BeagleBoard.org

Video: Das war der Linuxtag 2009

(author unknown) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 10:09:33 -0700

Shared by jkridner
See FFmpeg and the BeagleBoard starting at about 6 minutes in.

Wer nicht hinkam, sieht ihn jetzt: Die Linuxtag-Collage von Linux-Magazin Online zeigt, wer da war, und fängt Stimmung und Meinungen ein.

Cortex-A8 SBCs target signage and kiosks

(author unknown) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:17:00 -0700

Empower Technologies announced two single-board computers (SBCs) aimed at digital signage and interactive kiosk applications. The EMP3503 and EMP3530 SBCs are equipped with Texas Instruments OMAP35xx SoCs, 256MB of RAM and 256MB of flash storage, SD slots, and up to eight USB ports, the company says.

QNX Cuts Development Time with Optimized Support for OMAP35x Processors from Texas Instruments

(author unknown) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 06:00:00 -0700

PlayStation Emulation Comes to Palm Pre, Runs Faster Than on iPhone [Emulation]

Dan Nosowitz — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:45:00 -0700

Jailbreaking emulation legend ZodTTD has started the ball rolling on Pre gaming by installing his PlayStation emulator, psx4all, on the smartphone—and while there are kinks to be worked out, he says it runs even faster than on iPhone.

There's no denying the Pre has several huge advantages over the iPhone family when it comes to gaming, especially the hardware keyboard, and it looks like it won't be lacking in the graphical department, either. The emulation is still in the early stages; there's no sound and he hasn't figured out the screen scaling yet, but this little demo of Wipeout XL looks incredibly smooth.

ZodTTD says a fuller, more polished version of psx4all for the Pre should be coming soon, and with any luck, this'll be the first hurdle on the way to a substantial gaming community for the Pre. [ZodTTD via Engadget]

The Pre gets PlayStation gaming and more thanks to ZodTTD (video)

Joshua Topolsky — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:48:00 -0700

If you're familiar with the emulation scene (and let's be honest, you are reading Engadget), then you know the name ZodTTD -- the brain behind some of the best jailbroken emus for the iPhone, including variations on the PlayStation, Game Boy Advance, and most importantly... the TurboGrafx-16. Now the master-hacker has brought his goods to the Pre, cooking up a version of psx4all on the Palm device, with the aforementioned GBA and TG16 ports on the way! Interestingly, he reports that the performance on the Pre is actually better than that of the iPhone 3GS, and of course he's hacked access to the keyboard, allowing for (more) proper control of games. There are still kinks that are being worked out (sound emulation, screen scaling, etc.), but it looks like we can expect big things in the near future. We at Engadget know everyone will rest a bit easier tonight knowing that real gaming on the Pre is at hand. We'll hopefully be getting our hands on a version soon, but for now hit the read link for more info, and check out the full video after the break!

Continue reading The Pre gets PlayStation gaming and more thanks to ZodTTD (video)

Filed under: Cellphones, Gaming

The Pre gets PlayStation gaming and more thanks to ZodTTD (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Jun 2009 21:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Smart Mobile Devices - Playing with the Cortex-A8 based Palm Pre

(author unknown) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:01:00 -0700

Today I received a Palm Pre to evaluate as one of the first phones to employ the ARM Cortex-A8 processor core (Breakdown showing the Cortex-A8 based TI OMAP3430 in the Palm Pre). The Pre is a very exciting device for a number of reasons, including its WebOS and also because it is Cortex-A8 based.

ARM Cortex-A8 delivering performance never seen in your hand before.

So why is the Cortex-A8 such a leap forward for the mobile handset? If you want full details, you can refer to in-depth technical manuals for the Cortex-A8 and the TI OMAP3430. But in one simple sentence the Cortex-A8 delivers over 2x the performance that you have seen in a cell phone before, while not sacrificing battery life. When designing the Cortex-A8 we had to adhere to the Golden design rule of not exceeding 300mW, almost 10x lower than what you see from other mainstream processor architectures today. One of the ways that the Cortex-A8 delivers this 2x performance increase is that it is “superscalar” in that in can execute two instructions in parallel. TI have then added their secret sauce around the processor core by adding H/W video and an OpenGLES 2.0 graphics core

Palm Pre a Good Start

Just from the unboxing you can see that the Pre has been well designed and feels great in your hands. Though I would not normally rave about USB cables, the Pre uses little mirrors so you know which way the cables plug in, way better than the normal black on black hieroglyphics.

