HDfpga

ADV7441A 1080p Video Decoder

2012-01-26T12:02:00.002-05:00

The ADV7441A is a high quality multiformat video decoder and graphics digitizer with an integrated 2:1 multiplexed HDMI™ receiver. The ADV7441A supports the 525i, 625i, 525p, 625p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p, and 1250i component video standards, as well as many other HD and SMPTE standards. SCART and overlay functionality are enabled by the ability of the ADV7441A to process CVBS and standard definition RGB signals simultaneously. As a graphics digitizer, the ADV7441A can digitize RGB graphics signals from VGA to UXGA rates and convert them to a digital RGB or YCrCb (YUV4:2:2) pixel output stream.

For more detail, check the design support files and support forum site:

ADV7441a Support Forum Site

ADV7441A Design Support Files

Performance Comparison between Medfield (Intel), Tegra 3 (NVIDIA), OMAP4 (TI), Exynos (Samsung), MSM8260 (Qualcomm)

2012-01-25T14:09:00.001-05:00

During this year of CES, Intel announced a mobile platform Medfield as shown in the follow diagram (Medfield platform overview with Penwell SoC shown in blue), or called the Intel Atom Z2460.

The Medfield chip includes the single-core Saltwall, 512-kbytes of level-2 cache, the single-core SGX540 2-D/3-D graphics processor licensed from Imagination Technologies Group plc (Kings Langley, England) as well as blocks for high definition (1080p) multi-standard video encode/decode and separate programmable image signal processor. The graphics processor is clocked at 400-MHz.

High power consumption has been a criticism of Intel's SoC designs in the past and to save it Intel has added a raft of power management features.

The Penwell SoC has a dedicated 32-nm process and Intel has made design changes in the creation of Saltwell CPU core to support a lower than usual minimum voltage operation. It also has what it describes as an ultra-low power L2 cache.

The Penwell SoC is designed to support an 8- to 24-megapixel primary camera as well as a secondary 2-megapixel camera. To aid catching the right shot the SoC also supports 10-frame burst-mode photography mode. That captures 10 full 8-megapixel pictures at 15 frames per second. Part of the support for this is in the image signal processing core which is believed to derive from the technology of Silicon Hive, acquired by Intel in February 2011.

The wireless modem is also a separate IC; originally the IFX6260 HSPA+ modem IC, from Infineon Technologies AG. That IC became an Intel part when the company acquired the wireless business unit of Infineon at the beginning of 2011 and has been relabeled by Intel variously the IMC6260 or the XMM 6260.

A third-chip within the Medfield platform is a combination connectivity chip from Texas Instruments that provides Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and FM radio and it appears that GPS support comes from CSR plc.

Analysts from Nomura Equity Research predicted that Medfield would be introduced at a price of $17 or $18.

"Intel Medfield vs NVIDIA Tegra 3 performance preview" shows some early performance numbers from the Java benchmark CaffeineMark from vr-zone.

"Intel's Medfield & Atom Z2460 Arrive for Smartphones: It's Finally Here" compared SunSpider and BrowserMark performance between Intel Medfield reference platform with others:

Galaxy Nexus running Android Ice Cream Sandwich has 1.2GHz TI 4460 OMAP microprocessor inside and The Motorla Droid Razr runs on a 1.2 GHz TI OMAP 4430 chipset.

Microprocessor Market to 2015

2012-01-20T11:28:00.003-05:00

GBI Research’s new report, “Microprocessor Market to 2015- Enterprise Shift to Cloud Computing and Popularity of Mobile Computing Increasing Demand for Multi-Core Processor Chips” provides key information and analysis on the market opportunities in the Microprocessor industry. The report also provides region-based and end-user based forecasts up to 2015. The end-user based forecasts up to 2015 are given for the computers, communications and servers. The key market trends for wide range of these applications are discussed.

Cloud Computing to Fuel Growth of Microprocessors

Increased adoption of cloud computing among various enterprises will lead to the development of servers suitable for cloud computing. This indirectly increases usage of microprocessors that will help the cloud computing to deal with issues such as security. The rising demand for cloud computing services among enterprises and customers has its impact on the microprocessor market through the technology people use to access these services. This has led to the designing and development of microprocessors to power efficient servers for cloud computing.

Cloud computing will make it easier for startups to launch and smaller firms to benefit from huge data centers shared by various enterprises in the cloud. This increases the adoption of cloud computing among various firms which indirectly increases the customers of microprocessors.

Increased Demand of Multi-Core Processors in Mobile Computing

The increase in demand for faster applications in mobile phones will lead to increased demand for multi-core processors due to their faster processing speeds and low energy consumption.

Multi-core processors have become the primary way to enable higher performance and to support multiple applications to run in parallel. Today, a faster processor consumes more power and drains the batteries in mobile devices. Therefore, the manufacturers are shifting towards energy-saving multi-core designs, where multiple low-power processors on a single chip replicate the performance of a single, faster processor. The manufacturer’s focus has also shifted to multi-core processors with upcoming multimedia applications such as 3-D graphics in smart phones.

Internet Usage Increases the Demand for Fast Processors

The rise in internet penetration through the years is leading to the demand for faster processors. This trend of rising internet users is creating a strong demand for embedded microprocessors that can be utilized to enable the customers to accomplish multiple tasks using a single device. Therefore, the processor manufacturers might concentrate more on the supply of fast processors in order to serve the existing demand.

The key players in this market mentioned are

- Intel Corporation
- Advanced Micro Devices, Inc
- Broadcom
- Texas Instruments Inc.
- ARM Holdings plc
- Qualcomm Incorporated

See more in

TI OMAP5 for Tablets and eBooks

2012-01-17T13:23:00.001-05:00

TI OMAP5 includes Dual-core, ARM Cortex-A15-based processor, PoP, dual-channel LPDDR2 (OMAP5430) or dual-channel DDR3/DDR3L (OMAP5432), It should be good for Tablets and eBooks which support wireless connectivity, video, audio and power management. The following block diagram shows the architecture.

For more detail see "TI Solutions for Tablets and eBooks".

Multi-Core Debug With CCS

2012-01-16T18:36:00.002-05:00

In complex SoCs, just to observe and control a single core is insufficient. Tools to watch concurrent processes are needed when you want to detect, trace, and eliminate software problems or to profile system behavior for performance optimization. CCStudio v4 and v5 supports debug of multi-cores targets. See TI Wiki and CDT wiki:

The slides Multi-Core Debugging with CCSv5 Basis provide the same info. In "DSP/BIOS on Multi-Core singleimage", some techniques to avoid

Read/write data corruption between the cores;
Breakpoint corruption between the cores;

are discussed.

JTAGjet is a JTAG for concurrent multi-core debugging with CCS and other debuggers.

TI Says First OMAP 5 Device Could Debut In Q4

2012-01-11T16:30:00.003-05:00

According to Greg Delagi, the senior vice president and general manager of TI’s Wireless Business Unit, in an interview at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), OMAP 5 will come to the consumer market “maybe in the fourth-quarter [of 2012].” OMAP 5 uses 28 nanometer CMOS low-power process, differs from OMAP 4 in that it uses a dual-core A15 CPU, the next generation from chip designer ARM. That will improve power efficiency and graphics, among other features.

A number of those devices will be based on the Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0) version of Google‘s Android mobile platform for which TI served as the reference platform. Some of the most eye-catching elements in Ice Cream Sandwich like the “face unlock” facial recognition feature and the photo-stitching panoramic image function use processing elements built deep into OMAP, said Delagi.

TI OMAP 5430 SOC

OMAP 5 features

Designed to drive Smartphones, Tablets and other multimedia-rich mobile devices
Multi-core ARM® Cortex™ processors
Two ARM Cortex-A15 MPCore processors capable of speeds up to 2 GHz each
Two ARM Cortex-M4 processors for low-power offload and real-time responsiveness
Multi-core POWERVR™ SGX544-MPx graphics accelerators drive 3D gaming and 3D user interfaces
Dedicated TI 2D BitBlt graphics accelerator
IVA-HD hardware accelerators enable full HD 1080p60, multi-standard video encode/decode as well as 1080p30 stereoscopic 3D (S3D)
Faster, higher-quality image and video capture with up to 24 megapixels (or 12 megapixels S3D) imaging and 1080p60 (or 1080p30S3D) video
Supports four cameras and four displays simultaneously
Packaging and memory: 14mm x 14mm, 0.4mm pitch PoP dual-channel LPDDR2 memory

Windows Remote or Network Debugging II - DebugView and KdPrint

2012-01-11T10:46:00.002-05:00

DebugView is an application to monitor debug output on a local system, or any computer on the network reached via TCP/IP. It is capable of displaying both kernel-mode and Win32 debug output, so we don't need a debugger to catch the debug output applications or device drivers generate, nor do we need to modify our applications or drivers to use non-standard debug output APIs.

The product basically captures all messages sent to the OutputDebugString Win32 API function that would not otherwise be caught be a process debug. It can capture outputs from DbgPrint and KdPrint at debug mode.

The current version is v4.77. It is free. The command to capture debug info on the target machine (local) is

Dbgview.exe /k /v /l log.txt.

log.txt is the output file.

The server (agent) mode command is

Dbgview.exe /a /t /k

and so the remote machine can connect the target machine to see the debug output. The help command is

Dbgview.exe /?

Download DebugView(286 KB)

See more at "DebugView v4.77".

Windows Remote or Network Debugging I - windbg

2012-01-10T22:43:00.000-05:00

Traditionally Windows kernel (including drivers) debugging relied on serial null modem cable via COM ports or 1394 cable connected to the target device.

