Android News - Page 351 of 369 - CNX Software

November 24, 2011November 24, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

“Romo” Robot Controlled by Android or iOS Smartphones

Romotive startup has designed “Romo”, a tank-like Robot controlled by Android or/and iOS mobile devices. Peter Seid and Phu Nguyen – Romotive’s co-founders – have raised over 114,000 USD on KickStarter website from more than 1,100 contributors looking to buy the Romo robot. The company has reached its founding target (32,000 USD) and can now move forward on production. You can still get the Robot for 78 USD (+12 USD shipping if you live outside the US) on KickStarter. You’ll need two Android or iOS devices to play with it: one acting as a camera that sits on the “Romo” and the other to control the robot’s movements and receive the camera stream via Wi-Fi. The motors are interestingly controlled by audio signals coming from the smartphone. Romo’s Hardware is composed of the following: A motorized, acrylic base with an accessory port that can be controlled by any smartphone (or […]

November 24, 2011November 24, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 25 Comments

Android 4.0 on BeagleBoard and Beagleboard-xM

Sola has written the instructions (in Japanese) to build Android 4.0 (ICS) for Beagleboard and Beagleboard-xM. Here’s the same in English: Get the source code: $ mkdir -p /home/sola/work/ics $ cd /home/sola/work/ics $ export ANDROID_ROOT=$PWD $ repo init -u https://bitbucket.org/sola/android_manifest $ repo sync -j8 Build Android: $ cd $ANDROID_ROOT $ source build/envsetup.sh $ lunch full_beagleboard_xm-eng [for BeagleBoard-xM] $ lunch full_beagleboard-eng [for BeagleBoard] $ time make -j8 Generate the rootfs: $ cd $ANDROID_ROOT/out/target/product/beagleboard_xm/ [for BeagleBoard-xM] $ cd $ANDROID_ROOT/out/target/product/beagleboard/ [for BeagleBoard] $ mkdir rootfs $ sudo cp -a ./root/* ./rootfs/ $ sudo cp -a ./system/* ./rootfs/system/ Build the kernel: $ export ARCH=arm $ export CROSS_COMPILE=$ANDROID_ROOT/prebuilt/linux-x86/toolchain/arm-eabi-4.4.3/bin/arm-eabi- $ cd $ANDROID_ROOT/board/beagleboard/kernel $ make omap3_beagle_android_defconfig $ make uImage modules -j8 Partition the SD card （bootloader, media, rootfs）: $ cd $ANDROID_ROOT/board/beagleboard/sdcard $ sudo LANG=C ./mksdcard_beagle.sh /dev/sdx where /dev/sdx depends on your setup (e.g. /dev/sda). Generate boot.scr: $ cd $ANDROID_ROOT/board/beagleboard/bootscript $ ./mkbootscr Copy MLO/u-boot.bin/uImage/rootfs to the SD card: […]

November 23, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

CIFS/Samba Support, USB Drive and Keyboard/Mouse for Android 4.0

Paul O’Brien, founder of modaco, has created a custom kernel with CIFS/SAMBA support, USB drive and keyboard / mouse support for Galaxy Nexus smartphone running Android 4.0 (ICS). This is a temporary download until MCR (MoDaCo Custom ROM) is released. This should be flashed via ‘fastboot flash boot boot.mck.img’ to a device with an unlocked bootloader. This is designed for devices running the I9250XXKK1 / ITL41D (android-4.0.1_r1) ROM. DOWNLOAD – MD5: adf6bcc42205027952630dcf720beada Source: http://android.modaco.com/topic/348882-23-nov-modaco-custom-kernel-cifs-usb-drives-keyboard-mouse/ 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

November 22, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Android 4.0 For Blind or Visually Impaired Users

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

November 21, 2011November 21, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Android Variants, Hacks, Tricks and Resources – AnDevCon II

