Category: Opinions

Chromecastcast.com Episode 3 – Chromecast in Europe

Posted by Charbax – August 1, 2013
Category: HDMI Sticks, Exclusive videos, Opinions, Marvell, Google, Android, Chrome OS

I’m on the http://Chromecastcast.com Episode 3 with +Paul Terry Walhus, +Jennifer Ruggiero, +Brad Chasenore from the TechWebcast Australia, +Daniel N. and +Jacob Jones

Thanks +Daniel Lietzan for sending me a Chromecast so I’m one of the first in Europe to be testing one! In this episode we talk about all the latest news around the Google Chromecast, Google’s “simplified Chrome OS” Powered HDMI Stick!

If you want to skip to some of my long ramblings:
10:19 Google Drive Unlimited Store Torrented movies, TV shows, Music for free
18:50 Showing off all my HDMI Sticks to compare

Chromecastcast.com Episode 2

Posted by Charbax – July 27, 2013
Category: HDMI Sticks, Exclusive videos, Opinions, Marvell, Android, Chrome OS

It was broadcast live here:

Watch me talk about the $35 Google Chromecast HDMI Stick Chromestick on a Hangout for Chromecastcast.com

Posted by Charbax – July 25, 2013
Category: HDMI Sticks, Opinions, Google, Android, Chrome OS

You can watch these 49 minutes of me being interviewed by Paul Terry Walhus in a Hangout On Air for his new blog that’s going to be at http://chromecastcast.com (not yet launched) where I talk about what I think the Google Chromecast is, which ARM Powered hardware I expect it to have (I thought maybe Rockchip but it’s Marvell), how it may be unlocked for a Chromebox mode (Micro-USB Host to Hub/Ethernet/RF), how this Chrome OS device may support the Chrome browser, Android apps and Games natively instead of only being used for streaming video and audio and more.

Google launches $35 ARM Powered Chromecast Chrome OS on a Stick to stream media to HDTV

Posted by Charbax – July 24, 2013
Category: HDMI Sticks, Opinions, Google, Android, Chrome OS

I guess Google reads my Google+ feed.. on April 16th I suggested:

$50 Chrome stick would be nice. ARM Cortex-A15 on a HDMI stick running Chrome OS. I’m just saying.

Not sure if the $35 Chromecast Google HDMI Stick has an ARM Cortex-A15 processor in it though, what is the ARM Processor inside of the new Google Chromestick? Is Google using the Quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 Rockchip RK3188? Tegra4? Something from Qualcomm?

Which ARM Processor is being used? Can it run a full Chrome OS On ARM also? USB Host (to Ethernet/RF/Hub) supported?

Can the Chromecast Chromestick run a full Chrome OS included for free? Why didn’t Google explain how to “unlock” the Chromestick to display a full ARM Powered Chrome OS on the TV?

I look forward to Chrome OS on ARM Powered HDMI Sticks, let it not just revolutionize Video-on-demand, let the $35 Google stick also be the x86 Wintel desktop killer.

1. My guess is Chromecast has MHL support, can otherwise get charge from MicroUSB, I wonder if a MicroUSB hub can allow for Ethernet connectivity on Chromecast.

2. I wonder how video games and apps are going to run natively on the Chromecast.

3. Does it support Bluetooth 4.0, RF and USB Host for wireless keyboards and mice to use the Chromecast as a Chrome OS desktop without a remote device?

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Motorola X8 ARM SoC released, modified MSM8960 Pro with Adreno 320 with new always-on sensors

Posted by Charbax – July 24, 2013
Category: Smartphones, Sensors, Opinions, Qualcomm, Google, Android

Google Motorola with Qualcomm designs modified Qualcomm Snapdragon ARM SoC based on the dual-core 1.7 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8960 Pro with quad-core Adreno 320 GPU. Google says they add “natural language” and “contextual computing” cores hinting at dedicated processes for the OK Google Now touchless control features, to me feel like Sensor Fusion type of support within new upcoming smart devices. This means extreme low power sensors that can monitor things all the time, or which can for example “start listening” as long as the phone is touched at some point in the specific amount of time before you do the touchless voice commands. These types of sensor fusion features may bring very impressive new features to smartphones, the phone may learn always more about where it is in the world, where it is around you, about exact touching and other things. Think about sensors that detect taps without needing to even turn on the screen, meaning you could interact while keeping it in your pocket. Sensor fusion processing is so low power, as far as I remember hearing from Freescale, the battery in a phone can run that sensor for something like a year, or several months, where it can constantly monitor all movements of the device, triggering other areas on the SoC to be activated when specific movements are detected. Consider this may replace the need for a power button to be touched each time you power on the screen of your phone. Consider unlocking mechanisms and a whole new range of gestures and behaviors to interact with your phone. Your phone may even detect all types of touches not only on the screen but also on the back and around your phone, perhaps even touches on the table next to your phone. The GPS may be further optimized and super accurate and fast for all types of positioning features, including expanded Google Now functionality, without turning the phone on, from within your pocket, your phone may start saying something like “Hey Roger, you should check out the restaurant to your right, and I think you must be hungry” because your phone can know that you haven’t eaten yet and it knows what types of restaurants you like and it can constantly monitor your positioning to provide smart automatic notifications based on the types of augmented information you would like.