After quickly setting up the Palm Pre for exchange and gmail, and downloading my iTunes library I started playing with the Pre. The first thing you notice is how responsive the Pre is in opening up applications, and switching between them.

iTunes Library Syncing

Youtube Video

A8 Showing It’s Power

The real benefit of having an Cortex-A8 in your phone is really demonstrated in the Pre, as one of the major benefits is the ability to do many things well at once, the ability to render web pages quickly, while still being able to switch to your email, calendar, music player etc with just a swipe of your finger. I will go into more detail on these great features in my next blog.

“Which great phone to choose today”

James Bruce, Mobile Marketing, ARM, is based in Silicon Valley. James is without doubt a gadget guy who is continuously looking at the latest devices and services on them. Working for ARM allows James to see what technology will be on your mobile device in 3 to 5 years time. This view of the future combined with being based in Silicon Valley and having worked on mobile for the last 9 years allows James to have a unique view of mobile technology. At the moment James is deciding which Cortex-A8 phone he will buy this year, and which dual core Cortex-A9 phone he will buy next year.

Shortlink to this post: http://bit.ly/vEgio

...and there was light

(author unknown) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:36:32 -0700

Using the Beagleboard with the micro DLP projector (I assure you it's *really* small)

Linux utility to write/read OMAP35x memory mapped registers

(author unknown) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 09:28:00 -0700

: In this latest update from the Texas Instruments e2e Community, Juan Gonzales describes a Linux utility that allows users to write/read OMAP35x memory-mapped registers on a Mistral EVM.

TI Tech Day Fun!

JRT — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:04:00 -0700

Ever wonder how to condition an analog signal with an Amplifier and then provide it to an ADC into a DSP before sending it to a DLP^® chip? If you answered “YES”, then maybe a TI Tech Day is for you.

Recently, I was able to give a presentation on DLP technology at the TI Tech Day in Dallas – this event was incredibly enlightening. The shear number of interesting technical forums and technical experts explaining the 100’s of TI products available today was amazing. Just to name a few – DLP, DSP, MCU, ADC, DAC, Bluetooth, ZigBee^®, RF, RFID, Low-Power, High-power, power management, Clocks, Timers, Amps, FET, Sensors, controls, Audio, Video, and on, and on, and on… Each product was represented by local experts often presenting at one of the 40 technical forums and training sessions where local customers and suppliers could ask open questions about current product performance, how to implement, and future performance and functional roadmaps. Additionally, most of the forums have key note speakers who deliver messages on the state of the industry and TI’s direction. The Tech Day in Dallas had Rich Templeton, CEO of TI, provide a nice overview of the North Texas technical business landscape and how TI will be investing in this region.

For those of you who are DLP enthusiasts or just want to learn a little more, I presented a DLP introduction providing an overview of the technology and the many new applications beyond standard projectors. I usually start with an explanation about how the mirrors are constructed using traditional CMOS processing, and, at this point, there is at least someone in the crowd who is enlightened that the DMD does not emit light, but reflects it using millions of micro-mirrors. We usually then discuss the various new applications where high speed spatial light modulation can be used: Chemical analysis based on spectroscopy using the DMD to select wavelengths of light; or 3D metrology system where DLP system is used to create high speed fringe patterns with invisible IR light; or photochemistry applications where the DMD is used to project fine patterns of UV light. Almost the entire crowd, who thought of DLP as only useful for TV or projectors, are amazed at the enormous number of really interesting new concepts and unique ways to solve traditional problems by leveraging the ability to modulate visible, UV, and IR light at very high speeds.

The TI Tech Days are loads of fun for those technically inclined. I would encourage you to be on the look out for one coming to your local area.

www.ti.com/techdays2009

Tincantools 'puppy' mmc daughterboard

koenkooi — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:38:50 -0700

koenkooi posted a photo:

getting a nice 13MB/s out of my SD card

Making the Beagle Board speak… Ubuntu!

jefro — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 11:08:30 -0700

Kudos to Dio in South Korea for posting a very concise methodology for booting Ubuntu on the Beagle Board. Ubuntu doesn’t officially recognize the Beagle as a viable platform (yet), so I find it refreshing that several folks have managed to get it running. Anyone feel like posting a review on usability?

