I am writing this at the Microsoft Windows CE Compact 7 one day seminar on Intelligent Systems. One caveat as you read this, you are going to find that there is really no continuity in this blog entry because I am writing this as it happens.
A definition of Intelligent Systems…
An intelligent system collects huge amount of data and uses the cloud and local networks to chomp on the data and provide solutions. An intelligent system provides an infrastructure and uses an infrastructure to deliver.
Intelligent Systems use:
- Analytics
- User Experience
- Manageability
- Connectivity
- Security
- Identity
I have been seeing what Microsoft is pushing and more recently the discussion has moved to the Identity and Security requirements for an intelligent system. This is the fundamental infrastructure required/desired for/from a connected device.
- Windows Embedded Thin Client
- Windows Embedded Handheld
- Windows Embedded Automotive
- Windows Embedded Enterprose
- Windows Embedded POS Ready
Focused verticals…
- Retail – Rugged handheld/Inforamtion Kiosk/Digital Signage
- Industrial Automation – Front panels, Rigged handheld, PLC’s
- Health – Ultrasound/McKesson Anesthesia/Tablets/Handheld
- Auto – Kia UVO, Nissann Leaf, Microsoft Sync (Fiat EcoDrive), Ford, Panasonic, Clarion primarily Infotainment
Something I especially liked about the presentations…their ability to poke fun at themselves, and celebrating their spectacular failures.
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I got to meet one of my gurus of years ago. Doug Boling. A while ago when I was doing Windows based device drivers and windows CE (as far back as 14 years ago) he was one of the most important writers in the field.
While I have been focused on stuff closer to the metal he took the discussion to a different level…silverlight. He also discussed Managed code vs Native code.
I am seeing a common theme across applications development whether it is for Windows, Windows CE, iOS, MAC (not yet on linux) of a Model View Controller approach. Where you implement your business logic or the meat of the application in the Model, and have a separate view that can display stuff that is being worked on by the model, and the work of sending the data between the two (model and view) is handled by the controller. The interesting part is that give a different controller the same model and view work the same. This also brings us to distributed applications where the model is far away and all we have is the view. The second thing that I am seeing a lot is the use of theme’s, even in applications. So you select a template (visually) to develop your application, and changes to the template changes your app. 15 years ago that was called “literate programming”. What does this mean, it really means that the IDE is a big piece of your application development (because you need to manage the template, and the IDE will have the brains for it). As I watch the integration of SilverLight and Platform Builder I am reminded (nostalgically) about Borland Delphi that I used to use 16 years ago, which had the means for me to work with events and add code for specific events and have the IDE manage it. Has technology actually progressed?
The demo that Doug showed was on a Phytec OMAP4 Module based board. Hmm interesting, who does the wince for that? Adeneo? Btw some of the graphics transforms…looked like 2D acceleration was not enabled on it (or was it silverlight 
).
There was also an interesting take on the availability of target hardware for the application testing. Most application development needs some sort of simulation available to be able to test without hardware, but there will always be a difference in the speed of the simulator and how the actual device will run. So test on target hardware as quickly as possible, and test on a target development board before your end target hardware is available.
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Toradex gave some introduction to their SoDimm based modules that are available. They have parts for PXA etc. They also provide Windows CE for it. What is good about it is a common connector, but I am not sure that is really a great idea. I have seen the similar approach from Phytech and while it will work for prototype I am not sure if a customer would like to deploy a device with this. This is a personal opinion. I would like to hear more if somebody thinks another way. Given this approach and the one by LogicPD I would go with the one from Logic PD.
The concept of a carrier board is nice, and the connector for a sodimm is pretty standard and low cost. I would prefer something that had a better mechanical mating, and was not so easy to take out. Their module was based on an nVidia platform Tegra 2, dual core Cortex A9.
Their first demo was for an instant boot. Typical boot time for a Windows CE is 12 seconds on their device. This goes all they way to the application shell. Saving 40 to 2000ms wherever possible. They have a boot that comes up in 480ms!!! Got to hold and boot it myself…really awesome. And makes a significant impact.
They have a tegra T30 quad core based board available too. The Tegra 2 module is $150. WinCE is included on the module. Source code is separately available and is paid.
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Windows embedded compact roadmap
Compact is focused around ARM and x86 and real time performance. Key platform for sensors to servers vision. ARMv7 support came in with compact 7. SMP Support for x86 and ARM.
v.Next (Canby) is due in Q1 2013. This is going to link to Visual Studio 11 as the development platform. This means that betas are going to be available in Q3. Slowly bringing the price of development tools down. 2 second OS boot.Default BSP for TI etc is available. 15 years availability for software. Planned differences…
- They will be taking out anything below ARMv6T2.
- They will be losing binary
- Will be dropping the MIPS platform.
- Going to static libraries
- Reduce OS size (remove some codecs)
- removing some multimedia (DLNA??)
- Removing Media Play, OCX, FTP Print RAS Telnet, VBScript, Dial u networking)
More at unlockintelligence.com
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Phytech – OMAP4 WinCE Presentation
introduction on the OMAP4 and OMAP5 platforms. And the fact that there is a plan around v.Next for it. New info was that EVE is a big part of OMAP5. But WinCE for the OMAP4430 is available only through Adeneo (who we know well).
