Linaro OP-TEE open-source security for the mass-market

Posted by – March 14, 2017

Joakim Bech talks about Linaro’s work in OP-TEE (Open Portable Trusted Execution Environment) small OS-like environment that sits aside a rich operating system, for instance Android. The purpose of the TEE is to keep all secret credentials and data manipulation in the small TEE rather than in a larger rich OS that is often the vulnerable target of malware and hackers in general. In order to reach this goal, application software is architected in a way such that sensitive functions are precisely defined and offloaded to the TEE in the form of Trusted Applications.

Apache Ambari on ARM server

Posted by – March 14, 2017

At Linaro Connect Budapest 2017, ARM and the Linaro LEG (Linaro Enterprise Group) team demonstrate Apache Ambari running on ARM servers. Apache Ambari is one of key Big Data components that provides an easy to use web interface to provision, manage and monitor Hadoop cluster and various other Big Data tools. In this demo Apache Ambari is running on 3 node cluster with Hadoop, YARN and Zookeeper, all on AARCH64 hardware.

With ARM servers getting into Datacenter, Linaro has been collaborating with ARM and ARM vendors in making sure Big data components work well in AARCH64 architecture. Porting and Building Apache Ambari on AARCH64 is one of the efforts the team has been working on apart from porting, building and benchmarking Hadoop, Spark, Hive, HBase and other Big data components. The team chose to showcase Apache Ambari as a high level component due to it being very intuitive, easy-to-use Hadoop management web UI backed by its RESTful APIs. Ambari provides a dashboard with metrics for CPU, Storage, memory utilization and also metrics for HDFS, MapReduce, Pig, Hive etc for monitoring Hadoop Cluster. It also provides step-by-step wizard for managing Hadoop Clusters (like adding nodes, taking down nodes, doing rolling upgrades, etc).

As of today, Ambari is officially supported only on X86 servers. The work team has done is to patch Ambari to work on AARCH64, which involved patching various dependencies like phantomjs, leveldb, leveldbjni java libaries, etc. Linaro is also part of ODPi organization (odpi.org), which has been working on standardizing Big Data. Ambari is part of ODPi’s operations specs. The collaboration helps in speeding up upstreaming process since ODPi also has some of same maintainers as of ASF.

The work done for this demo is a PoC running in ARM lab (working on Linaro Dev Cloud at the mean time) and yet published.

This video features Eugene Xie ARM Principal Software Engineer & Tech lead of Workloads team of Enterprise Software, BSG, Ganesh Raju – Tech Lead, BigData team and Naresh Bhat, Cavium assignee to Linaro for BigData.

ARM Cordio-N NB-IoT as ARM shipped 100 Billion chips

Posted by – March 14, 2017

ARM announces that 100 Billion ARM Processors have shipped. And in this video, ARM talks about their acquisition of Swedish Mistbase and British NextG-Com to enable ARM’s new Cordio-N NB-IoT narrowband IoT communications standard.

Arrow Dragonboard 820c Extended 96Boards, the Enterprise Edition Oxalis NXP ARMv8 Layerscape LS1012A

Posted by – March 14, 2017

Arrow shows an early prototype of their upcoming Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 based extended edition 96Boards and they are showing their first Enterprise Edition 96Board named Oxalis. Based on NXPs latest ARMv8 Layerscape LS1012A Processor running at 800MHz, this board delivers up to date connectivity with two USB-3.0 ports, SATA, 2x Gigabit Ethernet and PCIe.

Arrow also has a whole bunch of other new development boards such as the Meercat, an i.MX7 based ARM Cortex-A7 board with ARM Cortex-M4 and the Chameleon, the first Intel / Altera FPGA based 96Boards. You can read Arrow’s article about maker’s experiences with the 96Boards here.

Also check back in the days to come as I will be filming Arrows presenting their latest 96Boards at the Embedded World in Nürnberg 14th-16th February, you can get your free pass here.

Robert Wolff featured in this video is the comunity manager at 96Boards hosting the weekly 96Boards Open Hours.

Freedreno enables Linux distros on Dragonboard 820c 96Boards

Posted by – March 14, 2017

Rob Clark, maker of the open source GPU driver Freedreno shows off his latest Freedreno open source GPU working on an upcoming Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 based Dragonboard 820c development board, one that is going to use an expanded 96Boards specification to add PCI-E and Gigabit Ethernet ports among other things to the development board. This Freedreno and 820 board provides a significant jump in performance for the GPU, possibly 4x to 5x between the Adreno 306 in a Dragonboard 410c and the Adreno 530 in a Snapdragon 820 based board. The availability of the Freedreno open source GPU driver on Qualcomm based development boards means that these development boards can run all sorts of Linux distributions, including Debian, not just Android. You can read more about the Dragonboard 820c here.

