04.06.14

Embedded Linux and Devices: Gains in Industry Support, Development Kits, Broadcasting, and Cars

Posted in News Roundup at 11:24 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Mentor and AMD

• AMD in pact with Mentor Graphics to expand open-source embedded Linux development

• AMD partners with Mentor for improved embedded Linux support

• AMD partners with Mentor on embedded Linux BSPs

• Embedded Linux Development by AMD and Mentor Graphics

• AMD Partners With Mentor To Push Embedded Open-Source Linux

  With a just-announced agreement between AMD and Mentor Graphics, embedded linux developers will have free access to Mentor Embedded Linux Lite with AMD’s upcoming Steppe Eagle and Bald Eagle platforms. Embedded developers will also have access to Mentor Embedded Linux and Sourcery CodeBench Lite as a GNU-based C/C++ development/debugging tool-chain.

• AMD, Mentor Graphics Partner on Embedded Linux Support

• AMD and Mentor Graphics to Accelerate Open-Source Linux Development for Embedded Systems

  As a Yocto Project™ compatible product, Mentor® Embedded Linux will now bring standardized features and tools, and ensure quick access to the latest Board Support Packages (BSPs) for AMD 64-bit x86 architecture beginning with the upcoming AMD Embedded G-Series system-on-a-chip (SoC) (codenamed: “Steppe Eagle”) and AMD Embedded R-Series APU/CPU (codenamed: “Bald Eagle”). Embedded systems developers will have comprehensive access to the Mentor Embedded Linux development platform for customized embedded Linux development and commercial support, as well as a no-cost Mentor Embedded Linux Lite derivative providing all the essentials to evaluate Linux on AMD embedded processors.

Cars

• Linux-based telepresence robot navigates autonomously

• In-Vehicle Systems: The Next Frontier

  Although big names like Google and Apple are now starting to move into the space, they have just as much of a learning curve as the other players in the market, meaning there is an opportunity for any company of any size to become a leader. With such fierce competition among organizations to dominate this field, I expect we will see some revolutionary new approaches and technologies. Already we are seeing open source technologies like Linux, Tizen, and Android being leveraged for new automotive products.

Chromecast

• Chromecast concept shows futuristic redesign and we like it a lot

  Google’s Chromecast remains their hottest selling device. At $35 a piece and an ever increasing list of supported apps, the little dongle has put many set-top boxes and sources of digital media out of business. While many have expressed their love for the device, designer Sam Dirani of Raleigh, NC, feels like there could be a more modern look to the revolutionary device, and he has now revealed his take on it.

• Google’s Chromecast Arriving In UK On 19 March

  People in UK have good news coming their way. So far, those who wanted to lay their hands on Chromecast had to import one from the United States. But it won’t be necessary anymore. It has been reported in Android Police website that starting Wednesday, interested buyers can source it from a retailer.

• $50 Roku stick goes HDMI y HDMI with Chromecast

  Roku announced a new streaming media stick that’s compatible with standard HDMI ports, in hopes of slowing the growing momentum of Google’s Chromecast.

Amazon

• Will Amazon copy Google’s Chromecast?

  Rumors have been swirling for a while now that Amazon might release a device similar to the Apple TV. But TechCrunch reports that Amazon’s set top box might actually be similar to Google’s Chromecast device. Is Amazon about to copy Google?

• Amazon Fire TV – A Quick Look

  This week Amazon unveiled the Fire TV as a small network appliance primarily for HD video streaming and complemented by some gaming and mobile app capabilities. The Fire TV is powered by Amazon’s Android-based Kindle Fire OS so in this weekend review are my initial impressions of this Linux-based media system after using it the past two days.

• Amazon brings out Fire TV

  Fire TV is a tiny box that plugs into your HDTV. It’s the easiest way to enjoy Netflix, Prime Instant Video, Hulu Plus, WatchESPN, low-cost video rentals, and more. With instant access to over 200,000 TV episodes and movies, plus all your favorite subscriptions and streaming services, you can watch what you want, when you want. If you’re a Prime member, you get unlimited access to thousands of popular movies and TV shows, including exclusives like Downton Abbey, The Americans, Alpha House, and Under the Dome.

