MediaTek Continues Steps Towards Being Developer-Friendly

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Not too long ago MediaTek was very closed off towards the mobile developer community, especially sites like XDA. They saw no value in working with independent developers who live, breathe and sleep mobile. That has begun to change as of late, and MediaTek is even sponsoring xda:devcon ’14 in Manchester, UK on Sept 26-28. They also recently partnered with Google on the Android One project and are continuing to submit kernel source code to the upstream projects with Google.

One of their recent initiatives has been to embrace the Maker community and plunge headlong into Internet of Things through their MediaTek Labs which is officially launching today. This new program is geared towards developers from across the spectrum to begin to explore IoT and wearables and hopefully integrate them into their daily lives. Marc Naddell, VP of MediaTek Labs said of their new initiative:

“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.”

Their new initiative also features their LinkIt Development Platform, a reference platform based on the MediaTek Aster (MT2502) chipset. With this new platform, anyone can create wearable and IoT devices easily and with minimal expense. The platform is controlled by LinkIt OS, a new operating system based on Nucleus, and the device functionality itself may be implemented in C/C++ with the variety of APIs provided by MTK for the Aster platform. In addition MediaTek has also provided LinkIt SDK (for Arduino) which allows those familiar with the Arduino platform to integrate their ideas.

With their HW Dev Kit they are making the Hardware Reference Design free to use and alter, and it includes the PCB layout and board schematics, pin-out diagram, Aster GPIO table, and the Aster, Wi-Fi and GPS chipset datasheets. Through a partnership with Seeed Studios, MediaTek is making available their LinkIt ONE device for purchase with all the tools necessary to jumpstart your project.

For more information, and to read the full announcement from MediaTek, visit the MediaTek Labs website. Through a partnership with You can also visit our LinkIt ONE forum to discuss the platform and begin sharing the things you are creating.

We are extremely excited to see MediaTek continue to open up as a company, but we will continue to call on them to honor their usage of the Linux Kernel (and the GPLv2 licensing it requires). We know it doesn’t happen overnight, and so we will be the voice of support for them and engage them in a continual effort to support the community.