Many people will walk in and out of your life,
But only true friends will leave footprints in your heart.

To handle yourself, use your head;
To handle others, use your heart.

Anger is only one letter short of danger.

If someone betrays you once, it is his fault;
If he betrays you twice, it is your fault.

Great minds discuss ideas,
Average minds discuss events,
Small minds discuss people.

He who loses money, loses much;
He who loses a friend, loses much more;
He who loses faith, loses all.

Beautiful young people are accidents of nature,
But beautiful old people are works of art.

Learn from the mistakes of others.
You can't live long enough to make them all yourself.

Friends, you and me.
You brought another friend,
And then there were three.

We started our group,
Our circle of friends,
And like that circle -
There is no beginning or end.

Yesterday is history.
Tomorrow is mystery.
Today is a gift.


That is why they call it the present!

Eleanor Roosevelt wrote Footprints In Your Heart. The last line was not part of the poem. Nevertheless, we are looking forward to delivering the present to many people.

R&B

July 30, 2010 6:55

Electronic Component Coaster Set, coasters for the geeks in all of us. See how many drinks it will take for you to prototype something truly amazing with them.

disassembled household appliances, see the insides of all the regular household appliances.

Personalities by ?

Making a Nintendo SNES controller into bluetooth; using an MSI BGP100, as I’ve been a SNES fan for many a year this goes onto this years wish lists.

Eternal September, free NNTP access for everyone! No more talking to tech support who never heard of anything other than http

Starring the Computer, provides us with a comprehensive list of computers showing up in movies along with freeze frames and everything. Help make the site even more complete.

MathOverflow, yet another projekt from the StackOverflow guys, guess what it’s for. Still, it’s a good concept and their system is sound.

Two Teeny Tiny Fonts, are two extremely small but still readable fonts. Sadly only screenshots are provided as of yet.

“Reply-To” Munging Still Considered Harmful. Really., interesting read if you are into SMTP.

July 12, 2010 6:00

I decided to start a category for iPod/iPhone/iPad/iWhatever apps since I now have so many and want to share my recommendations. This will be my first post.

By about now everyone should have heard about geocaching, if not you really should read up on it.

My first iPhone application recommendation is Geocaching by Groundspeak Inc..

July 07, 2010 10:54

Late last month, we announced our worldwide Distribution Agreement with Future Electronics: Future Electronics and Genesi Sign Global Distribution Agreement. It seems the right moment to let folks know that we are now listed in the Google Apps Marketplace. Both the Efika MX Open Client and the Efika MX Smartbook are featured.

The Efika MX smartbook goes on sale in August

Among other Linux distributions, the smartbook will feature a highly optimized Chromium option. Of course, we are working closely with the Debian, Gentoo, openSUSE and Ubuntu communities to provide a number of configuration possibilities that will be available or linked from here: Linux installation and support for Efika MX. We have a new kernel that supports both the TO2 and TO3 i.mx51 versions of the Efika MX. It will be released later this week.

R&B

July 06, 2010 2:28

And the money that money makes makes more money.

Benjamin Franklin said all that, though that is probably not the reason he is pictured on the $100 bill, the largest denomination of American currency since 1969 (there once was a $100000 bill). It could be because in addition to his more commonly known contributions to American history he wrote a little book in 1729 titled A Modest Enquiry in to the Nature and Necessity of a Paper-Currency. Ben Franklin also printed money for the Province of Pennsylvania (a colony of British America) from 1731 through 1764 and devised many schemes to prevent counterfeiting.

Money making more money through investment manifests a time value. A dollar received today is more valuable than a dollar received in the future because it can be invested to make more money. The future value of that dollar is the value that it will have after a specific time earning a specific return. Usually, this future value is determined by an interest rate over time. Banks lend money with this precept in mind.

The truth is paper money, like gold and silver (or frozen hogs), has no permanent value. The spot value fluctuates like any other commodity. Dollar, yuan, yen, pound or euro, it is all the same. Money has a value because the government that issues it has declared it legal. In the case of the dollar, legal tender for all debts, public and private. Money functions as a medium of exchange, a store of value and as a way to measure and compare the value of goods and services.

With all this in mind, we think to Ideal Money, the latest announcement from the G20 meeting, World Leaders at Toronto Summit Pledge to Cut Deficits, and the progressively increasing use of the Internet (which is a good thing). It is a whole bunch of stuff, but in few words, we are not leaving any money in the mattress, or in a Bank. We have been investing. We have been investing in a group of people known corporately as Genesi.