Thanks to networking, a TCP based client/server mechanism is supported with windbg to allow using a computer to debug the target Windows device through a shared network. The following articles provided very helpful info:

Download windbg with Windows SDK:

Download Debugging Tools from the Windows SDK

Or directly from

Install 32-bit version 6.11.1.404 [16.9 MB]

Install 64-bit Itanium version 6.11.1.404 [23.8 MB]

2012 Android Tablet Comparison: Transformer Prime TF700T, IdealTab S2, Le Pan III

2012-01-10T18:16:00.000-05:00

Tablet	SoC	Process Node	CPU	Release	OS
Asus Transformer Prime TF700T	NVIDIA Tegra 3/Kal-El	40nm	4 x ARM Cortex A9 w/ MPE @ ~1.3GHz	Q2	Android 4.0
Lenovo IdeaTab S2	Snapdragon S4 processor	28nm	2 x Krait core @ 1.5~1.7GHz	Q2	Android 4.0
Le Pan III	TI OMAP 4460	45nm	2 x ARM Cortex A9 w/ MPE @ 1.5GHz	Now	Android 4.0

The current Asus Transformer Prime is ranked as the best Android tablet in 2011 with a sexy design, thoughtful features, and an impressive camera. It runs on NVIDIA's Tegra 2 chip, and so does Sony Tablet S which was ranked as the No.2 best Android tablet by Cnet.

The Asus Transformer Prime TF700T will feature a 1920 x 1200 screen as opposed to the 1280 x 800 panel on the first Transformer Prime device.

Asus Transformer Prime TF700T

Lenovo IdeaTab S2 also comes with a keyboard dock so it can transform into a laptop much like the Asus Transformer Prime. It packs a Qualcomm 1.5GHz Dual Krait processor, that 10.1-inch 1280 x 800 IPS touch screen, 1GB LP-DDR2 memory, 16GB, 23GB and 64GB storage, GPS/AGPS, WiFi, and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR.

Lenovo IdeaTab S2

The LePan III comes with a TI OMAP 4460, 1.5GHz dual-core CPU and 1GB of RAM powering a build of Android 4.0. A 5MP rear camera and 2MP front-facing camera are coupled with 8GB of storage and plenty of connectivity including 1080p output, USB, and ethernet. The OMAP 4 platform's smart multicore architecture complements two ARM® Cortex™-A9 MPcores with a full HD video encode/decode accelerator, powerful graphics core from Imagination Technologies (SGX540 or SGX544), hardware display subsystem and dual-channel LPDDR2 memory to drive such usage models. Premium content is protected end-to-end through TI's M-Shield™ security solution, which runs secure services from its trusted execution environment (TEE). TI OMAP 4460 is the first certified processor for Netflix full-HD streaming on Android Honeycomb.

LePan III

TI Davinci Audio Source Codes

2011-12-28T10:42:00.000-05:00

TI Davinci audio driver source codes; including PCM encode and play;
DM6467 aic32 codec codes; including McASP driver.

When setting up EDMA for audio coding, TC0 should be used for both McASP receive/transmit to have high priority low bandwidth transfers like audio.

x265 Development - An Open Source HEVC / H.265

2011-12-27T22:37:00.001-05:00

Hopefully x265 will like x264, which has been the best open source implementation of H.264. One of x264 pioneers, Min Chen, started the x265 project to push open source development for HEVC / H.265. His goal targets for embedded system, FPGA, GPU, and multi-cores system. We are looking forward to it.

HEVC or H.265 (nickname) is targeted at next-generation HDTV displays and content capture systems which feature progressive scanned frame rates and display resolutions from QVGA (320x240) up to 1080p and Ultra HDTV (7680x4320), as well as improved picture quality in terms of noise level, color gamut and dynamic range. The performance goal is that HEVC should provide 2x better video compression performance than AVC (H.264) high profile, at the expense of increased computational complexity (so hardware implementations would be important). HEVC will significantly reduce bandwidth requirements with comparable image quality for video conferencing and streaming.

DM6467 PCI Interrupt Handling

2011-12-25T00:09:00.001-05:00

According to "PCI Interrupt Handling on DM6467/DM6467T PCI Host", DM6467/DM6467T devices do not have PCI interrupts input lines (INTA, INTB, INTC, INTD). Thus the default EVMs cannot receive PCI interrupts from targets connected over the bus and in turn, cannot interrupt DM6467 ARM on the same. This can be worked around by using GPIO lines to receive PCI interrupts from the PCI slot to which DM6467 PCI Host EVM is connected. This requires using wires to get the INTA...D lines from the slot and connect them to DM6467 GPIO lines and modify the Host Controller driver accordingly.

Hardware Modifications

Use wires to connect PCI interrupt lines from target device(s) from respective slots to DM6467 PCI Host's GPIO pins. Following figures show 2 of the possible arrangements when using 4 target devices:

Software Modifications

In arch/arm/mach-davinci/board-dm646x-evm.c:

/* Setup DM6467 for PCI mode. In case of default EVM, the CPLD along with FET
 * switches takes care of switching to PCI Boot mode when the EVM is put in
 * the PCI slot and this funtion needs to do nothing. While in case when the
 * CPLD code/ Hardware is reworked (not to do autoswitch), the code below
 * handles mux configurations to switch to PCI (Host) mode  and takes care of
 * driving RST# over PCI Bus.
 *
 * Note: This function relies on h/w setting of PCIEN to distinguish between
 * modified and unmodified EVM and might not work in case s/w (e.g., bootloader)
 * is manipulating PCIEN after booting.
 */
static void dm646xevm_pci_setup(void)
{
 void __iomem *base = IO_ADDRESS(DAVINCI_SYSTEM_MODULE_BASE);

 /* Skip this if PCIEN is already set in  PINMUX0 */
 if (!((__raw_readl(base + PINMUX0)) & (1<<2))) {
  /* Power up the I/O cells for PCI interface */
  __raw_writel(__raw_readl(base + DM64XX_VDD3P3V_PWDN)
    & ~(3<<16), base + DM64XX_VDD3P3V_PWDN);

  davinci_cfg_reg(DM646X_HPI32EN);

  /* Drive GPIO[13] High to avoid reset when PCI is
   * enabled
   */
  if (gpio_request(13, "RST#") != 0) {
   pr_err("Request for GPIO13 failed.\n");
   return;
  }

  gpio_direction_output(13, 1);

  /* Ensure AUDCK1 is disabled to control GPIO[2] */
  davinci_cfg_reg(DM646X_AUDCK1);

  davinci_cfg_reg(DM646X_PCIEN);

  /* Drive GPIO[2] high to take the PCI bus out of reset
   * (drive RST#) and select B2 of the FET mux on EVM to
   * deselect NAND and switch to PCI Bus
   */
  if (gpio_request(2, "PCIRST#") != 0) {
   pr_err("Request for GPIO2 failed.\n");
   return;
  }
  gpio_direction_output(2, 1);
 } else {
  pr_info("PCI_EN is already asserted.\n");
 }
}

Pinmux Switching from NAND to PCI

static void board_init(void)

{

#define REG_PINMUX0 __REG(0x01C40000)

#define REG_GPIO_DIR01 __REG(0x01C67010)

#define REG_GPIO_OUT_DATA01 __REG(0x01C67014)

/* Setup PSCs for Required Components */

board_setup_psc(DAVINCI_GPSC_ARMDOMAIN, DAVINCI_DM646X_LPSC_GPIO, 1);

board_setup_psc(DAVINCI_GPSC_ARMDOMAIN, DAVINCI_DM646X_LPSC_PCI, 1);

...

/* Set Mux Mode to GPIO */

REG_PINMUX0 = 0x2;

/* Set Direction of GPIOs to ‘OUT’ */

REG_GPIO_DIR01 = 0x0;

/* Drive GPIO[13] High */

REG_GPIO_OUT_DATA01 = 0x2000;

/* Set Mux Mode to PCI */

REG_PINMUX0 = 0x4;

/* Drive GPIO[2] High */

REG_GPIO_OUT_DATA01 = 0x2004;

}

DM6467 Pin Mux Utility

DM6467 PINMUX Registers PINMUX0 and PINMUX1 in the System Module are responsible for controlling all pin multiplexing functions on the DM6467. The following peripherals have multiplexed pins: VPIF, TSIF0, TSIF1, CRGEN0, CRGEN1, EMIFA, PCI, HPI, ATA, PWM0, PWM1, UART0, UART1, UART2, Audio Clock Selector, the USB USB_DRVVBUS pin, and GPIO.

The Pin Multiplexing 0 Register controls the pin function in the EMIFA, ATA, HPI, PCI, TSIF0, TSIF1, and CRGEN. Some muxed pins are controlled by more than one PINMUX bit field. The Pin Multiplexing 1 Register controls the pin function in the UART0, UART1, and UART2 Blocks.

This utility allows the pin multiplexing registersof the device to be calculated with ease, as well as showing what peripheralscan be used together.

DM6467T ARM/DSP EDMA Channel Synchronization Events

2011-12-24T00:34:00.001-05:00

The above table lists the source of EDMA synchronization events associated with each of the programmable EDMA channels (the first column) for ARM and DSP. For the DM6467T device, the association of an event to a channel is fixed; each of the EDMA channels has one specific event associated with it. These specific events are captured in the EDMA event registers (ER, ERH) even if the events are disabled by the EDMA event enable registers (EER, EERH). See more in the following references:

1. "TMS320DM646x DMSoC Enhanced Direct Memory Access (EDMA3) Controller"

2. "TMS320DM6467T Digital Media System-on-Chip (Rev. B)" p163
3. "Reconfiguring EDMA channel allocation on ARM"

DMA channels used by DM6467 ARM and DSP

2011-12-23T17:16:00.000-05:00

Unexpected stalling and potential deadlock condition often occur when there is a resource conflict between ARM and DSP. EDMA allocations must be carefully performed. The ARM Linux kernel source, arch/arm/mach-davinci/dm646x.c, shows the DM6447 chip specific setup including EDMA. Recent discussions "Which DMA (EDMA or QDMA) channels are used by the Codec Engine and Codec Server in DM6467T DVSDK 3.10?" and "DM6467T ARM hangs after Comm_create during instantiation of DSP codec with DVSDK 3.10 GA" in e2e.ti.com reveals some potential problems in DM6467T DVSDK 3.10, especially a EDMA hardware deadlock situation that arises when the same EDMA TC is used to perform writes to BOTH DSP SDMA (L1, L2, and HDVICP RAM/Buffers through SDMA port) AND slave memories (DDR2, EMIFA, HDVICP0/1 EDMA ports, or ARM TCM).

