CNXSoft – Embedded Systems News

Smartphones with dual rear cameras are becoming more common, and we’ve see some smartphones in the past with an extra rear display such as Yotaphone 2. Meizu Pro 7 and Pro 7 Plus smartphones combines both features, but instead of using an E-Ink or other e-Paper display for the secondary display, Meizu used an 1.9″ AMOLED display that automatically turns on when you flip the phone, and can be used to check the time or notifications while the main display is still off.

Meizu Pro 7 / Pro 7 Plus partial specifications:

• SoC – Mediatek Helio X30 deca-core processor with 2x cortex A73 cores @ up to 2.6 GHz, 4x cortex A53 cores @ up to 2.2 GHz, and 4x cortex A35 cores @ up to 2.0 GHz, as well as Imagination PowerVR 7XT GPU
• System Memory
  • Pro 7 – 4GB LPDDR4x
  • Pro 7 Plus – 6GB LPDDR4x
• Storage
  • Pro 7 – 64 eMMC 5.1 flash storage
  • Pro 7 Plus – 64 or 128 GB UFS 2.1 storage
• Display
  • Pro 7 – 5.2″ super AMOLED display with 1920×1080 resolution
  • Pro 7 Plus – 5.7″ super AMOLED display with 2560×1440 resolution
  • Both models – 1.9″ secondary super AMOLED display with 536×240 resolution
• Camera
  • Dual 12MP Sony IMX386 rear camera
  • 16MP front facing camera
• Audio – Separate audio chip, 3.5mm headphone jack
• USB – USB type C port
• Battery
  • Pro 7 – 3,000 mAh battery with mCharge 3.0 fast charging
  • Pro 7 Plus – 3,500 mAh battery with mCharge 4.0 fast charging allowing to charge the phone to 67% in 30 minutes using a 25W charger

Both phones run Android 7.0 with Flyme interface.

Beside checking out the time and notifications, the small rear display can be used to take selfies with the rear camera, and as as MP3 player with control showing on that display.

Meizu does not have a page in English for the phone yet, and AFAICS only shared details on twitter in English. You’ll likely find more details in the product page in Chinese, including the price in China for both phones: 2,880 RMB (~$428 US) for Pro 7, and 3,580 RMB (~$532 US) for Pro 7 Plus.

Via Liliputing

Tweet Smartphones with dual rear cameras are becoming more common, and we’ve see some smartphones in the past with an extra rear display such as Yotaphone 2. Meizu Pro 7...

Cellular networks are available in most places, but not always, and you may not have connectivity while climbing mountains or other remote locations, when going abroad, during natural disaster, in very crowded places where network capacity is exceeded, or when your government decides to cut it off for “national stability and harmony”.  Wouldn’t it be great if you were still able to contact with your friend in such cases, and create your own mesh networks expanding over several kilometers? That’s exactly what Sonnet does by connecting to your smartphone over WiFi, and to other Sonnet nodes over ISM frequencies (433, 868 and 925 MHz).

Sonnet hardware specifications:

• Connectivity
  • 802.11 b/g/n WiFi with up to 20 dBm (max varies per country); WPA/WPA2 security
  • Long Range RF
    • Frequencies
      • 915 MHz (North America)
      • 868 MHz (Europe)
      • 433 MHz (Asia Pacific)
    • Distance – 5km typ.; up to 10km Line-of-sight; SMA connector available to extend the range with your own antenna
    • Transmit power – 1W (30 dBm)
    • Receiver Sensitivity – -148 dBm
    • Modulation Method – Chirp Spread Spectrum (CSS)
• Power Supply – micro USB port. Input: 5V / 2A; Output (e.g. to charge phone): 5.1V @ 2.1 A
• Battery – 4,000 mAh LiPo battery good for up to 24 hours
• Dimensions – 88 x 80 x 17 mm
• Weight – 160 grams
• IP Rating – IP66 rating under IEC standard 60529

Those are based on the same frequencies as LoRa, but since they don’t mention the standard at all, it must be a proprietary solution. The device should be legal in most countries, including North America, Europe, and China, but you’d still need to check, as it’s illegal in mine. I can use 433 MHz up to 10 mW only, and the 1W transmit power makes it illegal here.

