Posted on

Texas Instruments Showcases OMAP 5 GPU Capabilities with GLBenchmark 2.5

In February, Texas Instruments compared the browser rendering performance of its OMAP 5 platform to the Nvidia Tegra 3, and the benchmark results showed OMAP 5 was twice as fast @ 800 MHz than the Tegra 3 @ 1.3 GHz. Today, they’ve uploaded a video showing the 3D performance a tablet based on OMAP 5 (and PowerVR SGX 544-MP GPU) against a market-leading tablet (I guess it’s the Apple iPad 3 with PowerVR SGX 543 GPU) using GLBenchmark 2.5 with the following setup: 1080p resolution. On-screen and off-screen tests were conducted to compensate for the “Vysnc Limited” scenarios. (24bpp) 16bit depth tests to better represent high-end game content Power saving mode disabled and device connected to a power source. No background tasks and airplane mode “on.” The on-screen results show 38 fps for the OMAP 5 vs 34 fps for the other platform, or a 12% performance boost. Off-screen results […]

Posted on

Linaro Android Puts Stock Android To Shame on TI Pandaboard (OMAP4430)

The team at Linaro has done an amazing job at optimizing Android 4.0 for ARM and Bernhard Rosenkränzer, Android Engineer at Linaro among other things, has put all those optimizations together to showcase a demo at Linaro Connect Q2.2012 in Hong Kong with 2 pandaboards: One running Stock Android 4.0.4, the one released by Google (AOSP) One running Linaro Android 4.0.4 Both hardware, android version and benchmark software (oxBench) are the same, and the results are quite amazing with Android Linaro achieving about 60 fps in all 0xBenchmark tests (OpenGL Cube, OpenGL Blending, OpenGL Fog and Flying Teapot) whereas Android stock achieving 30 fps. They selected a benchmark tool that is mainly CPU bound, as they cannot optimize the GPU code since they can only access binary blobs. Apparently, most of the improvements were possible thanks to toolchain and code optimization (to be able to build) such as using gcc […]

Khadas Edge2 Arm mini PC
Posted on

UGoos UG-LMW70 – 72 USD Android 4.0 7″ Touchscreen Tablet Powered By VIA WM8850 (Cortex A9) Processor

Back in January, VIA announced the WonderMedia Prizm WM8950 processor featuring a Cortex A9 processor @ 800 Mhz with a Mali-400 GPU, but recently I have seen a few tablets with the WM8850, the little (or rather the big) brother of WM8950, with the same Cortex A9 but cadenced at 1.2 GHz and Mali-400 GPU. VIA has apparently not officially announced this new processor, and details are not available on Wondermedia website yet, but the WM8850 targets the same markets as AllWinner A10/A13 Cortex A8 processors and is said to be competitive in price. And it must be competitive, because I just found an Android ICS tablet based on WM8850 for $72 US (including shipping) on aliexpress (UGoos UG-LMW70) with the following specifications: CPU –  Via Wondermedia WM8850 Cortex A9 @ 1.2GHz + Mali-400 GPU Memory –  512MB RAM Storage –  4GB NAND FLASH + microSD card slot (Up to […]

Posted on

Zedboard Xilinx Zynq-7000 Community Board is Now Available

Based in March, I wrote about Xilinx Zynq-7000 Extensible Processing Platform (EPP), a SoC comprises of a Dual Cortex A9 and an FPGA, as well as the corresponding development boards and kits: Xilinx Zynq-7000 EPP ZC702 Evaluation Kit based on Zynq-7020 with all the basic components (595 USD). Xilinx Zynq-7000 EPP Video Kit based on Zynq-7020 with all necessary hardware, software and IP components for the development of custom video applications (1195 USD). Zynq-7000 EPP ZedBoard, a low cost development board for the developers community. At the time, the first 2 (expensive) boards were available, but there was little information about the Zedboard. But yesterday evening, I noticed Zedboard website had a lot more information and we now know details about the board and it is even possible to purchase it. Here are the Zedboard specifications: Processor – Xilinx Zynq-7020 Dual ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore @ 677 MHz Memory 512 MB […]