TMS320DM6467T Digital Media System-on-Chip (DMSoC) Silicon Revision 3.0 provided an advisory for "Unexpected Stalling and Potential Deadlock Condition When DSP L2 Memory Ports Used as RAM When L2 Memory Configured as Non-cache".

HEVC / H.265 Specification Working Draft 5 (WD5) and the HEVC Test Model 5 (HM5)

2011-12-20T11:25:00.002-05:00

High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) or H.265 is the current joint video coding standardization project of ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group (ITU-T Q.6/SG 16) and ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group (ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29/WG 11). It will further reduce by 50% the data rate needed for high quality video coding, as compared to H.264.

The 7th JCT-VC meeting (HEVC meeting) in Geneva produced three particularly important output documents: the HEVC Test Model 5 (HM5), the HEVC specification Working Draft 5 (WD5), and a document specifying common conditions and software reference configurations for HEVC coding experiments.

The meeting documents can be seen at the JCT-VC Document Register. The HEVC or H.265 Test Model 5 (HM5) is in the svn_HEVCSoftware website. More progress regarding to HEVC or H.265 may refer to the JCT-VC website.

Java Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError

2011-12-17T16:10:00.002-05:00

There are several Java Virtual machines and the most popular one is the Oracle Java SE. Sometime we use a remote or cloud server or run between cross platforms, even for a simple hello world Java program, we often get the "Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError" that the class which you are trying to run was not found in the classpath, because the java.exe does not take current directory by default! The "-cp option" may help:

java -cp "C:/Program Files/Java/jdkxxx/jre/lib;./;"

Please pay attention at the "./" at the end of the paths. See more detail in codegravity.com.

DM6467 PCI Source Codes

2011-12-17T15:37:00.002-05:00

DM6467 PCI Target driver, dm646x_pci_targetdrv.c and dm646x_pci_targetdrv.h;
DM6467 (and in some parts, EVM) specific PCI initialization, pci-dm646x.c;
PCI module specific types/configurations and definitions, pci.h;
Test PCI Driver Wiki and pcidrv.c;
Generic part of PCI Host Driver for TI PCI Module, pci-generic.c;

For more detail info regarding to DM6467t, see the reference "TMS320DM6467T Digital Media System-on-Chip" and "TMS320DM646x DMSoC Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) User's Guide".

Analysis of Coding Tools in HEVC Test Model (HM 1.0) – Overview

2011-12-14T22:31:00.000-05:00

According to "Analysis of Coding Tools in HEVC Test Model (HM 1.0) – Overview", two configurations of typical coding tools of H.265 or HEVC are suggested: High Efficiency and Low Complexity, as listed in the following table.

Table 1 Structure of tools forming the high efficiency and low complexity configurations of the HM

High Efficiency	Low Complexity
Coding unit tree structure (8×8 up to 64×64 luma samples)
Prediction units
Transform unit tree structure (maximum of 3 levels)	Transform unit tree structure (maximum of 2 levels)
Transform block size of 4×4 to 32×32 samples (always square)
Angular intra prediction (maximum of 34 directions)
DCT-based interpolation filter for luma samples (1/4-sample, 12-tap)	Directional interpolation filter for luma samples (1/4-sample, 6-tap)
Bi-linear interpolation filter for chroma samples (1/8-sample)
Advanced motion vector prediction
Context adaptive binary arithmetic entropy coding	Low complexity entropy coding phase 2
Internal bit-depth increase (4 bits)	N/A
N/A	Transform precision extension (4 bits)
Deblocking filter
Adaptive loop filter	N/A

The following figure shows the framework of HEVC test model (HM) decoder. The yellow, blue and white boxes indicates the building blocks for only high efficiency configuration, only low complexity configuration, and both configurations, respectively.

H.265 Development - thevc Tiny HEVC Baseline codec

2011-12-14T22:29:00.000-05:00

A small group is developing thevc, Tiny HEVC Baseline codec. It is led by a x264 pioneer,chenm001. The development project is in github.

Installing and Configuring SVNServe and TortoiseSVN on Windows

2011-12-10T23:10:00.001-05:00

When we set up a SVN repository at our local machine using tortoisesvn, we often encounter the problems of "Can't connect to host localhost". This is because unless explicitly stated, svnserve will listen for IPv6 connections where the IPv6 protocol is supported, which is true of Windows Vista, 7 and Server 2008. In order to get TortoiseSVN connecting properly, you need to set up the svnserve service as follows (from an Admin command prompt, assuming your binaries are installed at C:\SVN):

sc create svnserve binpath= "C:\Program Files\Subversion\bin\svnserve.exe --service --root C:\SVN --listen-host 0.0.0.0" displayname= "Subversion" depend= tcpip start= auto

The important bit being the --listen-host 0.0.0.0, which tells svnserve to listen for IPv4 connections. Now start your service:

net start svnserve

And when you open up svn://localhost in your repo-browser everything should be working perfectly.

See detail at http://www.renaissance-design.net.

DM6467 ARM EDMA Configuration

2011-12-01T15:07:00.001-05:00

It is feasible to use simple DM6467 EDMA Programming on the ARM side, but EDMA channels, ownPaRAMSets, and Tccs on ARM (Region 0) should not conflict with the ones on DSP side (Region 1). A good detail info can be seen in "Reconfiguring EDMA channel allocation on ARM" for DM646x.

Multi-core System Programming and Cache Management

2011-12-01T12:18:00.001-05:00

In a multi-core system, resource and cache management is very important since potential resource and cache contention may cause unexpected behaviors such as crashes and performance degradation. The following links provide good references:

TI Multicore Programming Guide
TI DaVinci and OMAP Multi-core System Cache Management; Very good guidance for DM6467 / DM8168 and OMAP system.
Multicore Resource Management
Achieving Predictable Performance with On-Chip Shared L2 Caches for Manycore-Based Real-Time Systems
Operating System-Level On-Chip Resource Management in The Multicore Era
Dynamic Cache Contention Detection in Multi-threaded Applications

Android Building the JNI Source Code in Eclipse

2011-11-30T15:40:00.001-05:00

Building the JNI Source Code in Eclipse is a very good tutorial to explain the steps to build JNI source code in Eclipse. I tried the NDK r6b and "Using NDK to Call C code from Android Apps" and got a successful application build.

One Click Rooting for Eee Pad Transformer TF101 8.6.6.19

2011-11-29T17:22:00.001-05:00

Recently Asus updated it new Eee Pad Transformer TF101 firmware 8.6.6.19. Razorclaw is a new APK tool (on-device!) for rooting any version ASUS Transformer including 8.6.6.19. It is easy and cool. The current version is 1.0.1.

Install a Native C Executable on Eee Pad Transformer Android 3.2

2011-11-29T15:36:00.001-05:00

After Eee Pad Transformer TF101 is rooted, we may like to install a native C executable which was generated by the NDK tool chain. A Busybox installer may be helpful since it provides the "cp" command. Then we may want to put this executable in /system. No matter we use "mv" or "cp", we still often get a "cross device link ERROR" or since /system is not writable unless we use something like this:

mount -o rw,remount -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mmcblk0p1 /system

If the /system is not in mmcblock0p1, please use "mount" to find the right place.

Now we can use "cp" the executable to /system/xbin, and "chmod 744 ..." to be executable.

Performance and Complexity Comparison between H.265/HEVC and H.264

2011-11-28T16:11:00.001-05:00

HEVC Test Model under Consideration (TMuC) serves as a starting point for deﬁnition of the new video coding standard. The current version is HM-4.1-dev.

An article "Towards high efﬁciency video coding: Subjective evaluation of potential coding technologies" pointed out:

"The TMuC has similarities to the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC standard, including block-based intra / inter prediction, block transform and entropy coding. New features include increased prediction ﬂexibility, more sophisticated interpolation ﬁlters, a wider range of block sizes and new entropy coding schemes. Twice the compression efﬁciency of H.264/MPEG-4 AVC is expected to be achieved, at the expense of a considerable increase in computational complexity. The performance of the coding algorithm resulting from this integration step will be analyzed by means of formal subjective quality assessment in a next subjective test campaign."

The article "High Performance, Low Complexity Video Coding and the Emerging HEVC Standard" describes a low complexity video codec with high coding efficiency. It was proposed to the high efficiency video coding (HEVC) standardization effort of moving picture experts group and video coding experts group, and has been partially adopted into the initial HEVC test model under consideration design. The proposal utilizes a quadtree-based coding structure with support for macroblocks of size 64 × 64, 32 × 32, and 16 × 16 pixels.

Entropy coding is performed using a low complexity variable length coding scheme with improved context adaptation compared to the context adaptive variable length coding design in H.264/AVC.
The proposal's interpolation and deblocking filter designs improve coding efficiency, yet have low complexity.

Dan Grois also summarized

Average interpolation complexity is less than that of H.264/AVC due to the 1-D directional interpolation filters.
Memory bandwidth for motion compensation is lower than H.264/AVC. This is because motion partitions smaller than 8 × 8 are not used.
Interpolation complexity for B pictures is significantly lower in the proposal than in H.264/AVC, as the SKIP and DIRECT modes use integer motion vectors. Using motion vectors with integer pixel accuracy implies that reconstruction of a SKIP/DIRECT block can be done by copying pixels from one location in memory to another location, instead of applying the 6-tap interpolation filter.
The deblocking filter has significantly lower computational complexity. This is mainly because a much lower number of block edges are filtered, and the filter has simpler logic for enabling/disabling the filter on an edge. In addition, filtering can be performed in parallel first for each of the vertical edges and then for each of the horizontal edges, which is not possible for H.264/AVC.
VLC (de)coding of coefficients is simpler than H.264/AVC CAVLC coefficient (de)coding. In particular, CAVLC relies on decoding a large number of syntax elements (e.g., coeff−token, trailing−ones−sign−flag, level−prefix, level−suffix, total−zeros, and run−before). Also, the VLC decoding uses significantly fewer syntax elements, and requires less conditional branches (run/level/sign in run mode, and level/sign in level mode).