The initial setup involves connecting to Sonnet access point, going to https://app.sonnetlabs.com from your web browser, and start using the app to communicate. You can chat, send pictures and voice recordings, and share your GPS coordinates. It’s like a high-end talkie walkie with higher range, and you can create a mesh network of those with up to 16 hops supported, corresponding to a 80 km range. An firmware update planned for 2018 will also allow Sonnet to create an Internet connected mesh network, with all your need is at least one Sonnet connected to the Internet over WiFi.

Smartphone vs Walkie-Talkie vs Satellite vs Sonnet + Smartphone

The web app also supports off-line maps, Panic/SOS button, and Sonnet can be used as a power bank to charge your phone too. Another use case I could envision is a city wide network for chat only, since bandwidth will be limited, for people who don’t want to pay extra for cellular connectivity, since Sonnet is free to use.

The device is now on Kickstarter with over $140,000 raised and 8 days to go. Rewards start at $89 for a pair of Sonnet devices with two power adapters and charging cables, and go up to $399 for 10 Sonnet devices. Shipping adds $10 to the US, $13 to Canada and $15 to the rest of the world, and delivery is expected for November 2017.

Tweet Cellular networks are available in most places, but not always, and you may not have connectivity while climbing mountains or other remote locations, when going abroad, during natural disaster,...

Most touchscreen displays aimed to be connected to a development board work through a display interface such as MIPI DSI or LCD RGB (and USB or I2C for touch support), and come with somewhat low resolution such as 800×480 which can be suitable for HMI applications. They also often don’t work with all boards due to the different interfaces used, and there’s no way to easily connect such small display to your computer. Taking those limitations into account, and since most boards and computers come with HDMI and USB ports, Elias Bakken and his team have added HDMI and USB ports to two smartphone displays, and Manga Screen 2 was born.

The two displays – made by Sharp – have the following hardware specifications:

They added the electronics to convert HDMI signals to whatever interface the displays use, and a micro USB port for power and the touch screen interface. So those should pretty much be play and plug, and work with Raspberry Pi, ODROID, BeagleBone Black and other boards, as well as your computer, laptop, etc…
The project has launched on Kickstarter with the goal of raising 300,000 NOK (~$37,100 US). Rewards start at ~$83.5 US for the smaller 4.8″ screen, and ~$94 US for the 5.9″ screen. Those are early bird rewards, and retail price should be $99 for both displays? (Maybe a mistake on KS). Shipping adds 85 NOK ($10.5), and delivery is scheduled for October to the big screen, and December for the small one.

Potential projects include home automation interface, standalone Spotify player, pet food dispenser, 3D printer interface, and any project that may benefit from a ~5″ touchscreen display. The promo video demonstrates some of those applications.

Thanks to Nanik for the tip.

Tweet Most touchscreen displays aimed to be connected to a development board work through a display interface such as MIPI DSI or LCD RGB (and USB or I2C for touch...

Qualcomm has a made several announcements at Mobile World Congress Shanghai 2017, with processors like Snapdragon Wear 1200 Wearables SoC, as well as Snapdragon 450 octa-core mobile platform, allegedly the first 14nm processor made for mid-range mobile devices.

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Qualcomm Snapdragon 450 specifications:

• CPU – 8x ARM Cortex A53 cores @ up to 1.8 GHz
• GPU – Adreno 506 GPU with OpenGL ES 3.1, OpenCL 2.0 Full, DirectX 12, GPU tessellation, geometry shading
• DSP – Hexagon 546 DSP
• Memory I/F – LPDDR3
• Display – Full HD 1080p60; Qualcomm EcoPix,TruPalette, improveTouch technology
• Audio – Qualcomm Aqstic with VoLTE w/Ultra HD Voice (EVC), high-fidelity music playback (24-bit/192 KHz), Dolby 5.1
• Modem – Snapdragon X9 LTE modem up to 300 Mbps download (Cat 7) and 150 Mbps uplink (Cat. 13)
• Wireless Connectivity – 802.11ac MU-MIMO, Gen8C Lite location technology, Bluetooth 4.1 LE
• USB – USB 3.0 interface
• Camera – Up to 13MP dual camera, up to 21MP single camera; real-time Bokeh, Qualcomm ClearSight camera features
• Video – 1080p60 HEVC playback and capture
• Security – Qualcomm “Mobile Security”
• Fast Charging – Quick Charge 3.0
• Process – 14nm FinFET technology

The processor is an upgrade to the Snapdragon 435 processor with faster CPU and GPU bringing roughly 25% improvement in performance, better battery life with up to 30 percent reduction in power when gaming,  and better camera support with support for real-time Bokeh effects and dual 13MP cameras. The Snapdragon 450 is also said to be the the first mid-range mobile SoC to supports a USB 3.0 interface.