Building DSPLink is Easy :-)

Dio — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 02:09:00 -0700

http://wiki.davincidsp.com/index.php/Building_DSPLink

Don't forget to put SDK i.e. usr/include of installed rootfs

If you meet any problems, please let me know :-)

DSP Week Day

Abhishek — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 22:34:00 -0700

TI India is organizing a DSP weekday on 2nd Jul.09 at Le Meridien, Bangalore from 0930 to 1730 hours. It'll cover TI's Embedded Processor road map & specific deep dive sessions on enabling rapid application development. It focuses on Linux based programming of TI's OMAP3 & DM application processors. It'll be conducted by John Dixon. Register here for the program.

DSPLink build Configuration for Beagleboard -- Oops OMAP 3530

Dio — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:15:00 -0700

perl $DSPLINK/config/bin/dsplinkcfg.pl \
--platform=OMAP3530 \
--nodsp=1 \
--dspcfg_0=OMAP3530SHMEM \
--dspos_0=DSPBIOS5XX \
--gppos=OMAPLSP \
--comps=ponslrm

Nerd time issue 16

(author unknown) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:12:01 -0700

Shared by jkridner
A bit more than BeagleBoard stuff, but somewhat interesting stuff...

I use to work at a research lab and while it was cutting edge in some ways, it seemed unaware of things going on in software and web. I've since left the research lab, and Nerd Time started as a mailing list to tell my friends still at the lab about things that they might be able to use in their own projects.

------------

Hey all,

It's that time again. I never get feedback about whether you guys read this or not. But apparently, some of you do, since my last trip back to MD. This is just a collection of things I found interesting since the last nerd time. Obviously, there are other trends I'm missing.

If you want off, just lemme know.

This is rather long since it's been a good 6 months since the last nerd time. Work has kept me busy, and I don't read as much as I use to. Since there's no theme, but lots of trends, they're in no particular order this time. Skim through it and see if there's anything that catches your eye.

If you have questions about stuff, feel free to ask me (don't reply all!)

First, some stuff I did on the side:
Senate Majroity vs National Debt
I was talking with Ian about graphing public data, and this was what he wanted to know. This sort of thing should be so much easier. If you find the process of getting this data to graph, lemme know. I imagine it goes in line with a lot of the net-centric buzzwording that does on in DoD projects.
http://iamwil.posterous.com/senate-majority-vs-national-debt-getting-at-p

Frock, a chicken flocking simulator
I wanted to get to know the Lua programming language, so I chose this as a project. I'm getting it to support more chickens still.
http://webjazz.blogspot.com/2009/02/introducing-frock-flocking-chicken.html

And now, the other stuff.

Twitter
So I'm sure most of you by now have heard of twitter. Considering that Oprah did a show on it, it's crossed over to mainstream. A lot of you might not think of it as anything to pay attention to. However, it's one of those things where its value depends on whom you follow. Beyond the hype, it's mainly a messaging multicast system that has a dead-simple API, so that other people can build things on top of it. People have made things that twitter, such as plants that tell you when you need to water it, when bridges go up and down, when a meteor almost hits the earth, etc.
http://www.twitter.com
http://twollars.com/
http://www.botanicalls.com/kits/
http://twitter.com/riverthames

Wolfram Alpha and Google Squared and YQL
Wolfram Alpha and Google Squared had both been announced in the last month or so. Both are looking towards being able to query large amounts of structured data. However, wolfram curates this data with experts, and google squared attempts to make structured data from indexing tables of data on the web. In addition, Yahoo released YQL, which is a query you can use to scrap the web and treat it as just another database.
http://www.wolframalpha.com
http://www.google.com/squared/
http://tables.googlelabs.com/Home?pli=1
http://developer.yahoo.com/yql/

Real-time search
Real-time search seems to be the wrestling ground for the next generation of search right now. There are a number of competitors in this field, including giants and startups. It's evident with the death of Michael Jackson that news doesn't just travel through the old channels anymore.
http://venturebeat.com/2009/06/20/who-rules-real-time-search-a-look-at-9-contenders/
http://search.twitter.com
http://www.scoopler.com

