J
Jeff Causey
Guest
MediaTek announced today the launch of a new global initiative they are calling MediaTek Labs to provide resources for the development of wearables and “Internet of Things” (IoT) devices. The new project tries to provide support for a variety of groups that may be involved in efforts to create new devices across a wide range of skill levels. According to Marc Naddell, vice president for the new MediaTek Labs, “with the launch of MediaTek Labs we’re opening up a new world of possibilities for everyone — from hobbyists and students through to professional developers and designers — to unleash their creativity and innovation. We believe that the innovation enabled by MediaTek Labs will drive the next wave of consumer gadgets and apps that will connect billions of things and people around the world.”
The heart of the new initiative is MediaTek’s LinkIt development platform. The platform provides an operating system for wearables and IoT that run on a MediaTek Aster chip and also supports MediaTek’s WiFi and GPS chipsets. MediaTek also created a LinkIt Hardware Development Kit to be used for prototyping devices and the LinkIt ONE from Seeed Studio, a third-party development board compatible with the new hardware reference design.
MediaTek is also making a preview release available of the MediaTek SDK for Android so developers can start working on adding support to their code.
You can read the full press release announcing the new MediaTek Labs below:
TAIWAN, Hsinchu — Sept 22, 2014 — MediaTek today launched MediaTek Labs (http://labs.mediatek.com), a global initiative that allows developers of any background or skill level to create wearable and Internet of Things (IoT) devices. The new program provides developers, makers and service providers with software development kits (SDKs), hardware development kits (HDKs), and technical documentation, as well as technical and business support.
“With the launch of MediaTek Labs we’re opening up a new world of possibilities for everyone — from hobbyists and students through to professional developers and designers — to unleash their creativity and innovation,” says Marc Naddell, vice president of MediaTek Labs. “We believe that the innovation enabled by MediaTek Labs will drive the next wave of consumer gadgets and apps that will connect billions of things and people around the world.”
The Labs developer program also features the LinkIt™ Development Platform, which is based on the MediaTek Aster (MT2502) chipset. The LinkIt development Platform is the one of the best connected platforms, offering excellent integration for the package size and doing away with the need for additional connectivity hardware. LinkIt makes creating prototype wearable and IoT devices easy and cost effective by leveraging MediaTek’s proven reference design development model. The LinkIt platform consists of the following components:
System-on-Chip (SoC) — MediaTek Aster (MT2502), the world’s smallest commercial SoC for Wearables, and companion Wi-Fi (MT5931) and GPS (MT3332) chipsets offering powerful, battery efficient technology.
LinkIt OS — an advanced yet compact operating system that enables control software and takes full advantage of the features of the Aster SoC, companion chipsets, and a wide range of sensors and peripheral hardware.
Hardware Development Kit (HDK) — Launching first with LinkIt ONE, a co-design project with Seeed Studio, the HDK will make it easy to add sensors, peripherals, and Arduino Shields to LinkIt ONE and create fully featured device prototypes.
Software Development Kit (SDK) — Makers can easily migrate existing Arduino code to LinkIt ONE using the APIs provided. In addition, they get a range of APIs to make use of the LinkIt communication features: GSM, GPRS, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi.
To ensure developers can make the most of the LinkIt offering, the MediaTek Labs website includes a range of additional services, including:
Comprehensive business and technology overviews
A Solutions Catalog where developers can share information on their devices, applications, and services and become accessible for matchmaking to MediaTek’s customers and partners
Support services, including comprehensive FAQ, discussion forums that are monitored by MediaTek technical experts, and — for developers with solutions under development in the Solutions Catalog — free technical support.
“While makers still use their traditional industrial components for new connected IoT devices, with the LinkIt ONE hardware kit as part of MediaTek LinkIt Developer Platform, we’re excited to help Makers bring prototypes to market faster and more easily,” says Eric Pan, founder and chief executive officer of Seeed Studio.
Makers, designers and developers can sign up to MediaTek Labs today and download the full range of tools and documentation at http://labs.mediatek.com.
###
About MediaTek Inc.
MediaTek is a pioneering fabless semiconductor company, and a market leader in cutting-edge systems on a chip for wireless communications and connectivity, HDTV, DVD and Blu-ray. MediaTek created the world’s first octa-core smartphone platform with LTE and our CorePilot™ technology releasing the full power of multi-core mobile processors. Through MediaTek Labs™, the company is creating a worldwide ecosystem in support of device creation, application development and services based around MediaTek offerings. With an emphasis on enabling technology for the masses and not the chosen, everyone can be an Everyday Genius. MediaTek [TSE:2454] is headquartered in Taiwan and has offices worldwide. Please visit www.mediatek.com for more information.
Come comment on this article: MediaTek Labs launched to support development of wearables and other devices
Visit TalkAndroid for Android news, Android guides, and much more!
News via TalkAndroid