• Amazon’s Fire TV could scorch rivals

• Amazon unveils Android-based Fire TV STB and SDK

  Amazon unveiled Amazon Fire TV, a $99 multimedia and gaming oriented TV companion box running Android 4.2 on a 1.7GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon SoC.

Internet of Things (Surveillance Inside Homes)

• Can Open Source and The Linux Foundation Jump Start The Internet of Things?

• Could Open Source Be An Engine For The Internet Of Things?

  There are several definitions of open source. The Open Source Initiative (OSI) website contains a very useful and detailed definition, which goes beyond access to the source code and includes ten specific criteria concerning the distribution terms of open-source software. We will not enter here into the ongoing debate concerning the differences between open source and free software, as the OSI website provides a short review of the terms.

• Open source challenges a proprietary Internet of Things

  Linux Foundation believes it has the code for unlocking Internet of Things and bringing success

• “Internet of Things will see 26 billion connected devices by 2020

  THE NUMBER of connected devices will rise to 26 billion by 2020, according to one analyst, with the market around the Internet of Things (IoT) worth a hefty $300bn.

  Research house Gartner revealed its IoT predictions on Tuesday, advising that the growth would have a knock-on effect on data centres, as firms are tasked with collecting and managing the additional data created by these billions of devices and sensors.

• Linux mini-PC and JavaScript speed IoT development

  Marvell has reached its Indiegogo goal for “Kinoma Create,” a Linux- and JavaScript-based hardware/software platform for quick and easy development of IoT gizmos.

• IoT on tap at upcoming Embedded Linux Conference

  If you want to be up to date on what’s going down in embedded Linux, there’s no place like ELC, as in the Embedded Linux Conference. The Linux Foundation has just posted the 90-session presentation line-up for the U.S. show, scheduled for April 29 through May 1 at the San Jose Marriott. The European version (ELCE) ran last Oct. 21-25 in Edinburgh, Scotland.

• IoT dev kit includes Linux-based multiprocol router

  Echelon introduced its IzoT Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) framework for peer-to-peer networking of embedded controllers last October. At that time, the building automation and smart grid networking vendor released the IzoT multi-protocol stack in an ARM-ready beta version and reference implementation optimized for the Linux-based Raspberry Pi SBC. Since then, support has extended to the BeagleBone Black.

Raspberry Pi

• Ellie the robot is ready to compete

  Meet Ellie, a six week old robot weighing 100 lbs who can launch a two foot diameter exercise ball over 10 feet in the air! Ellie even has eyes: a webcam fitted to the front of her chassis that uses code written in Python running on a Raspberry Pi to process images. Ellie’s main code is written in Java and allows her mecanum wheels to drive, her claw to catch exercise balls, and her kicker to launch balls into the air. In just a few weeks Ellie will be competing along with more than 50 other robots in her first competition.

• BBC Micro retrospective and the Raspberry Pi – educate, inform and entertain

  Rather than partner with a computing company and badge up another machine, Furber believes the BBC would do better helping teachers to learn to program and provide education tools for students to use. He also believes that Linux would be the answer. He feels using Linux would help get children away from the accepted familiarity of a Windows or OS X environment and would help make them question, probe and investigate a lot more.

• Raspberry Pi gains Wolfson HD audio card

• Raspberry Pi announces £1 million education fund

  The Raspberry Pi has been out for just over two years now, and has been one of the biggest tech success stories in recent times. With millions of Raspberry Pi’s in the wild and countless more millions raised for various charities and open source projects, the foundation has been able to do more than originally expected.

• New GPIO board for Raspberry Pi

• More info on the Linux User Raspberry Jam

  We reveal some of the people and things you’ll be able to see at the Linux User Raspberry Jam on 5 April in Poole, Dorset

• 7 favorite Raspberry Pi projects

  Having recently co-authored a book about building things with the Raspberry Pi (Raspberry Pi Hacks), I’ve spent a lot of the last couple of years talking about this credit-card-sized Linux computer and seeing fun things people have used it for.

• Raspberry Pi: Fun with a serious purpose

  As I was reconnecting the Raspberry Pi to our TV set yesterday evening (it bounces back and forth between connection on my desk and to the TV), I realised that I haven’t had this much plain old fun with computing in a very long time.