Samuelsson at el. proposed a method to for "Simplification of Intra Prediction Mode" for HEVC. The result shows that this processing is adaptive to the content of the video, and results in a reduction in the computational complexity of the prediction process by approximately 50%.

Using NDK to Call C code from Android Apps

2011-11-28T15:43:00.001-05:00

Android NDK (Native Development Kit) allows working with native C code using a shared C library. It includes the entire toolchain needed to build for your target platform (ARM). Native C code accessible via JNI still runs inside the Dalvik VM, and as such is subject to the same life-cycle rules that any Android application lives by. The advantage of writing parts of your app code in native language is presumably speed in certain cases.

See more at Marko Gargenta's article.

DM8168 EVM for $999

2011-11-21T23:25:00.001-05:00

Spectrum Digital is now shipping the DM816x/C6A816x/AM389x Standalone EVM Baseboard. This is the processor board which makes up part of the full development kit offered by TI. This CPU module allows developers to get additional platforms in a cost effective manner for software developers.This module, # 702391, is being offered in North America at a quantity one price of $999.00.

DM6467 ARM9 Trouble Writing Memory Block at 0x1c40900

2011-11-18T14:38:00.001-05:00

When connecting to DM6467 from CCS (3.3.82.13), using XDS510PP Plus (Rev A) and the DM6467t Gel file from Spectrumdigital, we may see

"Trouble Writing Memory Block at 0x1c40900 on Page 0 of Length 0x4: Error 0x80002002/..."

The problem is due to "It is possible that when PLL is being programmed you loose RTCK while PLL is switching over. The RTCK will also become much slower as it is slaved to the device core clock. It may only work if you are using an external adaptive clocking adapter to deal the RTCK issue. Aside of this, you will need to configure the PP+ via SdConfig(Ex) to uncheck disable polling and set the port speed to 100. This will force the emulator to poll for emulator command completion and the 100 is the max retry loop count. " The fix is as follows.

Qualcomm to Lose HTC to Nvidia Tegra 3?

2011-11-17T08:05:00.001-05:00

Like in recently announced Eee Pad Transformer Prime, the first tablet to feature Nvidia's new Tegra 3 quad-core processor, has attracted attention, Tegra 3 quad-core processor seems that it will be adapted by more phones and tablet. Desire Athow wrote:

HTC will apparently break the exclusivity of Qualcomm by adopting the penta-core Nvidia Tegra 3 chipset to power a new handset, the Edge, that is set to be launched next year at MWC.

According to Monica Chen and Joseph Tsai from Digitimes, the phone will launch either in March or April and will come with Nvidia's chipset, which would be a blow to Qualcomm who may lose both HTC and Sony Ericsson as exclusive partners in a single year.

In addition, Microsoft has also confirmed that ST-Ericsson will also start producing chips for Windows Phone handsets ,heralding the end of the monopoly Qualcomm had on the platform.

Samsung Electronics, Motorola and LG have also adopted the Tegra 3 for their handsets and Asus has already shipped the first tablet based on the chipset , the Transformer Prime.

The new Tegra 3 adopts a similar strategy as ARM's big.LITTLE or TI's OMAP4, with smaller CPU(s) taking over from big ones for mundane and light tasks.

Nvidia says that the system on chip has three times the graphics performance of its predecessor - thanks to 12 GPU cores - while consuming almost two thirds less power than the Tegra 2.

Eee Pad Transformer TF101 Android 3.2.1 Root and adb shell

2011-11-16T14:15:00.001-05:00

Download Asus Transformer NVFlash Stock 3.2 Recovery Roms from tabletroms.com; The latest version is the 3.2 Build of 8.6.5.13 which is the same as the one in Asus website;
NV flash the ROM with following the instruction in tabletroms.com;
Download Universal root toolkit v7.1 from xda-developers.com;
Backup and root it;
If "adb devices" returns nothing, you may unplug the USB cable and try to update the device driver using the USB driver in the transformer 3.1 rootkit. If sometime SU can't not be installed due to ADB path problem, may also try the transformer 3.1 rootkit. However, if your adb path is set in the Windows environment, you may also need to delete the adb.exe in the tool kit;
Use Root Check Pro to check if the transformer is rooted.

HTML5 and Adobe Flash's Failures

2011-11-13T20:55:00.001-05:00

Since Apple refused to accept Flash and Windows 8 Phone and tablet will not support Flash, and Adobe want to focus on HTML5 development, Adobe abandons mobile Flash development.

Flash Video is a container file format used to deliver video over the Internet using Adobe Flash Player versions 6–11. Flash Video content may also be embedded within SWF files. There are two different video file formats known as Flash Video: FLV and F4V. The audio and video data within FLV files are encoded in the same way as they are within SWF files. Flash Video FLV files usually contain material encoded with codecs following VP6 video compression formats. The most recent public releases of Flash Player also support H.264 video and HE-AAC audio.

Today David Murphy reported "Who's to Blame for Adobe Flash's Failures?" in pcmag.com. In his report, he referred to Cera Technology CEO Michael Mace's words "The root causes of the Flash failure should blame to a fundamental misreading of the mobile market, and to short-term revenue goals that were more important than long-term strategy at both Macromedia and Adobe. The full Flash player had been designed for PCs; it was too fat to run well on a smartphone." ...

Currently HTML5 Video Player is an opt-in trial for YouTube. It supports browsers that support both the video tag in HTML5 and either the h.264 video codec or the WebM format (with VP8 codec).

iOS 5.0.1 Update Failed

2011-11-12T23:16:00.001-05:00

I tried to update my iPhone 3GS with iOS 5.0.1 which was released on Thursday to fix a critical security hole and promise better battery life for iPhone 4S users. It seems Apple may have not sufficiently tested it before release. Not only my update failed, but also my iPhone firmware could not be restored at the first try. I tried reset via tap both home button and power off button and a different cable, and finally got the restored firmware.

Updated: strangely enough, after I restored the firmware, my iOS is 5.0.1.

DM6467 Latest CODECS

2011-11-12T21:47:00.001-05:00

TI published the latest DM6467 codec, DM6467_CODECS 1_00_003 Product, on October 24, 2011. However H.264 1080p encoder was not updated.

H.264 Encoder, Version 1.20.02.00 DataSheet	H264 BP/MP/HP L4.0 720p Encoder Data Sheet	648K
H.264 Encoder, Version 1.20.02.00 ReleaseNotes	H264 BP/MP/HP L4.0 720p Encoder Release Notes	128K
H.264 Encoder, Version 1.10.02.05 DataSheet	H264 BP/MP/HP L4.0 1080p Encoder Data Sheet	116K
H.264 Encoder, Version 1.10.02.05 ReleaseNotes	H264 BP/MP/HP L4.0 1080p Encoder Release Notes	48K

Transformer Prime vs. iPad 2 vs. Kindle Fire vs. Nook Tablet

2011-11-09T15:09:00.003-05:00

There is more than enough room for tablet players. Current estimates suggest tablet sales will increase on average 83% a year to 185 million units in 2014; RBC estimates Apple will sell 50 million iPads in fiscal 2012 (up 54% yearly) and 65 million in 2013.

Asus' newly announced Eee Pad Transformer Prime, the first tablet to feature Nvidia's new Tegra 3 quad-core processor. The Prime will get an upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich. The Prime joins Amazon's Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble's Nook Tablet as the latest set of tablet devices hitting store shelves before the end of the year. Ian Paul, PCWorld, gave comparisons between four tablets:

Intel and MIPS Bets on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich with 2012 Release

2011-11-09T14:08:00.002-05:00

Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich includes many improvements including a new interface and system bar that makes accessing and navigating through applications easier. Other features include an improved keyboard, integration of multiple email accounts, improved security, core application improvements, and near-field communications (NFC) abilities for mobile payments. It also provides impressive media processing features, such as face unlock, camera functions for quicker photo, live effect, enhanced Talk-to-Text, and photo editor.

It has already been shown to work on a smartphone with an ARM processor. HTC confirmed that the HTC Sensation, HTC Sensation XL, HTC Sensation XE, HTC Rezound, HTC EVO 3D, HTC EVO Design 4G, and HTC Amaze 4G would all be seeing the update to Android 4.0.

The new OS includes OS optimization for x86, so Intel architecture-based devices, can support it, according to Suzy Greenberg, an Intel spokeswoman. HP new tablet Slate 2 includes faster hardware including Intel's Atom Z670 processor, which runs at a clock speed of 1.5GHz and has accelerators to decode 1080p video.

MIPS is the third processor architecture challenging ARM in the tablet and smartphone space. Tablets with MIPS processors already support Android 3.0, which is code-named Honeycomb, and the company is porting Android 4.0 for tablets.

See more @ computerworld.

DM6467 Boot

2011-11-08T23:52:00.000-05:00

The DM646x boot document "Using the TMS320DM646x DMSoC Bootloader (Rev. D)"
davinci-psp_3.2.0.0-beta/sources
Creating a DSP Boot Image for Host Boot
dm646x_pci_targetdrv.c

Xilinx ISE 13.3, Artix-7 and Virtex-7 XT

2011-11-04T22:22:00.000-04:00

This release is another try to support Artix-7 and Virtex-7 XT. According to the company press release, a full custom precision floating-point support, including new bit and cycle accurate, single, double and full custom precision floating-point in system generator for DSP, is provided to extend productivity for DSP designers.

Artix™-7 FPGAs deliver the lowest power and lowest cost to address high-volume markets. This family is one of three product families built on a common 28nm architecture designed for maximum power efficiency and offers over two times the capacity, 30% higher performance, 50% lower power consumption -- and logic up to 350K logic cell density at lower price points than Spartan®-6 FPGAs.

