat load mmc 1:1 ${loadaddr} […]

November 24, 2011November 24, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 25 Comments

Android 4.0 on BeagleBoard and Beagleboard-xM

Sola has written the instructions (in Japanese) to build Android 4.0 (ICS) for Beagleboard and Beagleboard-xM. Here’s the same in English: Get the source code: $ mkdir -p /home/sola/work/ics $ cd /home/sola/work/ics $ export ANDROID_ROOT=$PWD $ repo init -u https://bitbucket.org/sola/android_manifest $ repo sync -j8 Build Android: $ cd $ANDROID_ROOT $ source build/envsetup.sh $ lunch full_beagleboard_xm-eng [for BeagleBoard-xM] $ lunch full_beagleboard-eng [for BeagleBoard] $ time make -j8 Generate the rootfs: $ cd $ANDROID_ROOT/out/target/product/beagleboard_xm/ [for BeagleBoard-xM] $ cd $ANDROID_ROOT/out/target/product/beagleboard/ [for BeagleBoard] $ mkdir rootfs $ sudo cp -a ./root/* ./rootfs/ $ sudo cp -a ./system/* ./rootfs/system/ Build the kernel: $ export ARCH=arm $ export CROSS_COMPILE=$ANDROID_ROOT/prebuilt/linux-x86/toolchain/arm-eabi-4.4.3/bin/arm-eabi- $ cd $ANDROID_ROOT/board/beagleboard/kernel $ make omap3_beagle_android_defconfig $ make uImage modules -j8 Partition the SD card （bootloader, media, rootfs）: $ cd $ANDROID_ROOT/board/beagleboard/sdcard $ sudo LANG=C ./mksdcard_beagle.sh /dev/sdx where /dev/sdx depends on your setup (e.g. /dev/sda). Generate boot.scr: $ cd $ANDROID_ROOT/board/beagleboard/bootscript $ ./mkbootscr Copy MLO/u-boot.bin/uImage/rootfs to the SD card: […]

November 23, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

CIFS/Samba Support, USB Drive and Keyboard/Mouse for Android 4.0

Paul O’Brien, founder of modaco, has created a custom kernel with CIFS/SAMBA support, USB drive and keyboard / mouse support for Galaxy Nexus smartphone running Android 4.0 (ICS). This is a temporary download until MCR (MoDaCo Custom ROM) is released. This should be flashed via ‘fastboot flash boot boot.mck.img’ to a device with an unlocked bootloader. This is designed for devices running the I9250XXKK1 / ITL41D (android-4.0.1_r1) ROM. DOWNLOAD – MD5: adf6bcc42205027952630dcf720beada Source: http://android.modaco.com/topic/348882-23-nov-modaco-custom-kernel-cifs-usb-drives-keyboard-mouse/ 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

November 22, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Midgard architecture for Embedded GPUs (Mali-T604 / Mali T658)

I’ve attended a webinar entitled “Harness the power and flexibility of the Midgard architecture for Embedded GPUs” presented Steve Steele, Product Manager at ARM Media Processing Division and sponsored by EETimes. Steve starts to talk about the current GPU architecture “Utgard” used in Mali-200, Mali-300 and Mali-400MP which allows resolutions up to 1080p and are used in many smartphones today including Samsung Galaxy S2 (Mali-400MP) which provides great graphics performance. He then explains how mobile devices are used today and what performance we may except in the future: Mobile As Main compute platform: New UI and Augmented Reality Social Networks and emails Content Creation/consumption 1 Device to multiple screen (e.g LCD screen and TV via HDMI) Evolving Processing Demand: Graphics Complexity multiplied by 25 Increase in screen size (1080p resolution support). Graphics API: Khronos OpenGL ES, Microsoft DirectX 11 Compute API: OpenCL, Renderscript Compute and Direct Compute. After this overview, […]

November 22, 2011November 22, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

ChromeBooks Get Cheaper and Chrome OS Update

Google announced that the Wi-Fi only version of the Samsung Chromebooks Series 5 and Acer Chromebooks will drop by 50 USD to to 300 USD. Apparently the Chromebooks sales are not going so well. This may be improving however, as the Samsung Series 5 Wi-Fi 12.1-Inch Chromebook currently ranks 25 in Netbooks (Amazon US) and Acer AC700-1099 Chromebook (Wi-Fi) ranks quite well (maybe after the discount) at position 9 in Netbooks. Still, even after this discount, it seems difficult to justify the price compared to a “real” netbook with hard disk (the Chromebooks use the cloud for storage) and a few other extra features. I have an Acer Aspire One AOD255E that now costs 279 USD on Amazon with a 250 GB hard disk running Windows 7 starter. Unless the Chromebooks price is reduced to about 200 USD I don’t really see it selling like hot cakes even though they […]

November 19, 2011November 19, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

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 […]

November 18, 2011February 22, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

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 […]

November 18, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

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 […]