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eewiz
Interesting. Cant see the connection between EDA and Android UI design. EDA ...
Warren
This does seem like an unusual offering by Mentor... what I suppose would show ...
Mentor offers UI maker for Android
Peter Clarke
10/14/2010 6:34 AM EDT
LONDON – EDA and embedded software vendor Mentor Graphics Corp. has announced the availability of user interface development kit for the Android operating system comprising graphics and user interface creation tool.
It allows the creation of 2-D and 3-D animated elements. A drag-and-drop tool is used to maneuver images and then the tool generates Java interfaces, integrates code, and creates required files automatically. The process takes minutes, Mentor (Wilsonville, Oregon) said.
The Inflexion Platform UI Express enables a multitude of animations and 3-D effects, such as spinning, zooming, reflections, textures, and per-pixel lighting variations. The UI can be altered without changing the underlying application logic, enabling design components to be easily reused across screens or other products. As a result, Android device designers can retarget their Inflexion-based Java applications for a variety of products in minutes, with different UI "skins" for different end-products without coding.
Mentor has already supplied Inflexion to Funtoro, a member of Micro-Star International group of companies, a maker of infotainment systems for public transportation vehicles.
"Mentor's Inflexion UI for Android quickly morphs the default Android UI to sophisticated and differentiated UIs for specific vendors, products, and applications," said Glenn Perry, general manager, Mentor Graphics Embedded Software Division. "These types of UI customizations are critical for people using Android beyond mobile handsets since it requires tremendous effort without Mentor's comprehensive, vendor-independent technologies and services for new and innovative products."
The Inflexion Platform UI for Android is available now, starting at $39,000 plus per unit royalties, including support for one seat of the UI Express tool. Versions of the Inflexion Platform UI for Nucleus and Linux operating systems are also available.
Related links and articles:
For more information on the Inflexion Platform UI products, visit the website at http://go.mentor.com/ifxandroid.
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selinz
10/14/2010 2:16 PM EDT
This certainly seems to move Mentor into higher level design stuff. At $39K/seat, this is not something for garage shop app programmer.
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Phil.Burr
10/15/2010 11:33 AM EDT
Hi Selinz, we at Mentor offer a range of flexible business models to ensure that Inflexion offers real value for money for our customers. One of the reasons why our customers use Inflexion is that it can save them many man-years of engineering effort, get their product to market much faster, and offer a much more compelling user experience – thus ROI can easily be achieved within the first product.
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Warren
10/18/2010 1:19 AM EDT
This does seem like an unusual offering by Mentor... what I suppose would show up in the 2010 Annual Report as a "New and Emerging Product". The pricing does seem like an obstacle for what I imagine for Android apps but that is probably more my limited imagination than anything else. I like the idea of the name (which I take to be inflexion as in "inflexion point") but I can't get "inflex-ion" out of my head (inflex as in inflexible). That's my problem too I am supposing.
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eewiz
10/20/2010 12:22 PM EDT
Interesting. Cant see the connection between EDA and Android UI design. EDA Market is pretty saturated and EDA companies definitely have to find new markets to play; but should be something in which they can use their existing expertise. May someone should enlighten me why would Mentor be successful in this space.
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