Virtex-7 FPGAs are optimized for advanced systems requiring the highest performance and highest bandwidth connectivity. Utilizing innovative 2.5D Stacked Silicon Interconnect (SSI) technology,

the latest Virtex-7, 2000T FPGA, integrates 2 million logic cells, 6.8 billion transistors and 12.5Gb/s serial transceivers on a single device making it the world’s highest capacity FPGA. This is equivalent to 20 million ASIC gates.Virtex-7 XT provides larger block RAM (85.0Mb) than other Virtex-7 devices.

DM8168 or C6-Integra EVM

2011-11-04T11:09:00.001-04:00

DM8168 is among the TI AM389x, C6A816x, DM816x Device family with multi-HD codec support.

Developed with Spectrum Digital, the DM8168 Evaluation Module (EVM) enables developers to immediately start evaluating DM816x DaVinci™ MPU (DM8168, DM8167, DM8166, DM8165), C6A816x C6-Integra™ DSP+ARM processors (C6A8168, C6A8167) and AM389x Sitara™ ARM MPUs (AM3894, AM3892) and begin building solutions such as surveillance DVRs, video conferencing systems, video broadcasting systems, media servers, single-board computers, gateways, routers, servers, industrial automation, human machine interfaces (HMIs), point-of-service data terminals, machine vision, test and measurement, tracking and control applications, amongst many others. The board contains

with connectors for composite video, S-Video, Component Video, serial port, SD, SATA, PCIe, USB, Ethernet, Audio Input/Output, HDMI Tx
DM8168 Processor (emulates AM3894 and C6A816)
Expansion I/O Daughtercard (printed circuit board assembly) with connectors for DVI in, Component Video in, Composite Video in, HDMI Tx, serial port, Ethernet, and Audio outputs
7” Touch-screen LCD display
Power supply and regional adapter
Serial, USB, Ethernet and HDMI cables
USB mouse
SD card (with example software and SDK)
SD card reader (for plugging in SD card to PC) JTAG emulator (XDS100)
1 GB DDR3 Memory

The technical reference of the EVM shows goof info. The Ubuntu based SDK 2011Q2 for DM8168 EVM Board was released in Oct 2011. Android Rowboat is supported for DM8168 platform. Android GingerBread is supported for ARM Cortex-A8 based AM389x.

TI demonstrated a bottle detection using the machine vision function in OpenCV.

Machine Vision Demo using OpenCV

Machine Vision demosttration using OpenCV on Texas Instruments' C6-Integra(TM) platform

Posted: 21-Apr-2011

Duration: 4:33

Tags: integra, c6-integra, opencv,machine vision, c6a816x, omap-l13x

C6-Integra(TM) DSP+ARM Processors

Fusion Garage Grid 10 Dead Recovery

2011-10-29T13:16:00.009-04:00

Grid 10 is a Nvidia Tegra II 1Ghz Dual Core based 10.1 inch Android device. It uses a clever customized Android OS called Grid OS. The base Wi-Fi-only model, with 16 GB of memory, costs $299, a full $200 less than the comparable Apple model. It gave users good experience with gesture controls. The latest firmware version is 1.00.37. Adobe Flash Player 11 can be installed and YouTube video plays very well .

When a black screen appears and likes dead, the power button has no effect. It may be due to a firmware crash. The customer support can be reached @ 1-855-822-5534 and a very good prompt help may be provided. Usually "holding reset and power button in the same time, and then restart" may solve the problem.

10 Attractive android tutorials for developers

2011-10-28T13:56:00.004-04:00

ADMIN selected 10 Attractive android tutorials for developers who going to learn how to make applications for android:

1. OpenGL ES 2.0

This tutorial shows you how to create a simple Android application that uses the OpenGL ES 2.0 API to perform some basic graphics operations.

2. Android Development Tutorial

This tutorial describes how to create Android applications with Eclipse. This is very long tutorial, but also most detailed.

3. Android SDK Tutorial – Learn how to install Android SDK

Tutorial describes how to install the Android SDK and set up your development environment for the first time.

4. Using Facebook SDK in Android development

In this tutorial I show you an android application, which logging in to Facebook, then get the Facebook ID.

5. Drawing with Canvas in Android, Saving your drawings

This is one of tutorials from series of topics for drawing with canvas on android.

6. Android Google Maps Tutorial

In this tutorial we will see how to incorporate Google Maps into an Android app.

7. Android location service example

This tutorial will help you to start using location services (in particular: LocationManager class to get user location and Geocoder to translate location into addresses) and Google Maps on Android.

8. Working With Android Contacts

Learn to work with the Android contacts database. Basic knowledge of accessing SQLite in Android along with using Cursors is expected.

9. How to calculate the distance between two GPS coordinates?

A simple function that takes two GPS coordinates as input and outputs the distance between them in meter.

10. How To Create Android Live Wallpaper

In this article tells how to create live wallpaper from scratch. Step-by-step, we will create live wallpaper that would output TV test pattern on out home screen.

I may add one to handle images in Android:

11. Working With Images In Android

Beagleboard-XM USB ADB on Windows

2011-10-28T10:19:00.005-04:00

The following instructions to get USB ADB working on Windows:

Download latest Android SDK, uncompress it in a local folder (i.e. c:\android), and add the full path to the tools\ directory to the system PATH
Download Android USB Driver and uncompress it in a local folder (i.e. c:\android\usb_driver).
Edit adb_usb.ini (or create and then edit if it doesn't already exist) file in

Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\your_name\.android
Windows Vista\7: C:\Users\your_name\.android
These locations can be accessed at the command prompt by typing 'cd %USERPROFILE%'

Add echo 0x18D1 > "%USERPROFILE%\.android\adb_usb.ini"

4. Edit android_winusb.inf in C:\Android\usb_driver_r03-windows to match EVM/Beagle vendor and product ids. Under [Google.NTx86] for 32 bit machine or [Google.NTamd64] for 64 bit machine section add:

;TI EVM

%SingleAdbInterface%        = USB_Install, USB\VID_18D1&PID_9018

%CompositeAdbInterface%     = USB_Install, USB\VID_18D1&PID_9018&MI_01

5. Boot the board as normal and wait until shell prompt is available (micro-B USB cable must be disconnected). Then connect micro-B USB cable between board and Windows PC.

6. If the device is detected automatically, install driver that was downloaded. Otherwise go to Windows Device Manager find the Rowboat device to update the driver.

There are lots of useful ADB shell commands which can run on UART window or Windows command line by "adb shell".

to copy a file or a directory recursively to emulator: adb push source destination
to copy a file or a directory recursively from emulator: adb pull destination source

Microsoft Two Extremes of Touch Interaction: OmniTouch and PocketTouch

2011-10-24T09:29:00.002-04:00

OmniTouch turns any surface in the user’s environment into a touch interface. OmniTouch: Wearable Multitouch Interaction Everywhere—co-authored by Chris Harrison, a Ph.D. student at Carnegie Mellon University and a former Microsoft Research intern; Benko; and Andy Wilson—is a wearable system that enables graphical, interactive, multitouch input on arbitrary, everyday surfaces.

PocketTouch: Through-Fabric Capacitive Touch Input—written by Saponas, Harrison, and Benko—describes a prototype that consists of a custom, multitouch capacitive sensor mounted on the back of a smartphone. It uses the capacitive sensors to enable eyes-free multitouch input on the device through fabric, giving users the convenience of a rich set of gesture interactions, ranging from simple touch strokes to full alphanumeric text entry, without having to remove the device from a pocket or bag.

See more in http://research.microsoft.com

The Lytro Light Field Camera First Look

2011-10-23T09:22:00.002-04:00

See more in CNET or eda360insider.

TI Android GingerBread 2.3.4 DevKit 2.1 Product (GA) for BeagleBoard XM

2011-10-20T23:21:00.007-04:00

This 092311 release package provides a Andorid GingerBread 2.3.4 DevKit(GA) distribution with integrated SGX (3D graphics) drivers, Adobe Flash 10 support, TI hardware abstraction for video overlay, WLAN, Bluetooth support for WL1271, PowerManagement, S-Video, Camera on Beagle XM/AM37x EVM, RowboPERF performance measurement application, NAND (UBIFS), Fastboot and standard applications from Android.

The package also includes TI Android GingerBread Source, Linux Android kernel, Toolchain, Debug and Development Tools(CCSv5, ADT, Flashing Utility, etc) and Documentation to ease development, deployment and execution of Android based systems. The product forms the basis for all Android application development on AM37x, AM35x platforms.

For detailed information on the various software components included in the release and how to build and use them, see TI-Android-GingerBread-2.3.4-DevKit-2.1 Developer Guide and TI-Android-GingerBread-2.3.4-DevKit-2.1 User Guide.

CodeSourcery tools is pre-required by Mentor Graphic's Rowboat project, but not by the TI's project.

I built the Beagleboard XM filesystem with SGX support successfully on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, but failed on Ubuntu 11.04 and 11.10.

Apple is Giving Samsung Semiconductor A Splitting Headache

2011-10-20T21:48:00.001-04:00

Ed McKernan

Published on 10-18-2011 02:00 PM

Apple started a legal process several months ago to keep Samsung Tablets out of worldwide markets because the product looked similar to the iPAD. Samsung is the only company in the world that can challenge Apple on a vertical cost basis and they have the added advantage of having corporate subsidies. Apple’s goal in the coming year is to make Samsung retreat from the consumer market and back into semiconductors or risk losing an excessive amount of money. See more in SemiWiki.

Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich Image and Video Processing

2011-10-19T14:15:00.005-04:00

Today Google announced Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich along with Galaxy Nexus.

