CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

December 17, 2011December 17, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Android 4.0 Source Code For MIPS is Now Available

In the last few weeks, MIPS has already released the Linux Kernel for MIPS Android and shown us a low cost (99 USD) Android ICS Tablet. Today, they announced the official release of MIPS Android 4.0 source code. The latest version of Android 4.0 is “mr0″ and you can read the release notes for further details. Before downloading the Android source code be sure that you have a correctly setup Linux workstation. Now, here are the instructions to checkout MIPS Android 4.0:

mkdir mipsandroid
cd mipsandroid
repo init --repo-url=git://github.com/MIPS/repo.git --repo-branch=stable -u git://github.com/MIPS/manifests.git -b mips-ics-mr0 -m mips-ics-4.0.1_r1m1.xml
repo sync

mkdir mipsandroid

cd mipsandroid

repo init --repo-url=git://github.com/MIPS/repo.git --repo-branch=stable -u git://github.com/MIPS/manifests.git -b mips-ics-mr0 -m mips-ics-4.0.1_r1m1.xml

repo sync

The first time you run the repo sync it will download several gigabytes of source code to your machine so be patient and it may take a few hours. Once the download is completed future updates may take only a few minutes since only the code changes are downloaded. If you just want to have a look, All MIPS Android source code can also be viewed online at http://www.github.com/mips. […]

December 16, 2011December 16, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Android Training & Tutorials

The Android team just announced the launch of Android Training a collection of classes aimed at helping developers to build better Android applications. Each class explains the steps required to solve a problem, or implement a feature, with code snippets and sample code. They’ll add more materials over time, but right now developers can already learn (more) about the following topics: Designing for Multiple Screens Improving Layout Performance Managing Audio Playback Optimizing Battery Life Remembering Users Sharing Content Capturing Photos Maintaining Multiple APKs Developing for Enterprise Monetizing Your App Designing Effective Navigation There are currently 34 lessons on all those topics, and most include code samples such as the News Reader (Designing for Multiple Screens). You can get started immediately by visiting Android Training page.

ArmSoM CM5 - Raspberry Pi CM4 alternative with Rockchip RK3576 SoC

December 16, 2011December 16, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Nixeus Fusion XS (NX-500) Network Media Player

Nixeus Technology announced the Nixeus Fusion XS, an Android 2.2 media player based on a dual-core Marvell Armada 1000 SoC (Cortex A8) with 512 MB RAM selling for 170 USD. The device supports 1080p playback, features a web browser and third-party Android app downloads. The Nixeus Fusion XS Network Media Player also includes a an Ethernet port, two USB 2.0 ports, an HDMI port and audio I/O. Here are Nixeus Fusion XS media player specifications: Processor Marvell ARMADA 1000 (88DE3010) – Dual Sheeva RISC CPU Process @ Up-to 1.2GHz Media Format Movie Video Containers: .avi, .wmv, .mpg, .iso, .vob, .ifo, .mp4, .asf, .tp, . ts, .m2ts, .mov (H.264), .mkv, MOTION JPEG Video Decoder: MPEG 1/2/4 SD/HD, AVI, H.264 HD, WMV9, VC1, Resolution up to 1920 * 1080p Music Audio Decoder: MP3, WMA, AAC, Dolby Digital, DTS, FLAC, OGG, MPEG 1 Layer 2, PCM, […]

December 15, 2011December 15, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Qt Labs Releases Qt 4.8.0

Qt Labs has just announced the release of Qt 4.8.0 featuring Qt Platform Abstraction, threaded OpenGL support, multithreaded HTTP and optimized file system access. Here are some of the new key features in Qt 4.8.0: Qt Platform Abstraction (QPA) QPA restructures the GUI stack to enable easier porting of Qt to different windowing systems and devices. Previously called Lighthouse. Threaded OpenGL supportEnables developers to render OpenGL from more than one thread concurrently. See Threaded OpenGL in 4.8 for more details. Multithreaded HTTP HTTP requests are now handled in a separate thread by default. This should make application guis smoother, as networking will no longer use the main event loop. Optimized file system access The file system stack received some heavy lifting under the hood. The result is better I/O performance, achieved by reducing the number of system calls performed for I/O and by better use of cached data, when available. […]

