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Android 3.0 SDK Preview and Platform Highlights

Google has just released Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) preview SDK and platform highlights. Android 3.0 Highlights Summary New User Features: New UI designed from the ground up for tablets (larger screens) System Bar, for global status and notifications Action Bar, for application control: access to contextual options, navigation, widgets, or other types of content in the Action Bar, displayed at the top of the screen. Five Customizable Home screens with widgets, app shortcuts, and wallpapers using a dedicated visual layout mode. Recent Apps, for easy visual multitasking Redesigned keyboard to improve typing speed/accuracy on tablets. Improved text selection, copy and paste New connectivity options such as Media/Photo Transfer Protocol, USB / Bluetooth keyboards Updated set of standard apps for larger screens. Browser Improvements: Multi-tabs support,  “incognito” mode, better browsing experience at non-mobile sites through an improved zoom and viewport model, overflow scrolling, support for fixed positioning, and more. Camera and Gallery: […]

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How-to Make WordPress iNove Theme Adsense Friendly

When I initially selected my WordPress theme,  I did not really plan on using Adsense, so I just chose one which looked nice to me and fulfilled some other requirements. I finally went with iNove theme. However, after 3 or 4 months, I decided to give a go at Google Adsense and installed Advertising Manager plugin. I created a new Ad unit with a 300×250 resolution to put in the side bar, it was slightly cut on the right but was still looking OK. Later, I wanted to add a leaderboard ad (728×90) on top of the page to hopefully increase the CTR. However, that one was cut even more, although it looked OK in Chrome OS and Firefox, it looked awful in Internet Explorer. So I decided to adjust the size of the main section and the sidebar for iNove theme. Here are the steps to follow to resize […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM
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OLPC XO 1.75 Hardware, Firmware and Software

OLPC demo’ed their 3rd generation laptop – OLCP XO 1.75 – based on Marvell Armada 610 at CES 2011. The good thing about this platform is that they opened most of it including the hardware, the software and for the first time the firmware. However, I found out it’s not so easy to find the hardware / software development information and source on the OLPC site, so I’ve decided to make a summary and provide links to the hardware, firmware and software for OLPC XO 1.75. OLPC XO 1.75 Hardware The XO-1.75 is powered by Marvell Armada 610 CPU (88AP610) with an ARM core clocked at 1Ghz. It has 1GB DDR3 SDRAM, 4GiB NAND Flash, a TFT display, an SD Card slot, Wi-Fi,  a few USB ports and a camera. I believe the touchscreen is not part of the current hardware, but the block diagram below should be close to […]

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Qualcomm Snapdragon Mobile Development Platform Available

Qualcomm has just announced the SnapDragon Mobile Development Platform (MDP)  distributed by BSquare is now available for purchase. The development platform (SKU: EA-OBQ8655MDPAN) is based on Snapdragon MSM8655 and comes with Android 2.2. It costs 995.00 USD. The development kit contains: MDP device (preloaded with Qualcomm’s Deep Sea 3D UI, Qualcomm’s Power Profiling application (Trepn Profiler),  3D Graphics Adreno Profiler, Tactel’s Navigation application and SouthEnd Interactive’s ilomilo OpenGLES Game) 8GB SD card HDMI A/V USB cable Battery charger Quick Start Guide One hour of support Here are the MDP Technical Specifications: MSM8655 1 GHz central processing unit (CPU) 3.8″ WVGA Display HDMI port Multi-touch capacitive touch screen WVGA 3D/2D capable Adreno™ 205 graphics processing unit (GPU) 12MP Camera/Camcorder 720-pixel HD video decode and encode Stereo 16mm loudspeakers 512 MB of RAM (2x 32b ports) 4GB on-board Flash Keys: On/off key, Rotary wheel, including key press, Up to 6 side keys for […]

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AMD First Embedded Systems APU: AMD Fusion G-Series