Money may make money, but people are the key. We are going to start taking that investment a step further. Here is another wellspring of wisdom from Ben Franklin: an investment in knowledge pays the best interest.

R&B

June 27, 2010 19:37

ARMdevices.net featured an article and interview with Johan Dams at the Freescale Technology Forum currently underway in Orlando, Florida.

Genesi at FTF

Here is the article: Microsoft Word on ARM Powered Laptop using Genesi and Citrix solutions.

Good work, Johan. There is more to come...

R&B

June 24, 2010 0:45

Is that you Efika MX?

We are waiting for you here...

Are you coming soon?

In El Salvador the Efika MX will be sold as mobile phone

Yes, we are. We will be there soon!

R&B

June 19, 2010 13:45

Following up on the last blog, this one is long overdue. While this is not exactly a worldvision it is a great view of Mexico City today.

The weather is nice!

We arrived in Mexico City yesterday and made it to the hotel very quickly. We were surprised. Then, we realized that probably most of the population was watching Germany and Australia play in the World Cup. The World Cup has it followers in the USA, but the anticipation and interest is nothing like what can be found here.

Follow the games: 2010 World Cup

Socially and culturally, we can learn a lot about others through such worldwide events. The Internet is bringing the World Cup to more people than have ever experienced it. Just imagine what an Efika MX with a FIFA logo on it connected to your television set or computer monitor could do...

Finally, we have achieved a Distribution Agreement for the Efika MX SmartTOP and SmartBOOK with Future Electronics. We will announce the full details at the Freescale Technology Forum next week. We will need that sort of distribution partner to achieve a worldvision. Stay tuned!

R&B

June 14, 2010 17:57

The Hercules System/370, ESA/390, and z/Architecture Emulator, an emulator for the aforementioned systems.

Ubunchu, Ubuntu Manga in English, is a manga about Ubuntu. This is great stuff, check it out,

HP Sauce

DRBD, provides a block device for high availability data clusters.

Digital: A Love Story, become an oldschool cracker and learn the story about Digital along the way.

Fritzing, an open source tool for researchers and hobbyists to create PCBs.

Joe’s Blog: An into to modern OpenGL., a brief but great overview of OpenGL’s inner workings.

Taligent’s Guide to Designing Programs, provides a great object-oriented design system.

Miegakure, is a four dimensional in the works. platformer

Pure C++ Options Classes, how to implement optional arguments using pure C++-

USB Performance Monitor, build a performance monitor using the oh so classic VU meters.

June 14, 2010 6:00

The Eurovision Song Contest was hosted in Oslo yesterday. Germany won. Turkey came in second and Romania third. We liked Denmark the most. They came in fourth. There were 39 countries participating, including Israel which does not seem to be European. Eligible participants actually come from the 56 countries that are Active Members of the European Broadcasting Union. The Eurovision Song Contest began in 1956. Ireland has won the Contest the most often (seven times).

It seems you can learn a lot by looking at how countries voted

In the mean time, Germany seems to be also winning and leading more generally. Germany is the largest exporting nation and the largest economy in Europe. Europe is fortunate that Germany is doing so well. This past week Germans passed a 123 billion Euro guarantee plan, despite domestic opposition, which should restore confidence in the Euro, at least for now. But, as European countries debate austerity measures, and strikers take to the streets, the stability of the Euro is being questioned and so are many eurovisions.

Ultimately, a currency is the political manifestation of a system. The Euro is a monetary union know as the Euro Area and includes 16 countries (that number does not include Monaco, San Marino and the Vatican City that use the Euro as their official currencies and actually mint coins). This is not the same as the European Union (27 countries), or the European Economic Area (EU + EFTA - Switzerland), or even The Council of Europe (47 Member States, including Switzerland but not Belarus). Longer term, the likelihood of a strong monetary union without political union seems doubtful.

According to the European Centre for Modern Languages (a Council of Europe agency with 34 member countries) there are estimated to be over 200 indigenous languages in Europe. Understanding one another is a prerequisite for living together harmoniously (from the ECML website). From the top ten finishers in the Eurovision Song Contest only Greece did not sing in English. Given everything happening in Europe today, the Eurovision Song Contest gave us some interesting insight and perspective into the pop culture of a broadly diverse region of the world.

R&B

May 30, 2010 15:14

This part will be rather short and summarize part one by providing a very simple sample using our Luna implementation.
Let’s begin by creating a very simple class which we call Test along with a Lua binding LuaTest which will be the intermediate between C++ and Lua.

