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Liquidware Announces Android Hardware Development Kit
Based on requests from Android developers and embedded engineers, Liquidware is releasing a software stack and modular hardware platform for rapid prototyping and deployment of Android-based systems.
Canton, MA – October 21, 2010 – Liquidware, a leading embedded engineering firm based in Canton, MA, announced on Tuesday the availability of a Android hardware development platform. The Android Modular Gadget Platform is designed for rapid prototyping Android systems. The gadget platform is designed around 5 main modules, each of which can connect directly to each other to facilitate rapid development. Those modules include an organic LED (OLED) touchscreen, a high performance ARM carrier board, an extended capacity lithium ion battery, USB hub, and wireless G card module. When combined, these modules create a fully networked Android gadget capable of running any and all APK Android app files.
In 2010, Android grew from a small cell phone operating system into the preferred operating system for consumer and industrial design development. Today, thousands of hardware engineers and software developers have made Android their platform of choice for end-user applications.
Google’s own development platform, the Nexus, was launched in 2008, and saw tremendous popularity amongst software developers. Since then, however, few development kits have been developed and launched.
“This presented a major problem for Android development,” said Justin Huynh in an interview on Tuesday. “The current Android devices on the market are designed for software only applications. They’re not designed to integrate into third party sensors, industrial control and automation systems, or medical devices.”
“We built the Android Modular Gadget Platform to cater to rapid prototyping engineers and developers looking for the absolute fastest way to get a product proof-of-concept functional.”
While Android has enjoyed rapid growth and successful adoption in the marketplace, it faces steep competition from Apple’s iPad and iPhone operating system, as well as the newly announced Microsoft Windows 7 Mobile platform. However, Android’s operating system is the only open source system, and therefore developers are choosing it over the proprietary options from Apple and Microsoft due to the availability of lost cost and free compilers and development tool chains.
In the past, consumer gadget development platforms were delivered using closed source, proprietary systems. These cost $1,000-2,000 in software alone, and frequently ran on a limited subset of hardware. The integrated development environment was often error-prone, and buggy, and hardware development took months. Today, open source software tool chains and accessible, modular hardware have reduced out-of-pocket software costs to $100-200, and dropped hardware development timelines from months to weeks.
About Liquidware
Liquidware is one of the fastest growing engineering firms, specializing in high speed, lower power embedded systems product design, rapid prototyping of medical devices, parallel systems, and defense engineering.
Liquidware’s hardware has been used by some of the world’s leading research institutions, consumer product firms, and is deployed in field operations worldwide.
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OMAP and Beagle Board are trademarks of Texas Instruments. ARM is a trademark of ARM Limited. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Editorial Contact for Liquidware
Justin Huynh Liquidware,
Press Manager
(781) 562-0352
justin(dot)huynh(at)liquidware(dot)com
http://www.liquidware.com