Sampling is scheduled for Q3 2017, and mobile devices based on the processor are expected by the end of 2017. No product page has been setup on Qualcomm website yet.

Tweet Qualcomm has a made several announcements at Mobile World Congress Shanghai 2017, with processors like Snapdragon Wear 1200 Wearables SoC, as well as Snapdragon 450 octa-core mobile platform, allegedly...

OnePlus 5 is a premium smartphone powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835, 6 to 8 GB LPDDR4x RAM, 64 to 128 GB UFS 2.0 storage and a 5.5″ Full HD display, as well as the usual LTE, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS.. connectivity. It was launched yesterday for $479 with 6GB RAM/64GB storage, $539 with 8GB RAM/128GB storage, and today, I’ve just read on XDA developers that the company had already released the source code for the phone. Beside the official Google Nexus/Pixel smartphones, many manufacturers will drag their feet before they eventually open the source code that they are legally required to release.

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Some companies will release the source code as tarballs, which works, but OnePlus has done better with Linux 4.4.21 source code available on Github.

You should also be able to get the Android 7.1 Nougat source code as indicated here:

The source code should lead to improvements by the community, as well as the eventual release of unofficial “ROM’s”. The company already released the Linux kernel and Android for their OnePlus 3 model on the day of the launch last year, so they are making an habit of it…

Tweet OnePlus 5 is a premium smartphone powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835, 6 to 8 GB LPDDR4x RAM, 64 to 128 GB UFS 2.0 storage and a 5.5″ Full...

Canonical may have stopped working on Unity, Mobile & Convergence for Ubuntu last April, but since then, at least two teams have worked on Unity and mobile convergence alive with respectively yunit and UBPorts projects. There has not been much activity on the former, but UBPorts has recently announced the first OTA-1 stable release for supported devices, minus Nexus 4 and 5 for now.

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This release brings bug fixes, experimental AGPS support, he UBports Welcome app, the OpenStore, and the Terminal and File Browser are preinstalled.  It should work on OnePlus One, FairPhone 2, Optimus L90, BQ Aquaris M10 HD / FHD, and possibly some other models.

They also mentioned work on Halium – a project aiming to standardize the Android hardware compatibility layer between many Linux distributions – has been progressing nicely, and it can now boot both Ubuntu Touch and Plasma Mobile. Convergence still needs some work, but one of the developers demoed it on a Nexus 5 here. Anbox support is also planned in order to support Android apps in Ubuntu, but it’s a low priority for now.

If you are interested in learning about future releases, or helping fix bugs, you can do so on the Milestones page.

Tweet Canonical may have stopped working on Unity, Mobile & Convergence for Ubuntu last April, but since then, at least two teams have worked on Unity and mobile convergence alive...

Manufacturers of products using open source software are normally required to release the source code with their modifications to follow licenses such as the GPL, but not all comply with the license. Huawei has now released the source code with Linux and other open source libraries and programs for their Huawei Mate 9 / Mate 9 Pro and Huawei P10 / P10 Plus models powered by Hisilicon Kirin 960 processor.

With the release of Hikey 960 development board most of the source code for Kirin 960 should already be available, but it’s possible some drivers/modules specific to Huawei phones may be found instead of in the Huawei release.  You’ll find the download in Huawei’s open source page for:

• Huawei Mate 9 (MHA) / Mate 9 Pro (LON) –  Link to downloads
• Huawei P10 (Victoria) / P10 Plus (Vicky) – Link to downloads

I picked up the LON-NG_EMUI5.0_opensource.tar.gz tarball for Mate 9 Pro (442 MB), and it comes with three directories: external with various open source programs and libraries,  kernel with Linux 4.1.18, and vendor with ffmpeg.

