CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

February 29, 2012February 29, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Qualcomm Releases Augmented Reality Vuforia SDK 1.5 for Android and iOS

Announced in January, Vuforia is the new name of Qualcomm’s Augmented Reality platform. Qualcomm has just announced the commercial release of Vuforia SDK 1.5 for Android and iOS. Applications built using this SDK can now be distributed and promoted on the Android Market and Apple App Store. Developers can also build 3D AR application using Qualcomm’s extension for the Unity 3 cross-platform game engine. The Vuforia SDK 1.5 supports Android devices running on Android 2.2 and above, as well as the iPad 2, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and iPod touch (4th Generation) running iOS 4 and above. Vuforia SDK 1.5 brings the following features and improvements: Ability to swap datasets at runtime: You no longer have to upgrade your app to change the target dataset, and you can now build AR experiences that work on a large number of images. If your app needs to augment more than 60 images, […]

February 28, 2012July 17, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Embedded Artists and NXP Release The First ARM Cortex-M Android Open Accessory Development Kit

Embedded Artists and NXP introduced the TN-20764, a board that can be used with Android Open Accessory Application (AOAA) development kit that features 2 NXP Cortex-M MCUs, at Embedded World 2012. The board includes Ethernet, CAN and IEEE 802.15.4 interfaces as well as a remote CAN node, enabling designers to develop accessories for consumer applications, as well as home, building and industrial automation applications requiring different types of connectivity. There are already Arduino and PIC-based Android Open Accessories, but this board is the first AOAA kit based on ARM Cortex-M micro-controllers. As mentioned above, the board features 2 Cortex M micro-controllers: The NXP LPC1769, a 120-MHz Cortex-M3 based MCU, provides the interface to the Android mobile device via its full-speed USB transceiver . The LPC1769 also includes 512 KB flash and 64 KB on-chip SRAM, an Ethernet MAC, a CAN 2.0B controller, an 8-channel, a 12-bit ADC, a 10-bit DAC, […]

February 28, 2012February 28, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Play Angry Birds For Real with Mbed NXP Cortex-M0 Slingshot

If you’re just bored to play Angry Birds with the touchscreen of your smartphone or with your mouse in Angry Birds for Chrome, you can now bring the fun back to the game by playing with a real slingshot ! mbed designed a USB slingshot with an mbed NXP LPC11U24 (Cortex-M0 MCU) board that emulates a USB mouse. mbed measures the angle and strength applied with: An accelerometer that measure the tilt by tracking the gravity vector A rubber stretch sensor used as the sling, and measure how much it is stretched. They built the slingshot with the following hardware components: mbed NXP LPC11U24 board – 59 USD 3-axis Accelerometer – ADXL345 Accelerometer connect via SPI – 14.95 USD Stretch Sensor connected to pin 15 (analog input) – 9.95 USD USB B connector Handcrafted Slingshot Here’s how mbed describes their NXP board: The mbed NXP LPC11U24 MCU module is a […]

February 28, 2012June 18, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Tizen Releases Beta Source Code and SDK

Back in January, Tizen preview SDK and source code was made available. Today, Tizen has released the beta source code and SDK. Here are the main changes compared with the code preview: SDK support for Windows, in addition to Ubuntu SDK source code is now available Tizen Web UI framework extends jQuery Mobile to make developing web applications easier with optimized widgets. Tizen Web API provides more features, such as setting an alarm, accessing media contents, retrieving system information, and more. Tizen uses a bootloader based on U-Boot. The Tizen team emphasizes that this version is Beta and that it is not yet designed for use to create production applications. Since Windows is now supported, the development machine requirements have slightly changed as follows: Ubuntu 10.04/10.10/11.04/11.10 32-bit, Windows XP SP3/7 32-bit (Mac version will be available soon) At least dual-core 2 GHz CPU (recommend VTx supported by CPU) At least […]

February 28, 2012February 28, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Texas Instruments OMAP5 Demo at MWC 2012

Charbax of armdevices.net has uploaded a very interesting video with an OMAP5430 demo and an interview at Texas Instruments booth at MWC 2012. Using the OMAP5 development kit, they demo several 3D applications, the web browser and the picture gallery and it looks extremely smooth. They discussed about the OMAP5 vs Tegra 3 benchmark, and it appears mobile web browsers are not yet optimized for more than 2 cores which could explain the performance difference somewhat. The OMAP5 currently runs at 800 MHz, but there will eventually be 2 versions: 1.7 and 2.0 GHz when the OMAP 5 AP is released. This should show a performance improvement of over 4x against the Tegra 3, although I’m sure in the meantime, Nvidia will have announced the Tegra 4 (Wayne). The OMAP 5 also offers impressive improvement in power consumption, as the SGX544 GPU cores are augmented by a dedicated 2D hardware-accelerated […]

February 28, 2012February 27, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Linux on eMMC: Optimizing for Performance – ELC 2012

Ken Tough, principal engineer at Intrinsyc Software, discusses Linux on eMMC at Embedded Linux Conference 2012. Abstract: Embedded devices are increasingly choosing eMMC instead of raw NAND flash as their main storage, for increased independence from component vendors and changing storage densities. This presentation examines Linux configuration for eMMC, how to effectively measure your eMMC performance, and tips to improve it. Topics covered include: filesystem bearing on MMC/SD performance, IO scheduler configuration, and optimal partition layout. Target audience is embedded systems developers or users interested in getting the most out of their eMMC/SD card. You can also download the presentation slides on elinux.org.

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs

February 28, 2012February 28, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

HTML5 in a Plasma-Active World – ELC 2012

Danny Bennett, Principal Engineer at basysKom GmbH, talks about HTML5 in Plasma Active development environment at Embedded Linux Conference 2012. Abstract: With the explosion of mobile application development, there is a increasing demand for a common run-time environment across the many mobile platforms. The WAC (Wholesale Applications Community) along with the latest W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) specification HTML5 (HTML version 5) is a step in that direction. Using recent advances in widget/web application development tools and techniques such as Qt Quick and JavaScript. Using Plasma Active as a development environment we can show how to build and verify widget WAC compliancy using the online compliancy verification. This is done using the current version of Plasma-Active running on MeeGo, Mer and the upcoming Tizen platforms. Proving MeeGo, Mer and Tizen are good platforms as a basis to create WAC compliant HTML5 based web applications. You can […]

February 27, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

HiSilicon Unveils Quad-Core Cortex A9 K3V2 Processor (Hi3620)

HiSilicon, a subsidiary of Huawei, has unveiled the K3V2 quad-core cortex A9 processor at mobile world congress 2012, Barcelona. The processor comes in two version 1.2 and 1.5 GHz and the company claims the chip delivers 30 to 50 percent more performance than existing quad-core processor including the NVidia Tegra3. This performance boost is apparently possible thanks to a 64-bit memory bus as well as a powerful 16-core GPU (by an unnamed US chip designer) that is at least twice as fast as the competition. The current versions of the chip are manufacturer using TSMC 40 nm low power process, but the company plans to move to 28-nm technology for further power efficiency later this year. They do not use a companion core like the NVidia Tegra 3 to save power, but instead HiSilicon designed an A.I.PS (Artificial Intelligence Power Scaling) Core in K3V2, which can manage cores CPU and […]