Posted on

Linaro 12.05 Release with Kernel 3.4 and Android 4.0.4

Linaro has just released version 12.05 based on Linux Kernel 3.4 and Android 4.0.4. This release provides lots of improvement for Origen (Samsung Exynos 4) on Android,  further work has been done on big.LITTLE processing and ARMv8 work appears to have started for Ubuntu and Debian. armel vs armhf benchmarks show a massive improvement (up to 15x) when using armhf for povray (3D rendering),. but for most other tests, there is little improvement, and in some rare cases armhf is slightly slower than armel. Here are the highlights of the release: Android Created a stable Google hangout build for Origen Updated DS-5 and gator daemon to 5.10 Stress tests from big.LITTLE testing have been integrated into LAVA Completed big.LITTLE Android tasks Monkeyrunner tests for automating common Android usage have been integrated into LAVA Ordered a new power measurement device from National Instruments Updated and Origen 3.4 rc7 Completed Android HAL […]

Posted on

MINI X Android 2.3 Network Media Player Based on AllWinner A10

Here’s another tiny device based on AllWinner A10 processor. The MINI X is an Android 2.3.4 set-top box with 512MB RAM and 4GB NAND Flash that costs 77.50 USD including worldwide shipping. Here are the device specifications: CPU – AllWinner A10 (Cortex A8) with Mali-400 GPU Memory – 512MB DDR3 RAM Storage – 4GB NAND Flash, microSD slot Video Output – HDMI 1.3 USB  – 2x USB 2.0 host Connectivity – WiFi 802.11 b/g/n Video Formats –  MKV, TS, TP, M2TS, RM/RMVB, BD-ISO, AVI, MPG, VOB, DAT, ASF, TRP, FLV etc Video Codecs – MPEG1/2/4, H.264, VC-1, Divx, Xvid, RM8/9/10, VP6 Subtitle – SRT, SUB, IDX, SSA, SMI Audio Formats – MP3, ACC, OGG, WMA, WAV, M4A, APE Image format – JPG, BMP,GIF, TIF, PNG IR Remote Control Dimension: 72 x 61 x 13mm Weight: 51g This device is half-way between the MK802 HDMI stick and the Mele A1000 STB. […]

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs
Posted on

Willow Garage Launches The Open Source Robotics Foundation (OSRF)

Willow Garage announces the formation of the Open Source Robotics Foundation (OSRF), an independent, non-profit organization founded by members of the global robotics community whose goal is to support the development, distribution, and adoption of open source software for use in robotics research, education, and product development. The OSRF Board of Directors is composed of the following members: Wolfram Burgard. Dr. Burgard, a professor at the University of Freiburg,  heading the Laboratory for Autonomous Intelligent Systems. His major research interests lie in mobile robotics, state estimation and control, as well as artificial intelligence. Ryan Gariepy, co-founder and CTO of Clearpath Robotics. Clearpath Robotics is a company specializing in the design and manufacture of unmanned vehicle solutions for industrial R&D. Brian Gerkey,  Director of Open Source Development at Willow Garage who has worked on the open source Robot Operating System (ROS) since 2008. Dr. Gerkey will be CEO of the OSRF. Helen […]

Posted on

NTT Docomo Showcases Smartphone Prototype with See-through Touch Panel

NTT Docomo and Fujitsus have jointly developed a smartphone prototype with a 2.4″ see-through OLED display (QVGA) that has touch sensors both on its front and back sides and NTT Docomo is currently exhibiting the device and showcasing the corresponding new innovative user interface at Wireless Japan 2012, until June 1, 2012, in Tokyo. The backside touch panel can be operated by using the forefinger and there are several ways to take advantage of a see-through display in the UI including: Operate the notification bar from the back side of the panel with a finger Hold an icon with a finger of one hand from the back side of the panel and stroke the front side of the panel with a forefinger of the other hand to move the home screen on which the icon is placed Play Rubik’s Cube by spinning the cube when the back side is not […]

Khadas VIM4 SBC