Calao Snowball Development Boards Are now Available

Earlier in February, ST Ericsson had announced the availability of development boards running Linaro based on their Nova A9500 processor. 4 different development kits based on this platform can now be purchased online on Calao store: SKY-S9500-ULP-C22 (SNOWBALL SDK LITE – Without WLAN/BT/GPS) – 155.73 Euros SKY-S9500-ULP-C32 (SNOWBALL PDK LITE – Without WLAN/BT/GPS) – 226.22 Euros SKY-S9500-ULP-C12 (SNOWBALL SDK) – 164.59 Euros SKY-S9500-ULP-C02 (SNOWBALL PDK) – 241.47 Euros The differences between the SDK (Software Development Kit) and PDK (Production Development Kit) are that the former has no expansion connectors, no battery backup for RTC and only support serial over USB port (for Linux console). Finally, the PDK has a larger e-MMC (8GB vs. 4GB). The price mentioned above exclude VAT (if applicable) and shipping costs. Please note that the boards can be shipped to many countries but not anywhere worldwide (e.g. Shipping is not available to Thailand) and you’ll need to […]

Ziilabs announced the ZMS-20 aimed at Android 3.0 Tablets

Here’s how Ziilabs describes their new dual core processor aimed at tablets running Android honeycomb: The ZMS-20 has been engineered for high-resolution tablet computing and combines ZiiLABS’ StemCell media processing array with dual 1.5GHz ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore processors (with Neon) to deliver stunning 1080p high profile video playback, immersive OpenGL ES 2.0 3D graphics, HD video calling and a rich desktop browsing experience including Adobe Flash Player. With multi-core application acceleration and dynamic power management for longer battery life the ZMS-20 delivers the efficient, high-performance platform required for the next generation of devices, including Android 3.0 based tablets. ZMS-20 Key Features: Dual 1.5GHz ARM Cortex A9 cores with Neon ZiiLABS flexible Stemcell media processing capabilities Low-energy SIMD architecture for high performance media acceleration 48 x 32-bit floating point media processing cores for 26GFlops of compute High Profile H.264 video playback at 1080p@30fps Wide range of accelerated video codecs including H.264, […]

Qualcomm Officially Releases its Augmented Reality SDK

Qualcomm has just released the official release of their Augmented Reality SDK with Unity 3.0 Support: Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ: QCOM) today announced the immediate commercial availability of its Augmented Reality (AR) Platform for Android smartphones. Offered through Qualcomm’s online developer network, this 1.0 release marks the successful completion of the Company’s beta program. Developers can now build, market and commercially distribute applications based on the Qualcomm AR platform. … The platform supports multiple development environments. The Qualcomm AR Android SDK supports native Android development with the Android tool chain, including the Android SDK and NDK. The Qualcomm AR Unity Extension supports rapid development with the Unity 3 game development tool. A web application is also included for creating and managing image resources that can be used with either development environment. You may have check out the complete QCAR SDK Press Release. You can download the the latest Qualcomm SDK and […]

Ali M3701G: New MIPS based STB SoC

Ali, a Taiwan company, manufacturer of chips for multimedia devices such as DVD player , Set-top boxes, media player has recently announced a new chipset for DVB STB based on MIPS architecture called the M3701G. Here’s an excerpt of MIPS press release (25/04/2011) for this system on chip: MIPS Technologies, Inc.announced today that Taiwan’s ALi Corporation based its new system-on-chip (SoC), which is targeted for the emerging “triple play” market, on the popular MIPS32® 24KEfTM core. MIPS32 24K® cores are widely used across the globe in digital home and networking products including broadband access devices, digital televisions, set-top boxes, and digital media players. … With a hybrid design for DVB-C HD / DVB+IP dual-mode operation, the new M3701G chipset from ALi is targeted for products that support triple play services, such as the next generation of networked media players and set-top boxes. … The M3701G chipset is available now from […]

Rockchip RK2918 based Set-Top Box and Laptop

Rockchip RK2919 is apparently being implemented in many tablets such as Arnova 10, but they are also used in STB / media players and Laptops. Rockchip showcased their set-top box reference design at Hong Kong Electronics Fair 2010. Their board features 100MB Ethernet, one USB host port, one HDMI video output and one SD Card connector. The BOM cost is around 50 USD. The reference designs runs Android 2.3 (gingerbread). They also exhibited a laptop based on RK2918 supposedly manufactured by one of their customers running Android 2.3. There are no details specs nor price information available yet. But with an ARM Cortex A8 running at 1.2Ghz it should offer decent performance compared to existing ARM based laptops although I’d rather have Ubuntu preloaded (now optimized by Linaro) than Android on this kind of device. Here’s a video by Charbax (armdevices.net) of this laptop. Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)Jean-Luc started CNX Software […]

RK2918 based Arnova 10 Tablet with Capacitive Touchscreen

Arnova, a subsidiary of Archos in Hong Kong, has already released the resistive touchscreen version of Arnova 10 based on Android 2.1 and powered by Rockchip RK2918 in March 2011. In May, they will start to sell the latest version of Arnova 10 with capacitive touchscreen and Android 2.3 (Gingerbread). The price should only be slightly higher then the first Arnova 10 with a retail price of 229 USD / 229 Euro. This device is very similar to Archos 101 except it has a more powerful processor (Rockchip RK2918 vs. OMAP 3) but it does not have kickstand and surprisingly no HDMI output. Watch the hands-on video by Charbax below. 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

Android 2.3.3 Firmware for HTC, Motorola, ZTE, Samsung smartphones

CyanogenMod is an aftermarket firmware for a number of cell phones and tablets based on the open-source Android operating system. It offers features not found in the official Android based firmwares of vendors of these cell phones.  People often use it because the official firmware of their phone may not get an update or because they do not like the custom Android UI of the manufacturer. The latest version is CyanogenMod 7 (11th of April 2011) with the following: Android version: 2.3.3 Kernel 2.6.37.4 with CFS (Completely Fair Scheduler) Root access BusyBox tools Apps2SD Reboot menu – options to perform a reboot, reboot into recovery, or reboot into bootloader Input settings – Haptic feedback adjustments, trackball wake, menu unlock, music controls on lock screen Performance settings – surface dithering, JIT, VM heap size, and lock messaging in memory CyanogenMod 7 also offers user interface improvement, some pre-install apps, networking support (OpenVPN, tethering, etc..), audio […]

HTC Sensation runs on Dual-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8260

HTC has just announced its new smartphone – the HTC Sensation – powered by the latest Snapdragon Dual Core MSM8260 running @ 1.2 GHz with an 4.3″ Capacitive display featuring qHD (540×960) resolution Features and specifications of the HTC Sensation: CPU: Qualcomm MSM8260 1.2GHz, dual core OS: Android 2.3 with HTC Sense Storage: Internal phone storage: 1 GB RAM: 768 MB Expansion slot: microSD™ memory card (SD 2.0 compatible) Cameras: 8 megapixel color camera: Auto focus and dual LED flash Front camera: VGA fixed focus color camera HD video recording: 1080p HD video recording Internet: 3G, GPRS, EDGE and Wifi802.11 b/g/n Misc: Bluetooth 3.0, Internal GPS and USB and Wi-Fi® tethering Connectors: 3.5 mm stereo audio jack micro-USB 2.0 (5-pin) port with mobile high-definition video link (MHL) for USB or HDMI connection Sensors: Gyro sensor G-Sensor Digital compass Proximity sensor Ambient light sensor Multimedia: Gallery, Music, and FM Radio SRS […]

UP 7000 x86 SBC