Yesterday, AMD announced the first APU (Accelerated Processor Unit) specifically aimed at embedded systems: AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced immediate availability of the new AMD Embedded G-Series processor, the world’s first and only Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) for embedded systems. The AMD Embedded G-Series, based on AMD Fusion technology, delivers a complete, full-featured embedded platform and incorporates the new low-power, x86 CPU based on the “Bobcat” core with a world-class DirectX® 11-capable GPU and parallel processing engine on a single piece of silicon. This new class of accelerated processor combines more compute capabilities on a single die than any processor in the history of computing and represents opportunity for major advancements in embedded systems. No solution with this level of advanced computing is available for the embedded market today. Numerous embedded systems based on the AMD Embedded G-Series are available today or expected to launch in the coming weeks from […]

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Android Set-top Box: Bonux HZ20A / HZ20B – ZiiLABS Processors

Bonux, a Taiwan company founded in July 2009, announced two Android 2.2 set-top boxes based on ZiiLABS processors: The Bonux HZ20A and HZ20B. If you can remember Bonux also showcased a 50 USD Android STB earlier on. Here are the specs of the two media players: HZ20A HZ20B OS Android 2.2 CPU Ziilabs ZMS-08 ARM Cortex A8 @ 800 MHz Ziilabs ZMS-05 ARM9 @ 400 MHz RAM 512 MB DDR2 256 MB DDR2 NAND Flash 512MB 256MB Wifi 802.11 b/g/n (Via optional external USB Dongle) Adobe Flash Flash 10.1 FlashLite Video Codecs /Formats MPEG-1/MPEG-2/MPG-4(MP4 & MOV)/DivX(4/5)/Motion JPEG/H.264/WMV9/VC1/Real Video (RMVB – VGA Resolution) Audio Codecs MP3/WAV/WMA/AC3/AAC/OOG Max Resolution/Bitrate 1080p 40 Mbps Subtitles SRT/SMI/SUB/SSA File Systems FAT32 / NTFS(Read-Only) They are not using the default Android user interface, but their own customize UI, which can be a good thing on a TV. Their user interface has the usual Videos, Music, Pictures and […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025
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Resources for Atmel AT91SAM9: SAM926X, SAM9GXX, SAM9M1X, SAM9XE…

Atmel AT91SAM9 – or simply Atmel SAM9 – series are versatile microcontrollers and embedded microprocessors used in variety of products such as internet radios, embedded p2p downloaders, smart grid in-home displays, and much more. Atmel SAM9 series are divided into five subsets: The original SAM9 MCU based on ARM926EJ-S running at between 210 and 240 Mhz, namely AT91SAM9260, AT91SAM9261, AT91SAM9261S and AT91SAM9263 SAM9G eMPU (Embedded MPU) based on ARM926EJ-S, a new generation based on SAM9 MCU architecture but running at between 266 and 400Mhz: AT91SAM9G10, AT91SAM9G20, AT91SAM9G45 and AT91SAM9G46. SAM9M eMPU based on ARM926EJ-S clocked at 400Mhz and with a video decoder: AT91SAM9M10 and AT91SAM9M11 SAM9R MCU based on ARM926EJ-S running at 210 Mhz with similar characteristic as the original SAM9 MCU, except it does not support USB Host but can be used as a High Speed USB device: AT91SAM9R64 and AT91SAM9RL64 SAM9XE MCU are also based on ARM926EJ-S running […]

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Nufront ARM Cortex-A9 Laptop running Ubuntu at CES 2011

Nufront (新岸线) showcased their minipc based on Nusmart 2816 at Techcon 2010, they are now back at CES 2011 to show off their laptop reference designs. They provide two laptop designs with 10″ and a 14″ displays. The mother board is the same for both devices, only the casing changes to accommodate the display. The laptops runs Ubuntu and Android 2.2. They will also support some undisclosed operating system(s) later on (It should be Windows 8 and/or Chrome OS).  The processor is a dual core Cortex A9 running at 2GHz, so I suppose this is the Nusmart 2816. The laptop will have 1 or 2 GB RAM depending on the configuration. Nufront said those laptops should be available within 6 months. No indication of price has been given.

Boardcon CM3588 Rockchip RK3588 System-on-Module designed for AI and IoT applications