Android mini PC have come a long way, and for many use cases such as web browsing and online videos, they nearly match or even surpass the user’s experience you’ve got on a full blown PC. However, unless you’ve installed Linux on your HDMI TV stick or TV box, there were serious limitations using an Android device as a computer where you can install an office suite to create and edit text documents, spreadsheets, and presentation, and print them out. With the availability of apps such as AndrOpen Office, and the addition of printing support in Android 4.4 KitKat, it’s now possible to use Android mini PCs to create content and print documents just like in a normal PC. So if your kids need a cheap PC for their homework, you could just buy a $60 device, adding a USB keyboard and mouse, and connecting the device to an HDMI monitor. […]
CES 2014 is coming soon, and it will take place on 7 – 10 January, 2014, and we can expect some interesting SoC news. Samsung suggested they will unveil their 64-bit ARM SoC (Exynos 6?) at CES 2014, Nvidia will hold a press conference to “showcase new NVIDIA Tegra mobile technologies, gaming innovations, and advanced automotive display technologies”, and Qualcomm has been quiet for now. However, several Chinese SoC vendors, namely AllWinner, Rockchip, and Mediatek, have already announced what they will showcase at CES 2014, albeit with few details. AllWinner at CES 2014 Allwinner announced will showcase their OptimusBoard based on their Ultra Octa-Core A80 SoC, as well as 4G tablets powered by Allwinner A31/A31s, and dual-SIM phablets sporting A23 dual-core. Allwinner A80 is an Octacore processor featuring four ARM Cortex A7 cores, and four Cortex A15 cores @ 2.0GHz together with an unnamed GPU offering 2x more performance over previous […]
CSR has recently launched CSR µEnergy Starter Development Kit, a low-cost devkit based on their CSR1010, CSR1011 and CSR1012 modules for developers designing Bluetooth Smart, aka Bluetooth Low Energy, applications. Main features of CSR µEnergy Starter DevKit: Fitted with CSR1010, CSR1011, or CSR1012 module USB or CR2032 battery powered (link selectable) USB SPI interface to development PC Headers – 1x Headers for CSR1010/CSR1012 I/O, 2x Headers for CSR1011 I/O Misc – 1x push button, 1x LED Dimensions – 80x68mm PCB area The modules are based on the Bluetooth Smart ICs with the same name, and the following characteristics: CSR1010 – QFN 32 lead, 5 x 5 x 0.6mm, 0.5mm pitch CSR1011 – QFN 56 lead, 8 x 8 x 0.9mm, 0.5mm pitch CSR1012 – QFN 32 lead, 4 x 4 x 0.65mm, 0.4mm pitch All three come with 128KB memory (64KB RAM and 64KB ROM), CSR1010 and CSR1012 has 12 digital […]
This is the last day of the year, and just like in 2012, I’ll look back on the main trends of this year, post a list of the top 10 posts of 2013 on cnx-software.com, and add some fun stats about the site and my visitors. 2013 has been the year of quad core media players and mini PCs, especially those based on Rockchip RK3188, XBMC is now featured in many Android STBs, “big.LITTLE” and “Octa-core” have been the buzz words on the application processor front, Google has entered the HDMI TV sticks market with the ChromeCast, and is competing with Miracast / DLNA TV dongles, we’ve gotten more and more low cost Linux development boards, crowdfunding has almost gone mainstream, and the Internet of things has started to take off thanks to new technologies such as Bluetooth Low Energy. I’ve compiled the list using data from Google Analytics, filtered […]
Crowdfunding has really took off in 2013, with sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo, as they enable start-ups to launch new and innovative products, and some established, even large companies, I’m thinking Canonical with Ubuntu Edge here, have also tapped into that market, actually shifting part of the risks from shareholders, to customers / individual funders. In this post, I’ll go through all the crowdfunding projects, 16 Indiegogo and 25 Kickstarter campaigns, featured on cnx-software.com between the beginning of December 2012 till the end of November 2013, to find out which ones have been a stellar success in terms of funding and on-time delivery, and those that have failed in one way or another, with some being close to looking like scams. There was a wide range of products with dealing home automation, the Internet of things, wireless Arduino compatible boards, Linux development boards, media players and more. Let’s go straight […]
With their RK3066 and RK3188 processor, Rockchip has been a clear winner in 2013 at least when it comes with HDMI TV stick, and possibly to a lesser extend with Android STBs. It has not been has popular as AllWinner SoC with development board, with only Radxa board available, due to the company policy with regards to open source software. Yet some documentation, tools and source code have either been leaked, or developed by the developers’ community. I’ll provide links to tutorials and how-tos for RK3066, RK3188, RK3288, RK3328, and RK3399 among others in this page. Rockchip Android How-tos This section only refers to Windows based tools provided by Rockchip or third parties. Some Android apps require root access, so I’ve posted simple how-tos for RK3066 and RK3188 devices. Firmware upgrade instruction may also be useful. Both rooting and upgrading firmware require Rockchip USB driver, and in the past people […]
Freescale i.MX processor, especially the recent i.MX6 Cortex A9 series, must be one the most Linux friendly ARM SoC available at this time. Freescale provides awesome documentation and the full source code, excluding the Vivante GPU drivers as they are prevented legally. But Etnaviv, a reverse-engineered open source driver for Vivante GPUs, has already made good progress and currently (Dec 2013) works with the lower end Vivante GPUs, but not quite yet with Vivante GC2000 3D GPU used in the quad core version of i.MX6. One of the first low cost platform based on Freescale i.MX6 Quad was HiApad Hi802, now more commonly known as Zealz GK802, an Android 4.0 HDMI TV dongle / mini PC. The device is quite nice to hack, as it has an easily replaceable internal micro SD card, making it unbrickable, and the availability of Freescale reference HDMI dongle source code. I’ve explained how to […]
Skimlinks test Over the years, I’ve written several Android how-tos and tutorials that may be interesting to both developers and users. I’ll list the most interesting with two sections: developers and users. Android Developers Tutorials The first tutorial, written in 2011, explains how to install the Android SDK in Windows XP, and how to write a Hello World application. This may become, or even already is, irrelevant as Windows XP support as by Microsoft has ended and most people have switched to Windows 7. At the time (July 2012), instructions to install the Android SDK in Ubuntu were not quite up-to-date, so I wrote a post entitled “Installing Android SDK on Ubuntu 12.04” to do just that. This year at Google I/O, the company announced Android Studio as an alternative to Eclipse for Android app development. Since I did not wake up in the middle of the night to attend […]
