CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

March 7, 2012March 7, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Google Replaces Android Market with Google Play

Google has just announced the launch of Google Play, an update (and replacement) for the Android Market that gives access to apps, books, movies, and music to users on Android devices and to anyone on the Web. Google expects Google Play to drive more traffic and revenue to the entire ecosystem, including app and games developers. Google also explains there are almost no changes for existing users and developers: Google Play is built on the same infrastructure as Android Market, so the transition for users and developers will be seamless. Users can sign into their existing accounts with the same credentials as before and purchase content using the same payment methods. As a developer, there’s no change needed to your published products and you can continue to use the same publishing tools to put your app in front of hundreds of millions of Android users. If your app was in […]

March 7, 2012April 27, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Samsung Exynos 5250 Dual-core Cortex A15 and GAIA SMDK Development Board

Samsung showcased its new Exynos 5250 Dual-core Cortex A15 processor at Mobile World Congress as well as the corresponding Samsung Exynos 5 GAIA SMDK Development board. Announced in November 2011, the new Samsung Exynos 5250 processor features 2 Cortex A15 clocked at 1.7 GHz or 2 GHz, with a Mali-T604 GPU and support for dual-channel 800 MHz LPDDR3 RAM that allows for a data bandwidth of up to 12.8 GB/s. The processor is manufactured using 32-nm HKMG (High-K Metal Gate) technology that reduces leakage by 30% proving lower power consumption. Samsung claims the new Exynos 5 processors are twice as fast and consume twice as less power than its previous Exynos 4 application processor based on Cortex A9. This seems to confirm TI OMAP 5 vs. Nvidia Tegra 3 benchmark results. The Exynos 5250 supports embedded DisplayPort (eDP) interface up to WQXGA resolution (2560×1600), which is handy for Samsung since […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM

March 6, 2012March 6, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Embedded Systems Outlook and Trends for 2012

National Instruments has recently published a report entitled “Embedded Systems Outlook 2012 – Key Technologies and Methodologies Impacting the Embedded Systems Market” which lists technology and business trends for the development of embedded systems. Here are the key findings: Technologies & Architectures: Embedded Platforms Technology providers are developing components, modules, or even complete embedded platforms (software + hardware) with higher levels of integration and increased functionality to speed up time to market. System-on-Chip (SoC) and System-on-Module (SoM) benefit from this trend and some also embed a FPGA. Reconfigurable Computing Previously, designers chose between low-cost microcontroller or high performance CPU based on the expected performance needs of the embedded system. As cost decreases and performance increases, low cost devices such as control and monitoring systems now often come with more features thanks to the use of programmable logic. This type of flexibility can be achieved by adding an FPGA to the MCU […]

March 6, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

MIT Announces App Inventor Open Beta Preview

At the end of 2010, Google Introduced App Inventor, a web based tool allowing non-programmers to easily design Android applications, before phasing it out at the end of 2011. Google eventually made App Inventor open source and it is now handled by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) which planned to make a beta version of App Inventor available to the general public in Q1 2012. This happened yesterday, as the MIT App Inventor service is now open to everyone and all you will need is a Google ID for log-in such as a gmail account. There is no need to install any software as was the case with the original version of App Inventor and everything is handled in the web browser. Since this is the first release, MIT explains that there may be issues due to the load from a large number of users and there may be […]

March 5, 2012March 5, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Protecode System 4 Helps Managing Software Package Data Exchange (SPDX) Files

Some days ago, I posted a presentation about SPDX (Software Portable Data Exchange), a new standard file format to share open source licenses. This took place at the Linux Embedded Linux Conference, mid- February 2012 and the presenter said SPDX was still in its infancy, nobody formally adopted it and current tools would take input from an excel file and convert it into an XML/RDF SPDX file. However, Protecode, a company specialized in open source license management solutions, has already a management suite called Protecode System 4 that can handle SPDX format among other things. Here’s how the company describes Protecode System 4: Protecode System 4 is a complete license management solution for all stages of the software development process. Protecode System 4 enables users to manage open source and third party license compliance by providing a list of all open source components that exist in a software product along […]

March 5, 2012March 5, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Raspberry Pi Releases Arch Linux SD Card Image

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has just announced the release of Arch Linux for the Raspberry Pi. This image is based on a minimal image of Arch Linux and does not come with a graphical interface. This distribution may not be suitable for beginners and you may be better off using the Debian SD Card image or even the upcoming Fedora 14 Raspberry Pi Remix image. You can always install extra packages with Pacman, the Arch Linux package manager. To update the package list:

pacman -Syu

1	pacman -Syu

To Install LXDE Graphical Interface:

pacman -S lxde xorg-xinit xf86-video-fbdev

1	pacman -S lxde xorg-xinit xf86-video-fbdev

To run LXDE:

xinit /usr/bin/lxsession

1	xinit /usr/bin/lxsession

You can download it using BitTorrent: archlinuxarm-01-03-2012.zip.torrent (preferred method) or via one of the HTTP mirrors: archlinuxarm-01-03-2012.zip. (This link will redirect your download to the closest available HTTP server). The default login credentials are: root/root I haven’t tried it, but you should be able to use this release in qemu, by following instructions similar to the one […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025

March 3, 2012March 3, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Digi International Unveils Embedded Application Development Kit for Android

Digi International has released its Application Development Kit for Android (the world first Android embedded application devkit according to the company) at Embedded World 2012. This Development Kit is comprised of both software and hardware components. The software development kit (SDK) includes drivers and Digi software extensions to create Android-based applications on embedded platforms while eliminating tedious driver development work. The kit also includes one of 2 Digi Wireless modules based Freescale i.MX51 (ConnectCore Wi-i.MX51) and i.MX53 (ConnectCore for Wi-i.MX53). The complete Digi Android development kit includes: Quick start guide Digi Application Development Kit for Android CD/DVD Documentation and development board schematics ConnectCore Wi-i.MX53 module – 1 GHz Freescale i.MX53, 512 MB NAND Flash, 512 MB DDR2, -20 to +70° C. 7″ WVGA LCD panel with touchscreen Digi JumpStart Kit development board: 3 serial ports (1 x RS-232/422/485, 1 x RS-232 Tx/Rx, 1 x TTL) VGA and HDMI 1.3 video outputs […]

March 3, 2012March 3, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Rockchip Introduces RK30xx Dual Core Cortex A9 Processors for Low Cost Tablets

Rockchip announced their next generation mobile processor at Mobile World Congress, in Barcelona, Spain. The Rockchip RK30xx series (RK3018?) features a dual core Cortex A9 clocked up to 1.4 GHz coupled with an ARM Mali-400 GPU and targets low cost Android 4.0 tablets. The Rockchip RK30xx platform features: Dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor with up to 1.4GHz speed, implemented with Artisan Processor Optimization Pack (POP) Quad-core ARM Mali-400 MP GPU, supporting OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0 and OpenVG 1.1 Full memory support, including DDRIII, DDRII, and LPDDRII High performance dedicated 2D processor 1080P multi-format video decoder 1080P video encoding for H.264 and vp8 Stereoscopic 3D H.264 MVC video codec Embedded HDMI 1.4a, supporting 3D display Embedded 60bit/s ECC, supporting MLC NAND, E-MMC, i-NAND and booting Support of dual panel display and dual camera Rockchip also said the complete BSP is already available for the chip. This company does not usually release BSP publicly […]