[ale] OT: Android native code

[Scott Plante]

How much was it? I'm not sure they're very useful as general purpose tablets, but it occurs to me that if they're cheap enough, they'd make great special purpose touch screen devices. Maybe as a fixed security entry device or a order taking device in a restaurant or something like that. 

----- Original Message -----

From: "Boris Borisov" <bugyatl at gmail.com> 
To: ale at ale.org 
Sent: Sunday, March 24, 2013 12:18:07 PM 
Subject: [ale] OT: Android native code 

My latest device that I bought from BigLots is cheap tablet 4" with 
moderate specification written on the box but in reality the situation 
is different. As I mentioned in previous post some of the RAM is 
locked so there is only 340 MB available. CPU claims 1 Ghz but 
actually Android uses between 500 and 800 Mhz. Third thing is the SoC 
itself. Is not one of the ARM cores it is MIPS 74Kc something with no 
FPU so there is software FPU running by Linux kernel. I don't mind all 
issues but the latest is little frustrating. I have tried to download 
pocket version of Minecraft game ( Yes I have two kids ) and Android 
warned me " Portion of the game contain native code so it may not run 
at all on this system" . So it does not run :) 

This is not really a question but just thought. Isn't that some kind 
of security issue for Android, running native code, isn't that code 
running outside Dalvik VM. And using native code rejects all other 
platforms but ARM ... 
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