Android 4.0 (ICS) has some interesting features for blind or visually impaired users. With accessibility mode enabled, smartphones such as the Galaxy Nexus will dictate the name of the icons has you touch them and instruct you to tap it if you want to use this application. You can also use 2 fingers to scroll the current and you’ll get audible feedback to know where you scroll. Google has setup a YouTube channel (EyesFreeAndroid) to showcase features and applications available to blind and visually impaired users. Here’s an example below showing the touch exploration tutorial. 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
Beyond NFC Payment: Other NFC Use Cases
During CarteS event, NXP has uploaded a video on YouTube showing several NFC applications that are not directly used for payment. In the video below, you’ll see several such applications including: Smart Advertizement: shopping advice, movie promotion, travel info and game Smart Meter for meter reading and real-time power consumption monitoring via an Android device e-Passport with NFC Technology for faster immigration procedure. Secure Online Authentication NFC-Enable motorcycle to prevent theft NFC-enabled figurines to interact with video games. Authentication to unlock door, laptop and more. Gesture enabled smart card where you can use gesture to sign your own card and enable/disable it. 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
DLNA/UPnP Linux Server with Coherence
Coherence is a DLNA/UPnP Media Server written in Python which exports local files or online media to UPnP clients. Coherence fetch the media files from several sources such as: Local applications media collections, like those from Rythmbox or Banschee, Audio-CD or DVB Online services like Flickr, last.fm, YouTube, Picasa Web Albums and other. Other sources can also be added thanks to Coherence plug-in architecture. The media server supports transcoding (currently experimental) that is to convert media files in another format. Coherence toolkit also contains other packages such as: Coherence-Config: a cross-platform GUI frontend for ‘Coherence’. Cadre: a picture DLNA/UPnP MediaRenderer which can display pictures from the local filesystem or from a MediaServer. Mirabeau: An application level proxy for UPnP devices which allows to share your UPnP content between two or more local networks over the Internet. It uses XMPP as a transport (work in progress). UPnP-Inspector: a graphical UPnP Device […]
OpenMAX (Open Media Acceleration)
OpenMAX (Open Media Acceleration) is a royalty-free, cross-platform set of C-language programming interfaces that provides abstractions for routines especially useful for audio, video, and still images. OpenMAX standard is managed by the non-profit technology consortium Khronos Group. OpenMAX allows developers to take advantages of hardware media decoding/encoding. For example, If you want to play video using Raspberry Pi hardware (VideoCore IV GPU in Broadcom BCM2835) you’ll have to use OpenMAX IL. OpenMAX provides three layers of interfaces: Application Layer (AL): Open standard for accelerating the capture, and presentation of audio, video, and images in multimedia applications on embedded and mobile devices. Integration Layer (IL) : API defining a standardized media component interface to enable developers and platform providers to integrate and communicate with multimedia codecs implemented in hardware or software. Development Layer (DL): APIs containing a comprehensive set of audio, video and imaging functions that can be implemented and optimized […]
Linaro’s Android Platform – ELCE 2011
Zach Pfeffer, Linaro Android Platform team leader, describes Linaro’s work on the Android platform and future plans at Embedded Linux Conference Europe 2011. Abstract: Linaro uses components from the Android Open Source Project, member companies, community supported efforts and Linaro engineering teams to build integrated, easy-to-use and well tested Android platforms for upstream work, product baselines and hobby projects. The team currently has platforms for TIs PandaBoard, BeagleBoard and Beagle xM, ST Ericsson’s Snowball, Samsung’s Origen and Freescale’s iMX53. They recently released platforms with Android 2.3.4 built against GCC 4.6 and running the 3.0 Linux kernel. In this session Zach reviews what’s been done, the Linaro Android concept, how Linaro brings Android together and what their plans are. 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 […]
Using Buildroot For a Real Project – ELCE 2011
Thomas Petazzoni, embedded Linux engineer and trainer at Free Electrons, shows how they used buildroot for a specific project at Embedded Linux Conference Europe 2011. Abstract: Buildroot is a nice, simple and efficient tool to build small to medium sized embedded Linux systems, such as the ones found in many industrial systems or highly dedicated systems. Buildroot allows to automate the process of building a cross-compiling toolchain, building the root filesystem with all userspace components, building a Linux kernel image and a bootloader image. Based on experiences of a specific customer project, Thomas details how Buildroot can be configured and used to quickly produce nice, fast and efficient embedded Linux systems, but also how the target application development and debugging can be done based on Buildroot. You can also download the presentation slides. Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as […]
Device Tree Status Report – ELCE 2011
Grant Likely, owner at Secret Lab Technology, describe the current status of device tree (used to resolve ARM “hodgepodge” issue) and provides an example at Embedded Linux Conference Europe 2011. Abstract: In recent years, Linux has enjoyed immense success in the embedded market, and we’ve seen an explosion in the number of devices supported by the mainline Linux kernel. Traditionally, however, adding support for another embedded machine typically involved adding yet another board.c file to the kernel which more often than not was simply cut and paste from a similar board. As a result, board support code contains a huge amount of duplication and has become so huge that it is becoming unmaintainable. To move away from individual board files, several architectures have adopted the Device Tree method of encoding the hardware details into a data structure which can be parsed by generic initialization code and device drivers. This session […]
National Geographic Augmented Reality Application
Impressive Augmented Reality Live Broadcast: Shoppers walk by a large screen in a mall where they can see themselves with wild animals, dinosaurs and walk with astronauts. This Augmented Reality system has been designed by AppShaker, a “digital creative agency devoted to building the finest online experiences for brands across the world”. You can also go to their website to watch their other projects. I suspect the augmented reality system above is based on a PC system. 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