Analysis
Renesas Mobile and Nomovok Show the First MeeGo Implementation on a Renesas Mobile Application Processor at Mobile World Congress 2011
Renesas Mobile Corporation and Nomovok Ltd. will showcase at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2011 the first MeeGo 1.1 implementation on Renesas Mobile’s mobile application processor, the SH-Mobile APE4. The demonstration by Nomovok can be viewed at the Nokia Qt stand in Hall 1 during the show.
The demonstration shows the power of the MeeGo platform with Qt Quick (see Note 3) and its scalability and performance on multiple target hardware types. Building custom user experiences with Qt Quick makes it possible to tailor MeeGo to different target devices and customer needs. The Renesas Mobile family of application processors provides incredible graphics and multi-media performance to form the basis of unrivalled connected experiences when running MeeGo and combined with the company’s multi-mode platform.
“Nomovok SteelRat is a UX (see Note 4) concept demo, running on the latest MeeGo OS and QML Scene Graph (see Note 5)”, said Kaj Grönholm, Nomovok Chief Software Architect. “Built with Qt Quick, this SoC platform combines the productivity of QML language with the performance and graphical freedom of OpenGL shaders. The demo includes a fluid desktop with widgets and a set of applications such as browser, games, notes, calculator etc.”
”Qt Lighthouse (see Note 6) makes porting the Qt graphics stack into non-X11 (see Note 7) platforms much easier than before”, said Hideto Kobayashi, Project Manager at Nomovok. “Lighthouse changes have now been integrated into the Qt master branch (see Note 8), which made it easy for us to support Renesas Mobile’s BSP, including Imagination Technologies’ POWERVR SGX540 driver, and to achieve good performance using hardware accelerated graphics.
”Partnering with Nomovok allows Renesas Mobile to exploit our Linux assets and heritage by bringing them to the open source community in support of emerging mobile OS’s like MeeGo”, said Manfred Schlett, Vice President, Sales and Marketing Division, Renesas Mobile Corporation. “Renesas Mobile has a flexible and open approach to the OS with our application processors and platforms, which also include support for SymbianTM and AndroidTM in commercial products.”
ote 1) SteelRat is the name of Nomovok’s demonstration and it presents the types of user interfaces and animations that can be implemented using Qt Quick on top of QML Scene Graph.
Note 2) OpenGL ES is a subset of the OpenGL 3D graphics API designed for embedded devices such as mobile phones, PDAs, and video game consoles.
Note 3) Qt Quick is the marketing name for a platform to build attractive Qt applications quickly. Qt Quick includes the QML language and the Nokia Qt SDK with Qt Creator IDE.
Note 4) UX stands for User eXperience.
Note 5) QML Scene Graph is the future backend for running QML. The current QML backend is built on top of QGraphicsView and has limitations when it comes to OpenGL hardware acceleration. QML Scene Graph solves these and makes it possible to use OpenGL shaders for graphical effects. Please visit http://labs.qt.nokia.com/2010/05/18/a-qt-scenegraph/ for more information.
Note 6) Qt Lighthouse is a name for work that Nokia/Qt has done to improve the separation of modules in the Qt graphics stack. This was done to make it easier to port Qt onto different platforms. Currently Lighthouse work is being integrated into the main Qt branch. Please visit
http://labs.qt.nokia.com/2010/04/06/remodelling-the-lighthouse/ for more information.
Note 7) X11 is the standard for drawing GUIs, widely used in Linux.
Note 8) Qt master branch is the most up-to-date version of Qt where the main development for the next Qt version is undertaken.