• How to Install the LTSI-3.10 Kernel on Raspberry Pi and MinnowBoard

• Interesting facts about Raspberry Pi

  Raspberry Pi celebrated its second birthday last week. Since its debut on February 29, 2012, Raspberry Pi has ushered in a whole new generation of tiny, inexpensive, single-board computers. Numerous Raspberry Pi based DIY project ideas are popping up over the web, and there are many use cases of Raspberry Pi as low-cost learning media in the developing world. Celebrating its second birthday, I am going to share in this post several interesting facts about Raspberry Pi.

• Rapid – Enter UDOO – a single-board embedded PC with four times the processing power of the Raspberry Pi

• Raspberry Pi as an Audio/Media Center: the best Linux distros

  Probably, the best use you could do with a Raspberry Pi would be turning it in a full-fledged media center. With some tuning, a Raspberry Pi can become indeed a device that audiophiles will love, or a tiny board that can empower you television to become a 2014-like smart TV. All you need is some Unix tools (or Win32DiskImager for Windows OSes) to flash your SD Card, and the need to connect your nerdiness to multimedia-related things. This is why in the last week I kept going around the web, spotting the best projects for a Raspberry Pi, to turn it in my personal media center of choice.

Arduino

• pcDuino3 Single-Board PC Supports Android, Ubuntu And Arduino For $77

• pcDuino3 is a $77 Android, Ubuntu single-board PC with Arduino support

  There’s no shortage of tiny, low-power single-board computers that can run Android, Ubuntu, or other operating systems. What helps set the pcDuino line apart is that these little developer boards also support the Arduino ecosystem which means you can add Arduino shields to extend the capabilities of the little device and use Arduino programming tools.

RTOS

• Wind River wins 2014 Network Intelligence Award

  Wind River has bagged a 2014 Network Intelligence Award for its Wind River Intelligent Network Platform. The awards from the Network Intelligence Alliance (NI Alliance) recognize telecom operators and suppliers that have used network intelligence technology to develop and deploy innovative services and products.

• Android and Linux gain drivers for huge touchscreens

  3M has released Android 4.x and Linux 3.x kernel patches for its multitouch displays, supporting screens up to 46 inches.

• Enea AB: Enea signs 3M USD OSE and Linux deal

  Enea(R) (NASDAQ OMX Nordic:ENEA) signs a software license agreement with a global Telecommunications Equipment Manufacturer to deliver the operating systems Enea Linux and Enea OSE together with an OSE Compatibility Platform for running OSE applications in Linux. The total value of the agreement is estimated to 3 million USD over a period of four years. The deal covers software for both ARM and PowerPC processor architectures.

• Linux Continues to Displace RTOSs: Enea Signs Deal to Move Customer from OSE to Linux

  Today Linux dominates the control plane and simple executives are increasingly called on to perform packet processing functionally in the data plane of network equipment. Specialized multicore network processors are displacing other hardware technologies and their vendors often have their own software enablement strategies. Competition for the software layer in telecom has never been more heated.

TI

• TI’s Sitara SDK moves to mainline Linux

  TI released Sitara Linux SDK 7.0, now based on the mainline Linux kernel. The SDK supports the Sitara AM355x, and coming soon, the new Sitara AM4x and AM5x.

• Rugged touchpanel PC runs Android on TI Sitara

  AIS has launched a 7-inch, WSVGA multitouch panel PC that runs Android or Linux on TI’s Sitara AM3354 SoC, and offers a camera and PoE support.

• Curtiss-Wright Low Power Processing Card Runs Linux/DSP BIOS on Multicore TI OMAP-L138

Android Support

• ZTE FunBox and MeBox take divergent Android TV paths

  Like Huawei, ZTE is a major Chinese telecom equipment provider that has more recently moved aggressively into mobile devices. They primarily serve up Android phones and tablets, but ZTE has also been the major hardware vendor behind Firefox OS, along with China’s TCL/Alcatel, recently announcing the Firefox OS based ZTE Open C and Open II. Now it’s expanding its Android portfolio with two very different TV set-top boxes (STBs): the FunBox and the MeBox.

• Android-based robot aims for Rubik’s Cube record

  A Cubestormer 3 robot based on a Galaxy S4 Android phone and eight Linux-driven Lego Mindstorms EV3 bricks aims to beat the Rubik’s Cube solving record.

