I thought I'd seen this all before with the $100 tablets last year, but then I noticed something that sent my jaw to the floor:
http://en.ingenic.cn/product.aspx?ID=78
That's the manufacturer for the JZ4770 SoC (system-on-a-chip) used in the Novo7. Their page has:
- Product Datasheet (admittedly with only physical/electrical not logical details.)
- Links to Android NDK, Linux toolchain, Linux source, uboot source, sample Linux rootfs for the SoC family.
This is more open development information than almost any other SoC platform used in cheap Android hardware! Admittedly, it all looks a little old but even as an indication of attitude, it's a great sign.
To date, nearly every vendor of these kind of designs has kept this information close to their chest and charges for it - if it's available it's nearly always because of leaks not releases. That's one of the underlying reasons why most of the cheap tablets violate GPL.
Unfortunately, I can't turn up any information about the "vivante gc860" graphics engine - drivers for that will probably be binary blobs (like on nearly every other Android device, at any price point.)
Anyhow, I'm excited that if Ingenic put out sufficient information about this SoC and its features, and if the hardware is "good enough", you might expect to see some interesting other uses & ports in the coming months.
Ah, of course - the JZ4770 is the big sibling of the SoC used in the Ben Nanonote series of "fully open source" mini-netbooks, and the Dingoo A320 gaming handhelds, and the like.
Comments
I thought I'd seen this all before with the $100 tablets last year, but then I noticed something that sent my jaw to the floor: http://en.ingenic.cn/product.aspx?ID=78
That's the manufacturer for the JZ4770 SoC (system-on-a-chip) used in the Novo7. Their page has:
- Product Datasheet (admittedly with only physical/electrical not logical details.)
- Links to Android NDK, Linux toolchain, Linux source, uboot source, sample Linux rootfs for the SoC family.
This is more open development information than almost any other SoC platform used in cheap Android hardware! Admittedly, it all looks a little old but even as an indication of attitude, it's a great sign.
To date, nearly every vendor of these kind of designs has kept this information close to their chest and charges for it - if it's available it's nearly always because of leaks not releases. That's one of the underlying reasons why most of the cheap tablets violate GPL.
Unfortunately, I can't turn up any information about the "vivante gc860" graphics engine - drivers for that will probably be binary blobs (like on nearly every other Android device, at any price point.)
Anyhow, I'm excited that if Ingenic put out sufficient information about this SoC and its features, and if the hardware is "good enough", you might expect to see some interesting other uses & ports in the coming months.
Ah, of course - the JZ4770 is the big sibling of the SoC used in the Ben Nanonote series of "fully open source" mini-netbooks, and the Dingoo A320 gaming handhelds, and the like.