Category: Freescale

My interview on nomobile.ru

Posted by – March 3, 2013

At Mobile World Congress 2013 the nomobile.ru guys interviewed me showing off my video-blogging setup and my latest gadgets. I wasn’t able to use the Kopin Golden-i 3.8 to live augment my video-blogging at MWC because it was stuck in customs.

See more about how I video on my How I video-blog page.

Posted at: nomobile.ru on the nomobile YouTube channel

I’m Watch Android Watch, a growing market for smart Android watches

Posted by – January 21, 2013

Italian startup I’m Watch thus far has sold 30 thousand Android wrist watches worldwide, with pre-orders for over 50 thousand units, their goal is to sell more than 100 thousand units this year. For now the watch runs on the Freescale i.MX233 and runs Android 2, with certain Android applications being optimized for the I’m Watch, Bluetooth synchronization with any Android or iPhone. Thus when you get calls, you can see caller ID on your watch, you can use the watch as Bluetooth headset, dial contacts, view email titles/senders, IM messages, plenty other Android notifications can be programmed to be shown on the watch. They have a gold version for 13000 euros, Titanium version for 800 euros, silver version for 1500 euros and the regular one has an MSRP of 350 euros ($389 in the USA, currently with a $150 discount, thus $239). They are also launching the I’m Here GPS Tracker, with a SIM card built-in, the GPS tracker can be used to track all types of things everywhere in the country. You can put it in the bicycle, inside the car, inside a bag, in pockets of children, etc, then it can localize the GPS tracker on your phone or on your I’m watch.

My video with I’m Watch filmed last year when they showed the first prototype of the device in 2011 got over 372 thousand views thus far, 351 comments, I guess my video-blogging kind of helped them launch the device. I’m looking forward to (I guess, and I’d like to see) the next version to be slimmer, lighter, using Bluetooth 4.0 low power, run on a faster Jelly Bean compatible ARM Processor, and run tons more Android notifications synchronizations apps, use a sunlight readable Pixel Qi LCD or an E Ink display for the display to stay turned on the whole day, thus whenever you glance at your watch, it always shows time, notifications and everything, no need to reach it and push the button to turn on the display.

I’d like to see the Android smart watch device market explode during 2013, I’d like to see real useful usage being demonstrated and proven to work perfectly on this type of device. They gave me an I’m Watch which I am now going to try to test over the next days and weeks and I’ll report and post some video reviews on my hopeful success in being able to use it to improve my overall Android and smart device usage and experience. 2013 is the year that wearable computing becomes a mass market success, this device is one of the first examples of what we can expect.

laptopmag.com: Cotton Candy FXI-Tech Exynos4210 HDMI Stick reviewed

Posted by – November 20, 2012

I think the Norwegian guys at Cotton Candy FXI-Tech actually kind of invented the HDMI stick market, when they first showed a prototype of the Cotton Candy exactly a year ago in November 2011. Since then, tons of other ARM SoCs have been shown and released to the worldwide market:
January 2012: Allways Innovating shows OMAP4 on HDMI Stick (not released yet as far as I know),
March 2012: Telechips Cortex-A5 ultra compact HDMI sticks (2, 3) appears (probably still the most compact)
May 2012: The Allwinner A10 Mk802 appears, has taken most of the market, appearing for $74 but now available for $25 from Shenzhen, a version is $40 with free worldwide shipping in the ARMdevices.net members store.
June 2012: Geniatech shows AmLogic single-core Cortex-A9 in HDMI Stick (available for $49 with worldwide shipping in the ARMdevices.net members store)
September 2012: RK3066 is ready for dual-core HDMI sticks
October 2012: The dual-core AmLogic MX HDMI stick and $99 with worldwide shipping the ARMdevices.net members store).
More RK3066 HDMI Sticks shown, the one with Bluetooth, mini-jack audio out and female HDMI port selling for $60 including worldwide shipping the ARMdevices.net members store.
And now perhaps the most powerful HDMI stick on the market is the i.MX6 Quad-core HDMI stick (2), available for $89 including worldwide shipping hopefully starting later today on the ARMdevices.net Members Store.