I don’t know if Google Motorola with Qualcomm is integrating those new sensors on the die of that Snapdragon/Adreno or if those new type of sensors are outside of the die on the SoC somehow. Does anyone here have any info about how Google Motorola and Qualcomm are doing it? And how are the other ARM SOC vendors going to start shipping all those new Sensor Fusion and advanced Sensor features into devices?

Google Motorola is shipping this new Motorola X8 ARM Processor in their new range of Droid phones (selling exclusively on Verizon in the USA) and it’s probably also in the Moto X phone to be launched next week in New York (I wish Goog was inviting me to any of their events).

Are you looking forward to Moto X?

I think that Moto X needs to be $199 unlocked out of contract, released for pre-paid carriers around the world, even shipping with dual-sim card support. If Google can source enough X8 ARM Processors with Qualcomm, enough screens from whoever provides Motorola with screens and if Google can have suppliers manufacture and assemble those fast enough (including those that are rumored to be assembled in the USA, I guess to supply the US market only), if Google wants to sell Moto X all over the developing world, Google can rapidly expand Motorola’s market share in smartphone sales worldwide. I can’t wait to hear more about the features of the Moto X, how Google integrates those new sensors in Android, how those Sensors expand on the features of ARM Powered devices and to hear more about the range of hardware that Google and Motorola are planning to release. Android merging with Chrome OS and Google TV is just going to be a small part of our future.

3 years ago, I first video-blogged about Freescale’s Contextual Sensor Fusion technology talking about Freescale’s Xtrinsic Sensor technology being launched at the Freescale Technology Forum in June 2010, that may be similar to the technologies now to be included in Motorola’s new range of devices including in the Moto X, this is what I wrote in the description of this video here on this blog in June 2010:

Imagine not needing a power button to turn on your phone, just pick it up. Imagine cheaper warranty as manufacturers will know when devices were damaged because of usage error such as fall or banging. Imagine new user interfaces that are much more relying on sensors as the new Freescale Xtrinsic sensors can measure stuff 2000 times per second (the bandwidth and architecture being better). Imagine also sensors combining their abilities through fusion, again, no need to wake up the main ARM processor of the device to do all kinds of things! Imagine the device knowing exactly how it is touched, how it is moved, how it is held, the touch is not anymore only on the screen! This means better battery usage, months maybe even years of seamless standby. The new Xtrinsic sensor only needs 12 micro amps of power to be turned on all the time!

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Samsung Exynos 5420 Octa announced, Quad-core ARM Cortex-A15 and ARM Cortex-A7 big.LITTLE with Six-core ARM Mali-T628 GPU

Posted by Charbax – July 23, 2013
Category: Opinions, Samsung, Android

Samsung is ready with their upgraded ARM big.LITTLE ARM Cortex-A15/A7 processor, now peaking at perhaps 1.8Ghz in A15 and 1.3Ghz in A7, perhaps peaking at 14.9Gbit/s in memory bandwidth with the ARM Mali-T628 MP6 GPU.

Samsung may use this in their next high-end products, here’s what we can hope Samsung ships it in:

1. New Samsung ARM Chromebooks, faster performance, longer battery life, better screens and priced still below $250 but some higher-end luxury Chromebook Pixel quality $400-$500 ARM Chromebooks from Samsung I think are probably also welcome. Samsung should push for major sales of $99-$149 ARM big.LITTLE Chromeboxes, to take over most of the Desktop PC market. Make it in a beautiful compact near HDMI Stick sized Chromebox, amaze everyone. Performance good enough for 95% of desktop and laptop computing needs and Chrome OS is perfect for it?

2. Galaxy S4 Plus Ultra? The diversity in S4 on Octa for “rest of world” and S4 on Qualcomm S600 for Europe/USA has been kind of confusing. How does a newer Samsung S4 perform with this chip?