It provides several impressive media processing features including

Face Unlock: One of the most ambitious is Ice Cream Sandwich’s new Face Unlock feature, which allows users to unlock their handsets just by looking into the front-facing camera.
Camera: There’s a lot to love here. It features image stabilization, improved autofocus, and integration with other apps for sending photos or instant upload to Google+. Oh, and who could forget built-in face detection, panorama and time lapse modes, and on-the-fly photo retouching and enhancements.
Enhanced Talk-to-Text: Voice input seems much smarter this time around, as it’s more accurate, requires less time, and even accounts for pauses.
Live Effects is a collection of graphical transformations that add interest and fun to videos captured in the Camera app. For example, users can change the background behind them to any stock or custom image, for just the right setting when shooting video or using Google Talk video chat. Also available is Silly Faces, a set of morphing effects that use state-of-the-art face recognition and GPU filters to add great effects facial features during video capture. For example, you can use effects such as small eyes, big mouth, big nose, face squeeze, and more. Outside of the Camera app, Live Effects is available during video chat in the Google Talk app.
Photo editor. Users can crop and rotate pictures, set levels, remove red eyes, add effects, and much more. After retouching, users can select one or multiple pictures or videos to share instantly over email, text messaging, bluetooth, social networks, or other apps.

Android 4.0 is a major platform release that adds a variety of new features for users and app developers. Android 4.0 related SDK, Platform, SDK Tools r14, ADT 14.0.0, Support Package 4.0, etc., are provided in Android development website.

hgfs Problem with ubuntu 11.04

2011-10-19T06:35:00.004-04:00

Recently I has been a little annoyed by my hgfs problem with Ubuntu 11.04 since the share function is often out of control. Thanks to new releases Ubuntu 11.10 and Vmware 8.0, I haven't seen the problem again when playing with Ubuntu 11.10 and Vmware 8.0.

MX Video Player for Tegra 2 Android Device

2011-10-17T09:06:00.004-04:00

It seems MX Video Player is one of the best video player for NVIDIA Tegra 2 based Android devices, such as Viewsonic G-Tablet, Grid 10, etc., since it supports multi-core decoding. According to test results on dual-core devices, it shows up to 70% performance improvement over single-core decoding. It is free on Android Market. For Tegra 2, ARMv7 CPU's codec should be used. If Android Market can not be accessed, it can be also download at

Player:
http://www.easy-share.com/196F1F8EE5...layer_v1.3.apk
http://www.filesonic.com/file/211005...layer_v1.3.apk
http://www.wupload.com/file/20055696...layer_v1.3.apk

Codecs:

http://www.easy-share.com/196996AEE5...RMv7__v1.3.apk
http://www.filesonic.com/file/211005...RMv7__v1.3.apk
http://www.wupload.com/file/20055675...RMv7__v1.3.apk

Viewsonic G Tablet Firmware 1.2 Restore

2011-10-13T17:52:00.002-04:00

Bishop of Technology's GTab computing website provides very useful information for Viewsonic G Tablet, including some of the ROMS. I tried 1.2-4349 based image updated on 6/17/2011, and did not have a luck, but I was successful with nvflash4349rev4.zip. This 1.2-4349 ROM also comes with

Windows APX-specific USB driver
NVFlash tool taken from SDK
Clockworkmod v3.0.2.8

which are very convenient. The steps are described in the included "Windows Readme First":

Install the Windows APX driver. When connect the GTab to the PC, the PC immediately tries to load a driver -- but since it doesn't know where the USB driver files are it will fail. Click through Start/Control Panel/Device Manager and find "APX" listed in the devices with a yellow "!" (exclamation point) on the icon. Select the APX item and find the "Update Driver" button and click it. When it asks where to search, choose the local computer manual selection choice and tell it to Browse. Point the Browse at the "USB" directory under the "Flash USB driver" folder. When pointed at the "USB" directory, the driver installed.
ake sure your BATTERY IS FULLY CHARGED. Connect your USB cable to the gTab and then to USB port on your PC. Push/Hold Power button and Volume- (down) keys at same time. The screen should go blank and you should hear an audible connection sound on PC if successful. Go to your Control Panel, and then System, and then Device Manager. You should see the Android device registered without exclamation mark.
Open the folder created from the zip extraction and find the file 'NVFlash_gTablet.bat' and double-click. Watch the new command window to follow the NVFlash process. If everything completes as designed, you may then continue and Shut-Down gTab by holding power button and disconnect USB cable from gTab and PC.
Start up tablet by holding power key and volume+ keys and enter Clockworkmod 3.0.2.8 rev 5. Run all of the wipe functions that are listed and then go into advanced section. Clear dalvik cache and then repartition sdcard to 4096 and 0 and then again 2048 and 0. Finish off with the 'fix permissions' step.
Now, while still in ClockworkMod, go to Mounts and storage, re-connect gTab to PC with USB cable and 'Mount USB storage'. Now go to PC and open My Computer to see the new drive letter it created (different on some systems). Copy the 1.2 ROM update.zip file from the ROM you want to install onto that drive letter. When copying is complete, 'Unmount USB storage' in ClockworkMod and disconnect gTab from PC.
Use the return/back key in ClockworkMod to go back to the main menu and select update from update.zip and keep an eye on the text output. If all goes well, then select 'reboot sytem now' with home button.

Be advised that the intial boot of any new rom will take a lot longer than subsequent boots.

Altera Introduces SoC FPGAs: Integrating ARM Processor System and FPGA into 28-nm Single-Chip Solution

2011-10-12T08:47:00.002-04:00

Altera just announced its SoC FPGA.

Altera's Cyclone V and Arria V SoC FPGAs feature a processor system with a dual-core 800 MHz ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore processor, NEON media processing engine, single/double-precision floating point unit, L1 and L2 caches, ECC-protected memory controllers, ECC-protected scratchpad memory and a wide range of commonly used peripherals. The processor system can deliver 4,000 DMIPS peak performance for less than 1.8 watts. The processor system and FPGA fabric are powered independently and can be configured and booted in any order. Once in operation, the FPGA portion can be powered down as needed to conserve system power.

The ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore processor system and FPGA are interconnected by high throughput data paths, providing over 125-Gbps peak bandwidth with integrated data coherency. This level of performance is not possible in two-chip solutions. An integrated single-chip SoC FPGA allows board designers to eliminate the external I/O paths between a processor and an FPGA, providing significant system power savings.

Altera’s SoC FPGA pricing starts at less than $15 in high volumes.

See more in its website.

Qualcomm's New Snapdragon S4: MSM8960 & Krait Architecture

2011-10-11T09:48:00.004-04:00

Qualcomm reveals its new processor Snapdragon S4 on its white paper. Here’s a block diagram of the chip from the Qualcomm White Paper:

It claims that this aSMP (asynchronous Symmetric Multi-Processor) approach delivers a 25 to 40% improvement in operating power for a given performance, as you can see in the following graph:

Brian Klug & Anand Lal Shimpi compared the Snapdragon S4 with other chips:

2011/2012 SoC Comparison
SoC	Process Node	CPU	GPU	Memory Bus	Release
Apple A5	45nm	2 x ARM Cortex A9 w/ MPE @ 1GHz	PowerVR SGX 543MP2	2 x 32-bit LPDDR2	Now
NVIDIA Tegra 2	40nm	2 x ARM Cortex A9 @ 1GHz	GeForce	1 x 32-bit LPDDR2	Now
NVIDIA Tegra 3/Kal-El	40nm	4 x ARM Cortex A9 w/ MPE @ ~1.3GHz	GeForce++	1 x 32-bit LPDDR2	Q4 2011
Samsung Exynos 4210	45nm	2 x ARM Cortex A9 w/ MPE @ 1.2GHz	ARM Mali-400 MP4	2 x 32-bit LPDDR2	Now
Samsung Exynos 4212	32nm	2 x ARM Cortex A9 w/ MPE @ 1.5GHz	ARM Mali-400 MP4	2 x 32-bit LPDDR2	2012
TI OMAP 4430	45nm	2 x ARM Cortex A9 w/ MPE @ 1.2GHz	PowerVR SGX 540	2 x 32-bit LPDDR2	Now
TI OMAP 4460	45nm	2 x ARM Cortex A9 w/ MPE @ 1.5GHz	PowerVR SGX 540	2 x 32-bit LPDDR2	Q4 11 - 1H 12
TI OMAP 4470	45nm	2 x ARM Cortex A9 w/ MPE @ 1.8GHz	PowerVR SGX 544	2 x 32-bit LPDDR2	1H 2012
TI OMAP 5	28nm	2 x ARM Cortex A15 @ 2GHz	PowerVR SGX 544MPx	2 x 32-bit LPDDR2	2H 2012
Qualcomm MSM8x60	45nm	2 x Scorpion @ 1.5GHz	Adreno 220	2 x 32-bit LPDDR2*	Now
Qualcomm MSM8960	28nm	2 x Krait @ 1.5GHz	Adreno 225	2 x 32-bit LPDDR2	1H 2012

They pointed out "Other than TI's OMAP 5 in the second half of 2012 and Qualcomm's Krait, no one else has announced plans to release a new microarchitecture in the near term. Furthermore, if we only look at the first half of next year, Qualcomm is the only company that's focused on significantly improving per-core performance through a new architecture. Everyone else is either scaling up in core count (NVIDIA) or clock speeds. As we've seen in the PC industry however, generational performance gaps are hard to overcome - even with more cores or frequency."

The performance is expected a big improvement over previous architectures.