#include <iostream>

#include "Luna.hpp"

class Test {
public:
    Test(int x) : m_x(x) { }
    int getValue() const { return m_x; }
private:
    int m_x;
};

The test class is a simple getter that provides a method, getValue, which will return the value set in the constructor.
In order to make this class available from Lua we need to write a binder class which translates to and from C++ and Lua code, called LuaTest for the sake of simplicity.

class LuaTest {
public:
    LUNA_TYPES(LuaTest);

LUNA_TYPES(LuaTest); is a simple macro which injects the class with a couple of placeholder variables used by Luna.

LuaTest(lua_State* l) : m_test(luaL_checknumber(l, 1)) { }
    LuaTest(int x) : m_test(x) { }

We need to set up two constructors, one for Lua and one for C++ which emulates the same functionality as the C++ version. The C++ constructor for LuaTest is pretty straightforward but the Lua version is a bit more tricky.
All Lua calls only take a pointer to the actual Lua state since all values are pushed and pulled onto the stack. in this case we use luaL_checknumber(l, 1). This function call will return the first element on the top of the stack assuming it’s a number otherwise it will trigger an error.

int getValue(lua_State* l) {
    lua_pushnumber(l, static_cast<double>(m_test.getValue()));
    return 1;
}

This time we use lua_pushnumber(l, static_cast<double>(m_test.getValue())); to get the value from the stored Test object instance. Not that all numbers in Lua are in double so we need to cast them when expecting something else.

private:
    Test m_test;
};

LUNA_CLASS(LuaTest, Test, Test) = {
    LUNA_METHOD(LuaTest, getValue),
    {0}
};

The LUNA_CLASS macro is used to register the class along with exposing methods calls, if any, the list has to be terminated with a {0}. The first argument to LUNA_CLASS is the name of the binding class, the second the actual C++ class name and the last the identifier to be used from Lua scripts. This way you can for instance bind a boost class to Lua like: LUNA_CLASS(LuaDate, boost::gregorian::date, Date)

int main(int argc, char** argv)
{
    lua_State* l = lua_open();
    luaL_openlibs(l);
    Luna<LuaTest>::commit(l);
    luaL_dofile(l, argv[1]);
    lua_close(l);
    return 0;
}

We create a very simple main function, compile it and pass it the following Lua code:

print("begin")
test = Test(1)
print("Test=" .. test:getValue())
print("end")

The resulting output is left as an exercise to the reader.

In the next installment I will move on to some more advanced features such as instantiating specific C++ classes from within Lua scripts.

May 23, 2010 17:16

It is people that make companies, not technologies. Over the last eighteen months, we have been working to develop products around the Freescale i.mx51. Being a new chip, there have been a number of revisions. Chip revisions lead to board revisions and countless other implications that compound software development. It has been a challenge to demonstrate in reality what has been promoted in the marketing of the chip. We are pleased to finally be at the point where we can move into mass production.

Sandy and Natalie, our key contacts at Pegatron

During this period, we have also seen change at Pegatron, both corporately and within the staff. Next week, Asustech Computer Inc., more commonly known as ASUS (Public, TPE:2357) will cease to trade on the Taiwan Stock Exchange. This marks the beginning of the end of a process to spin-off Pegatron from ASUS. ASUS will reduce its ownership in Pegatron and Pegatron will become independent. On 23 June the trading suspension in ASUS will be lifted. Hopefully, a short time later the new Pegatron will be trading on the Taiwan Exchange itself.

It seems fitting that in this same period we will finally move into mass production with the Efika MX. Through all the changes, it has been the people that have kept the project on course. Two of our most dedicated and diligent supporters are pictured above. We are grateful for Pegatron's support during this challenging period. We are looking forward to mutual success with the new Pegatron and are very happy we will be working with the same great people.

R&B

May 12, 2010 8:22

I have been working on binding C++ to Lua and found that even though there are some good samples available on the lua-users wiki none of them really offers a complete or clean implementation except for Luabind which requires a lot of Boost components which might be unsuitable for embedded systems. Since I’ve never worked with Lua before this proved to be a good project to learn the rules and inner workings of the language.

If you haven’t worked with Lua before please read chapter 3 of the Lua 5.1 Reference Manual which provides a good introduction to the Lua C API. It’s important to understand that Lua is stack based and you work by pushing and popping values on and off the stack. In this first part I will show how to register a C++ class with Lua so that it can be instantiated and used from within a Lua script. This part is already well covered in LunaWrapper but I will attempt to break it down and explain each part.