3. New Galaxy Note 3?

4. New Galaxy Tabs?

5. Could Samsung possibly supply all other hardware makers with this new Octa also? I think all Laptop/Desktop makers are desperate to get a good big.LITTLE in their Chromebooks, Chromeboxes, I think competitors want big.LITTLE in phonesl, does Samsung want to supply Asus, Acer, Lenovo, Dell, HP, Gigabyte, Quanta, Foxconn, Google Motorola, HTC, Sony, does Samsung want to supply all those companies or should they be left to use Qualcomm, Nvidia and other for their near-term ARM Cortex-A15 demand? I guess this question may have to do with Samsung’s production capacity and their corporate strategy to keep their supply for their own brand with maximized corporate exclusivity in maximizing profit margins.

I look forward to learn more about how Samsung is using the Mali-T628 GPU for this SoC, which are the possibilities for GPGPU, GPU Computing, what are the new Open GL 3.0 possibilities in Android? How can it speed up Chrome OS? What can Ubuntu do with it? What’s Samsung’s yield? When are we seeing more of their big.LITTLE? How big is it going to be?

Read more at http://www.anandtech.com/show/7164/samsung-exynos-5-octa-5420-switches-back-to-arm-gpu

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My Google I/O 2013 expectations

Posted by Charbax – May 3, 2013
Category: Opinions, Google

I haven’t been able to buy a Google I/O ticket (servers crashed) and it doesn’t look like Google wants to invite me with a press badge (thus far), but here are my Google I/O May 15-17th 2013 expectations. I’ve not always been exact in my Google I/O predictions, see 2011 and 2012. Here’s what I’d announce at this point if I was running Google:

1. Google Smartwatch. (approx same “Wearable UI” as Google Glass) $199 BT 4.0.
2. Exynos5410/Tegra4/S800 Chromebooks launched. (prob 13.3″ $299, preferably with Pixel Qi 20-hour battery life).
3. Android 5 unveiled. intro “Full Chrome” on Android, Android Extension for Chrome OS too (that’s what I call “the merger”). Android 4.3 may get released at I/O with Android 5 release for months later.
4. Andy Rubin announced chief of new Google Internet of Things and Google Robots department (this is the new Google X project)
5. Google TV now part of Android 5. all HDMI/MHL turns any Android device to full Google TV UI, even HDMI throughput and IR blaster can be supported on most phones/tablets with adapter.
6. Google Gaming now serious. launches $99 Google Home Entertainment Console. It’s ARM Cortex-A15 with Mali-T678 GPU. Most Android games now mapped for TV controller game play. Exynos5410/Tegra4/S800 too.
7. Google Glass public release in 3 months for $499. $299 version by end of the year. Early Glass Explorers get choice of $1000 credit in Google Play Store or they get 2 extra Google Glass to give to friends/family.
8. Moto X Phones launched. $99/$199/$299 (540p-dual/720p-quad/1080p-octo) (maybe T4i/S600/T4) with no contract on T-Mobile in USA. unlocked worldwide. Waterproof, unbreakable, sunlight readable Pixel Qi LCD ultra long battery life.
9. Google Book launched. $99 WiFi e-reader with Google Books, Android E Ink front-lit based.
10. Google Play Subscriptions launched. $20/month for unlimited text/audio/video/apps (authors/devs can opt-out, users can pick any category separately at $5/month each, worldwide day-1). Overnight Google Play becomes by far biggest content platform worldwide.
11. Google+ 2.0. Now + gives personalized recommendations across web.

What am I forgetting? php/mysql wordpress/phpbb free hosting on Google App Engine? New YouTube monetization? White Space Global Google Voice (with launch of White Space modem in Moto X Phone)? The Cheaper $99 Nexus 7 Lite (RK3188 based)? Upgraded Google Arduino platform on ARM Cortex-M3? Google ARM Servers announcement for cheaper/better/cleaner cloud?

You can comment here or in my Google+ thread.

YouTube feature requests (so they can monetize more)

Posted by Charbax – May 3, 2013
Category: 4K UHD, Opinions, Google

YouTube is the worlds coolest website in my opinion. World’s biggest in bandwidth usage. Super awesome/impressive. Thanks Google for the bandwidth and for the video storage! Here are 11 of my ideas (that I’ve been posting for years) for how YouTube can make 10x more money per view for themselves and for people like me who upload the videos, which I think would be good:

1. Let every YouTube Partner get donations like non-profits do. Integrate Kickstarter like functionality in YouTube channel “fund this video project, here are details what we would like to film” and show if goal is reached, donators can advertise their website/company if they want next to donations value.

