I’ve recently received and reviewed the 70 USD Mele A1000 STB powered by AllWinner A10, but haven’t been able to hack it yet since I’ve have not received the USB to Serial cable necessary for debugging the board. However, somebody else (Tom Cubie) had time to hack the box and run Ubuntu from a SD card (while still keeping Android in the flash) as you can see below. This port does not seem to include hardware accelerated GUI just yet, but this is definitely a step in the right direction. Tom said he just followed the instructions at http://rhombus-tech.net/allwinner_a10/hacking_the_mele_a1000/ and http://rhombus-tech.net/a10_mmc_boot/ to have Ubuntu working, but those do not appear to be that clear at the moment. 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 […]
Ziilabs MandelMark Benchmark Shows ZMS-40 GPU Compute Performance is 18 Times Faster than Nvidia Tegra 3
Ziilabs released comparative GPU compute benchmark results for its ZMS-40 stem cells processor and made available its MandelMark floating point benchmark for Android 4.0 as an apk file. Since Ziilabs is using its own benchmark tool, which they released as a binary but did not open source, the results should be taken with a grain of salt. GPU Compute (aka GPGPU – General Purpose computing on GPU) is a technique to use the GPU to perform complex calculations usually performed by the CPU. MandelMark benchmark visualizes the solutions to the Mandelbrot to measure the floating point performance of mobile processors. Ziilabs compared their ZMS-40 Quad Core Cortex A9 processor with 96 stemcell cores to the following competitors: IPAD 3 – Apple A5X processor with a quad-core PowerVR SGX543MP4 GPU Galaxy Tab 7+ – Samsung Exynos 4210 processor with a quad-core ARM Mali-400 GPU Galaxy Nexus – TI OMAP 4460 processor […]
Sunlike UMPC-1021: 85 USD AllWinner A10 Based 10.2″ Android 4.0 Netbook
Sunlike, a Shenzhen-based manufacturer, showcased their UMPC-1021 Android 4.0 netbook at the China sourcing fair last week. This netbook is powered by an AllWinner A10 (ARM Cortex A8) processor with 1GB RAM and 4GB flash and features a 10.2″ LCD display (but not a touchscreen), a 1.3MP front camera and a 2100mAh battery. Here are the specifications of Sunlike UMPC-1021 Android netbook. CPU AllWinner A10 @ 1.2 GHz Operation system Android 4.0 ICS or WinCE Memory 1G RAM Storage Device 2/4/8G NAND Flash LCD 10.2″ PANEL 16:9 wide screen. 1024×600 Resolution LAN 10/100M Ethernet WIFI 802.11b/g USB Port 3x USB 2.0 Host External Storage SD Card Slot Build-in camera 1.3 MPixel Audio Build-in stereo speaker Microphone Dimensions 280 x 189 x 25 mm Battery 7.4V 2100 mAh – 3 to 5 hours usage The company also explains that this netbook can be used for 5 hours with the “default” 2,100 mAh battery, but they can extend that to 10 hours with a 4,000 mAh battery. Watch the video below to see […]
Texas Instruments Releases Android 4.0.3 DevKit for Beagleboard-XM and Beaglebone
After collaborating with arowboat, android-porting and Linaro communities, Texas Instruments has released Android 4.0.3 development kits for Sitara microprocessors which support Beagleboard-XM (Sitara DM3730) and Beaglebone (Sitara AM335x) low cost development boards, as well as other Sitara-based evaluation modules and development boards. Android 4.0.3 Devkit for Beaglebone If you have a Beaglebone (and an LCD or DVI-D cape), you can use TI Android ICS 4.0.3 DevKit v3.0.1, a release providing an Android ICS 4.0.3 distribution for TI’s Sitara AM335x ARM Cortex A8 Processors. This DevKit provides Android sources with pre-integrated SGX (3D graphics accelerator) drivers, TI hardware abstraction for Audio, WLAN & Bluetooth for TI WL1271 chipset, USB mass storage, etc, as well as development and debugging tools such as a toolchain, TI CCSv5, ADT plugins and more, which are provided to build custom Android solutions for the embedded market more easily. The pre-built images includes Android default apps, multimedia […]