IDE for Android C/C++ Programming

2011-10-10T16:16:00.003-04:00

Good IDEs for Android C/C++ programming includes

The first two can also be for Java programming with Android SDK. Android Development Tools is an integrated environment tool in which to build Android applications. It is officially supported in Eclipse, but not for Netbeans. Here is "How to install Android plugin version 1.x into NetBeans". According to an Android C/C++ programming blog site, ian-ni-lewis.blogspot.com, Cygwin and WinGDB are prerequisites for C/C++ programming using Visual Studio.

agcc for Android NDK, Revision 6b on ARM

2011-10-10T11:17:00.004-04:00

agcc is a perl script Andrew Ross has written to take the pain away here and with the android toolchain in your PATH. It should be executable (by change 755) put it into your PATH somewhere (perhaps in $HOME/bin or so). It helps set various flags and things needed to cross-compile an application and properly link it to Android bionic c compiler. I modified agcc for Android NDK, Revision 6b. Here is the diff for agcc2.pl:

5c5

< my $NDK = '/path/to/android-ndk-r6b';

---

> my $NDK = '/path/to/android-ndk-r5c';

40,41c40,41

< my $PREBUILT = "$NDK/toolchains/arm-linux-androideabi-4.4.3/prebuilt/linux-x86";

< my $TOOLCHAIN = "$NDK/toolchains/arm-linux-androideabi-4.4.3";

---

> my $PREBUILT = "$NDK/toolchains/arm-eabi-4.4.0/prebuilt/linux-x86";

> my $TOOLCHAIN = "$NDK/toolchains/arm-eabi-4.4.0";

93c93

< "-Wl,-T,$PREBUILT/arm-linux-androideabi/lib/ldscripts/armelf_linux_eabi.x",

---

> "-Wl,-T,$PREBUILT/arm-eabi/lib/ldscripts/armelf.x",

105c105

< "$PREBUILT/lib/gcc/arm-linux-androideabi/4.4.3/libgcc.a",

---

> "$PREBUILT/lib/gcc/arm-eabi/4.4.0/libgcc.a",

120c120

< "$PREBUILT/lib/gcc/arm-linux-androideabi/4.4.3/libgcc.a",

---

> "$PREBUILT/lib/gcc/arm-eabi/4.4.0/libgcc.a",

165c165

< my @cmd = ("arm-linux-androideabi-gcc");

---

> my @cmd = ("arm-eabi-gcc");

179a180

To use it,

download Android NDK 6b;
add android-ndk-r6b/toolchains/arm-linux-androideabi-4.4.3/prebuilt/linux-x86/bin to your PATH;
Compile your program by agcc -o your_app your_app.c

DVI EDID

2011-10-08T11:46:00.003-04:00

Digital Visual Interface (DVI) supports Extended Display Identiﬁ cation Data (EDID), a dedicated data stream that allows a display to communicate its capabilities to the graphics source through the DDC (Data Display Channel). The DDC's I2C master in the DVI-source reads EDID from the display device's I2C slave.

EDID is defined by a standard published by the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA). The EDID includes manufacturer name and serial number, product type, phosphor or filter type, timings supported by the display, display size, luminance data and (for digital displays only) pixel mapping data.

EDID structure versions range from v1.0 to v1.4; all these define upwards-compatible 128-byte structures. EDID structure v2.0 defined a new 256-byte structure, but subsequently has been deprecated and replaced by v1.3. HDMI 1.0 – 1.3c uses EDID structure v1.3.

With EDID, the display communicates its operational information to the graphics source including available resolutions and scan rates. Ideally, the graphics card will read the EDID and adjust its output to best match the native resolution and scan rate of the display, avoiding any compromises in image quality due to scaling, scan rate conversion, etc. More importantly, the graphics source must receive the EDID info in order to send a signal. If the EDID is lost, the graphics source must shut down within 1 second. This is to avoid the assumed disconnected end of the DVI cable becoming a high-frequency radiator that could cause radio

frequency interference.

The following presentations provide very helpful information for EDID usage:

The most critical EDID setting is the timing which consists of

Resolution (e.g. 640x480, 1280x1024, 1920x1200)
This is the dominant characteristic which also defines the display capability
Vertical or refresh rate (e.g. 60Hz, 75Hz, 85Hz)
Horizontal rate (or line rate)
Blanking
Sync

Gingerbread Android C/C++ Programming on Ubuntu 11.04

2011-10-07T22:33:00.005-04:00

For using open source libraries or developing a device driver and a game, native C or C++ programming sometime has to be applied. Google suggests Android NDK should be used for this purpose. The following visual tutorials are very helpful:

Android developers website showed some examples. Frank Ableson wrote a tutorial to reuse existing C code with the Android NDK. Eclipse and Android Developer Tools are suggested to be used.

Charles Wilde also gave a very good tutorial, "Android Native Development Using the Android Open Source Project".

credentiality showed a simple way to do native C program using NDK after downloading Android SDK and NDK. He applied a perl script agcc to setup build environment.

In 2009 Radu Motisan posted "Android C native development – take full control!" which is very interesting to me. Follow this instruction, I installed Ubuntu 11.04 on a virtual machine and tried a hello.c on Gingerbread Android. Here was how I did:

1. Prepare additional packages for Ubuntu 11.04.

(1) Install Sun java6

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ferramroberto/java

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jre sun-java6-jre-plugin sun-java6-jdk

(2) Install other packages

sudo apt-get install git-core gnupg flex bison gperf libsdl1.2-dev libesd0-dev libwxgtk2.6-dev build-essential zip curl libncurses5-dev zlib1g-dev

2. Install repo

Make sure you have a bin/ directory in your home directory, and that it is included in your path:

mkdir ~/bin

in .bashrc add

export PATH=~/bin:${PATH}

And source .bashrc.

Download the Repo script and ensure it is executable:

curl "http://php.webtutor.pl/en/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/repo" > ~/bin/repo

chmod a+x ~/bin/repo

3. Initializing a Repo client

Create an empty directory to hold your working files:

mkdir mydroid

cd mydroid

Run repo init to bring down the latest version of Repo with all its most recent bug fixes. We must specify a URL for the manifest. I tried the code aurora repo mirror site.

repo init -u git://codeaurora.org/platform/manifest.git -b gingerbread_house -m M7630AABBQMLZA414001.xml

4. Getting the Android source tree

repo sync

5. Building the system

source build/envsetup.sh

lunch full-eng

make

6. Compile Hello.c with gcc for the Android platform

Android uses a simplified version of libc, called bionic. We need to compile using Android's prebuilt cross-compiler arm-eabi-gcc, and use the bionic library on the phone. The easy way to do this is to use the agcc perl wrapper. We also need to change the libgcc.a path from 4.2.1 to 4.3.1. Put this agcc in ~/bin and make it executable.

chmod +x agcc

Then set the PATH to the bionic libs and the agcc location:

~/mydroid/prebuilt/linux-x86/toolchain/arm-eabi-4.3.1/bin:~/:~/mydroid/

Now you can compile the test.c file:

agcc test.c -o test

Take the resulting test binary and upload it to your android using:

adb push test /data/local/test

Then run it:

adb shell chmod 775 test ./test

'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says

2011-10-06T13:27:00.004-04:00

This is the text of the Stanford Commencement address delivered by Steve Jobs on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

iPhone 4S Multimedia Capability

2011-10-06T09:14:00.005-04:00

Audio

AAC (8 to 320 Kbps)
Protected AAC (from iTunes Store)
HE-AAC
MP3 (8 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 2, 3, 4, Audible Enhanced Audio, AAX, and AAX+)
Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAV

Video/Movie

H.264 video up to 1080p, 30 frames per second, High Profile level 4.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
MPEG-4 video up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps per channel, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
Motion JPEG (M-JPEG) up to 35 Mbps, 1280 by 720 pixels, 30 frames per second, audio in ulaw, PCM stereo audio in .avi file format

Image Processing

8 MP camera having capability to capture HD video with “real-time video image stabilization.”
Microscope Feature. Using 5x magnification ball lenses (1 millimeter-diameter) and the high resolution of the camera’s semiconductor sensor, the iPhone microscope could distinguish features on the order of 1.5 microns
Spectrometer Feature. Like the microscope, the iPhone’s spectrometer takes advantage of smartphone imaging capabilities

Thanks to Apple and Steve Jobs, no wonder there are lots of applications that can be played with iPhone 4S. I am very sad since Steve Jobs passed away yesterday. I also like to pay homage to Steve Jobs and his legends.

August 2011 U.S. Mobile Subscriber Market Share

2011-10-05T16:20:00.002-04:00

Today comScore reported August 2011 U.S. mobile subscriber market share as follows.

OEM Market Share

Top Mobile OEMs 3 Month Avg. Ending Aug. 2011 vs. 3 Month Avg. Ending May 2011 Total U.S. Mobile Subscribers (Smartphone & Non-Smartphone) Ages 13+ Source: comScore MobiLens
	Share (%) of Mobile Subscribers
	May-11	Aug-11	Point Change
Total Mobile Subscribers	100.0%	100.0%	N/A
Samsung	24.8%	25.3%	0.5
LG	21.1%	21.0%	-0.1
Motorola	15.1%	14.0%	-1.1
Apple	8.7%	9.8%	1.1
RIM	8.1%	7.1%	-1.0

Smart Phone Platform Share

Top Smartphone Platforms 3 Month Avg. Ending Aug. 2011 vs. 3 Month Avg. Ending May 2011 Total U.S. Smartphone Subscribers Ages 13+ Source: comScore MobiLens
	Share (%) of Smartphone Subscribers
	May-11	Aug-11	Point Change
Total Smartphone Subscribers	100.0%	100.0%	N/A
Google	38.1%	43.7%	5.6
Apple	26.6%	27.3%	0.7
RIM	24.7%	19.7%	-5.0
Microsoft	5.8%	5.7%	-0.1
Symbian	2.1%	1.8%	-0.3

Mobile Content Share

Mobile Content Usage 3 Month Avg. Ending Aug. 2011 vs. 3 Month Avg. Ending May 2011 Total U.S. Mobile Subscribers (Smartphone & Non-Smartphone) Ages 13+ Source: comScore MobiLens
	Share (%) of Mobile Subscribers
	May-11	Aug-11	Point Change
Total Mobile Subscribers	100.0%	100.0%	N/A
Sent text message to another phone	69.5%	70.5%	1.0
Used browser	39.8%	42.1%	2.3
Used downloaded apps	38.6%	41.6%	3.0
Accessed social networking site or blog	28.6%	30.9%	2.3
Played Games	26.9%	28.5%	1.6
Listened to music on mobile phone	18.6%	20.7%	2.1

See more in comScore Oct 5 2011 press release.