Think of a Lua table as a sort of std::map to use C++ jargon. Class definitions in Lua live inside what is known as a metatable. The metatable is a table for which it is possible to modify the behavior of certain operations such as common binary operators and indexing. We need to use the metatable in order to let Lua know how to create and destroy C++ objects as well as binding object instances to method calls.

Enough talking, let’s have a look at some code. I will start out with how to set up the metatable and register your C++ class with it.

lua_newtable(l);
int methods = lua_gettop(l);

Create a new standard table in which we will store our class’ methods and save the index to it. Remember that Lua is stack based and we need to remember the indices of created variables if we need to reference them later. lua_gettop will return the absolute index of the item at the top of the stack, in this case the newly created table.

luaL_newmetatable(l, T::s_className);
int metatable = lua_gettop(l);

Create the metatable for our class and name if after our class (T::s_className).

lua_pushstring(l, T::s_className);
lua_pushvalue(l, methods);
lua_settable(l, LUA_GLOBALSINDEX);

Lua has three types of environments into which you can put values. We will put our our class metatables into the global environment in order to make the type available to all parts of our scripts. You can read about environments in chapter 2.9 of the reference manual.

We push the class name onto the stack followed by the index of our table of methods, which we will fill later. By calling lua_settable we tell Lua to store the method table in the global environment at the key “T::s_className“. In C++-speak this would be equal to having a std::map GLOBALSINDEX and doing GLOBALSINDEX[T::s_className] = methodArray;

lua_pushliteral(l, "__metatable");
lua_pushvalue(l, methods);
lua_settable(l, metatable);

Sets the metatable at the metatable stack index as the metatable of our method table. Meaning that Lua will now look for meta functions in “metatable” when calling methods from our method table.

lua_pushliteral(l, "__index");
lua_pushvalue(l, methods);
lua_settable(l, metatable);

Set up the indexing method of our metatable to get its values from the methods table. This will allow Lua to look for methods in the methods table whenever a call is made to the metatable (the class).

lua_pushliteral(l, "__gc");
lua_pushcfunction(l, gcT);
lua_settable(l, metatable);

Register a garbage collector for the metatable. Here we use lua_pushcfunction to let Lua know that whenever an instance of our class’ goes out of scope the function gcT should be called to clean up the object. This will allow us to execute our objects destructor and avoid any nasty resource leaks.

lua_newtable(l);
int methodTable = lua_gettop(l);
lua_pushliteral(l, "__call");
lua_pushcfunction(l, newT);
lua_pushliteral(l, "new");
lua_pushvalue(l, -2);
lua_settable(l, methods);
lua_settable(l, methodTable);
lua_setmetatable(l, methods);

In order for us to be able to create class instances in Lua we have to let Lua know how to instantiate a class. That is done by registering a C function, newT, which is called whenever someone performs a “function call” using our class name. You would recognize this as T::s_className().

Create a method table methodTable, set the function call to dispatch to the C function newT, which we will define later, and link it to the metatable of our table of methods.

In order to link methods names with the actual methods we need to set up a type to map them. Lets create a struct containing the name and a method type.

typedef int (T::*Method)(lua_State* l);

typedef struct {
    const char* name;
    Method method;
} MethodMap;

Note that we cannot bind our regular C++ classes directly to Lua. We will need an intermediate since it has to be able to marshall data to and from Lua. Since all arguments are marshalled each method call only needs to know which Lua state to push and pop data to. Our method calls will therefore only need a pointer to the Lua state and return the number of values it has pushed onto the stack.

for (MethodMap* m = classMethods; m->name; ++m) {
    lua_pushstring(l, m->name);
    lua_pushlightuserdata(l, reinterpret_cast<void*>(m));
    lua_pushcclosure(l, thunk, 1);
    lua_settable(l, methods);
}

For each method of our class we have to put the method map into the methods table together with a thunk as a C closure so that the object instance of the callee is passed to the method.

lua_pop(l, 2);

Finally pop the methods and class metatable off the stack and we’re done!

Ok, this wasn’t all that hard as long as you understand the stack concept. But we are missing a couple of things, the constructor, destructor and thunk so let’s move on and define them as well.