Read the full review of the Cotton Candy FXI-Tech HDMI Stick with many pictures here: http://blog.laptopmag.com/cotton-candy-tested-fastest-pc-on-a-stick-can-take-over-any-screen

Re-watch my overview video of the latest HDMI Sticks from Shenzhen:

Freescale Kinetis L Series: Freescale Freedom Platform, $12.95 Cortex-M0+ Arduino development board

Posted by – November 2, 2012

The FRDM-KL25Z is an ultra-low-cost development platform enabled by Kinetis L Series KL1 and KL2 MCUs families built on ARM® Cortex™-M0+ processor. Features include easy access to MCU I/O, battery-ready, low-power operation, a standard-based form factor with expansion board options and a built-in debug interface for flash programming and run-control. The FRDM-KL25Z is supported by a range of Freescale and third-party development software.
Features:
- MKL25Z128VLK4 MCU — 48 MHz, 128 KB flash, 16 KB SRAM, USB OTG (FS), 80LQFP
- Capacitive touch “slider,” MMA8451Q accelerometer, tri-color LED
- Easy access to MCU I/O
- Sophisticated OpenSDA debug interface
- Mass storage device flash programming interface (default) — no tool installation required to evaluate demo apps
- P&E Multilink interface provides run-control debugging and compatibility with IDE tools
- Open-source data logging application provides an example for customer, partner and enthusiast development on the OpenSDA circuit

You can read more about it at: http://freescale.com/frdm-kl25z

Freescale Kinetis K70 on Tower with integrated display control unit

Posted by – November 2, 2012

The K70 MCU family includes 512KB-1MB of flash memory, a single precision floating point unit, Graphic LCD Controller, IEEE 1588 Ethernet, full- and high-speed USB 2.0 On-The-Go with device charge detect, hardware encryption, tamper detection capabilities and a NAND flash controller.

256-pin devices include a DRAM controller for system expansion. The Kinetis K70 family is available in 196 and 256 pin MAPBGA packages.

More info: http://freescale.com/k70

Overview of the latest/best HDMI Sticks and Set-top-boxe out of Shenzhen China

Posted by – October 29, 2012

Here’s my overview video of the latest ARM Powered HDMI Sticks that I have found in Shenzhen China, including the $30 Allwinner A10 single-core ARM Cortex-A8, $40 Rockchip RK3066 dual-core ARM Cortex-A9, $89 Freescale i.MX6 quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 and the $150 HiMedia Q5 HiSilicon Hi3716C single-core ARM Cortex-A9 Set-top-box running the interesting HiControl Android application for remote controlling, mouse and mirroring support from any Android tablet and phone to your HiMedia set-top-box.

Wandboard $69 Freescale i.MX6 realworld pictures are online

Posted by – October 25, 2012

The $69 i.MX6 single-core, $89 i.MX6 dual-core wandboard Freescale i.MX6 single and dual-core development board is now being shown in some real world pictures, it should start shipping from the middle of November. Linux/angstrom on a 3.x kernel reportedly is running nicely. They are currently working on smoothening Android ICS support and also looking at JB to see what they can have for people to play with in early December.

click for higher resolution pictures:

Source: http://www.wandboard.org/index.php/blog

$78 RK3066 7″, $135 RK3066 9.7″ and more tablets by Chitech

Posted by – October 24, 2012

Logged-in Members ($20/year) Join Now! can see exclusive pictures/scans of direct business card contact(s) for this company here. Why become a Member

Kingdom i.MX6 Quad-core tablet

Posted by – October 20, 2012

Here’s Kingdom’s i.MX6 tablet, this one is on a 1024×600 screen, they also have a 1280×800 IPS version for $10 more. They also do $102 7″ 1024×600 RK3066 and $126 10.1″ 1024×600 and the 1280×800 IPS version for $10 more.

Logged-in Members ($20/year) Join Now! can see exclusive pictures/scans of direct business card contact(s) for this company here. Why become a Member

XBMC, RF remote, display settings on the Hiapad Hi-802 i.MX6 Quad HDMI Stick

Posted by – October 19, 2012

A Quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 in an HDMI stick like the Hi-802 is high performance stuff! The trick is to try to demonstrate how to get use of that extra power. Here we try to show off some XBMC (even though it seems or we guess video codecs in xbmc aren’t hardware accelerated on i.MX6 yet), we show the cool Mele RF remote (that can be bought as an option eventually), we show some of the advanced display settings and more. This device is to be available for $89 including worldwide Hong Kong Air Post (5-10 day) shipping on the ARMdevice.net Members Store when this device becomes available by the end of the month.