Android 4.0 on Archos 70 G8 Tablet

“LeTama” has ported Android ICS to Archos G8 Tablet based on OMAP3630. The video below shows Android 4.0 running on Archos G8 70S. The user interface seems a bit sluggish at times, but this is an alpha version with only 3D/Touchscreen working and more work needs to be done to have a fully functional release. 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

Graphics Hardware Acceleration for Android 4.0 on Origen and Snowball Development Boards

Last week, Linaro Android team announced that graphics hardware acceleration (2D and 3D) was coming to Android 4.0 for ST Ericsson Nova A9500 Snowball and Samsung Exynos 4210 Origen development boards. They have now release 2 videos to show the progress on the implementation. The first video (around 5 minutes) showcases Samsung Origen development board running Linaro’s build of Android ICS with 2D and 3D demo. The second video (1:21) shows 2D hardware acceleration on ST Ericsson Snowball board. Snowball Android 4.0 daily snapshots and instructions are available at https://android-build.linaro.org/builds/~linaro-android/staging-snowball/ and Origen builds at https://android-build.linaro.org/builds/~linaro-android/staging-origen/ The official December 2011 releases should also come pretty soon are available at http://releases.linaro.org/11.12/android/. 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

Archos 70b Internet Tablet: 199 USD Android 3.2 Tablet

Archos announced the 199 USD Archos 70b Internet Tablet (Archos 70b IT) , a 7″ Android 3.2 (Honeycomb) based on a 1.2GHz processor (probably OMAP3630) with 512 MB RAM, and offers a 1024 x 600 capacitive touchscreen, 8GB of storage, HDMI output, and support for Google apps and Android Marketplace. Archos product naming is rather confusing, as they also have an Archos 70b running Android 2.1. So if you go shopping for the new device, make sure it reads Archos 70b Internet Tablet and not just Archos 70b. The Archos 70b IT is an enhanced version of the Archos 70 G8(Generation 8). The CPU (OMAP3630 Cortex-A8 processor) clock rate has been boosted from 1GHz to 1.2GHz, RAM has doubled to 512MB, the resolution resolution has increased to 1024×600 (was 800×480) and the price has dropped to 199 USD from 275 USD.  Other features remain the same, as the tablet features […]

Nvidia Announces CARMA Tegra 3 CUDA Development Kit

Nvidia has just unveiled its Tegra 3 development kit, the Nvidia CARMA. The development kit codename has been crowdsourced as Nvidia asked its followers to propose a name and vote for the best name. This development kit particularly targets CUDA, Nvidia parallel computing platform and programming model that enables dramatic increases in computing performance by harnessing the power of the graphics processing unit (GPU). The CARMA hardware has been designed by Seco and features an NVIDIA Tegra 3 ARM Cortex A9 Quad-Core CPU and NVIDIA CUDA GPU QuatroTM. Here are the technical specs for the development kit: CPU NVIDIA Tegra 3 Quad-Core ARM A9 GPU NVIDIA QuadroTM 1000M with 96 CUDA Cores Memory • CPU Memory: 2 GB • GPU Memory: 2 GB Peak Performance 270 Single Precision GFlops CPU – GPU Interface PCIe x4 Gen1 link Network 1x Gigabit Ethernet Storage 1x SATA Connector USB 3x USB 2.0 Display […]

15 USD ARM Cortex A8 Linux Computer by Rhombus Tech

Many of you already probably know the Raspberry Pi Foundation 25 USD ARM Linux Computer. Rhombus Tech, another non-profit organization, is planning to design a 15 USD ARM Linux computer (excluding casing, power supply, shipping, VAT and custom duties) that the company claims would be at least 3 times faster that the Raspberry Pi. This computer would be an EOMA-PCMCIA CPU card powered by an Allwinner A10 ARM Cortex A8 CPU clocked at 1.5ghz. Here are the (expected) specifications of this board: Approximately Credit-card size format (56mm x 90mm) An Allwinner A10, 1.5ghz ARM Cortex A8 1GB of RAM At least 1gb of NAND Flash (possibly up to 16gb) Operation as a stand-alone computer (USB-OTG powered) 2160p (double 1080p) Video playback MALI 400MP 3D Graphics, OpenGL ES 2.0 compliant. HDMI, Micro-SD, Headphones Socket, EOMA-PCMCIA-compliant interfaces (RGB/TTL, I2C, USB2, SATA-II, 10/100 Eth) Expansion Header (similar to Beagleboard, IMX53QSB, Origen etc.) With this […]

Nixeus Fusion XS (NX-500) Network Media Player

Nixeus Technology announced the Nixeus Fusion XS, an Android 2.2 media player based on a dual-core Marvell Armada 1000 SoC (Cortex A8) with 512 MB RAM selling for 170 USD. The device supports 1080p playback, features a web browser and third-party Android app downloads. The Nixeus Fusion XS Network Media Player also includes a an Ethernet port, two USB 2.0 ports, an HDMI port and audio I/O. Here are Nixeus Fusion XS media player specifications:    Processor   Marvell ARMADA 1000 (88DE3010) – Dual Sheeva RISC CPU Process @ Up-to 1.2GHz    Media Format   Movie   Video Containers: .avi, .wmv, .mpg, .iso, .vob, .ifo, .mp4, .asf, .tp, . ts, .m2ts, .mov (H.264), .mkv, MOTION JPEG   Video Decoder: MPEG 1/2/4 SD/HD, AVI, H.264 HD, WMV9, VC1, Resolution up to 1920 * 1080p   Music  Audio Decoder: MP3, WMA, AAC, Dolby Digital, DTS, FLAC, OGG, MPEG 1 Layer 2, PCM, […]

Android 4.0 Hardware Graphics Acceleration Coming to More Platforms

The Linaro Android Platform Team has just posted a weekly update to their progress. They are going to release 11.12 very soon with hardware graphics acceleration to 2 of their members development boards: ST Ericsson Nova A9500 Snowball and Samsung Exynos 4212 Origen boards. So if you have any boards or products based on those processors you should be able to get an hardware optimized version very soon. Hardware acceleration is already available on all OMAP4 platform such as Pandaboard, since this was the default Android ICS target. They also introduced support for the ARM DS-5 debugger, an Eclipse plug-in to help developer create high performance performance  and low power 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. Here’s a list of this week achievements: Key Points for wider discussion […]

Build the bootloaders (U-boot & X-Loader) for Pandaboard

I’ve tried to compile u-boot and x-loader for Pandaboard by following the instructions given at http://omappedia.org/wiki/Get_started_with_ubuntu_on_omap4#Bootloaders. I did this in Ubuntu 10.04 LTS with Linaro gcc compiler. Here are the instructions for the build: Create the folders:

Get u-boot and checkout the omap4_dev branch:

You may use a different tag. Simply run “git tag -l | grep L24” to see the list of tags. (I used the latest at the time of this post). Build u-boot for OMAP4

At this point, you should get U-boot (u-boot.bin). get x-loader and checkout the omap4_dev branch:

N.B: Both u-boot and x-loader folders must be at the same directory level. build x-loader for OMAP4:

The x-loader (MLO) should now be ready. Finally, you simply need to copy MLO and u-boot.bin files to the SD card. Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting […]

EmbeddedTS embedded systems design