We need a type to store the pointer to our class instances in. Using Lua-speak we call them user data so we define a struct Userdata for them.

typedef struct { T* pT; } Userdata;

Now we need a “constructor” that creates instances of our objects.

int newT(lua_State* l) {
    lua_remove(l, 1);
    T* obj = new T(l);
    Userdata* ud = reinterpret_cast<Userdata*>(lua_newuserdata(l, sizeof(Userdata)));
    ud->pT = obj;
    luaL_getmetatable(l, T::s_className);
    lua_setmetatable(l, -2);
    return 1;
}

Remove the item at the top of the stack which is the name of the method call, “new“, which we already know since we have linked this specific function to that call. Create a new object of type T followed by a userdata entry in Lua into which we will put the pointer to our object. Get the metatable associated with the class name of T and connect it with our userdata so that Lua will use the data from our class metatable when working with our object instance. Return one to let Lua know that we put one item at the top of the stack, our object instance.

static int gcT(lua_State* l) {
    Userdata* ud = reinterpret_cast<Userdata*>(lua_touserdata(l, 1));
    T* obj = ud->pT;
    delete obj, obj = NULL;
    return 0;
}

This is the garbage collector for our class type. It will fetch the object instance from the top of the stack and call the C++ delete operator on it. Since we didn’t put anything on the stack this function returns zero.

int thunk(lua_State* l) {
    T* obj = reinterpret_cast<Userdata*>(luaL_checkudata(l, 1, T::s_className))->pT;
    lua_remove(l, 1);
    MethodMap* m = reinterpret_cast<MethodMap*>(lua_touserdata(l, lua_upvalueindex(1)));
    return (obj->*(m->method))(l);
}

Those of you who have ever written object-oriented code in a non object-oriented language will know that the first argument to a “method call” usually is a pointer to the object instance and that is the way it is done in Lua as well. We use luaL_checkudata to get the value at the top of the stack and verify that it is of userdata type. This call will actually return NULL if the item at the top of the stack isn’t of userdata type so we should check the return value but in order to cut down the code for the sake of this post I decided to trim out that particular check. lua_remove will remove the specified number of items from the top of the stack, in this case we remove the userdata from the top so that only the method arguments remain when we make the dispatch.

Since thunk is a C closure we can use lua_upvalueindex to get the method map from the methods table and use that to find out which method was being called. We return the result of the method call which again must be the number of items the method has pushed onto the Lua stack.

This concludes the first part of this series. In the next one I will show you how to use this code to register and use a simple C++ class from within a Lua script.

Luna source code, part 1

May 08, 2010 20:43

HOWTO: Run a Virtual Machine at Boot, a guide on how you can set up VMware Fusion to automatically launch virtual machines on bootup without logging in.

iSCSI and ZFS, how to get them to play together on FreeNAS.

Pacman

muLinux, is a Linux distribution for really old PC computers.

Small Kernel Project, aims to develop a Linux kernel with minimal RAM and system requirements. It is mainly intended to run on x86 machines with less than 5MB of RAM.

Ukelele, is a tool to modify the keyboard layout in MacOS X.

Codezero, is a L4 microkernel with hypervisor support.

BeRTOS, a real time operating system for embedded platforms

May 06, 2010 15:16

We believe the key to economic prosperity begins with stability and security. We cannot provide for stability or security, this is the responsibility of government. However, once these essentials are in place the most efficient and productive means of proliferating prosperity is though commerce. Today, commerce is synonymous with the Internet. Computers and the internet have created vast opportunities for people worldwide. We are becoming more connected globally.

We need to acknowledge that access to communication and computing resources has been an engine for economic growth, job creation, and a better way of life. It is enabling entire new industries and unlocking vast new possibilities for existing ones. It is changing how we educate children, deliver health care, manage energy, ensure public safety, engage government, and access, organize and disseminate knowledge.

Our feeling is that when more people can be involved the benefits are compounded. Often, the only barrier is cost. In lowering costs, we are inviting more participation. Our products can be brought to market at significantly less cost without compromising capability or performance. We can also offer other advantages in being based on open source software, as well as having a scalable infrastructure that keeps the costs lower as new ventures begin. We can develop skills and create jobs locally. At the same time, this infrastructure keeps our products virus-free and prevents them from becoming obsolete by insuring the latest software is always installed and available. The goal is to create an economy around opportunity.

The advantages measure up to more than the sum of the parts. This is the beginning of more change.

OK, on to next. Upwards and onwards!