Nakamichi Android VoIP Phone at Hong Kong Electronics Fair 2012
M3 Electronics (HK) showcased an Android VoIP phone they designed for Nakamichi at HKTDC Electronics Fair on April 13-16, 2012. The current model based on Rockchip RK2818 (Cortex A8) features a 7″ resistive touchscreen and a camera for video conferencing and runs a customized version of Android. This VoIP phone is especially targeted at home use as it offers multimedia functions such as Internet Radio, music playback and YouTube, as well as Calendar and Contact applications. You can make calls via PSTN or Internet (e.g. Skype or some SIP clients). Nakamichi VoIP phone currently sells in Europe and the US for 259 USD, and should be sold in China via China Telecom this year. A new model of the phone powered by Freescale i.MX535 is currently designed with a capacitive touchscreen and a 5 MPixel camera, USB host port for external storage and HDMI output. This VoIP phone can also […]
Rockchip Unveils RK3066 Dual Core Cortex A9 Processor
Rockchip announced the RK3066 processor featuring a dual core Cortex A9 with a quad-core Mali-400 GPU and the company is currently showcasing tablets, e-Readers and set-top boxes powered by RK3066 at Hong Kong Electronics Fair on 13-16 April, 2012. Information is sparse, but I managed to find more information on Engadget China website which shows the key features of RK3066: Dual Core A9 + Quad Core GPU 2 banks, 8/16 bit Nor flash / SRAM interface 8 banks, 8/16 bit async NAND flash, LBA NAND flash and 8-bit sync ONFI NAND flash, all up to 60-bit hardware ECC 2 GB space for 2 ranks, 16-bit / 32-bit DDR3-800, LPDDR2-800 and LVDDR3-800 3 channels SD/MMC interface to support MMC 4.1 and SD3.0 2 channels TFT LCD interface with 5 layers and 3D display with resolution up to 1920×1080 HDMI 1.4 to support 1080p@30 3D video 2 channels 8-bit CCiR656 interface and […]
Diyomate A6 TV BOX: 45 USD Android 4.0 Networked Media Player Based on Telechips TCC8920
Diyomate A6 TV BOX is a networked media player running Android 4.0 (ICS) and powered by Cortex A5 Telechips TCC8620 processor, and the company – Diyomate Electronic Technology – is showcasing their new device at the Hong Kong Electronics Fair on April 13 – 16, 2012. Here are the specifications of this set-top box: CPU – ARM Cortex A5 Telechips TCC8925 TCC8920 with Mali 400 GPU System Memory – 1 GB DDR3 Video Codecs – H.264, VC1, ASP, DivX 3.x for 720p, 1080i and 1080p resolutions. Video output – Composite and HDMI 1.4 Flash – Flash 11.1 supported Connectivity – 10/100 Mbps Ethernet + built-in Wifi 802.11 b/g/n You can watch the video below to learn more about Diyomate A6 TV BOX. Diyomate A6 TV BOX set-top box should be available in May and cost 45 USD (MOQ: 1000). So I suppose the retail price should be around or below 90 […]
ADLINK Technology SP-860 Smart Panel Computer Powered By TI Sitara AM3517
ADLINK Technology has recently unveiled the SP-860 Smart Panel, a panel computer combining an 8″ LCD and a TI Cortex A8 Sitara AM3517 processor with 256 MB RAM, 2GB flash, 2 Ethernet ports and WiFi/BT connectivity, targeted at industrial applications such as Point-of-Sales (POS), stationary displays, and outdoor/ruggedized operations. Here are ADLINK SP-860 Specifications: CPU – TI Sitara AM3517 Cortex-A8 processor @ 600 MHz with Power-VR SGX 3D graphics accelerator Main Memory- 256 MB DDR2 DRAM Storage – 2 GB NAND Flash (4GB Optional) + SD Card slot LCD – 8″ 4:3 panel, resolution: 800 x 3 (RGB) x 600 with LED backlight and an optional 4-wire resistive touch sensor. Ethernet – 1 internal LAN Port 10/100 Mbps MAC+PHY and 1 external 10/100 Mbps controller Wireless – Wi-Fi / Bluetooth IEEE 802.11b/g/n & BT 2.1 + EDR CAN BUS – Internal High-End CAN 2.0b Controller USB – 4x USB 2.0 […]