The second Android developer Conference (AnDevCon II) took place about 10 days ago. Karim Yaghmour of OperSys published the presentation slides he used during his two Android presentations. The first presentation was Embedded Android Workshop, the same presentation he did at Android Open 2011. The second presentation “Android Variants, Hacks, Tricks and Resources” slides can be found below. Those 48 slides cover the following: AOSP’s limitations: Rigid, closed development model, excludes many things… Tearing AOSP apart Forks: Cyanogenmod: After-market handset firmware with custom launcher and lots of tweaks and mods… Replicant: 100% open souce with FDroid marketplace. MIUI: Closed source with UI enhancements. Ports: RIM Playbook: OMAP4 Tablet based on AOSP. Bluestacks: Android on Windows 7. Alien Dalvik: Android SDK + Meego SDK integration. Mods: XDA Developers. Melding with “Classic” Linux Stack: Rationale: Lots of available stacks in Linux, Android does not provide everything. Road blocks: File system, Bionic C […]

November 19, 2011November 19, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Turn your TV into a Computer with FXI Technologies Cotton Candy USB Stick

FXI Technologies has unveiled a USB stick that turns any screen into an a computer running Android or Ubuntu, and in the future Windows 8 will also be supported. The Cotton Candy will include a Samsung Exynos 4210 dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 CPU clocked at 1.2GHz, with a Quad Core Mali 400MP GPU, like the Samsung Galaxy S2 smartphone. It will also feature 1GB of RAM, a microSD slot capable of holding up to 64GB of flash memory, Wifi and Bluetooth connectivity and an HDMI port. This small device (it measures 8cm x 2.5cm) has decent multimedia capabilities as it can support 1080p decode of MPEG4-SP/H.263/H.264 AVC/MPEG-2/VC1, as well as MP3, AAC, AAC+, Real Audio decoding and JPG, GIF, BMP, PNG pictures. Extra third party codec can also be added. There are 2 main use cases for the Cotton Candy: Connection to a HDMI-capable TV or Display: Connect an HDMI monitor/TV […]

November 18, 2011February 22, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Qualcomm Announces Snapdragon S4 Liquid Mobile Development Platform Tablet

Following their new Snapdragon S4 processors announcement, Qualcomm also unveiled the Snapdragon S4 Liquid MDP Tablet for developers based on MSM8960 with 2GB LPDDR2 system memory, 32 GB eMMC and 1 MB NOR Flash. This reference design features a 10.1-inch 1366 x 768 (16:9) 10-finger capacitive multitouch display, on-die LTE modem, dual 1080p cameras (front:13 MP / rear: 2MP) and another two for 3D, 7 (!) microphones, surround stereo speakers and lots of sensors: dual 3D accelerators, 3-axis gyro, a compass, ambient light and proximity sensor, temperature and pressure sensor and a fingerprint sensor. It also supports haptic feedback thanks to two dual independently-controlled linear vibrator motors. Although Android Honeycomb and ICS can do without, the S4 MDP comes with its fair share of (physical) button: combo volume / zoom rocker, power button, screen rotation lock, home button and reset button. External connectors include a docking station port, micro USB […]

November 18, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Archos Unveils Arnova 9 G2 Android Tablet

Archos has announced another low cost Arnova Android tablet, the Arnova 9 G2, featuring a 1GHz single core ARM Cortex A8 (most probably Rockchip RK2918) and a 9.7 inch capacitive touchscreen IPS display with a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels (4:3 Aspect Ratio) that supports 5-point multi-touch. The display characteristics are almost exactly the same as the IPAD 2, luckily Apple has not filled a patent for screen size and resolution yet… 🙂 The device also features 8GB flash and a microSD card slot which can take up to 32GB cards. There is no mention of the RAM capacity of this tablet. Arnova 9 G2 includes a front facing camera for video chat, a pair of stereo speakers, a stereo audio jack, a microphone, a standard USB 2.0 port as well as a micro USB port and it comes with 802.11 b/g/n WiFi and is 3G ready thanks to […]