R&B

May 05, 2010 21:26

A gallery of pictures from the Efika MX, Linux Development and Aura Instruction at the Advance Engineering University held at Future Electronics is now online.  We will get the instruction materials online later this week.

In the meantime, Michael Grunditz has posted a video of his 3D GL driver for Qt on the Efika MX. We will be releasing the sources on PowerDeveloper.org. Great work Michael!

Follow the progress: Efika MX Project #779

Finally, we have achieved Distribution Agreements for the Efika MX and Aura with Future Electronics and RobotShop. We will announce the full details at the Freescale Technology Forum in June.

R&B

May 05, 2010 3:05

A day long training course on Linux, Aura and the Efika MX was presented by Genesi at the Future Electronics' Advanced Engineering University which began today in Montreal.

Advanced Engineering University classroom

The reports are in and the training was a success. We will be presenting an abbreviated version of the class at the Freescale Technology Forum in June.

Future VP of Global Freescale Technology,
Brian Hofen opens the day's events

We will post more details, including the course materials and a Gallery later.

R&B

May 02, 2010 11:02

Hello world!

The first release version of Aura is being tested. We will continue to provide Efika MX uboot support, but we are looking forward to Aura's initial release to coincide with the introduction of the mass production version of the Efika MX hardware scheduled for next month.

Aura on the Efika MX and i.mx51 will be presented at the Future Electronics' Advanced Engineering University which will begin later this week in Montreal.

R&B

April 26, 2010 7:16

Johan Dams posted a picture of the GPS tracking package he has developed using the Efika MX smartbook as a base station. Johan has posted this under Efika MX Project #732. The base station, as well as the tracker are powered by a Li-ion phone battery, and charged over USB. USB alone is not enough to power the base station since in some cases the GSM module needs up to 2A - which USB cannot deliver. The tracking software is a Qt application and thus portable to any Qt supported platform.

GPS tracker with Efika MX Smartbook base station

The tracking data does not reside on a third party server, instead, the solution is completely self contained with the added benefit that the user has full control of the potentially sensitive tracking data. Beyond the need for an Internet connection there is no monthly subscription fee. We call that progress. Nice work, Johan!

R&B

April 12, 2010 23:51

We have been awfully busy lately. Sorting through notes made over the last few days we had intended to write something about one of the following topics:

The 18 March 1990 East Germany elections. For the first time in 40 years, East Germans voted in free elections -- real elections with parties and candidates that had real differences about how to move the country forward. 93 percent of eligible voters participated. East Germans voted in favor of unity, which was achieved less than a year after the wall fell, on 3 October 1990. More importantly, by organizing and participating in a real election with real choices, the people of East Germany proved they were ready for democracy and up to the enormous challenge of transforming their country. A unified Germany is the anchor of Europe today and the world's second largest exporter after China.

.-~~-._.-~~-._.-~~-._.-~~-._.-~~-._.-~~-._.-~~-._.-~~-._.-~~-.

VS.

The value of the Chinese Yuan. In the latest squabbling about the value of the China's currency, the US Treasury Secretary made this remark last weekend: "China’s inflexible exchange rate has made it difficult for other emerging market economies to let their currencies appreciate. A move by China to a more market-oriented exchange rate will make an essential contribution to global rebalancing." Thinking about this with the technology business in mind, we had a few thoughts...

• There is a cost of components.
• There is a cost of labor.
• There is a cost of production.
• There is a cost of facility.

So, why would the cost of a finished product be any less expensive in any emerging market if the cost of the components imported from somewhere else is the same? The Chinese are importing components using the same currency that is being called in question. In El Salvador they use the US$. In the mean time, the cost of everything is reported to be rising in China. Are people in El Salvador any less productive than the people of China? Since transportation costs can be added to anything being exported, it seems the importing country would be at a competitive advantage with everything else being equal. We need to investigate this more...

.-~~-._.-~~-._.-~~-._.-~~-._.-~~-._.-~~-._.-~~-._.-~~-._.-~~-.

The iPad and what happens next. Yesterday, Apple announced the first 300,000 iPad users downloaded more than 1 million applications from the App Store and more than 250,000 ebooks from its iBookstore during the first day. That is great! Apple is about digital distribution. The hardware is a means to an end. Eventually, the declining cost of the hardware and the flexibility of open source software championed by companies like Google will unleash even more astounding numbers. Apple's entered the tunnel with a flashlight. We can hear a train coming up from behind them. All your base are belong to us!

R&B

April 06, 2010 7:37

...and after many years.

