Media Type

Here is a shell script that should run on any system with Python but I only tried it on Mac. It will lookup the QNX documentation for any library call you pass in on the command line.

This is how you use it:

  qnxhelp printf

And it will then open up a web browser with the docs for 6.4.1′s library page for printf.

Here is the script code for qnxhelp:

#!/usr/bin/env python
import os, string, sys, webbrowser
if (len(sys.argv) != 2):
    print "Usage:  %s <command to lookup>" %(sys.argv[0])

else:
    word = sys.argv[1]
    char = word[:1]
    location = "http://www.qnx.com/developers/docs/6.4.1/neutrino/lib_ref/%s/%s.html" % (string.lower(char), string.lower(word))    webbrowser.open(location)

Pretty excited about the acquisition of QNX by RIM. I think that together there will be a lot of synergy going forward.

OSNews had a great article that is worth a read: http://www.osnews.com/story/23134/Research_In_Motion_Buys_QNX_Software

I wrote a script that will take the output of ‘pidin fd’ and generate a graphviz dot graph showing the dependencies at that point that each process has on others. Here is a sample output from a QNX Car M5 running on vmware:

If you want to generate your own graph from your system you can do that from this page:
http://dan.hld.ca/pidingraph.py

Here is a video showing something we’ve been working on at QNX.

I put together this video so that you can see what our QNX Car reference platform looks like. This runs on QNX Neutrino and uses QNX Multimedia for the video and Flash Lite for the UI.

If you want to try it join the QNX Car project and download the VMWare image.

Our team has finished Aviage MM 1.2. Its got some excellent features and new platforms that it supports. Notably:

• DVD-V playback
• Video file playback
• Microsoft Zune support
• Significant improvements to Album Art support
• Significant improvements to metadata synchronization speeds
• Additional playlists supported
• Faster startup, much less memory used
• RTP & HTTP streaming
• TI OMAP3 Codec Engine (audio decoders)
• Intel Performance Primitives codecs

There are lots of other improvements also. We’ve been busy this past 6 months!

You can find more information about it here:
http://www.qnx.com/products/middleware/multimedia.html

This project is developed openly on the foundry27 site where you can get source code and daily builds. If you’re looking to try it out you can do that for free with one of those daily builds on top of QNX Momentics 6.4.0 or 6.4.1(soon to be released).

The multimedia project I work on at QNX is now available on foundry27. Foundry27 is QNX’s development portal where you can find software projects actively being developed.

On the foundry27 site for multimedia you can get source code, documentation, forums and other great resources. The source code is the latest and greatest, updated every night at 2am and right after that a binary nightly build is available. If you want to build the source, make sure to check our the source guide wiki page that describes the straight forward process.

We put together a QNX video a while ago where I walk through at a high level what each of the components are. Here it is:

QNX RTOS and multimedia are helping to drive this new infotainment system provided in the latest Audi’s.

Audi turns to Nvidia for 3D navigation: “

Audis new navigation system includes 3D textured buildings.

(Credit: Audi)

Audi’s new Q5 sports navigation graphics empowered by chip maker Nvidia, along with a radically updated dashboard interface, which Audi calls the Multimedia Interface, or MMI. Integrated into the new navigation system is an automotive grade Nvidia …

“

(Via Car Tech: An automotive blog from CNET.)

QNX is at convergence this year with a great demo. Some great things from a multimedia perspective that we’re showing at this demo:

* Zune playback
* iPod 1-wire playback
* USB Mass storage playback
* Youtube
* Video games
* Multinode: you can plug in an iPod in the front, and listen to it in the back seat using headphones
* From you LCD panel dash cluster you can see what song you’re playing, and its artwork

I think this demonstrates a well “connected” car. You’ve got the devices, you’ve got the internet, and you’ve got several happy networked users!

Here is a photo of the booth:


There are more photos of this on [Paul Leroux's blog](http://onqpl.blogspot.com/2008/10/report-from-convergence.html “On Q: Report from Convergence”).

There are lots of other advanced features that it shows as well such as voice integration, hands free support for bluetooth phones. I hope a few of you have a chance to see it.

Cars are getting to be pretty advanced and feature rich. [CNET has an article that talks about how iPods are integrated into more than half of 2009 models](http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13746_7-10064887-48.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=TheCarTechblog “Raising the bar: iPod integration in more than half of 2009 models | Car Tech: An automotive blog from CNET – CNET Reviews”). QNX likely has contributed a large portion to many of these models. Its satisfying to see your work end up in real-world product.

[The article](http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13746_7-10064887-48.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=TheCarTechblog “Raising the bar: iPod integration in more than half of 2009 models | Car Tech: An automotive blog from CNET – CNET Reviews”) also has some interesting stats on hard drives and bluetooth integration in cars. The head units in cars these days are as powerful as many desktop computers and have even more peripherals.

Now unfortunately, the one thing the article has completely wrong is that “Microsoft Automotive Platform … offers the most universal integration”. If I were to compare MS Auto to QNX Car, I’d like to point out:

* CD’s are not dead. MS Auto currently doesn’t do CDs, or CD Changers. QNX is shipping in many cars today with that feature. We also support MP3-CD’s
* Ripping CDs, or USB Sticks. QNX’s MME manages all this for you so that when you ask to rip a CD or list of USB tracks to your hard drive it will do that as fast as possible without interrupting your playback. And if you power off your car, it’ll continue where it left off.
* Embedded hard drive support: without ripping, do you support a hard drive?
* Internet Radio integration.. how connected are you without the internet?
* QNX Car also has the same “most universal integration” features that MS has: USB Mass Storage, iPod, PlaysForSure, Zune, Bluetooth.
* QNX Car is shipping in many other makes than Ford. In fact the last stat I heard is that it is in over 40% of the 2009 models! I should talk to marketing to get a completely accurate number.

As usual, Microsoft has lots of dollars to spend on advertising, but the real question is how good is their product? QNX has always been quality driven, and therefore is chosen to run space equipment, nuclear power plants, and the fancy features in your car.