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May 17, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Samsung Unveils Tizen 4.0 with .NET Framework, Low End IoT Devices Support

We’ve already seen the announcement of Samsung ARTIK 053 WiFi module with Tizen RT this morning, but it appears that Tizen RT (Real Time) is part of a Tizen 4.0 that will add support to IoT devices, as well as introduce changes from the developers’ perspective. Samsung Electronics talked a bit more about Tizen Next (Tizen 4.0) at the Tizen Developer Conference (TDC) 2017 taking in place on May 16-17 in San Francisco. Few details are provided in the press released, but we could learn that “the Tizen 4.0 platform has been extended to Tizen RT (Real-Time) to involve high-end products such as TVs and mobile devices as well as low-end products such as thermostats, scales, bulbs, and more”. Tizen RT page explains that the real-time operating system is designed to run on Cortex M/R MCU with less than 2 MB RAM, less than 16 MB flash, and consists of […]

February 25, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

GroBotz Interactive Robot Project is Made of Easy to Assemble Smart Blocks (Crowdfunding)

GroBotz makes me think of Lego applied to robotics. The project consists of modules such as motors, sensors, buttons, switches, or cameras that snap together in order to create a robot on wheels, games, toys, a musical instrument, or whatever idea you may have, and the hardware is then programmed using a graphical user interface. A Raspberry Pi board is used for the brain of the robot, and Microchip PIC MCUs for the smart blocks. The software is programmed in C# using Xamarin, the user interface is based on Unity, OpenCV is used for image processing, and during development a plastic part where printed with Makerbot, and schematics and PCB layout designed with CadSoft EAGLE. The company has now come up with a number of modules as shown in the picture below. Your robot can then be controlled over Wi-Fi with GroBotz app which works on Windows, Mac OS, iOs, […]

May 2, 2012May 2, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Xamarin Ported Android to C#. Results: Massive Performance Improvements over Dalvik

Xamarin has been providing Mono, a C# framework that can work on Linux for some years, and more recently they have also launched Mono for Android and iOS so that you can write or re-use existing C# application on the most common samrtphone platforms. But their latest project “XobotOS Research Project” goes much further, as they have entirely re-written Android Dalvik engine based on Java with C#. Considering the million of lines of code in Android, they have found a tool to automatize the Java to C# conversion. This tool is an Eclipse plugin called is Sharpen, and Xamarin has made further improvements to Sharpen which are available on Github. They already have ported Android 2.x and Android 4.0 to C#. If you wonder why they would do that, look at the “benchmarks” below showing Mono vs. Dalvik implementation of Android for binary tree, jovian and hashtags. Since the company […]

December 9, 2011May 2, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Mono for Android 4.0 (.NET Framework)

Xamarin has provided .NET support for Linux via the Mono project for a while. It has recently announced the availability of an Android 4.0 version of its Mono software in order to let .NET and C# developers use Microsoft Visual Studio to build Android applications. Mono for Android follows upon Xamarin’s MonoTouch framework for iOS (iPhone and iPad development) and consists of a plug-in for Microsoft Visual Studio, a core Mono runtime, a Software development and bindings for native Android APIs. Such software is designed to leverage existing .NET applications, libraries and tools for Android development. With Mono for Android, developers can also call upon their native skills in .NET and the C# programming language in developing Android apps. Xamarin says that Mono for Android 4.0 provides access to all the new features, native APIs and UI toolkits in Android 4.0. Mono for Android 4.0 brings those key improvements and […]