It has been a long time coming.

R&B

April 01, 2010 1:01

When you work on the forward edge of evolving technology you learn to adapt to both the delay and surge of activity. The puzzle eventually and dramatically comes together. The Freescale i.mx51 has been through a number of revisions. The i.mx53 is coming with 1080p. The good news is we have had good-enough hardware in the hands of talented developers for nearly four months.

The Latest Project Blogs for the Efika MX are beginning to show some interesting progress. Please have a look. We want to send a word of thanks and support to Michael Grunditz (Qt Everywhere port), Konstantinos Margaritis (ARM NEON development) and Stephen Klimaszewski (Gentoo port) for their progress and recent posts on PowerDeveloper.org. Nice work Folks!

R&B

March 26, 2010 4:16

This past Monday, the Federal Communications Commission released a plan to improve broadband Internet service in the USA. The report begins with these sentences:

Broadband is the great infrastructure challenge of the early 21st century. Like electricity a century ago, broadband is a foundation for economic growth, job creation, global competitiveness and a better way of life. It is enabling entire new industries and unlocking vast new possibilities for existing ones. It is changing how we educate children, deliver health care, manage energy, ensure public safety, engage government, and access, organize and disseminate knowledge.

We agree, however, the fact is without the Internet and without a device to access it, broadband itself is just a pipe. The pipe needs to be bigger to support all the wonderful things that the Internet can bring to people. It is the Internet and increasingly less expensive devices that have brought change. The more people that have a device with Internet access the more likely it is that progressively many more wonderful things will happen. This is a worldwide opportunity.

We think these devices can play an important role in this process

Our goal is to achieve the lowest possible net cost for these products. We are leveraging a number of dynamic trends and companies that are changing the business of communications and computing. Intel is still the biggest, but now not the only successful company that makes processors that can address this market. ARM processors developing from the embedded world and in smartphones are becoming increasingly powerful. There are many ARM licensees, including TI, Samsung, Toshiba, Freescale, Qualcomm, Nvidia, Sharp, Marvell, ST Micro and now Apple. The competition between ARM licensees has proven a boon to consumers and much more progress can be expected. Congratulations to ARM Inc. Mobility in the sense of giving people what they want where they want it is driving growth. Energy efficiency and lower cost will also bring ARM devices into the home and the workplace.

In the mean time, open source software is being championed to new levels by companies such as Google. Google competes by marginalizing their competition. Google makes for free or very little, what others sell for a lot. Google will help push the apparent cost of computing-communication devices to ZERO because advertising and the service revenue they are developing will generate the needed profits. Google has to move into the inexpensive hardware business and/or the support thereof to maintain control of its advertising business. This is why Google started the Open Handset Alliance, why Android and Chrome are so important to Google and why Google is selling the Nexus One. Google is pressing ahead with a very powerful hand.

Finally, cloud computing will further accelerate the usefulness of standard devices. Consumers will have more choice. Devices will live longer and be more useful. In lining up all the pieces, we are after a piece of this market which is much, much bigger than anything we have seen. There are billions of people who still have never owned a computer. Those that have used or owned a computer can be attracted by being able to what they have in the past more easily and for less cost. It is a scenario full of opportunity as more people have access to the Internet. It is not hard to say that this business will remain an exciting endeavor for years to come.

R&B

March 17, 2010 5:52

Last week, we received a letter in the mail from Oracle letting us know that the former Sun Microsystems Inc. is now known as Oracle America Inc. Genesi was a supplier to Sun. Genesi is now a supplier to Oracle America Inc.

Coming to an Efika MX near you...
Java FX Graphics acceleration via OpenGLES

What I Couldn't Say… is a new blog from the former CEO of Sun Microsystems, Jonathan Schwartz. Jonathan left Sun last month. The latest post is interesting, but not surprising.

While most of the attention in the ICT market this week has been on looming Apple vs. Google-OHA showdown, we will be waiting to hear about what Jonathan has to say about his last nine months at Sun. The big red guerrilla just got bigger. We will be watching for the other looming showdown, you know, the one between Big Red and Big Blue, also known as IBM.

R&B

March 10, 2010 2:14

Apple took legal action yesterday in the USA against HTC and the Nexus One phone. The Nexus One is being sold by Google. Apple contends that it "has suffered irreparable injury for which there is no adequate remedy at law and will continue to suffer such irreparable injury unless the defendants' infringement is enjoined by the Court." The allegations involve patents for touchscreens, gesture recognition, scrolling, power management, and other technologies. Apple is asking payment of unspecified damages and has requested that the International Trade Commission bar HTC from continuing to import the Nexus One and other phones into the United States.