Google Wave
If you haven't heard, google released a new communication tool called google wave. It's what email would be like if it was reinvented today. It's basically combining different aspects of our communication tools and merging them all together. It's best if you watch the video and play with the demo. If you want to play with wave yourself, you don't have to wait for an invite, but can sign up with a wave server that someone set up themselves. I recommend watching the video, as it breaks your presumptions of what's possible with HTML5 and the web.
http://wave.google.com/
http://wavety.com/pygo-wave-server/

Git and github
To me, this is really old news, but just in case you're still using SVN, you should checkout Git instead for your source control. It's ass-kicking good, though it has a slight learning curve. I won't say too much more about it, but you should really look into it. It'll expand your mind.
http://git-scm.com/
http://github.com/

Key-value stores
Lately, there's been a flurry of attention on key-value stores. I've mentioned one of them before, CouchDb. There are a bunch of others. Tokyo Cabinet (link #2) is used at Mixx.jp.co, a social network in Japan. Cassandra (link #3) is used at facebook. Amazon has SimpleDB and Dynamo. I've only played with tokyo cabinet and couchdb, so I can't really do a compare and contrast between them all. But to me, TC, couchdb, and redis seem to be the most interesting. This marks a shift away from relational dbs as the default data store. Not that they'll replace relational db, but we're finding there are a different class of constraints for the web not necessarily taken care of by relational dbs. In addition, they have properties not avail to relational dbs, such as being schema-less, an http server built in, replication, distributed, etc.
http://couchdb.apache.org/
http://tokyocabinet.sourceforge.net/index.html
http://incubator.apache.org/cassandra/
http://code.google.com/p/redis/
http://memcachedb.org/
http://github.com/cliffmoon/dynomite/tree/master
http://opensource.plurk.com/LightCloud/
http://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2007/10/amazons_dynamo.html
http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/berkeley-db/index.html
http://code.google.com/p/thrudb/
http://code.google.com/p/scalaris/

The internet of things
It's something further out, but these first two talks from TED got me thinking about where the web was heading. I don't think that the semantic web, as we imagine it will come to fruition. However, having the things we own talk to each other over the internet is not unfathomable. They'll be able to negotiate with each other to perform a task, or they'll be able to keep a history of what they're doing or how you're interacting with them.

http://siftables.com/
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/5_companies_building_the_internet_of_things.php
www.makerbot.com
http://siftables.com/

Cheap hardware boards
Hardware is already cheap, but building hardware yourself has still been somewhat of a pain. I remember having to use Rabbit boards before. There are better ones now. I've mentioned arduino before. Beagle board is a full board that you can run Ubuntu on. Teensy is a small USB microcontroller.
http://www.arduino.cc/
http://beagleboard.org/
http://www.pjrc.com/teensy/?not_a_duplicate

Quake online
Gaming often is looked on as child's play, when in fact, it's some of the hardest programming around, and often drives innovation and progress in graphical techniques, AI, and hardware. Carmack, the guy that wrote Quake, wants to put Quake on the browser. For the longest time, people derided the web, saying it'll never match the performance of desktop apps, and never give the same user experience. If Carmack can run quake on a native browser, then I believe desktop will lose. If he's delivering quake as a video stream, then that's another matter altogether.
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3946/building_quake_live_carmack_speaks.php?print=1

Reverse HTTP
HTTP is by design a pull model, where the client requests resources from a server. If you wanted to push data to a browser client, you had to rely on a bit of javascript finangling called Comet (cousin to AJAX), where you open an http connection to the client, and leave it open until you want to push stuff to the client. This certainly puts a load on servers because you have to keep connections open. Alternatively, you can have the client keep polling the server. That sucks too. Reverse HTTP doesn't need to keep the connection open. It basically takes advantage of the upgrade field in the HTTP header normally used to find a more appropriate protocol, and instead to turn the connection around from the server to the client. It's still experimental, but it makes a lot more things simple instead of messing with javascript on clients to push data to browsers.
http://www.reversehttp.net/
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Reverse_HTTP
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-lentczner-rhttp-00.txt