2. Display Google Shopping Buy Now links under video and at end of video when the video is about a product that is for sale online, thus enable 4% commission built-in (quadruples revenue overnight I’d guess) Partner can opt-out or manage each video by evt selecting specific product from Google Shopping to list if that is not clear enough for Google based on title, description, search etc. Let Partner evt pick favorite web stores to list in priority, for example Amazon, Adorama, Newegg, Buy.com and BHphoto for US viewers, and others can be selected for other regions of the world.

3. Let viewers pay some monthly price perhaps $5/month or $10/month for an unlimited ads-free YouTube experience, simply remove advertising and set 1080p as default but only for the people who pay for YouTube. (doubles revenue overnight I’d guess), can also include netflix/hulu/amazon prime style contents, but unlocks ads on all YouTube Partner content by default. Partner can opt-out if they prefer. YouTube subscribers can evt get prioritized bandwidth in certain situations. Maybe there is a high-end 1080p encode, or premium 4K stream bandwidth when available.

4. YouTube should offer automatic “upload all my videos to YouKu” for Chinese audiences, until China finally at some point allows their people access to YouTube. Which may happen at any moment, but for now, please just let us easily clone everything to Youku. And a wordpress plugin to auto display the youku instead of youtube when website visitors are in China would be good. If you do this, maybe you’ll accelerate the Chinese Government un-blocking youtube simply because they’d be impressed you’d offer that kind of service. If not a service by Youtube, please link us to third parties who can hook up and automatically do this kind of thing.

5. Enable p2p video subtitling and subtitle translations. YouTube Partners can decide how much of a share of revenue to evt pay to volunteers who spend time improving the automatic subtitles and automatic translations of those subtitles. Thus when “manual subtitles” are available for video, that can be highlighted and displayed instead of the automatic one. And each can be improved collaboratively, subtitlers/translators get paid based on how many people view their work and evt how good it’s rated, let people rate those subtitles and translations of subtitles. The link to subtitle and to translate subtitles should be visible by everyone “improve subtitles” and “improve translated subtitle”, people can set which languages they understand in YouTube viewer settings to automatically display correct subtitles and buttons to “improve french subtitles here” or to hide that button if people are not interested to participate. All videos with for example over 100 thousand views may thus get better manual subtitles in many languages submitted by viewing public.

6. Offer p2p video titling/describing service. People can volunteer to watch yet unlisted videos as soon as a YouTube channel uploads them, and people can collaboratively submit manual titles/descriptions/tags for each video, which the YouTube upload can approve to be used to make the video public.

7. Auto-post YouTube uploads to WordPress blog, including management of WordPress categories when the YouTube video is being uploaded and eventual other default texts or code to add before or after video. Same for scheduled publishing.

8. Explain what time of day is best to publish video to get optimal view count based on channel statistics, suggest YouTube uploader schedule publishing to those times.

9. Improve YouTube Editor it needs to be near as good as Pinnacle/Sony Vegas/Avid/Final Cut etc. Let us edit with voice-overs, music, more stable frame precision, better flexibility/stability.

10. Offer p2p video-editing. People can spend time to offer suggested shorter edits of each video as alternative shorter versions of the video. Thus people watching who don’t have time, can switch to shorter user-submitted and upload-approved shorter version of video when that one is available. Allow also p2p video-editing to combine evt several videos into one, can be limited from playlist if YouTube upload decides to, or can be channel-wide. Also the edits must be approved by uploader before those can be listed somewhere in a “user submitted edits” section on the channel. YouTube uploader can decide how much to share evt revenue from edits with the editor.

11. Massively improve content recommendations algorithm. Let me enter a gree/red full screen mode. It must show me content YouTube knows I will like, let me Thumbs up each video with the space bar and let me evt skip video with right button. Thus remote control can be built with a big green thumbs up button and a red skip button (evt a red skip and dislike rating button also). People must be able to lie back in sofa and start some impressively awesome automatic playback of YouTube’s personalized recommendations of content. Each view must be absolutely awesome. Viewer must be able to type in area of interest, search query or pick from previous areas of interest that YouTube can detect, for example now I’m in the mood for tech videos, and at another point I’m in the mood for comedy videos, with evt tags like Android within technology and tags like Louis CK within comedy. For example. Build recommendations engine on YouTube that can reliably replace TV. When people watch YouTube in family or with friends, everyone has to be constantly impressed by each video shown. A mic in room can eventually record laughs as indicator to how good the content is and to attempt at continuing to show such cool content. Recommendations engine can automatically pick user submitted shorter edits instead of the full videos if it’s measured that the certain shorter edits are better than some of the original longer videos.