I really would like to get an idea of the differences between the video graphics standards. DirectX 10, 11…OpenGL ES, shaders. I am losing track on whether it is a hardware standard or a software standard.
The phycore board is based on a module that plugs in (with a high density samtec connector). The WinCE BSP is available freely, buy kit, SLA and the BSP is free. Module is smaller than a credit card. 1GDDR, 1Gnand. The SOM itself took tham 5-6months to do. Approx $100 per SOM.
They are doing an AM335 module. That supports dual ethernet.
Phytech does hardware and software design. They will build custom carrier boards for their module. The customer demo that they showed helps with 3k to 5k units.
An interesting example that she gave was “Precision Agriculture”. This is what companies like Hemisphere GPS are doing (Phoenix based). They are controlling automated systems for fertilizing, harvesting etc. (Real time Kinematic positioning). They use network base station that provides an additional AGPS transmitter. This helps keep the accuracy local and should override the vagaries of an online GPS system. There is a Variable Rate Technology bit that was really interesting. There is a data collection going on about the information on the Soil texture, weeds, Plant health moisture, and that data is fed back to a server that comes back with a prescription of the way that a field needs to be prepared. This will take data from other sattelites too which have information on the topology coming as a satelite. The VRT sprayer treat the field accordingly.
The next demo was on Intelligent lighting control. This could be to control building lights for a city light type of project (show a picture on a building). There could be a individual level control system with cell phones being the switch and the trigger (walk into a room, and your cell phone lights stuff up), this can also be to control HVAC. Thic can be WiFi that will talk to a server that is doing monitoring and analysis. It uses USB or CAN to go into a sensor and control server that will track the data and provide the control. Sensors are controlled over DALI (protocol).
The next was a medical customer for skin rejuvenation (even tatoo removal). One thing I noticed in all the presentations is that WinCE supports FDA approved devices.
The next was a test and measurement device for DeltaX. This is WinCE that is migrating to WinCE 7.
The key that she stressed on. Design longevity, 15 year software availability and support, stable tools.
They are doing a design based on the AM3359 ($99) module. They have a DM8148 design that is coming up in Q32012.
They have in-house manufacturing facilities.
Their overall kit price is $599 and incldues the WinCE 7 BSP included. LCD is extra. The SLA that is to be signed for Windows CE is what TI asks people to sign. They will give us a 90 day loaner if we want to play with this.
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Applications for Intelligent Devices
This discussion started out as a discussion on the evolution of the devices. Especially since we have seen these changes over a very short period of time, less than 10 years.
The discussion was an introduction to the different development tools that are available for platform builder and how you will go out developing/porting a windows ce image. He also went through a development of an application and how the SDK is different from
The demo that he went through was a complete step by step target device based OS design. This was really interesting to see as it want from the ground up all the way to booting the device. Definitely there will be changes that are needed but it was a really good display of the setup that is available to be able to design a device. Steps…
- Select a name
- Select a BSP
- Select a design template, medical, custom, enterprise, small footprint, silverlight (he chose network projector)
- Select build
- And build it (it includes KITL etc and there was a complete ethernet based control of the device)
Because KITL was setup the entire debug setup was able to download new kernel images etc to the device.
This presentation added more meat to my hypothesis on how much the IDE is becoming (or always has been) a key item in the application/product development lifecycle. This also got pretty detailed and he went into the details of the remote development tools that are available. The fact that he was able to demonstrate so much in the presentation was cool.
The last presentation in this talk was on deploying a device that supports managed code. And this was an interesting contrast to the previous session on SilverLight. And this one explored some more the remote display connectivity features. The image of the device came up on the display of the computer that he was working on and he did not need to switch the projector to shwo what was going on. This was not only demonstrating the managed code, but the fact that the whole system can be run remotely over the network. Nice.
Over the remote connection he also demonstrated how to inject a breakpoint on the target device and the see it stopping the device.
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i.MX freescale windows CE. This was done by i.MX FAE Chris Weber and Rajesh Kakde of Adeneo. Adeneo has done a lot of the work in supporting WinCE on the i.MX. I know Raj and Vijay of Adeneo well.
No 1 in eBook. Tablets in China. Ford Sync has the i.MX 53. Phytec has an i.MX quad SOM device.
Adeneo has 6MVP’s, and have 30 MCP engineers in Seattle + 30 MCP’s in France.
Areas of business. Design Review, End to End Design, BSP Customisation, Testing, Support and Training.
Markets – Automotive, Building Automation, Industrial, Medical (insulin pump, bed monitoring systems), Retail, Consumer.
They had a demo on how to use the 4 cores on the i.MX to implement a 4 core example it took 5.6 seconds. He also ran it with one core, and it took a lot longer 22seconds. Multi core is fairly new to the embedded side and it would be interesting to see how this can be implemented.
BSP’s are in BETA for the i.MX but for select customers.
Three product launches planned for i.MX this year in the i.MX 6 families.
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All in all the sessions were good. I did not get to sleep . The other discussions with other people at the event were really interesting. The amount of networking devices that are in development is good to see. There is a lot of opportunity in this space.
Samyeer Metrani 