Drawing Charts in Android with AChartEngine Library

AChartEngine is a charting library for Android applications that currently supports the following chart types: line chart area chart scatter chart time chart bar chart pie chart bubble chart doughnut chart range (high-low) bar chart dial chart / gauge combined (any combination of line, cubic line, scatter, bar, range bar, bubble) chart cubic line chart They announced that new chart types would be added in future release (Current version is 0.7.0). You can follow the updates for the library on Google Code or Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/achartengine. You can download the aChartEngine library on Google Code. You can also download some demo code such as TemperatureChart.java which display the following chart with just 100 lines of code including comments. Here’s the code (TemperatureChart.java) to display the Chart above:

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 […]

Toshiba AT200: OMAP4430 Honeycomb Tablet.

Toshiba also announced the Toshiba AT200, a 10″ Android 3.2 Tablet powered by a Texas Instruments OMAP4430 @ 1.2 GHz at IFA 2011.  At 7.7mm thick, it is said to be the thinnest tablet in the world. It feature an IPS (In-plane switching) screen for better viewing angle and color reproduction and  7 to 11 hours battery life is expected for normal usage. Here are Toshiba AT200 specifications: Processor:  Texas Instruments OMAP4430 @ 1.2GHz. Memory: 1GB of RAM and up to 64GB of flash storage. Display: 10.1-inch capacitive touchscreen with 1280 x 800 pixel resolution. Cameras: 5 MP (rear) and 2 MP (front). Expansion: microSD slot. Networking: WiFi (802.11b/g/n) Bluetooth Other I/O: micro-USB micro-HDMI docking connector Battery: 7 to 11 hours of operation. Dimensions : 256 x 176 x 7.7 mm Weight: 558g They only have prototypes of the device for now, and will only sell it in Q4 2011 […]

Android NDK revision 6b

Google has just released Android Native Development Kit Revision 6b, the Android SDK that allows developers to reuse C/C++ code. It is a bug fix version without new feature compared to Revision 6. Here’s the Changelog of the most important bug fixes: Fixed the build when APP_ABI=”armeabi x86″ is used for multi-architecture builds. Fixed the location of prebuilt STLport binaries in the NDK release package. A bug in the packaging script placed them in the wrong location. Fixed atexit() usage in shared libraries with the x86standalone toolchain. Fixed make-standalone-toolchain.sh –arch=x86. It used to fail to copy the proper GNU libstdc++ binaries to the right location. Fixed the standalone toolchain linker warnings about missing the definition and size for the __dso_handle symbol (ARM only). Fixed the inclusion order of $(SYSROOT)/usr/include for x86 builds. See the bug for more information. Fixed the definitions of ptrdiff_t and size_t in x86-specific systems when they […]

Android Open Conference 2011 Schedule

O’reilly’s Android Open Conference 2011 will take place on 9-11 October 2011 in San Francisco. This is the first time this conference takes place. According to the organizers this conference will “cover the entire Android ecosystem. Whether you’re a developer, IT pro, business decision-maker, or marketer, you’ll find the latest and best information for maximizing the power of the Android platform”. There will be keynotes, practical workshops, and expert-led sessions dealing with: Building Android apps: best practices Android internals—under the hood Development tools New frameworks Alternative languages Gaming and game development Enterprise solutions and considerations Performance and security Analytics and revenue models Multiple Android markets Promotion and consumer needs and much more Please find below the schedule for the workshops (Sunday 9th October 2011) and conferences (10-11 October 2011) related to application development and platform development during the 3-day conference. Schedule on the 9th of October 2011 for Application Development […]

Linaro 11.08 Release with Linux Kernel 3.0.3

Linaro has just released version 11.08 based on Linux Kernel 3.0.3 with support or TI Beagleboard, BeagleBoard-xM & Pandaboard,  ST Ericsson Snowball, Freescale i.MX53 development board and Samsung Origen board. Here are the highlights of the release: Android The Linaro 11.08 toolchain release of GCC 4.6 has compiled the Origen, BeagleBoard, BeagleBoard-xM, PandaBoard and Snowball builds, and are running Android 2.3.5 with a 3.0 Linux kernel. Together with the mainline kernel focused builds for BeagleBoard and PandaBoard and a preliminary i.MX53 build, the Android Platform Team ships 6 builds this month. A first! Android Platform code aliasing violations have been fixed allowing the use of strict-aliasing for better optimizations with gcc 4.6 based toolchains. The Android toolchain 11.08 has been released and has received numerous updates, including updated binutils and current gmp/mpfr/mpc. Benchmarks are available here. libjpeg-turbo 1.1.1 and ffmpeg with support for H.264 and WebM build are available on […]

X10 AirPad: 200 USD Android 2.3 Tablet powered by Rockchip RK2918

X10 has started to sell its own android tablet for 199.99 USD. The X10 AirPad is powered by Rockchip RK2918, a 1.2GHz, Cortex-A8-based processor, 512 MB RAM and 4GB of flash storage, and runs Android 2.3 (gingerbread). It features a seven-inch, 800 x 480 pixel capacitive display, a 2 MP camera and an HMDI output supporting 1080p. Its specifications are similar to Arnova 7 G2 also powered by RK 2918 @ 1 Ghz, the second version of Arnova 7 that runs Android 2.3 and features a 7″ capacitive display and is said to be sold in Hong Kong for around 215 USD. Here are the X10 AirPad 7″ Android Tablet Specifications: CPU: 1.2 Ghz Rockchip 2918 Cortex A8 processor + 600 Mhz DSP Display: 7″ 800×480 resolution TFT LCD screen Touch-screen: Capacitive multi-touch, 5 point touch OS: Android 2.3, with Flash 10.1 Camera: 2 Megapixel camera with video recording and […]

200 Android Development Video Tutorials

If you’ve ever wanted to learn how to develop applications for Android but reading books bores you, you now have the chance to teach yourself Android software development with 200 video tutorials (about 20 hours). The videos have been uploaded to ChangingTheUnknown Youtube channel and can be accessed via TheNewBoston – Android playlist. To give you an idea of what you’ll learn, here are the titles of the first 10 tutorials: Download and Install the Java JDK Installing Eclipse and Setting up the ADT Installing Android SDK and Set up Emulator Setting up an Android Project Overview of Project and Adding Folders Introduction to Layouts in XML Creating A Button in XML and Adding an ID Setting up Variables and Referencing XML ids Set up a Button with OnClickListener Using setText method for our button You can watch the first tutorial: “Android Application Development Tutorial – 1 – Download and […]

LinuxCon 2011 Presentation: Embedded Systems

The fourth presentation entitled  “Embedded Systems” was presented by Tim Harder, developer at OSUOSL (Oregon State University Open Source Lab) on the 16th of August 2011 at LinuxCon 2011. Abstract: This presentation deals with software development for Embedded Systems especially focusing on Linux and open source.  It describes current software development challenges such as fast software life cycle and memory footprint issues, lists several open hardware projects (Beagleboard, Pandaboard, Bug Labs, Gumstix),  microcontrollers (Arduino and TI MSP430), different operating systems (Android, Meego) and toolchain build tools (Buildroot, Yocto) for embedded systems. It also explains specific challenges to embedded software development such a the numerous number of hardware platforms and software & hardware  tools. Finally, it deals with the cross-compilers, emulators (e.g. qemu) and debugging tools (gdb, jtag, serial console, etc…). If you want to download the presentation slides, please go to Embedded Systems and use the download button on top of […]

EmbeddedTS embedded systems design