You can comment here on in my Google+ thread.

I’m looking for help to write good titles/descriptions on videos

Posted by Charbax – April 12, 2013
Category: Opinions

So I just filmed 40 video in one day, the Hong Kong fairs are totally awesome thus far. But with all those videos that I film during the day, I don’t have much time left to do following:

1. re-watch what I filmed during the day

2. listen carefully to company names, product names, processors, and prices if mentionned and ther technical details to include those things in the titles and descriptions before publishing each video.

Writing good titles and descriptions on all my videos takes as much time as filming the actual videos.

So I am looking for volunteers here among you who would be willing to be the first to watch my videos as unlisted yet un-published videos without titles and descriptions and then if possible post me back a good title an description that I can use on each video following these guidelines for how I usually title videos:

1. [price of main most interesting product if price is mentioned] [processor used] [device type tablet/phone] [evt other special feature] by [company name]

description usually goes something like this:

2. Company name [URL of company website if can be found or/and is mentioned/showed in video] releases blah blah that does blah blah etc. If possible the description can be very detailed going through all the things talked about in the video. But it can also just be 1 or two sentences to be good enough.

3. If possible some relevant tags would also be nice, but otherwise I can use the same tags for all the videos filmed at the same conference.

Please apply for membership to the ARMdevices Unlisted mailing list if you would like to help me with this work and I can add you to the mailing list where I’d post each of the unlisted videos as soon as they are uploaded. You can then reply in the thread when you’ve got a title/description that can be used. I can maybe also pay you something per post, if you want money over paypal, especially if the titles/descriptions can get to be much better and significantly improves people’s experience and the searchability of the videos.

It’d be nice if Google could use voice recognition and automatically write good summaries for the titles and descriptions for all the videos. But for now Google doesn’t seem to be able to do this.

If someone can help me with this, perhaps I can get time to video-blog 20-30% more videos and perhaps also I can get time to get a bit of sleep between each video-blogging days, which would be nice especially during these days where I’d like to try to get through video-blogging at hundreds of Chinese companies preferably interestingly.

In any ways, my Hong Kong hotel internet upload speed is terribly slow right now. I read online that people in Hong Kong can get 1000mbit Fiber to the home, but I can barely get a bit over 1mbit/s upload speed here from my hotel. So it may get difficult for me to upload 15-20GB of videos each day. I’ll try to get a fast upload tomorrow at the HKTDC Fair, hopefully it’ll be possible to then upload during the day while I video-blog. Another reason for it being nice with some help from you helping me to get good titles and descriptions written.

I am the new CEO of Intel

Posted by Charbax – April 1, 2013
Category: Opinions, Intel

My non-disclosure agreement expires today, you can read the official press release at http://intel.com/press

SANTA CLARA, Calif., April 1, 2013 – Intel Corporation’s board of directors has announced that it has selected Charbax to be its new CEO effective May 23rd 2013. Charbax is being given full control over the company, tasking Intel’s engineers to design and release ARM Processors in the months to come, the new company motto is to supply market demands instead of trying to control them. More information about Intel’s new corporate priorities to follow in the next few weeks.

I’m excited to announce that the Intel board of directors has named me to be their new CEO. As I have been noticing from looking at my visitor statistics, hundreds of Intel employees have been visiting my blog at least weekly for over a year, they tell me that many of my posts have been sent around their executive offices and that they have then thought about considering me in their search for a new CEO.

I was surprised to hear Intel would hire someone like me as CEO of a $105 Billion Silicon Valley company. My background is just being a technology video-blogger, but the board of directors have convinced me, they are giving me complete freedom in choosing what to do with all engineering and fabrication resources at Intel corp. And I am also allowed to continue to blog on http://ARMdevices.net at the same time, so you can expect me to post more videos here, not fewer.

Here are my priorities for Intel to be enacted as soon as possible (expect official press releases to come in the next 2-3 weeks):

1. Intel to announce Licencing of the ARM Architecture, as well as licencing of ARM Cortex-A15/A7, Mali-T600 series GPU and ARM Cortex-A57/53. Intel is going to dedicate most R&D resources into making the worlds best ARM Processors.

2. Intel Fabs are hereby going to be optimized at making ARM Processors for third party companies. Apple has expressed interest in having Intel fabricate the Apple A6X and future Apple ARM Processors. Intel will do its best to supply Apple and anyone else with some of the worlds most advanced ARM Processors. 22nm ARM Process node manufacturing is available within the next 3 months, 14nm FinFet process node manufacturing of ARM designs to be in full mass production in Intel’s Fabs by the end of the year.

