Embedded processor manufacturer MIPS Technologies has released free tools for developing and testing Android applications. These take the form of a distribution of open source processor emulator QEMU aimed at speeding up Android application design on MIPS processor architecture, and the Arriba Java development tool for QEMU, which has been produced as a result of a partnership with Viosoft, the company behind Arriba. These include debugging and profiling technologies and monitoring and analysis modules.

The California-based embedded systems specialist has also added a compiler and GUI to Android's Native Development Kit (NDK) to simplify the mouse-based build process. The NDK is a toolkit comparable with the standard Android Software Development Kit (SDK), which allows Android developers to write parts of their applications in native code languages such as C and C++. With the exception of the Arriba tool, the tools are available free from MIPS' Android community portal – the Arriba tool will be available later this month.

See also:

MIPS joins Android consortium, a report from The H.

(crve)