December 15, 2011December 15, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Android 4.0 Hardware Graphics Acceleration Coming to More Platforms

The Linaro Android Platform Team has just posted a weekly update to their progress. They are going to release 11.12 very soon with hardware graphics acceleration to 2 of their members development boards: ST Ericsson Nova A9500 Snowball and Samsung Exynos 4212 Origen boards. So if you have any boards or products based on those processors you should be able to get an hardware optimized version very soon. Hardware acceleration is already available on all OMAP4 platform such as Pandaboard, since this was the default Android ICS target. They also introduced support for the ARM DS-5 debugger, an Eclipse plug-in to help developer create high performance performance and low power native software by integrating a graphical debugger for code generated for the Android Native Development Kit (NDK) and a basic version of the ARM Streamline performance analysis tool. Here’s a list of this week achievements: Key Points for wider discussion […]

December 15, 2011December 15, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Build the bootloaders (U-boot & X-Loader) for Pandaboard

I’ve tried to compile u-boot and x-loader for Pandaboard by following the instructions given at http://omappedia.org/wiki/Get_started_with_ubuntu_on_omap4#Bootloaders. I did this in Ubuntu 10.04 LTS with Linaro gcc compiler. Here are the instructions for the build: Create the folders:

mkdir bootloader
cd bootloader

1 2	mkdir bootloader cd bootloader

Get u-boot and checkout the omap4_dev branch:

git clone git://git.omapzoom.org/repo/u-boot.git
cd u-boot
git checkout L24.9

git clone git://git.omapzoom.org/repo/u-boot.git

cd u-boot

git checkout L24.9

You may use a different tag. Simply run “git tag -l | grep L24” to see the list of tags. (I used the latest at the time of this post). Build u-boot for OMAP4

make ARCH=arm distclean
make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-gnueabi- omap4430sdp_config
make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-gnueabi-

make ARCH=arm distclean

make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-gnueabi- omap4430sdp_config

make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-gnueabi-

At this point, you should get U-boot (u-boot.bin). get x-loader and checkout the omap4_dev branch:

cd ..
git clone git://git.omapzoom.org/repo/x-loader.git
cd x-loader
git checkout L24.9

cd ..

git clone git://git.omapzoom.org/repo/x-loader.git

cd x-loader

git checkout L24.9

N.B: Both u-boot and x-loader folders must be at the same directory level. build x-loader for OMAP4:

make ARCH=arm distclean
make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-gnueabi- omap4430sdp_config
make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-gnueabi- ift

make ARCH=arm distclean

make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-gnueabi- omap4430sdp_config

make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-gnueabi- ift

The x-loader (MLO) should now be ready. Finally, you simply need to copy MLO and u-boot.bin files to the SD card.

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs

December 15, 2011December 15, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

AnDevCon III: Android Developer Conference – 14-17 May 2012

The Android Developer Conference III will take place in San Francisco on 14-17 May 2012. This technical conference is exclusively reserved to Android developers and provides classes, workshops and keynotes related to Android development. There will also be an exhibition hall where Android apps and development tools will be showcased. The workshops and classes schedule does not appear to be available just yet for AnDevCon III, but the different sessions will be organized into five subject area: Developer Essentials: These technical classes and workshops are for all Android developers and cover all programming topics. Android Enterprise: These technical sessions cover topics specific to building and managing apps for employees, business customers and partners, such as back-end integration corporate data center communications, ERP or CRM systems. Android Business: These classes and workshops are for entrepreneurial developers who want to learn the most effective ways of distributing and selling Android apps, including […]

Boardcon Rockchip and Allwinner SoM and SBC products