Linaro shows Video Playback Verification with Robot framework and OpenCV

Posted by – March 14, 2017

The Linaro Digital Home Group (LHG) recognizes the need for automated video testing software in Linaro’s automated validation architecture (LAVA). In LHG they have started looking at the open source Robot Framework generic test automation framework and OpenCV (Open Source Computer Vision). The demo at Connect (BUD17) shows some of the first steps of how to automate the verification of video playback using open source test projects that can be implemented as part of the Linaro Continuous Integration (CI) framework.

Linaro RDK with GStreamer-V4L2 video accelerator and Freedreno graphics overlay

Posted by – March 14, 2017

The Linaro Digital Home Group (LHG) has extensive experience working with the Comcast RDK. LHG has been instrumental in leading open source initiatives in the RDK. At Linaro Connect (BUD17), the LHG Director, Mark Gregotski, along with 2 Comcast assignee engineers (Siva Patchaiperumal and Kalyan Nagabhirava) are demonstrating a port of the RDK to the Qualcomm 96Boards Dragonboard 410c. This demo shows the RDK media framework taking advantage of the GStreamer-V4L2 support provided by the DBD410C to use the hardware video decoder. The HD video is scaled and then a rotating triangle is overlaid using the open source Freedreno graphics support available with DB410C. The demo shows smooth video playback without any stuttering with smooth graphics overlay. Since the video decode is offloaded to the video hardware, the CPU is not heavily loaded.

Linaro Android AOSP TV, making Android TV Boxes and Smart TVs better

Posted by – March 13, 2017

Interview with the core team behind the Linaro’s AOSP TV project. The project lead Khasim Syed Mohammed and team members Show Liu and Vincent Chou demonstrate Android TV running on the 96Boards HiKey platform. The team shares the goals of the AOSP TV project, how it will benefit the SoC vendors, OEMs and ODMs of Smart TVs and Advanced Set-top box manufacturers and Android TV application developers. They clarify the project goal, its to create AOSP TV as the open source subset of Android TV and is not to fork the Android TV work from Google. They also share the details on upcoming LHG’s AOSP TV m-lcr release, OPTEE security framework integration, DRM support to be added and a lot more.

Secure Debug IoT on ARMv8-M ARM Cortex-M33

Posted by – March 12, 2017

Marc Moreno Berengue of ARM at Linaro Connect 2017 in Budapest shows TrustZone for ARM Cortex-M33 implementing a secure gateway between the Secure and Non-secure areas on the ARM Cortex-M33 SoC, with the ARM CoreLink SSE-200 subsystem, TrustZone, ARM CoreLink SIE-200, instruction cashes, power infrastructure components, Secure Debug with ARM CoreSight SoC, the optional ARM TrustZone CryptoCell and the optional ARM Cordio Radio. All these enabling security for IoT. This demonstration is running on the ARM Cortex-M Prototyping System (MPS2/MPS2+) which is a Versatile Express development board featuring a large FPGA for prototyping Cortex-M based designs and a range of different options for debug.

Secure IoT updates bootloader on NXP FRDM-K64F ARM Cortex-M4

Posted by – March 12, 2017

David Brown at Linaro demonstrates the mcuboot project. mcuboot started as the bootloader for the Mynewt project. David has ported this to Zephyr, and the bootloader is now its own project.

Oliver “Ogra” Grawert talks Ubuntu Core on Dragonboard 410c at Linaro Connect Budapest 2017


Robert Wolff of the weekly 96Boards Open Hours show interviews Oliver “Ogra” Grawert of Canonical about the status of Snappy Ubuntu Core on the 96Boards including the Dragonboard 410c and more about Ubuntu Core, Canonical’s strategy in IoT, security and updates through the Build.Snapcraft.io platform. You can watch the 96Boards Open Hours episode featuring Robert Wolff and Ogra here.

Ubuntu Core, Snapcraft.io IoT package support/update, Dragonboard 410c, Raspberry Pi and more

Posted by – March 7, 2017

Canonical shows some of the latest development boards where Ubuntu Core is supported, includes the 96Boards Qualcomm Dragonboard 410c, Raspberry Pi 3, Raspberry Pi Nano expecting to ship on a coin sized board. Also shipping on Samsung Artik, NXP i.MX6/i.MX7/i.MX8 and on Intel powered development boards also. Canonical also promotes their http://build.snapcraft.io platform to package any app for every Linux desktop, server, cloud or device, and deliver updates directly.

Koen Kooi talks about Kodi on ARM, V4L2, OpenCDM, EME for HTML5

Posted by – March 7, 2017

Koen Kooi, release manager at Linaro, talks about wanting to watch Netflix from inside Kodi and the work going on to make that possible. This video was filmed at the Linaro Connect Budapest 2017.