• Modular SBC runs Android and PicUntu on Cortex-A9

  Haoyu Electronics announced a sandwich-style $60 “MarsBoard RK3066″ SBC equipped with Rockchip’s 1.6GHz dual-core RK3066 SoC, and running Linux and Android

• Tiny quad-core mini-PC ships for $69

  NanoPC launched a $69 mini-PC and $67 SBC based on a quad-core Samsung Exynos4412 SoC, with SD, HDMI, USB, camera, and Ethernet, and running Linux and Android.

Silica

• Simplified Linux-based design for Renesas RZ/A1H MCUs

  Silica has introduced a development board in its ArchiTech range, which has been optimised for Linux based designs incorporating the Renesas RZ/A1H microcontroller.

  It has been optimised to have a small memory footprint together with a BSP (Board Support Package) for the on-board peripherals, minimising development time.

• SILICA – Low-cost streamlined development platform for Linux-based designs

  SILICA, an Avnet company, has launched a new ArchiTech development board that offers a low-cost streamlined platform for Linux-based designs. The ArchiTech Hachiko board is supplied with a Linux kernel optimised for the Renesas RZ/A1H MCU, to work with a small memory footprint together with a BSP (Board Support Package) for the on-board peripherals, minimizing development time.

Development

• The easiest way to turn your app idea into an appliance

  Jason Kridner is the co-founder of BeagleBoard.org, where he has helped create open source development tools such as BeagleBone Black, BeagleBone, BeagleBoard, and BeagleBoard-xM. Kridner is also a software architecture manager for embedded processors at Texas Instruments (TI).

• Linux Video of the Week: Yocto Project Saves Embedded Linux Devs from Frankenstein OS

  The Yocto Project’s open source toolset helps developers build a custom embedded Linux distribution on any hardware architecture by automating the low-level details of the build process. Thus, developers who use Yocto become super heroes, vanquishing Frankenstein and restoring their projects.

• Qt embedded GUI adds Yocto recipes, hops up emulator

  Digia announced Qt Enterprise Embedded in October as a commercial distribution for enterprises. Like the Qt 5.2 cross-platform framework it’s based on, Qt Enterprise Embedded supports Android, as well as Linux. The platform combines Qt’s drag-and-drop GUI builder with an IDE based on Qt Creator and Ubuntu, as well as a Boot to Qt embedded stack for Android and Linux targets.

• ARM/FPGA COM runs Linux on Zynq-7000 SoC

  Avnet announced a COM based on Xilinx Zynq-7000 ARM/FPGA SoCs, and supported by an optional baseboard, power module, FPGA mezzanine card, and Linux BSP.

Misc.

• End of Windows XP Support Ups Risk of ATM Cyber Attacks

  Some financial firms are looking into Linux, a free, open source operating system. Currently, 30% of all electronic POS systems at U.S. gasoline stations and convenience stores use Linux.

• First All Open Source Solution for Vybrid from Toradex and Antmicro with Linux and eCos

  Building systems that combined a front-end user interface with real-time processing has often led to awkward and complex trade-offs in performance, architecture and costs.

• Nvidia Jetson TK1: most advanced hacker SBC?

  Nvidia unveiled a $192 Linux-based “Jetson TK1″ SBC based on the 2.3GHz quad-core Cortex-A15 Tegra K1 SoC, and demoed its use in a self-driving Audi.

• Computer access for the poorest, at $7 a head

  Keepod has developed a Linux-based operating system that can act as a portable hard drive by plugging it into the USB port of any recent PC (going back about 8 years, said Pfeffer). “For the first time, we are separating the ‘brains’ of the computer from the hardware, allowing users to take their ‘computers’ with them on a small, cheap device that will enable them to keep their data safe, secure, and accessible,” he said.

• Tracing and visualisation of embedded Linux systems

  Debugging embedded software can be a challenging, time-consuming and unpredictable factor in the development of embedded systems. Detecting errant program execution begs the question “How did the software reach this state?”

  What combination of inputs and timing resulted in the error, and why? Tracing can often provide the answer.

• Buildroot project reports progress, releases update

  The free embedded Linux Buildroot project released a quarterly update, featuring enhanced internal and external toolchains, 67 new packages, and bug fixes.

• Saelig – Linux-based software can turn your PC into an oscilloscope

• Lauterbach enables the step up to 32 bit with support for uC Linux on the Cortex-M3/M4

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