WebM Video Hardware RTLs

2011-10-04T07:15:00.002-04:00

WebM has opened its WebM/VP8 hardware codec. The WebM video hardware IP designs support encoding and decoding WebM/VP8 video up to 1080p resolution. The codec was implemented as RTL source code (VHDL or Verilog). Intended for chipsets and ASICs targeting multimedia devices (HD set-top boxes, mobile devices, netbooks, webcams, etc.), the WebM encoder and decoder hardware IP is built on technology developed by Google's Oulu, Finland office. This group has developed silicon-proven designs deployed in millions of chips worldwide, and provides semiconductor manufacturers with a minimal-risk solution for integrating WebM video capability with their chipsets.

The designs have not been optimized for FPGA, and can typically reach only SD resolution performance due to maximum clock frequency limitation.

The RTL source code can be requested by email.

WebRTC VP8 Error Concealement Improvement

2011-10-04T07:10:00.002-04:00

WebRTC is a free, open project that enables web browsers with Real-Time Communications (RTC) capabilities via simple Javascript APIs. The WebRTC components have been optimized to best serve this purpose. The WebRTC project has posted a demo of their implementation of VP8 error concealment in libvpx. The visual improvement is pretty striking.

Error concealment in VP8 for real time usage.

See more in http://www.webrtc.org/blog/errorconcealementinlibvpx

Beagleboard-XM Rowboat Gingerbread

2011-10-02T21:59:00.005-04:00

Rowboat is a project which enables Android for Texas Instruments devices including OMAP35x, AM35x, AM37x, DM37x, AM389x, AM1808. Currently Rowboat Gingerbread is available for Beagleboard-xM. According to Android wiki, Android 2.3 Gingerbread refined the user interface, improved the soft keyboard and copy/paste features, improved gaming performance, SIP support (VoIP calls), and added support for Near Field Communication.

The latest Rowboat supports:

similar to the features in rowboat-froyo-dsp.xml, but uses Stagefright multimedia framework instead of OpenCORE;
Support up-to 720P MPEG4 ASP decoding @30fps @10Mbps;
Support up-to 720P H.264 HP Lvl3.1 decoding @24fps @4Mbps;
requires 1GHz DM37xx device to support 720P video decoding;

Rowboat DSP support is based on the TI Linux Digital Video Software Development Kit (DVSDK) for the OMAP3530/DM3730. The latest DVSDK is DVSDK_4.02 4_02_00_06. It includes

DSP/Bios
Codec engine
DSP/Bios link
DMAI
OpenCore DMAI Codecs
Additional DSP codecs (optional), for example, mp3 DSP codec

To build Rowboat Gingerbread on Beagleboard-XM, prepare a 32 linux machine with pre-installed git, java6-jdk, dos2unix, and expect utilities. The steps are:

Download repo. Make sure ~/bin is in $PATH # mkdir -p ~/bin

# curl http://android.git.kernel.org/repo >~/bin/repo
# chmod a+x ~/bin/repo

Download Rowboat Android # mkdir ~/rowboat-android

# cd ~/rowboat-android
# repo init -u git://gitorious.org/rowboat/manifest.git -m rowboat-gingerbread-dsp.xml
# repo sync

Manually download the TI DVSDK_4.01 4_01_00_09 package to the external/ti-dsp folder from the table in webpage
Build Android with TI DSP stack use following command
# cd ~/rowboat-android
```
# make TARGET_PRODUCT=beagleboard OMAPES=5.x
```

Create the rootfs image, assuming TARGET_PRODUCT=omap3evm in the command above cd out/target/product/omap3evm

# mkdir android_rootfs
# cp -r root/* system android_rootfs
# ../../../../build/tools/mktarball.sh ../../../host/linux-x86/bin/fs_get_stats android_rootfs . rootfs rootfs.tar.bz2

Download the TI Gingerbread Devkit 1.0 DM37x Prebuilt Image Package and untar it to get MLO and u-boot images
To get MLO and u-boot.bin for Beagleboard-xM, download the Beagleboard-xM Gingerbread prebuilt image package
Follow the instructions in ConfigureAndBuild#Prepare_SD_card to populate the rootfs to a SD card. Before copying uImage to the SD card, first copy MLO to the SD card first partition; also copy u-boot.bin into the same partition. MLO has to be copied first, otherwise the board will not boot.

NVIDIA reveals a phantom fifth ARM Cortex-A9 processor core in Kal-El

2011-09-28T10:31:00.003-04:00

NVIDIA has extended the path to many-core design by publishing a White Paper that reveals the existence of a fifth ARM Cortex-A9 processor core in the company’s previously discussed Kal-El mobile processor. This fifth processor core implements what the company is calling “variable symmetric multiprocessing” (vSMP) and it’s purpose is to provide extremely low-power operation during periods when the end product in an active standby mode—when it’s performing background tasks such as email and social media synchronization or running active widgets. As the NVIDIA White Paper states “Users generally do not care how fast the background tasks are processed, only that they happen and do not consume much battery life.”

Variable SMP technology has several architectural advantages compared to other solutions, such as asynchronous clocking.

Cache Coherency: Since vSMP technology does not allow both the Companion core and the main cores to be enabled at the same time, there are no penalties involved in synchronizing caches between cores running at different frequencies. The Companion and main cores share the same L2 cache, and the cache is programmed to return data in the same number of nanoseconds for both Companion and main cores (essentially it takes more “main core cycles” versus fewer “Companion core cycles” because the main cores run at higher frequency).
OS Efficiency: The Android OS assumes that all available CPU cores are identical with similar performance capability and schedules workloads to these cores accordingly. When multiple CPU cores are each run at different asynchronous frequencies, it results in the cores having differing performance capabilities. This could lead to OS scheduling inefficiencies. In contrast, vSMP technology always maintains all active cores at a similar synchronous operating frequency for optimized OS scheduling. Even when vSMP switches from the Companion core to one or more of the main CPU cores, the CPU management logic ensures a seamless transition that is not perceptible to end users and does not result in any OS scheduling penalties.
Power Optimized: Each core in an asynchronous clocking based CPU architecture is typically on a different power plane (aka voltage rail or voltage plane) to adjust the voltage of each core based on operating frequency. This could result in increased signal and powerline noise across the voltage planes and negatively impact performance. Since each voltage plane may require its own set of voltage regulators, these architectures may not be easily scalable as the number of CPU cores is increased. The additional voltage regulators increase BOM (Bill of Materials) cost and power consumption. If the same voltage rail is used for all cores, then each core will run at the voltage required by the fastest core, thus losing the advantage of the “voltage squared” effect for power reduction.

See more in

http://www.nvidia.com/content/PDF/tegra_white_papers/tegra-whitepaper-0911b.pdf?ClickID=asp5o5tk9ntozolrzlvzk0w0zpprw0rtysks

Processor Wars: NVIDIA reveals a phantom fifth ARM Cortex-A9 processor core in Kal-El mobile processor IC. Guess why it’s there?

Posted on September 20, 2011 by sleibson2

http://eda360insider.wordpress.com/2011/09/20/processor-wars-nvidia-reveals-a-phantom-fifth-arm-cortex-a9-processor-core-in-kal-el-mobile-processor-ic-guess-why-it%E2%80%99s-there/

Comparison between HEVC (H.265) and H.264

2011-09-26T13:13:00.004-04:00

With its goal to achieve high coding efficiency, e.g., two times compared with H.264, H.265 features include

2-D non-separable adaptive interpolation filter (AIF)
Separable adaptive interpolation filter
Directional adaptive interpolation filter
"Super macroblock" structure up to 64x64 with additional transforms
Large transform block sizes (up to 32x32)
Adaptive prediction error coding (APEC) in spatial and frequency domain
Adaptive quantization matrix selection (AQMS)
Competition-based scheme for motion vector selection and coding
Mode-dependent KLT for intra coding
Tree-structured prediction and residual difference block segmentation
High-accuracy motion compensation interpolation (8 taps)

http://www.telcogroup.ru/files/materials-pdf/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding_H265.pdf,

and

http://vhampiholi.blogspot.com/2010/03/hngvc-h265.html

it was concluded that the preliminary requirements for HEVC (H.265, or H.NGVC) were bit rate reduction of 50% at the same subjective image quality comparing to H.264/MPEG-4 AVC High profile, with computational complexity ranging from 1/2 to 3 times that of the High profile. HEVC (H.265) would be able to provide 25% bit rate reduction along with 50% reduction in complexity at the same perceived video quality as the High profile, or to provide greater bit rate reduction with somewhat higher complexity.

http://www.ee.ucl.ac.uk/lcs/previous/LCS2010/lens2010_submission_34.pdf

the conclusion showed H.265 can achieve 50% reduction of bit rate at the same PSNR and SSIM as x.264.

Nvidia quad-core chip powers Windows 8 demo tablet

2011-09-14T08:44:00.002-04:00

Nvidia said its chip is powering the Windows 8 tablet computer that Microsoft showed on stage at its Build conference today. Nvidia created the tablet to demonstrate what a Windows 8 tablet could look like. The device includes a quad-core Tegra processor, code-named Project Kal-El, which is an ARM-based system on a chip. The chip promises PC-like graphics and high energy efficiency. See more in

http://venturebeat.com/2011/09/13/nvidia-quad-core-chip-powers-windows-8-demo-tablet/

H.265 Motion Estimation on FPGA

2011-09-10T14:47:00.002-04:00

MIT students Mehul Tikekar and Mahmut E. Sinangil, mentored by Alfred Man Cheuk Ng., have developed H.265 Motion Estimation that can sustain at least 30 frames per second (fps) for 1,280 x 720-frame resolution. The project produced a design that sustains 10 fps at 50 MHz on FPGA and 40 fps at 200 MHz when synthesized with a 65-nm cell library. Motion estimation is an essential component of any digital video encoding scheme. H.265, the next-generation standard in development to follow H.264, allows variable-size coding units to increase coding efficiency. They took the BSV test lab representations and synthesized them into corresponding Verilog RTL representations. The Verilog is then synthesized into an equivalent gate-level representation that is loaded into the FPGA development board.

See detail in http://www.bluespec.com/downloads/XCELL_76-Xpert_opinion.pdf.

The report was published in http://csg.csail.mit.edu/6.375/6_375_2011_www/projects.html.