Opersys is an Android and Embedded Linux company providing both development and training services, and they regularly attend conferences and release their training materials. The company has also developed a few Android apps to export the file system, the process list and info, and interaction between apps and Android system services exposed via Binder to your computer’s web browser. I found the most interesting app to be Process Explorer, so I gave it a try on Iocean M6752 smartphone. The application requires very little permissions to install, and it’s very simple to use. Simply tap on Start the service, and the app will provide the URL to browse the processes on your computer, in my case http://192.168.0.105:3000. The output is pretty useful, as you get much more information than you could get on your smartphone or tablet screen with CPU and memory usage, running time, logcat, etc… If you click […]
Linux 4.3 Release – Main Changes, ARM and MIPS Architectures
Linus Torvalds released Linux Kernel 4.3 last week-end: So it *felt* like the last week of the rc series was busy, to the point where I got a bit worried about the release. But doing the actual numbers shows that that really was just my subjective feeling, probably due to the kernel summit and travel back home from Korea. It wasn’t actually a particularly busy week, it’s just that the pull requests were more noticeable in the last couple of days. We had a network update and a late fix for a x86 vm86 mode bug introduced by the vm86 cleanups, but other than that it’s just a collection of various small one-liners all over. Ok, the vm86 mode thing was a one-liner too, it was just slightly more nerve-wracking because it looked scarier than it was before people (Andy) figured out what was going on. The changes from rc7 […]
ARM TechCon 2015 Schedule – IoT, Servers, 64-bit ARM, Power Usage Optimization, and More
The ARM Technology Conference (ARM TechCon) will take place on November 10 – 12, 2015, in Santa Clara Convention Center, and just like every year, there will be a free exposition for companies to showcase their latest innovation and/or products, as well as a technical conference with sessions and workshops sorted into various tracks: Automotive/Embedded Vision Embedded IoT Mobile/Connectivity Networking Infrastructure/Servers Tools & Implementation Wearables/Sensors ARM Training Day Sponsored Vendor Training Special Event General Event Software Developers Workshop You can find the complete schedule on ARM TechCon website. Although I won’t attend, I’ve created my own virtual schedule with some of the sessions I found interesting. Tuesday – November 10 8:30 – 9:20 – ARM Vision for Thermal Management and Energy Aware Scheduling on Linux by Ian Rickards (ARM), Charles Garcia-Tobin (ARM), Bobby Batacharia (ARM) This talk will cover the history and where are we going, for ARM’s Power Software (IPA, […]
Linux 4.2 Release – Main Changes, ARM and MIPS Architectures
Linus Torvalds released Linux Kernel 4.2 last Sunday: So judging by how little happened this week, it wouldn’t have been a mistake to release 4.2 last week after all, but hey, there’s certainly a few fixes here, and it’s not like delaying 4.2 for a week should have caused any problems either. So here it is, and the merge window for 4.3 is now open. I already have a few pending early pull requests, but as usual I’ll start processing them tomorrow and give the release some time to actually sit. The shortlog from rc8 is tiny, and appended. The patch is pretty tiny too. Go get it, Linus Some notable changes made to Linux 4.2 include: File systems New features for F2FS including per file encryption CIFS support SMB 3.1.1 (experimental) Cryptography – Jitter Entropy Random Number Generator, Chacha20 stream cipher and Poly1305 authentication (RFC7539),New RSA implementation. See lwn.net […]
Mixtile GENA is a Wearables Development Kit Inspired by Pebble Watch
The first Pebble watch with a black and white e-Ink display and Bluetooth for smartphone connection launched in 2012 via Kickstarter, and it became one of the most successful crowdfunding campaigns so far. The watch can now be purchased for $100, but Focalcrest, a startup based in Shenzhen, designed Mixtil GENA development kit with similar features and user interface, although with different electronics components, that goes for $34 on Tindie. Mixtile GENA specifications: Processors Mediatek MT6260 ARM7EJ-S processor @ 364 MHz with 8MB RAM and 16MB Flash Nordic Semiconductor nRF51822 ARM Cortex M0 Bluetooth Smart SoC External Storage – micro SD card slot (Up to 8GB) Display – “Energy-saving” reflective LCD Connectivity – Bluetooth 4.0 LE USB – micro USB 2.0 port Sensor – Gravity sensor Misc – Up, Down, Enter and Power/Return buttons Battery – 270 mAh/3.7V Lithium-ion battery (4 to 5 days on a charge for typical usage) […]
Chromebooks with Mediatek MT8173 Cortex A72 Showcased at Computex 2015
Chromebooks were originally all based on Intel processor, but eventually ARM based Chromebooks got launched starting with Samsung Exynos, more recently Rockchip RK3288, and soon we’ll have Mediatek Chromebooks based on their latest Cortex A72 + A53 processor. The platform is still in development, but some prototypes are being shown up at Computex 2015 in Taipei. The full specs are not available but we do know the laptop features MT8173 SoC with 2x Cortex A72 cores, 2x Cortex A53 cores, and a PowerVR GX6250 GPU. NotebookItalia is at Computex and in their short video below with can hear the spokesman claiming support for 4K video playback, 2K display, and the presence of Type C USB port that can be used to connect device, but also charging the laptop. Mediatek Chromebooks should offer about twice the single thread performance as Rockchip RK3288 devices, thanks to the use Cortex A72 cores instead […]
Improve Mediatek MT6752 GPS Accuracy by Turning WiFi Off?
Mediatek smartphones used to have a terribly slow GPS fix, and it would often take over 10 minutes to get a fix if any, and one workaround was to enable Mediatek EPO. However, in my Iocean M6752 review, I found out GPS fix was not super fast even without Internet connection, but accuracy is quite a disaster as Nike+ Running screenshot below clearly shows. I’m running around a stadium so the shape should be elliptic…, but data point are all over the place. Since the review, I’ve kept using the smartphone with Nike+ Running, and each time it’s a disaster, and once the app even reported a 81 km for an actual 10 km run… I’ve also used Google Maps once or twice, and found accuracy to be poor as well. However, I usually leave Wi-Fi on, and for some reasons today, I decided to turn Wi-Fi off before driving […]
Mediatek Helio X20 Processor to Features 10 Cores in Three Clusters
ARM first announced big.LITTLE processing on 2011, and since then we’ve seem several mobile processors providing two CPU clusters with “big” cores such as Cortex A15 or A57 and “LITTLE” core such as Cortex A7 and A53 to optimize performance and power consumption. With its latest Helio X20 (MT6797), Mediatek brings TINY.medium.huge processing with the first mobile processor using three CPU clusters, although a 3-level architecture has also been used before in Dhanush wearables SoC. The three clusters are divided as follows: TINY – Four ARM Cortex A53 core @ up to 1.4 GHz for best power efficiency medium – Four ARM Cortex A53 cores @ up to 2.0 GHz for a good performance / power balance huge – Two ARM Cortex A72 cores @ up to 2.5 GHz for maximum performance All three clusters are linked together and the memory bus via Mediatek Coherence System Interconnect (MCSI). Mediatek claims their […]