SMP8656 Android STB Divco Tvix Xroid A1

[ad#Google Adsense – Wide Banner] At last, it seems an Android set-top box based on Sigma Designs SMP865x is going to hit the market soon, most probably Q1 2011. Divco – a Korean company – will bring Tvix Xroid A1 to market. Here are some extracts of the press release: Sigma Designs (Nasdaq: SIGM), a leading provider of system-on-chip(SoC) solutions used to deliver entertainment and control throughout the home, today announced its SMP8656 Secure Media Processor™ will enable the new Android-based Over the Top (OTT) media player by Dvico. The TVIX Xroid A1 is the first Android connected media player on the market to use Sigma’s cutting edge media processor to deliver premium quality video and music streaming services. …. Dvico’s upcoming “Android TVIX” supports all the multimedia functionalities of current TVIX, as well as native Web-browsing and downloading of Android applications. It will offer open API that can be […]

Nufront 2GHz ARM Cortex-A9 for Desktop, Laptop and Netbook – NuSmart 2816

Nufront (新岸线) is a high tech company based in Beijing, dedicated to wireless broadband communication and broadcast, IC design, video search and digital imaging technologies. Nufront showed off their “low-power high performance” mini-PC based on their new NuSmart 2816 chipset at ARM Techcon 2010. NuSmart 2816 is based on a dual-core Cortex-A9 @ 2GHz with Mali-400 GPU. They plan to sell the chip for around 30 USD and expect ARM-based mini-PC to sell for around 200 USD retail. You can download NuSmart 2816 Product Brief for further details. As you can see from the diagram below, NS2816 can support all features (Ethernet, Wifi, GPS, USB, I2S Audio, SATA II, MMC/SD support, VGA, HDMI or LCD video output) that are now expected in modern desktops or laptops. Video playback currently uses around 2 Watts (chip samples) and they target 1.5 Watt for video playback in the final release of their chipset […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM

ARM Based Embedded Server – Marvell ARMADA XP

A few years ago, nobody would have considered using an embedded system to run a server. But now, with the advance of technology, more and more servers are running embedded systems from the lower end such as home-based NAS (Network Access Storage) to higher-end for data-centers, cloud computing, web 2.0… This is the higher-end that Marvell targets with its Quad Core ARM ARMADA XP MV78460 running at 1.6GHz with “16,600 DMIPS performance at less than 10 watts”. Please checkout Marvell ARMADA XP Product Brief for further details. The main selling point of such solution is the power consumption compared to traditional Intel x86 based servers. According to Marvell, 50% of the cost of running a data-center is the electricity bill to run the server and especially to cool the room with air-conditioners. So let’s do a little exercise. Let’s take the estimated power consumption of Google data-center in Oregon that […]

Samsung Orion ARM Cortex A9 – Nexus S

Samsung recently showed off its dual-core Cortex-A9 Orion featuring quad-core Mali-400 GPU at Techcron 2010. The Samsung Orion (model name: S5PV310XH) will run at 1GHz (this frequency might be increased later on: I’ve read 1.2 GHz, 1.5GHz or even up to 2 GHz.) and use 45nm lower power manufacturing technology. Samsung already have a BSP using Linaro kernel and the development board having the following characteristics: Samsung Orion SoC Low power audio subsystem Embedded GPS 2D Graphics Acceleration TFT 24-bit true color LCD Controller MALI-400 3D Graphics TV-out and HDMI interface support Multi-format codec up to 1080p @ 30fps The device would runs Android on top of Linaro kernel which takes care of all the low level stuffs. If you are interested in developing for this platform, you can already download and play around with Linaro 10.11 which already supports Cortex A8 and A9 platforms. The Samsung Orion is rumored […]

Linaro: Embedded Linux for ARM

Linaro is a Not For Profit (NFP) engineering organisation that works on Linux based open source software and tools. The organisation focuses on the ARM platform, mainly ARM v7A architecture, for example ARM Cortex-A8 or dual-core Cortex-A9 processors and is sponsored by ARM, Freescale, IBM, Samsung, ST-Ericsson, and Texas Instruments. The purpose of Linaro is to reduce the number of different Linux kernel for the ARM platform. They plan on releasing tools and Linux kernel every 6 months. And after about 6 months of existence, with around  80 engineering staff, they managed to release their first public version:  Linaro-10.11 on the 10th of November for TI OMAP4 Panda Board, IGEPv2, Freescale iMX51 and ST-E U8500 platforms. This release is based on Linux 2.6.35 kernel, GCC 4.4 toolchain and uBoot 2010.09. They released Linux 10.11 source code and tools, the hardware packs and the build instructions. Linaro also planned several technical […]

3D capable Android 2.2 Smartphones

Lately all the rage was for 3D high definition televisions, but now 3D is also coming to mobile handsets. Softbank will release 2 smartphones –  “Galapagos 003SH” and “Galapagos 005SH” – in Japan between the end of 2010 and spring 2011. The smartphones will run Android 2.2 on a platform based on Qualcomm MSM8255 @ 1Ghz, feature a 3.8″ display and the capability to record HD videos (720p maximum). The main differences between the 2 handsets are that Galapagos 005SH will have a slide-out keyboard and a built-in 8 Megapixel camera whereas 003SH won’t have the keyboard but the camera will be 9.6 Megapixel. Both handsets will be manufactured by Sharp which also owns the 3D technology. The 3D images and videos will be viewable with the naked eyes, i.e. you won’t have to wear glasses.  This will be used for picture, videos and 3D games.  The smartphones will be […]

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

Digital Signage Standard: Open Pluggable Specification (OPS)

A while ago, we discussed about Popai Digital Signage Standards, mainly focused on software and client/server interoperability. Intel has just released a new standard for Digital Signage: Open Pluggable Specification (OPS). Here’s the description of the specification on Intel website. The Open Pluggable Specification (OPS) helps standardize the design and development of digital signage devices and pluggable media players. Intel created the OPS to address digital signage market fragmentation and simplify device installation, usage, maintenance and upgrades. The OPS enables digital signage manufacturers to deploy interchangeable systems faster and in higher volumes, while lowering costs for development and implementation. Installing digital signage equipment based on Intel® architecture helps you implement scalable digital signage applications that can network easily with other equipment. This simplifies interoperability and application upgrades designed to meet the digital signage requirements of individual customers, while helping to future-proof technology investments. You’ll need to fill a form to […]

XIBO: An Open Source Digital Signage Server/Client

Today’s post will deal with Xibo (pronounced eX-E-bO), an open source, multi-display, multi-zone, fully scheduled digital signage solution. I’ll firstly give an overview and explain how to install the client and server in Windows XP. In another post, I’ll demo the system. The server can run on Windows or Linux and requires a web server (Apache / IIS), php5 and a MySQL database. The client can only runs on Windows 2000/Xp/Vista/7 and requires .NET Framework v3.5, Internet Explorer 7 or 8, Flash Player Version 9 or later, Windows Media Player 11 or later, Microsoft Powerpoint 2003 or later. As you can see from the client description, it won’t be able to run on Linux embedded systems, but it is still interesting to study this solution to see the content management flow, what this solution has to offer and how we get development idea from this solution.  An embedded client based […]

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