Is this possible?

One can't stop to wonder what this could mean for other mobile phone suppliers or vendors, or for that matter any Android based device. How about consumers?! It is true that Nokia and Apple are already at it, but this throws Google into the fray. That can't be good for Apple. At some point, it would make more sense to license the design, perhaps not the latest and greatest, but a basic package, including the software, with the qualifier that manufacturers bundle iTunes and the App Store. Creating a lock on digital distribution is more valuable in the long run than the hardware sale, especially now when Apple can sell its own ARM based processor. Selling the chip, licensing the design and software and furthering their success in content distribution and everything else yet to come in the Apps Store seems like a much better long term bet.

R&B

March 04, 2010 12:48

Johan Dams has pulled together an interesting application for the Efika MX: simple fleet tracking. In contrast to most existing offerings with this package the customer stays in control. A monthly subscription is not required. All the data stays with the Efika MX and not on a third party server. Plus, the primary data transfer method is SMS, which works fine even with limited connectivity.

Fleet tracking with Qt on Efika MX

As mentioned last week, Qt Everywhere is a very good framework for deploying light applications. We can see this application being used to keep tabs on more than cars and trucks. Great work Johan!

R&B

February 26, 2010 7:11

Different people will find different things beautiful. Differences of opinion vary greatly. Beauty is subjective, relative, referential. Yesterday, a phenomenal sum was paid for 72 year old comic book that sold originally for 10 cents: It’s a Bird…It’s a Plane…It’s the First Million Dollar Comic Book! Could it be that the buyer overpaid? When bidders make bidding decisions based on estimated values, the winner will often pay more than necessary to win. Viewed another way, the winner has won without measure or regret. The beauty being the harmony achieved between the object and the one who appreciates it, and who now owns it.

Sold for $1,000,000 yesterday at ComicConnect.com

It could be that we are blind to the flaws of our own discernment. As much as the concept of Superman appeals to us, it is easy to imagine better ways to spend a million dollars. Nevertheless, it does not matter what we think. If another is not receptive to your wisdom, it is may not be wisdom. Let's just conclude today with this exclamation: Superduper! The Internet is connecting buyers and sellers on unprecedented levels.

R&B

February 23, 2010 8:24

Awesome C64 visual debugger, ICU64 is a visual debugger for the C64 with live code introspection and break and continue style editing.

Playstation 3 Slim Teardown, it’s the usual teardown of expensive hardware I wish I owned.

Being Tired by David Holm

The diskette that blew Trixter’s mind, a 25 year old hack to make a floppy bootable on two different platforms without flipping it over.

Lua/C++ interface, a simple yet effective Lua C++ wrapper.

The illustrated guide to recovering lost commits with Git, if you ever accidentally made a mistake with Git and don’t feel like doing all your work over again go here for some help.

Opinion: The unspoken truth about managing geeks, how you should be doing it.

Ragel State Machine Compiler, Ragel is a state machine language which will compile your state machine into a number of different languages making it easier to maintain your machines while still being able to use your favorite language.

google-styleguide, contains among other things a C++ lint tool for the Google C++ guidelines.

25 Microchips That Shook the World, yet another trip down memory lane worth taking.

libcpu, is a portable, drop in, CPU emulator library with support for a growing number of architectures. The backend is LLVM but each CPU has its own frontend.

February 22, 2010 6:00

Swedish Developer Michael Grunditz has been awarded a Gold Medal for his olympic effort on Efika MX Project #779: Linux Platform Support and Application Development on Efika MX. Michael will release the code shortly on PowerDeveloper.org. In this case, that means that we have named Michael the first recipient of the PowerProject Award for the i.MX51 Developer Program.

GNOME running on XQt running on Qt Everywhere

Qt Everywhere is a very good framework for deploying light applications. Qt Everywhere is running using the i.MX515 OpenGLES driver. Both native Qt applications and native X applications can be run simultaneously for compatibility. Work is progressing at a good pace. Also of note, Michael has the Citrix client running: Efika MX Project #775. Great work Michael!

R&B

February 18, 2010 11:44

The Efika MX Smartbook shipments have begun...

Efika MX size comparison

We thought we would make a quick picture of the Efika MX Smartbook and the Open Client together. More soon.

R&B

February 15, 2010 10:27