Few days back Samsung announced that come 2015 , all the Smart TVs of Samsung will be powered by an Operating System called “Tizen”. The company announced that it will be bringing up a platform which is suitable for tomorrow’s connected world. Tizen has been build keeping in mind the way society consumes entertainment from multiple devices. Tizen is designed to deliver an integrated entertainment experience that is at once streamlined and powerful.
The Tizen powered devices would empower the connected world, these devices would be able to search and identify near by devices and would be able to establish connection with them , thus allowing easy sharing of content .
What is Tizen:
Tizen is a flexible and open Operating System built from the ground to cater the needs of IOT ecosystem. Tizen was developed by a community of developers and is open for all to participate and contribute
Tizen has been built to support multiple industries and support a vast variety of devices, thus making connected world a feasible possibility. Tizen comes in various profiles to support the devices coming from different industries. Some of the common Tizen profiles which are available for customization are:
- Tizen IVI (in-vehicle infotainment),
- Tizen Mobile,
- Tizen TV
- Tizen Wearable
The customization feature of these profiles help the vendors to modify the underlying platform as per their device memory, processing power and other hardware specifications also it gives them power to develop devices which can match the customer needs without bothering on the OS requirements.
For developers Tizen provides support for both native and web based development by providing a consummate support for HTML5. As Tizen supports a plethora of devices , it gives the developers the immense power to create apps in a simple way without worrying about the specifications of hardware .
Tizen Architecture:
Application Framework: This provides application management using. It is also responsible for launching system services like the dialer app. The Application Framework also notifies applications of common events like low memory, low battery, changes in orientation etc. Database and settings support is also taken care by this framework.
Graphics and UI : Graphics and UI consist of the system graphic and UI stacks, which includes EFL (Enlightenment Foundation Libraries), an X11-based window management system, input methods, and OpenGL* ES.
EFL, the heart of the Graphics component, is a suite of libraries. EFL is used to create rich graphics with ease, for all UI resolutions. The libraries build UIs in layers, allowing for 3D transformations and more. EFL includes the Evas canvas API library and the elementary widget library.
Multimedia: Tizen’s Multimedia services are based on GStreamer and provides support for video, audio ,imaging and VoIP. Pulseaudio based audio server functionality is also present
Web: This includes a version of Webkit , a layouting engine, for rendering of web pages. Also it provides a complete implementation of Tizen Web API which is customized for a vied variety of devices. The component is also responsible for providing a web runtime for web applications.
Messaging: This is the component from where all the message management is done. This component provides support for SMS, IM, Email and Multi Media Messages.
Location: This provides Location Based Services and is based on GeoClue. Thus enabling location tracking from multiple sources like GPS, Wifi Positioning System , Cell Id and other sensors.
Security: It’s responsible for ensuring security across the system and supports features like access control, certificate management, secure app distribution. Also Simplified Mandatory Access Control Kernel (SMACK) is a key ingredient in Tizen security.
System: It takes care of all the system and device management features , it provides an interface to various connected devise, hardware or sensors etc. Another feature which is handles at this component is the power management like controlling the display brightness and when to trigger a sleep. It also handles various device handling events like USB , charger ear jack events , Alarm/ time management. The system upgrade and package management is also handled by it.
Base: It contains linux base essential system libraries. The base is a self sufficient unit and with it one can boot to console. Base also provides support for database, internationalization and XML Parsing
Connectivity: This component takes care of all the connectivity related functionalities like Wifi, 3G, Bluetooth, NFC, HTTP.
Telephony: It provides support for all cellular related functionalities like:
- Call and Non Call related information management
- Services for UMTS and CDMA
- SMS related services
- Management of SIM , Phonebook and Security
- Management of SIM application toolkit
PIM: PIM stands for Personal Information Management and helps in managing user data on device like management of calendar, contacts , tasks etc.
References:
- Tizen Architecture Overview by Sunil Saxena (https://www.tizen.org/sites/default/files/tizen-architecture-linuxcollab.pdf)
- https://www.tizen.org/
For experiencing and discussing Tizen based Mobile apps or other Internet of Things Projects please do reach us(Recrosoft Technologies Pvt. Ltd. ) at http://www.recrosoft.com
