Via Debuts New Android Box For Digital Signage

September 18, 2014 by Dave Haynes

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The Taiwanese chip and PC maker Via has debuted a new Android box tuned to digital signage, interactive kiosks and home automation devices.

The VIA ARTiGO A900 has a 1.0GHz dual core VIA Elite E1000 Cortex-A9 SoC with a high-performance 2D/3D graphics and video engine that supports Open GL ES 3.0 hardware acceleration and simultaneous multiple HD video playback.

“The VIA ARTiGO A900 takes the headache out of creating innovative embedded Android solutions for a wide variety of fast-emerging IoT and M2M scenarios that require advanced multimedia performance and versatile connectivity options,” says Epan Wu, Head of the VIA Embedded Platform Division, VIA Technologies, Inc. “By providing a fully-integrated system that can be easily customized to meet the exact requirements of the target application, it not only significantly reduces development costs but also speeds up time to market.” 

The unit runs Android 4.3 (I’ve heard a few times now that 4.4 or Kit Kat is the Android version that is genuinely stable for signage). It has  VIA Smart ETK comprising a number of APIs, including Watchdog Timer (WDT) for safeguarding against system crashes, GPIO access, COM port access, RTC for auto-power on, and a sample app. A full set of software customization services that speed up time to market and minimize development costs is also available.

The VIA ARTiGO A900 is available now. Samples of the system can be purchased online at the VIA Embedded Store at a price of US$350 plus shipping. Please visit here to order: http://www.viaembeddedstore.com/systems/arm-systems/artigo-a900.html (Cake not included)

Product details are here …

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