Whiteboarding in real time
Many collaboration tools have come out. We've discovered that the web is essentially a communications medium. Anyway, this set of collaboration tools lets you whiteboard, compose text, and revise docs in real time as other people are editing them. The last link shows you a re-play of paul graham writing one of his essays. This allows people to see how they edit their text over time, and shows others how other people think as they write. It'd be useful as an educational tool.
http://www.twiddla.com/
http://www.etherpad.com/
http://www.wikirage.com/
http://www.revizr.com/
http://etherpad.com/ep/pad/slider/13sentences

Facebook's walled garden
Facebook is the AOL of today. It's basically a walled garden of data, where users live. There's a bunch of effort to break them open. Facebook also wants to open itself out as a fast follower to twitter. I won't say much more here, but there's an ongoing battle about where data gets to go on this front.
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/17-07/ff_facebookwall?currentPage=all
http://googledataapis.blogspot.com/2008/03/3-2-1-contact-api-has-landed.html
http://www.complang.org/dsnp/

Data.gov and the sunlight foundation
Since Obama took office, there's been a big push and initiative to open up the government to its citizens in the name of transparency. One of the things they're doing is data.gov and opening raw public data up to developers or anyone that wants to use it. The sunlight foundation is doing the same for legistator and voting data. I expect that we'll have more apps that will be able to take advantage of this data in the near future, not just to help the people govern their govenment, but also to lead more informed lives.
http://services.sunlightlabs.com/api/
http://www.data.gov/catalog/raw/category/0/agency/0/filter//type//sort//page/1/count/10

DNA engineering
A front that I don't know too much about, but is probably a bigger revolution than the information age and the internet are things that have to do with genetic and bio engineering. 23andme lets you submit cell samples of yourself, and they'll do genetic testing to tell you if you have genetic diseases, among other things. You can now submit gene sequences and get them built for a modest amount of money--not super expensive, but still out of reach for hobbists) As the cost goes down, you'll soon see designer pets and bacteria. The last post is about a guy that theoretically hacks a more potent variant of swine flu.
http://23andme.com
http://mrgene.com/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-2/
http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=353

GWT, sproutcore, and Cappucino
Javascript is the most widely used language in the world. And while it has its merits as a functional language, people are trying to develop frameworks that compile to javascript. Javascript is not bad when you're using jQuery. Scriptaculous 2 just got released also.
http://code.google.com/webtoolkit/
http://www.sproutcore.com/
http://cappuccino.org/
http://jquery.com
http://scripty2.com/

Chat on couchdb, standalone web apps, and taking your data with you
This was curious. Couchdb is a key-value document orientated database with an http server as its frontend. They were able to demonstrate that you can fit an entire web app just in the database. Data is code, and code is data. Not only that, you can use the database's replication to port your data and sync it where-ever you go. It's an interesting head turn, even if it's just a demo.
http://damienkatz.net/2009/05/realtime_chat_on_couchdb.html
http://www.jasondavies.com/blog/2009/05/08/couchdb-on-wheels/
http://devlindaley.com/2009/2/14/couchdb-bloom-filters

Mozilla Ubiquity again, but this time hooks into webapps
I've mentioned ubiquity before, which is like a commandline interface for your browser. I use it myself, but only in limited amounts. What's interesting about the direction is that they leverage web services to complete tasks it can't complete for itself. I think that high level languages will eventually adopt the idea of being able to easily hook into web services as a natural part of the language, without extra libraries.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/firefoxs_ubiqity_starts_thinking_for_itself.php

Mozilla Jetpack lets you write Firefox addons with the web
Traditionally, web developers have stayed out of the realm of desktop developers. This is one of the many indications I have that a lot of programming--especially those with user interfaces or a social aspect--will move towards web programming constructs. https://jetpack.mozillalabs.com/

Clojure, Scala, Haskell, Erlang
I'm not going to say too much about these programming languages, since I've mentioned them before, but just as a reminder, there's more than Java out there. These four to me, represent the edge of programming languages that have potential in the future. With the advent of multicores, it's likely that functional programming will lead the way in giving us adequate programming constructs to deal with multicores. If you're a programmer, it'd probably serve you well to learn at least one of these in the coming 4 years.
http://clojure.org/
http://www.scala-lang.org/
http://www.haskell.org/
http://erlang.org/