3. Intel Ultrabook to be renamed the Intel Ultra Expensive Notebook division. Intel does hereby invest in ARM Powered Chromebook. Intel to provide full featured ARM Cortex-A15/A7 big.LITTLE designs in mass production within 3 months from today targetted at $199 ARM Powered Chromebooks. Customers Lenovo, HP, Asus, Acer are to announce ARM Chromebooks using Intel’s ARM big.LITTLE processor. Intel expects the ARM Chromebook to overtake x86 Laptop shipments by the middle of this year and Intel is going to do its best to supply to a majority of those ARM Powered laptops.

4. Intel to invest $1 Billion in the ARM Powered One Laptop Per Child project. Official apology letter sent to the One Laptop Per Child foundation with the title: “We are sorry to have delayed the distribution of laptops to children in developing countries around the world”.

5. Intel to use own ARM Architecture licence to optimize ARMv8 64bit design for ARM servers. Intel is going to deliver mass production of 64bit ARM Server designs by the end of this year.

6. Intel allows Microsoft rename Windows RT into Windows 8 Value Edition. Intel will aim at supplying a new range of Windows 8 Value Edition ARM laptops at sub-$299 by the middle of this year. Intel recommends Microsoft open source and free the Windows 8 Value Edition source code, to optimize their chances in gaining market share, but that decision is up to Microsoft. Expect more on this to be announced by Microsoft in the weeks to come.

7. Proprietary projects Thunderbolt and Intel Wireless Display are abandoned, all in favor of USB 3.0 and WiHD open standards.

8. Intel to appologize to AMD and Nvidia for last decades of anti-competitive behavior. Promises to not use anti-competitive behavior going forward.

This is a major pivot for Intel’s business model, the board of directors have full confidence in me being able to guide them through this major inevitable change. Supplying market demands and not trying to dictate and control market trends is hereby Intel’s future role in this industry.

Lenovo to design own ARM processors

Posted by Charbax – March 31, 2013
Category: Opinions

Eetimes reports that Lenovo is getting a team of 100 chip designers together (60 in Shenzhen, 40 in Beijing)  to design and integrate their own ARM Processor designs.

Because Samsung may not agree to provide them with the latest fastest Exynos designs and because Lenovo needs own differentiation in this market.

I expect Lenovo to use ARM in ThinkPad Laptops soon also, using Chrome OS in priority.

What Google’s Motorola R&D may be working on…

Posted by Charbax – December 22, 2012
Category: Opinions, Google

The Wall Street Journal has an article out talking about the Google X Phone project and its technical challenges. I think that Google Motorola has a lot of work to do. Here are some of the projects that I expect Google to be investing in at Motorola to move Android forward in terms of R&D hardware spending, how Google may be trying to control and influence worldwide components supply for the next months and years of mobile devices development:

1. Dominate worldwide sub-$100 phone market. Target the sub-$200 Android phone market too. Target all world countries, not just rich countries. This is how Motorola “easily” can get to scale and thus get to control smartphones components supply.

2. Design devices that merge Android with Chrome OS and Google TV. That means re-engineer and re-think Motorola’s Laptop Dock, Desktop Dock, Entertainment Dock, when you dock Android 5 thus switches to Chrome OS or Google TV depending on what you want on the external display.

3. Design flexible phones using rubber-like and leather-like materials. As soon as flexible screen suppliers are ready (not just Samsung’s flexible AMOLED), have designs ready to use the new form factors.

4. E Ink phones, be it like the Motorola Fone released in 2006 with an E Ink display, the new E Ink phones use Android. Can be E Ink only Android phones and Android phones where just the backside is an E Ink display.

5. Integrate DLP pico projector technologies in new phone concepts that project something like a 20″ touch-screen display onto any table. Thus design kick-stands, mirrors, lenses that facilitate that.

6. Google Glass, headmounted computing is going to be the new normal next year. Optimize the Motorola headmounted computer to fit every usage, design it so everyone wants to use them.

7. Wearable computing. Android Bluetooth wrist watches, Bluetooth headsets that merge into clothing for voice calls. Make every user feel like they are James Bond.

8. Mass market White Spaces modems and routers, small and low power enough to be included in every new Android smartphone and tablet. Cheap enough so that every ADSL/Cable/Fiber connection install a White Spaces router to quickly cover the whole world with free wireless broadband for everyone.

9. Mass producing Pixel Qi LCD based smartphones, tablets and laptops, for sunlight readablility and to extend battery life significantly.

