Android and Linux get all rev'd up

By Eric Brown
2009-09-16

Article Rating:

/ 2

Rate This Article:

Add This Article To:

Google's Android team released Android 1.6 ("Donut"), adding CDMA support, QVGA and WVGA resolutions, a Quick Search Box, and a text-to-speech engine, reports eWEEK. Meanwhile, Linux Kernel 2.6.31 has also emerged, adding USB 3.0, performance improvements, and more.

Android 1.6 was released to developers yesterday and will be available on smartphones next month, says the story by eWEEK's Clint Boulton. The Motorola Cliq and HTC Hero are expected to be some of the first phones to run the Donut code, writes Boulton. The last release was Android 1.5, which arrived in April.

Tipped in late July, the Donut release should give Android developers and users plenty of new toys to play with. Key additions to the open source release include new telephony APIs supporting CDMA cellular networks. The support for higher QVGA (320 x 240) and WVGA (800 x 480) resolutions, meanwhile should help expand coverage to non-smartphone Android devices, such as the new, WVGA-display Archos 5 tablet (pictured), which perhaps not so coincidentally, is also shipping today.

Android finds its voice

The new "Pico" text-to-speech engine appears to be aimed primarily at users interested in listening to text messages. This multi-lingual speech synthesis engine enables Android apps to vocalize text strings "with an accent that matches the language," says the Android release page. The engine currently supports English, in both American and British accents, as well as French, Italian, German, and Spanish. The Pico technology can be seen as sort of a flip side to Google's Voice Search technology, which lets Android and Apple iPhone users find search results via voice commands.

The new Quick Search Box offers some of the universal messaging features touted in HTC's Sense and Motorola's MotoBlur UI add-ons to their Android phones, letting users search for contacts and applications across multiple formats using a search widget. Other new UI elements include an integrated gallery app as well as a new camera and camcorder UI (see below), said to offer faster camera click response. In addition, there is a new VPN control panel, a battery usage feature, and accessibility features that make use of sounds, voice, and vibration.

Android 1.6 camera and camcorder UI

Additional new platform technologies include a gesture framework designed to help application developers create, store, load, and recognize gestures and associate them with specific actions. In addition, the release offers an updated OpenCore 2 media engine.

Linux 2.6.31 adds USB 3.0 support

Android 1.6 has moved up to the Linux 2.6.29 kernel, but the latest release, published last week, is Linux 2.6.31. The release is most notable for its support for USB 3.0, otherwise known as "SuperSpeed USB," which boasts performance up to 5Gbps.

The 2.6.31 release is also claimed to run faster, including slightly faster file system reads. Additional enhancements to Linux 2.6.31 are said to include:

Equivalent of FUSE for character devices used for proxying OSS sound to ALSA
Memory management changes that improve interactivity in desktops
Readahead improvements
ATI Radeon mode-setting support
Intel Wireless Multicomm 3200 WiFi support
Performance counter kernel support and userspace tool
Gcov support
Memory checker for uninitialized memory
Memory leak detector
Reimplementation of inotify and dnotify on top of a new filesystem notification infrastructure
Btrfs file-system improvements
IEEE 802.15.4 networking support
IPv4 over Firewire support
"Many new drivers, small improvements and fixes"

Availability

More information on Android 1.6 may be found on this Android Developers page, here.

Clint Boulton's eWEEK story on the release may be found here.

An overview of changes to Linux 2.6.31 may be found here.

Related Stories:

	Discuss Android and Linux get all rev'd up

	Umm, in case you didn't know, Android IS Linux.

	>>> Post your comment now!



	>>> More News Articles >>> More By Eric Brown

Email Article To Friend ♦ Print Version Of Article ♦ PDF Version Of Article

FUEL Database on MontaVista Linux
Whether building a mobile handset, a car navigation system, a package tracking device, or a home entertainment console, developers need capable software systems, including an operating system, development tools, and supporting libraries, to gain maximum benefit from their hardware platform and to meet aggressive time-to-market goals.

Breaking New Ground: The Evolution of Linux Clustering
With a platform comprising a complete Linux distribution, enhanced for clustering, and tailored for HPC, Penguin Computing¿s Scyld Software provides the building blocks for organizations from enterprises to workgroups to deploy, manage, and maintain Linux clusters, regardless of their size.

Data Monitoring with NightStar LX
Unlike ordinary debuggers, NightStar LX doesn¿t leave you stranded in the dark. It¿s more than just a debugger, it¿s a whole suite of integrated diagnostic tools designed for time-critical Linux applications to reduce test time, increase productivity and lower costs. You can debug, monitor, analyze and tune with minimal intrusion, so you see real execution behavior. And that¿s positively illuminating.

Virtualizing Service Provider Networks with Vyatta
This paper highlights Vyatta's unique ability to virtualize networking functions using Vyatta's secure routing software in service provider environments.

High Availability Messaging Solution Using AXIGEN, Heartbeat and DRBD
This white paper discusses a high-availability messaging solution relying on the AXIGEN Mail Server, Heartbeat and DRBD. Solution architecture and implementation, as well as benefits of using AXIGEN for this setup are all presented in detail.

Understanding the Financial Benefits of Open Source
Will open source pay off? Open source is becoming standard within enterprises, often because of cost savings. Find out how much of a financial impact it can have on your organization. Get this methodology and calculator now, compliments of JBoss.

Embedded Hardware and OS Technology Empower PC-Based Platforms
The modern embedded computer is the jack of all trades appearing in many forms.

Data Management for Real-Time Distributed Systems
This paper provides an overview of the network-centric computing model, data distribution services, and distributed data management. It then describes how the SkyBoard integration and synchronization service, coupled with an implementation of the OMG¿s Data Distribution Service (DDS) standard, can be used to create an efficient data distribution, storage, and retrieval system.

7 Advantages of D2D Backup
For decades, tape has been the backup medium of choice. But, now, disk-to-disk (D2D) backup is gaining in favor. Learn why you should make the move in this whitepaper.