ParrotVM and mod_parrot
Admittedly, I don't know much about Parrot. But the claims it makes is big. With the rise and popularity of dynamic programming languages like Python and Ruby, we're struggling for a fast virtual machine. And to have to build a new virtual machine every time we have a new language is a pain. ParrotVM is suppose to take care of easing that pain. If that's the case, it might be easier to make languages catered to our problem domain.
http://www.linux-mag.com/cache/7373/1.html
http://www.smashing.org/talks/mod_parrot.ppt

Augmented reality and zombies
We've moved closer to having augmented reality. This is a far cry from the geeky headcam helmets and laptop backpacks that dorky MIT profs wore a decade ago. It still relies on a 2D barcode, and has limited uses, but now with the iPhone3GS out (it has a compass), we might see more augmented reality apps (as well as on android phones)
http://singularityhub.com/2009/06/19/augmented-reality-is-full-of-zombies/
http://www.thinkartificial.org/machine-interfaces/augmented-reality-iphone/
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10266380-1.html

Sysadmin tips
Here are some good sysadmin tips. I'd like to think I know my way around linux, when in fact, I've just started.
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-10sysadtips/
http://blog.transmit.net/2008/10/my-best-unix-tricks.html

Probabilistic chips
I don't know anymore than what's written in the article. So read about it.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6252697.html

Google Moderator
Voting on websites is old hat since about 2005 with the advent of Digg.com and reddit.com. I found it curious that google has a moderator app, to help facilitate the asking of questions. If you want your own, you can create a white label voting site at slinkset.
http://moderator.appspot.com/
http://www.slinkset.com

The rest of these are related to software, but not about code. If you can only watch/read one, I'd recommend the poisonous people one. That applies to more than open source projects. In it, SVN core devs talk about how someone came in and told them they were all wrong. I have a feeling that was Linus Torvalds, as he rails on the SVN guys in his talk.

The Business and Politics of Software
http://blog.cusec.net/2009/01/05/zed-shaw-the-acl-is-dead-cusec-2008/

Pivoting, or knowing when to stop.
http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/2009/06/pivot-dont-jump-to-new-vision.html

How open source projects survive poisonous people.

Linus Torvalds on Git

Build or buy?
http://sitecanary.com/blog/5

Posted via email from The Web and all that Jazz

Beagle board

F. J. Sánchez — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 07:08:58 -0700

Llevo un tiempo pensando en una plataforma para mis futuros proyectos electrónicos y robóticos. Lo que buscaba era una plataforma potente con la que poder crear grandes proyectos, entre los que se incluyen visión artificial por ejemplo. Tras buscar un poco creo haber encontrado lo que buscaba y se llama Beagle board.

La Beagle board consiste en un PC en miniatura ya que mide 3x3 pulgadas (sobre 76.2 x 76.2 mm) y pesa solo 36g. Su procesador es un OMAP3530 de Texas Instruments, basado en el ARM Cortex-A8 que se ejecuta a 500MHz (puede llegar a 600MHz), acompañado de un DSP TMS320C64x ~430MHz y un procesador gráfico Imagination SGX 2D/3D. Además incorpora 256MB de Flash y otros 256MB de SDRAM DDR (en versiones anteriores eran solo 128MB de RAM) en un mismo chip que se monta encima del procesador (tecnología PoP o Package on Package) .

En cuanto a periféricos, tenemos salida DVI mediante un conector HDMI, salida de video analógico, entrada y salida de audio, JTAG, puerto de expansión (I2C, SPI, GPIO, etc.), lector de tarjetas SD/MMC, botón de usuario, etc. Pero lo mejor es que posee USB OTG y USB Host de alta velocidad, por lo que no tendremos problemas en conectarle un adaptador WiFi, bluetooth, cámaras, ratones, teclados, etc.

Cabe destacar la gran potencia de este procesador, que gracias al DSP integrado y su procesador gráfico, es capaz de ejecutar aplicaciones con OpenGL sin problema. Pero aún mejor que su potencia y prestaciones es su precio, 149$. Además hay que sumar que hay muchísimo software y proyectos en torno a esta plataforma, por lo que es fácil encontrar ayuda.

Sin lugar a dudas, es la plataforma que quiero.

Spazzing out with webOS app developer Ed Finkler

segphault@arstechnica.com (Ryan Paul) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 08:15:00 -0700

Palm emerged in the 1990s as one of the innovative champions of mobile computing. The company practically defined the handheld computer form-factor and contributed many technical concepts and user interface paradigms that are still found in some of the most popular mobile devices. The Palm of today may be a mere shadow of its former glory, but the company could be poised for a surprising comeback.