10. New $100 ARM Powered Tablets for productivity. New $100 ARM Powered Laptops for productivity. Google and Motorola can take over some of the role of the One Laptop Per Child. These new devices are for the worlds children to use to make the world a better place.

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12.85″ Pixel Qi Chrome OS Android 5.0 Laptop/Tablet Hybrid by Google for Q1 2013?

Posted by Charbax – November 27, 2012
Category: Tablets, Laptops, Opinions, Texas Instruments, Samsung, Google, Android, Chrome OS

Image representing Google as depicted in Crunc...

Chromebook on Android

Here are my expectations for Google’s rumored upcoming Chrome OS laptop/tablet hybrid:

– 12.85″ Pixel Qi LCD, Google sponsored, to be available to all other Android hardware makers as a new component. (Plastics based flexible unbreakable LCD for thinner lighter waterproof dustproof unbreakable build)

– Optical lamination allows for outdoor readable capacitive Pixel Qi LCD. Otherwise IR based Neonode touch can work.

– 20 million initial production batch, enough to make a significant mark on the market, next batch can be 100 million units.

– Android 5.0 to support Chrome OS on top of Android. Same for Ubuntu on top of Android. Multi-booting becomes standard feature of Android. It’s not really multi-booting, it’s enabling to run alternative Linux OSes on top of the base Linux OS of Android.

– $200, available worldwide on day 1. Second batch can be sold for $150 or $100. Schools can get rebates if they order one for every child. Google can subsidize a few of those millions to be used by Children in developing countries through the One Laptop Per Child project.

– 16GB Flash with SD slots and potentially a 2.5″ HDD slot.

– 25 hours battery life. 200 grams flat battery dock doubles battery life to 50 hours.

– Swivel screen. Super slim keyboard can hide behind screen for tablet mode.

– ARM Cortex-A15, either OMAP5 with SGX544 or Exynos5 with Mali-T604. Maybe another comparable ARM Processor.

– Modem slot, all types modems available as options, 3G+, LTE, White Spaces, easily user swapable. There is space for an internal usb modem too.

Let me know what you think of this rumored Google hybrid here or at my Google+ thread.

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ARM Linux Linaro hangout with Zach Pfeffer

Posted by Charbax – November 27, 2012
Category: Tablets, Laptops, Smartphones, Exclusive videos, Opinions, Samsung, Android

Hanging out with Zach Pfeffer, Android lead at http://linaro.org, they are working to optimize Linux on ARM.

Would you like to join the next Google+ Hangout? Post a comment here with a link to your Google+ Profile or comment under the Google+ Post and I’ll invite you to the next Google+ Hangout on Air! The next one is tonight midnight Copenhagen/Paris/Berlin time, 11PM UK time, 6PM EST, 3PM PST. Make sure I have circled you then look at my Google+ Profile Page at that time to see the Hangout invite. The topic is going to be the stories of the day at http://techmeme.com but it can also be any other technology news topics that you’d like to talk about!

Ubuntu for Android is imminent

Posted by Charbax – November 15, 2012
Category: Opinions, Ubuntu

An official Canonical YouTube channel released this video:

This can mean that Ubuntu for Android is imminent. They seem to suggest that consumers can soon choose Ubuntu support next time that they buy a smartphone.

Here are some of my questions about Ubuntu for Android:

– Does Canonical work only on specific exclusive hardware and chip makers? Is there some kind of exclusive partnership with a Samsung or other Smartphone/chip maker to optimize and fully hardware accelerate Ubuntu on Android for them?

– Does the PC/Laptop Docking happen through a standard MHL connector compatible with multiple designs/sizes of phones and tablets?

– Are most Android 5.0 phones going to be compatible with alternative OSes to boot on top of Android? Can we soon just download the 700mb Ubuntu app made on Android Native Development Kit (NDK) on Google Play Store (if our Android device is officially supported with full hardware acceleration) to activate the on-top-of-Android-boot functionality?

– Can Chrome OS on Android be available at the same time? How about Google TV on Android? My big guess for Android 5 is that this multi-OS strategy is going to be a deep new feature of the next Android release. Dock your next Android device and it can switch or boot on the external HD display any alternative Linux OS such as Chrome OS, Google TV, Ubuntu, and maybe even Windows RT.

