Testing Category - Page 155 of 168 - CNX Software

March 8, 2013March 8, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Review of Egreat H5 mini PC Powered by Nufront NS115

W2COMP sent me a new toy to play with: Egreat H5 mini PC built around Nufront NS115 dual core Cortex A9 SoC with 1GB RAM and 4GB Flash, and (theoretically) running Android Jelly Bean (4.1). Since it’s the first time I write about this device, let’s start with the specifications as shown in W2COMP: SoC – Nufront NS115 dual core Cortex A9 @ 1.0GHz + Mali-400 GPU System Memory – 1GB DDR3 Storage – 4GB Nand Flash (2 GB for OS, 2GB available space) + micro SD slot. Video Output – HDMI (720p / 180p) Video Containers- AVI, RMVB, MKV& FLV Audio Codec – Dolby, DTS, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby True HD, PCM (DTS-HD MA, RAW not supported), MP3, WMA, AAC, FLAC and OGG Connectivity – Built-in WI-FI 802.11 b/g/n USB – 1x USB host port, 1x micro USB Misc – 1 IR port Power – 5V/2A Dimensions – 122 […]

March 1, 2013May 25, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 35 Comments

How to Run Android Apps in Linux with AndroVM

You may want to run some Android applications in your computer. If you’re using Windows, there’s already a decent option with Bluestacks. If you’re using Linux, you could always install the Android SDK and run the emulator, but I don’t really like this option because of the user interface, and for people who don’t need to use the SDK it’s not really the simplest thing to install. The way to run Android apps in Linux is probably to run an x86 Android virtual machine in VirtualBox. Yesterday, I tried the latest development version of Android x86 4.2, but for some reasons I could not control the mouse, and had to perform all tasks with the keyboard. What I’m going to use today instead is AndroVM, an Android VM for x86 processor, that is even more easy to use than the Android x86 image. The instructions has been performed in a […]

February 27, 2013February 28, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

$35 expEYES Junior Transforms the Raspberry Pi, Aakash2 Tablet or any Linux Powered Device into an Electronics Lab

I remember in high school in France, our class only had 2 oscilloscopes and few other electronics equipment, needless to say I did not actually get to use an oscilloscope until I went to university. It would have been nice to be able to play around with oscilloscopes, frequency generators, etc… earlier, but due to budget constraints, this was not possible. Dr Ajith Kumar, a scientist working with the Inter University Accelerator Centre of India, has spent several years working on an ultra low cost electronics lab composed of an oscilloscope and a signal generator to provide students attending schools that cannot afford regular equipments. This learning & experimentation tool is called expEYES, and a prototype was demonstrated last year with the Raspberry Pi. At the end of last year, the final version called expEYES Junior (aka expEYES 2.0) was announced, and is now available to schools and hobbyists in […]

February 25, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Adding Wi-Fi to Emcraft Systems K70 SoM

Emcraft Systems K70 SoM is a system-on-module powered by Freescale K70 Cortex M4 micro-controller with enough RAM (64 MB) to comfortably run uClinux. They used to charge $99 for their uCLinux BSP, but it’s now free of charge, and the company also provides full hardware and software documentation, including a getting started guide, schematics and BoM for the baseboard, application notes and more… Many of their clients want to use Wi-Fi with K70 SoM, and it can easily be done by using Wi-Fi USB dongles based on Ralink RT5370 chipset such as D-Link DWA-140 (H/W rev B3) or Comfast CF-WU815N. Emcraft has provided detailed instructions to do so with K70 SoM, their latest baseboard (SOM-BSB-EXT) and a demo image based on their uClinux BSP. I’ll summarize the instructions to use K70 SoM as a Wi-Fi access point below. Connect the baseboard and K70 SoM with an Ethernet cable, a mini […]

February 25, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Nvidia Tegra 4 Benchmarks on Tablet Reference Design

Mobile World Congress 2013 has just started. Nvidia is showcasing both a smartphone reference platform based on Nvidia Tegra 4i (Phoenix reference phone) and an unnamed tablet reference design with Tegra 4 during the event, and several Android benchmarks have been run on the platform including Antutu and Quadrant. The results in the quad-core Cortex A15 Tegra 4 are really impressive with over 36,000 in AnTuTu and 16,000 in Quadrant, which are the best scores ever reported (by far) on those two benchmarks, as the top score in Antutu achieved with an overclocked Galaxy Note 2 is just over 27,000, a phone like the HTC One X scores around 5,600… Android Police also ran two other benchmarks that can help to access web browsing performance: Vellamo (HTML5) and SunSpider. The Tegra 4 completes SunSpider in 494ms (vs 1124ms with HTC One and 208ms in my desktop PC), and scores 3300 […]

February 19, 2013February 19, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 37 Comments

Ubuntu Linaro 12.11 with 2D/3D Mali-400 GPU Acceleration on ODROID-X Development Board

A few days ago, Hardkernel released the first version of Ubuntu 12.11 (Linaro) with Mali-400 GPU support for their ODROID boards (ODROID-X/X2, ODROID-U/U2). This is still WIP (Work in Progress), but this is one of the few boards together with Pandaboard, Origen and Snowball that can support 2D/3D GPU acceleration in Ubuntu Quantal. Since I have an ODROID-X development board, I decided to give it a try. There are different ways to install it. I chose the way that is most convenient for me (LCD display instead of HDMI), and likely to yield more performance (eMMC instead of SD Card). The current installation instructions to eMMC are extremely cumbersome and you have to go through 5 main steps: Install Android (yes, seriously) in the eMMC Install Ubuntu in the SD Card Install Ubuntu to the eMMC Upgrade Ubuntu to the latest version Install the Mali drivers In this post I’m […]

February 18, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

How to Open an Android mini PC / HDMI TV Dongle

Since I’ve been asked, I’ve done a short video showing how to open an Android mini PC, namely Droid Stick A2. As most casings are based on similar design the same method can be used for many other mini PCs that comes with a plastic casing. Some other mini PCs with a metallic casing, such as Hi802, need to be opened with a different, and IMHO easier, method as you just have to remove 2 screws. For Droid Stick A2, all you need is a flat head precision screwdriver. First look for small spaces between the two parts of the casing, insert the screwdriver where the largest space is, and gently lift it up. Watch the video below for a demo. 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 […]

February 16, 2013February 16, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

ARM big.LITTLE Processing Demo (HMP) on ARM TC2 Test Chip

Samsung launched Exynos 5 Octa at CES 2013. This processor comes with 8 cores: 4 Cortex A15 cores and 4 Cortex A7 cores, and it’s the first processor that’s been announced to work in big.LITTLE configuration, where the big cores (A15) handle demanding tasks, and the LITTLE cores (A7) handle simpler tasks such as audio playback or background tasks. This is all done to optimize power consumption. There are 2 big.LITTLE software implementations: In-kernel switcher (IKS) and heterogeneous multi-processing (HMP). The first one is easier to implements but can only use 4 cores (in Exynos 5 Octa) at a time, and the second is more complex, but can handle all 8 cores, and assign individual tasks to a particular core. For more technical details about big.LITTLE implementations, you can read my previous post. ARM and Samsung recently uploaded a video providing an overview of big.LITTLE (but instead of IKS and […]