Palm's newest creation, the Pre smartphone, has the potential to restore the once-mighty gadget maker's reputation as a leader in innovation. The device's unique operating system, called webOS, allows third-party developers to use Web technologies—such as HTML and JavaScript—to create native applications that can integrate tightly with the platform. This lowers the barriers to entry for software development and provides an elegant portability glide path for bringing Web applications and Adobe AIR programs to the Pre.

Click here to read the rest of this article

Four new processors from Texas Instruments provide unmatched connectivity options and power-efficiency for smarter, greener industrial and communications products

(author unknown) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 06:00:00 -0700

Four new processors from Texas Instruments provide unmatched connectivity options and power-efficiency for smarter, greener industrial and communications products - TMS320C674x and OMAP-L138 feature SATA and universal parallel port (uPP) for high-capacity storage and high-speed data transfer

Ubuntu su Beagleboard, un altro howto

Urgentissimo! — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:27:00 -0700

clipped from gebaar.blogspot.com

Ubuntu on Beagleboard

sudo ./build-arm-rootfs --fqdn beagleboard --login ubuntu --password passwd --imagesize 2G --seed gcc,make,usbutils

Ecco un altro "how-to" per portare la Ubuntu sulla Beagleboard... ricompilandosela interamente sul proprio PC attraverso la solita utility build-arm-rootfs che -temo- ottimizza solo al livello ARMv5.

Chissà quando si potrà scaricare una iso già pronta...

Palm SDK has leaked

Marcin Juszkiewicz — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 08:54:55 -0700

As some of my readers already noticed there is WebOS SDK available for Palm Pre smartphone. Or rather “available” as it is leaked edition not normal release. I will not describe how to get it (using Google is enough) but rather how to get it run under Linux and a bit about what is inside.

The bad part is that SDK is (so far) available only as MS Windows binary. I did not tried it with WINE but used XP Pro installation on one of my machines to install it. There are two additional installations to be done first — VirtualBox 2.2.x is required by Palm SDK to be installed and Safari is required for “Palm Inspector” tool (which I did not got to work anyway).

After installation two important files: “palm_emulator_sdk_47.vmdk” and “palm_emulator_sdk_47.iso” can be found in “Documents and Settings/$USER/.VirtualBox/” subdirectories (they are also available in “Program Files/Palm/SDK/share/emulator/sdk47/” directory). There is also “Palm Emulator” icon on desktop which makes use of them.

So back to Linux. VirtualBox hard drive image and ISO needs to be copied to Linux machine and given for VirtualBox (configuration of virtual machine can be copied from MS Windows too). It is also possible to use QEMU to boot into SDK but it can be harder to find one with working mouse emulation. This is where their changes to QEMU or VirtualBox would be handy to get — adding 320×480px resolution to QEMU is few minutes work anyway (needs to change sources of vga bios and replace system one with tweaked copy).

What can be seen after boot? First error which I hope will be fixed in final release — “vga=864″ kernel parameter results in “unknown video mode” message. Anyway other modes are working and I suggest 640×480x16 as it has the same height as Palm Pre screen. There is a one problem due that — screen has wrong calibration so it is hard to use UI.

Some applications are coded in ugly style — seems to have 320×480px resolution hardcoded (Google Maps, Video player, Dialer). But there are also others which resize properly (Contacts, desktop). To play with them few key shortcuts are useful to know:

TAB — runs launcher
Escape — “minimize” application to a card

Looks like other keys launch search tool — I have to admit that I did not searched yet for documentation.

But what is inside of image and why it works? Image was built for “qemux86″ device by using OpenEmbedded build system — no new patches added. There is SSH daemon working in emulator so it is possible to login remotely and check what is in system. There are 697 packages installed (285 of them being kernel modules). Image looks like it was built on a same system as WebOS 1.0.3 image for Palm Pre (about which I already wrote few days ago).

Ah, I would forgot… There are few JavaScript examples in SDK if someone wants to know how to make “hello world” for WebOS.

Final thoughts — WebOS looks interesting and I would like to play more with it on real device. The bonus part is that it is even able to run classic PalmOS applications (but this is with 3rdparty application). Too bad that there is no GSM version yet.