Keynote: Google joins Linaro as Club Member at Linaro Connect Budapest 2017

Posted by – March 6, 2017
Category: Linaro Connect

George Grey welcomes the 400 Linaro engineers and Connect attendees at the Budapest 2017 Linaro Connect, announces Google to join Linaro as Club Member (with access to all Linaro Segment Groups). Check back during this week for many 4K Interviews with the engineers at Linaro Connect, and also check back for the Live Streams here every day at 8:30AM or 9AM CET Hungarian Time until Friday 10th March, check the schedule here.

You can follow Linaro on Social Media:
https://www.facebook.com/LinaroOrg
https://twitter.com/linaroorg
https://www.youtube.com/user/linaroorg
https://www.linkedin.com/company/1026961

MotoMods on Indiegogo and Hackathons for the ultimate Moto Z modular Smartphone platform

Posted by – March 5, 2017

The Lenovo Moto Z MotoMods ecosystem team got 700 submitions, launching 35 of those campaigns for ideas for new MotoMods on Transform the Smartphone challenge on Indiegogo with ideas ranging from barcode scanners, Edge Light LED lights for notifications wireless charging, sliding physical keyboard and many more ideas for new MotoMods that can be made for the Moto Z ecosystem. Motorola organized a Hackathon in San Francisco and one New York You can also see my video of the Moto Z and its MotoMods here and my 32-minute interview with the Motorola team about the Moto Z and its MotoMods ecosystem here

Voice control powered by NXP i.MX ARM Processors in Amazon Echo, Google Home and more

Posted by – March 5, 2017

NXP Semiconductors has on display the Amazon Echo, for which they are partners. An NXP representative explains the different applications for which NXP provides solutions, and how voice recognition can be run on multi-core ARM processors for power-efficient computing. The IMX 6, 7 and 8 series cover the full range from low-power to high-performance solutions, with applications for the 8 being consumer high-performance video and audio, automotive, and heavy industrial usage. NXP supplies everything from the CPU to the I/O to the software. The Kindle series use IMX 6 and 7 processors, for example. NXP talks about the upcoming i.MX8 Quad max, i.MX8M for multimedia and another i.MX8 coming for the embedded world.

549€ Avegant Glyph, dual 720p DLP headmounted personal mobile theatre

Posted by – March 5, 2017

The Avegant Glyph is a VR headset with a 720p DLP resolution display in each eye. The Avegant Glyph offers cinematic experience similar to a real movie theater. The displays use DLP technology to project an image onto your eye for the best viewing experience. The Glyph works over HDMI with supported devices. There is a built headset for sound. The price is 549€.

Nokia Android Phones are finally coming, 139€ Nokia 3 , 229€ Nokia 5, 189€ Nokia 6

Posted by – March 5, 2017

Nokia branded Android smartphones are being launched by ex-Nokia employees having formed a new company HMD Global. Nokia Android phones are aimed at providing highest possible specs at budget prices running stock Android 7.0. The Nokia 5 and 6 features a unibody Aluminum design while the Nokia 3 features a polycarbonate design.

The Nokia 6 is the most fully featured device offered featuring a featuring FHD 5.5″, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, and Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 processor. The front camera is 8-megapixel and the back camera is 16mp. The Arte Black version of the Nokia 6 features 4gb of ram and 64gb of storage. The Arte Black version will sell for 299 euros. The Standard Nokia 6 will retail 229 euros.

The Nokia 5 has is similar to the Nokia 6 but has a curved edge display. The Nokia 5 has a 5.5″ (720p) display, Snapdragon 430 processor, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage and microSD. The Nokia 5 will sell for 189 Euros.

The Nokia 3 features a 5″ (720p) display, an MTK 6737 quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, and Microsd support. The Nokia 3 will sell for a price of 139 Euros.

HP Elite x3 with Lapdock with 1D and 2D barcode scanner

Posted by – March 5, 2017

HP Elite x3 and Lapdock was my “Best of MWC 2016” as you can see in my video from last year, the HP Elite X3 can be docked into a Lapdock or desktop dock via USB Type C connectivity and be used in Windows Continuum mode offering functionality similar to a full computer. The Lapdock offers a full hd 12.5″ screen and full laptop keyboard.

SafeMotion smartwatch for personal alarm, safety for kids and the elderly

Posted by – March 5, 2017

SafeMotion provides mobility safeguarding assistance service for their consumer, here they are showing off their SmartWatch which works in entire Europe with multiple network provider without requiring to swapping the SIM card, instead, it chooses the best network available in the area. The watch allows user to generate SOS alerts which include calling up to 10 people automatically when the SOS button is pressed where user can add the company’s call center number in case if other people are not available, it also has feature of calendar, reminder, voice calling service  and active GPS tracking facility which scans the user and generates an alert if the user goes outside of predefined area the monthly subscription for the service is USD 14.90 / month and price of smart watch is USD $249.