The build instructions for the Linux kernel are also included in the tarball:

################################################################################

1. How to Build
– get Toolchain from android git server, codesourcery and etc ..
– aarch64-linux-android-4.9

– edit Makefile
edit CROSS_COMPILE to right toolchain path(You downloaded).
Ex)   export PATH=$PATH:$(android platform directory you download)/prebuilts/gcc/linux-x86/aarch64/aarch64-linux-android-4.9/bin
Ex)   export CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux-android-

$ mkdir ../out
$ make ARCH=arm64 O=../out merge_hi3660_defconfig
$ make ARCH=arm64 O=../out -j8

2. Output files
– Kernel : out/arch/arm64/boot/Image.gz
– module : out/drivers/*/*.ko

3. How to Clean
$ make ARCH=arm64 distclean
$ rm -rf out
################################################################################

Via XDA Developers

Tweet Manufacturers of products using open source software are normally required to release the source code with their modifications to follow licenses such as the GPL, but not all comply...

We’ve come so far in the smartphone market that most hardware releases are rather boring with a processor a little faster, maybe a higher resolution screen and so on, without real exciting innovations. HTC U11 does change that somewhat as the smartphone allows to interaction by squeezing the edges for example to quickly take a picture. The company calls that “Edge Sense” technology.

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HTC U11 specifications:

• SoC – Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 octa-core processor @ up to 2.45 GHz
• System Memory – 4GB / 6GB RAM
• Storage – 64GB / 128GB flash, micro SD slot up to 2TB (shared with SIM2 slot), flex storage (aka adoptable) supported
• Display –  5.5″ Quad HD  (2560 x 1440 pixels) Super LCD; 3D Corning Gorilla Glass 5
• Cellular Connectivity
  • Dual nano SIM
  • 2G/2.5G – GSM/GPRS/EDGE @ 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
  • 3G – UMTS @ 800/900/1900/2100 (B5/B8/B2/B1), HSDPA 42, HSUPA 5.76
  • 4G LTE – Cat 15 LTE up to 800Mbps/75 Mbps; FDD: Bands B4/B12/B17/B28/B20/B5/B8/B3/B1/B7/B32; TDD: Bands B39/B40/B38/B41; with 2CA, 3CA, 4CA Carrier Aggregation
• Other Wireless Connectivity
  • Wi-Fi: 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (2.4 & 5 GHz)
  • BlueTooth^® 4.2
  • NFC
  • Streaming to Chromecast, DLNA, AirPlay, Miracast devices
  • Localization: GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, Beidou
• Camera
  • Rear – 12MP (HTC UltraPixel 3 with 1.4μm pixel), UltraSpeed Autofocus, Optical Image Stabilization (OIS), Dual LED flash; 4K video recording; 1080p 120 fps slow motion
  • Front-facing –  16MP camera, full HD 1080p video recording
• Audio – HTC USonic with Active Noise Cancellation; HTC BoomSound™ Hi-Fi edition; 3D Audio recording with 4 microphones; Hi-Res audio stereo recording; Hi-Res audio certified
• USB – USB 3.1 gen 1 type C connector with DisplayPort support
• Sensors – Ambient light sensor, Proximity sensor, Motion G-sensor, Compass sensor, Gyro sensor, Magnetic sensor, Fingerprint sensor, Sensor Hub, Edge Sensor
• Battery – 3000 mAh battery with Quick Charge 3.0 support; 3G/4G talk time:  up to 24.5 hours; 3G/4G standby time: up to 14 days.
• Dimensions – 153.9 x 75.9 x 7.9, 169g
• Ingress Protection Rating – IP67

The phone Android 7.1 with HTC Sense user interface. Beside Edge Sense, on the selling point of the smartphone is that it tops DxOMark Mobile camera benchmark with 90 points, and just ahead of Google Pixel with 89 points.

The smartphone can be pre-ordered in Blue, Black or Grey for $649 directly on HTC U11 product page, where you’ll also find a few more details.

Tweet We’ve come so far in the smartphone market that most hardware releases are rather boring with a processor a little faster, maybe a higher resolution screen and so on,...