Android 3.0 SDK Preview and Platform Highlights

Google has just released Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) preview SDK and platform highlights. Android 3.0 Highlights Summary New User Features: New UI designed from the ground up for tablets (larger screens) System Bar, for global status and notifications Action Bar, for application control: access to contextual options, navigation, widgets, or other types of content in the Action Bar, displayed at the top of the screen. Five Customizable Home screens with widgets, app shortcuts, and wallpapers using a dedicated visual layout mode. Recent Apps, for easy visual multitasking Redesigned keyboard to improve typing speed/accuracy on tablets. Improved text selection, copy and paste New connectivity options such as Media/Photo Transfer Protocol, USB / Bluetooth keyboards Updated set of standard apps for larger screens. Browser Improvements: Multi-tabs support,  “incognito” mode, better browsing experience at non-mobile sites through an improved zoom and viewport model, overflow scrolling, support for fixed positioning, and more. Camera and Gallery: […]

OLPC XO 1.75 Hardware, Firmware and Software

OLPC demo’ed their 3rd generation laptop – OLCP XO 1.75 – based on Marvell Armada 610 at CES 2011. The good thing about this platform is that they opened most of it including the hardware, the software and for the first time the firmware. However, I found out it’s not so easy to find the hardware / software development information and source on the OLPC site, so I’ve decided to make a summary and provide links to the hardware, firmware and software for OLPC XO 1.75. OLPC XO 1.75 Hardware The XO-1.75 is powered by Marvell Armada 610 CPU (88AP610) with an ARM core clocked at 1Ghz. It has 1GB DDR3 SDRAM, 4GiB NAND Flash, a TFT display, an SD Card slot, Wi-Fi,  a few USB ports and a camera. I believe the touchscreen is not part of the current hardware, but the block diagram below should be close to […]

Qualcomm Snapdragon Mobile Development Platform Available

Qualcomm has just announced the SnapDragon Mobile Development Platform (MDP)  distributed by BSquare is now available for purchase. The development platform (SKU: EA-OBQ8655MDPAN) is based on Snapdragon MSM8655 and comes with Android 2.2. It costs 995.00 USD. The development kit contains: MDP device (preloaded with Qualcomm’s Deep Sea 3D UI, Qualcomm’s Power Profiling application (Trepn Profiler),  3D Graphics Adreno Profiler, Tactel’s Navigation application and SouthEnd Interactive’s ilomilo OpenGLES Game) 8GB SD card HDMI A/V USB cable Battery charger Quick Start Guide One hour of support Here are the MDP Technical Specifications: MSM8655 1 GHz central processing unit (CPU) 3.8″ WVGA Display HDMI port Multi-touch capacitive touch screen WVGA 3D/2D capable Adreno™ 205 graphics processing unit (GPU) 12MP Camera/Camcorder 720-pixel HD video decode and encode Stereo 16mm loudspeakers 512 MB of RAM (2x 32b ports) 4GB on-board Flash Keys: On/off key, Rotary wheel, including key press, Up to 6 side keys for […]

UP 7000 x86 SBC