Also watch my previous Ubuntu for Android videos:

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How I think that the ARM Powered Chromebook is a big deal for the industry

Posted by Charbax – October 21, 2012
Category: Laptops, Opinions, Samsung, Chrome OS

I’ve been talking about ARM Powered Chrome OS for years now here on this blog (2, 3, 4, 5, 6). So you can imagine how happy I was to hear that Google and Samsung are launching the ARM Cortex-A15 Exynos5250 Powered Chromebook now today on Monday for $249!!! Here are some of the points that I think one can consider for how the ARM Powered Chromebook is a very big deal for the industry:

1. Chrome on ARM gets optimized, to use full hardware acceleration. It’s important to have a web browsing experience on ARM in a 720p, 768p, 1080p resolution that be satisfactory to most users.

2. Chrome OS on ARM gets open sourced, means here’s an OS to run on all ARM SoCs, this means that the $89 13.3″ and $75 10.1″ ARM Cortex-A9 Powered laptops, even single-core using VIA WM8850 for example, can soon ship with Chromium OS pre-installed.

3. Full Chrome on Android, with all plugins (including Flash, Java, etc), extensions, full tabs support, user interface for mouse and keyboard. This means a merger of Chrome OS and Android. The Chrome experience on Android should be as good as on a pure Chrome OS device. You can even have resume and boot-to-Chrome as a choice on Android, if you are using a device where you just want to use Chrome and that you may not care much about the rest of Android.

4. Gives a new purpose to ARM Powered Laptops, HDMI Sticks, Set-top-boxes and more. You can get a sub-$100 HDMI Stick to use as a Chromebox on your HDTV or PC Monitor. If you’d like to use the HDMI stick in Entertainment mode, it should be able to switch to Google TV mode.

5. Chromebooks are now sub-$250. This makes them very attractive to a majority of new Laptop buyers worldwide. I think that Chrome OS is going to dominate as the main OS for laptops and desktops worldwide. Though for that to easily happen, 13.3″ ARM Cortex-A15 Chromebooks need to be sold for well below $200, the 11.6″ ones should be sold towards below $150.

6. Combine the ARM Powered Chromebook with an 11.6″ or 13.3″ Pixel Qi screen, also wait for eventual full hardware optimizations to be automatically added to Chrome OS on ARM to take advantage of the Mali-T604 GPU and much else deep level ARM Cortex-A15 optimizations and you could have a battery life on your super thin ARM Powered Chromebook above 20 hours. This is game-changing for a super thin laptop.

7. Chrome OS forces App Developers to think Web First. That means better quality web apps. Expect high-quality online video-editing, photo-editing, word processing, FTP, programming and even gaming to work awesomely on the Web pretty quickly. That means web apps with full offline support, full cached acceleration for instant web app load times regardless of connection speed, Web GL for full GPU advanced 3D gaming including streaming of game info, remote 3D rendering and streaming of the highest quality 3D games, once all app developers think first about how to use the web to improve their apps, that brings the worlds best apps to everyone.

8. Upgrading the PC/Laptop is redefined. Consumers won’t need to think about upgrading their PC/Laptop, unless they find one with a nicer design and style, with a different screen size or screen type which they may prefer. Upgrading a PC/Laptop for faster performance is going to be less and less of a reason for people to upgrade their computer. The most important specification is going to be battery life and screen technology. That is, if one can expect all web apps to load instantly on the ARM Powered Laptop, with unlimited simultaneous tabs opened smoothly at the same time, which is something we can expect on this ARM Cortex-A15 Chromebook.

9. You may think that this ARM Chromebook may not have yet an optimal performance. Consider that the web browser is perhaps one of the most advanced and complicated application on a PC/Laptop. Chrome on x86 is 50x faster than Internet Explorer was on x86 just 3 years ago. ARM Cortex-A15 is all new, so is Chrome on ARM, expect tons of optimizations to be beamed over the next weeks and months to come, as Google, Samsung and open source Chrome project engineers fully optimize the software on ARM.

10. You may think that the quoted 6.5 hours battery life on this initial ARM Chromebook may not sound like a whole lot. Consider that the power consumption governors may be cranked up to the maximum power consumption by Google and Samsung to prevent any slowdowns before Chrome for ARM gets optimized. As ARM optimizations are fully integrated in Chrome OS on ARM, you can perhaps expect this ARM Chromebook to magically suddenly be able to last more than 10 hours on the same thin and light battery.

Let me know in the comments if you have any other informations about how optimized Google and Samsung have made Chrome OS on ARM yet, if Google has announced much more about their plans to open source Chrome OS on ARM, if it’s already open source, what you think we can expect for Chrome OS on lower power cheaper ARM SoCs such as RK3066, VIA 8850, Allwinner A10 and other processors that can be used in making much cheaper ARM Powered Chromebooks. Write also in the comments how many ARM Chromebooks you plan to buy, you are welcome to use my amazon link!