I’m hanging out with +Paul Terry Walhus of http://chromecastcast.com and +Chris Porter of http://cwporter.me talking about all the latest news around the Chromecast.
Author:
ARMdevices.net Hangout Show: Moto X, Chromecast and other Tech News Live
A few hours before the official unveiling of the Google Moto X phone, here I talk with Thomas Christiansen of http://worldoftommy.com, +Todd Neumann of AT&T and +Rafael Morales of http://AndroidSpin.com
Would you like to participate in the next ARMdevices.net Hangout Show? Leave a comment here or on the Google+ thread with your Google+ Profile link and I will invite you to be on the next show when we record it live!
Chromecastcast.com Episode 3 – Chromecast in Europe
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
ARM Google+ Hangout On Air on August 1st at 11am ET (4pm UK, 10am CT, 8am PT)
This Thursday August 1st you’ll be able to tune in at http://google.com/+arm/ for a 1-hour live Google+ Hangout On Air featuring ARM CEO Simon Segars, Freescale Senior VP of the MCU division, Geoff Lees, discussing with Professor Moore how over the “past few years a loosely organized community of more than a thousand companies has overturned the tech industry.” The topic is the e-book ‘Shared Purpose: A Thousand Business Ecosystems, a Worldwide Connected Community, and the Future‘, Professor James F. Moore details lessons learned from his comprehensive study of ARM’s collaborative, connected community, and provides blueprints for how other companies and industries could benefit from a similar ‘Collaborative Business Ecosystem’ approach.
You’re able to ask questions to that panel on Twitter by using the hashtag #ARMSharedPurpose
MediaTek MT8135 big.LITTLE ARM Cortex-A15/A7 released!
MediaTek presents what they claim to be today’s fastest Tablet SoC, using Dual-core ARM Cortex-A15 with Dual-core ARM Cortex-A7 in big.LITTLE configuration with a new SGX6 based GPU.
How soon we’ll see MT8135 based tablets on the market? And does MediaTek also prepare a big.LITTLE for smartphones? I don’t know.
MediaTek introduces industry leading tablet SoC -MT8135, which integrates ARM’s big.LITTLE™ processing subsystem and a PowerVR™ Series6 GPU from Imagination Technologies.
MediaTek MT8135 fulfills the most demanding CPU and GPU usage scenarios, whether it is heavy web downloading, hardcore gaming, high-quality premium video viewing or rigorous multitasking, while maintaining the utmost power efficiency.
In this video, you’ll see how MediaTek MT8135 outperforms today’s tablet solutions.
Related articles
- MediaTek MT6592 octa-core processor announced (armdevices.net)
- MediaTek introduces its first ARM Cortex-A15 chip with big.LITTLE tech (MT8135) (liliputing.com)
- Hands-on With MediaTek’s New Quad-Core MT8135 Tablet Processor (laptopmag.com)
- MediaTek Introduces Industry Leading Tablet SoC, MT8135 (virtual-strategy.com)
- MediaTek unveils quad-core MT8135 chipset: big.LITTLE MP architecture, PowerVR Series6 GPU (vr-zone.com)
- MediaTek’s MT8135 SoC does dual-core big.LITTLE MP, packs PowerVR Series6 GPU (engadget.com)

MediaTek MT6592 octa-core processor announced
MediaTek MT6592 is announced, as far as I understand it’s 8-cores of ARM Cortex-A7 with ARM Mali graphics?
So this MediaTek MT6592 does not use big.LITTLE combining ARM Cortex-A15 and A7 but only uses 8 ARM Cortex-A7 cores?
This may be MediaTek’s processor for Android 5.0 to be released.
Related articles
- MediaTek announces first true octa-core processor (phonearena.com)
- MediaTek announces the world’s first true octa-core mobile processor (androidauthority.com)
- MediaTek confirms true octa-core processor in the works (engadget.com)
- Sony might be working on 8-core MediaTek MT6592 based Smartphone (vr-zone.com)
- Eight core MediaTek MT6592 takes on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 800 (androidauthority.com)
- MediaTek to launch 2GHz octa-core SoC, the MT6592 (phonearena.com)
- MediaTek to launch 8-core MT6592 chipset by the end of July (vr-zone.com)
- MediaTek 8-core MT6592 chip coming in July (liliputing.com)

Watch me talk about the $35 Google Chromecast HDMI Stick Chromestick on a Hangout for Chromecastcast.com
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
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?
Related articles
- Google Announces “Chromecast” – Runs Chrome OS (chromestory.com)
- Google Launches The Chromecast To Bring Chrome To The Living Room (techcrunch.com)
- Chromecast Is Official: Costs $35, Sends Video, Music, And Chrome Tabs To Your TV, 3 Months Of Free Netflix Included (androidpolice.com)
- “OK Google, What is Chromecast?” (chromestory.com)
- Chromecast hits $35 price point, aims to connect TV to the web this week (slashgear.com)
- Google announces Chromecast, a dongle to stream online videos to your TV (gigaom.com)

Motorola X8 ARM SoC released, modified MSM8960 Pro with Adreno 320 with new always-on sensors
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!
Related articles
- Motorola X8 homemade SoC recap: modified Snapdragon forms ‘the first true mobile computing system’ (phonearena.com)
- Google/Motorola now have their own X8 ARM processor, to debut in new Droids (9to5google.com)
- Motorola new X8 ARM processor to power the Moto X (thedroidguy.com)
- Motorola’s X8 Mobile Computing System packs eight cores, one for language processing, one for contextual computing (androidauthority.com)
- Motorola introduces X8 chip for smartphones (liliputing.com)
- Motorola X8 8-core computing system official with Qualcomm backing (slashgear.com)
- Details on Motorola’s X8 Mobile Computing System (intomobile.com)

Samsung Exynos 5420 Octa announced, Quad-core ARM Cortex-A15 and ARM Cortex-A7 big.LITTLE with Six-core ARM Mali-T628 GPU
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
Related articles
- Samsung Updates Exynos 5 Octa (5420), Switches Back to ARM GPU (anandtech.com)
- Samsung’s new Exynos 5 Octa chip is faster, but is it smarter? (androidauthority.com)
- Samsung Unveils a New Exynos 5 Octa (5420) With Greater CPU and GPU Processing Power (cnx-software.com)
- Samsung’s new Exynos 5 Octa processor brings faster clock speeds, power increase (androidcommunity.com)
- Samsung Makes New Exynos 5 Octa 5420 Official With Double The GPU Performance (androidpolice.com)
- Samsung announces Exynos 5 Octa 5420, touts 2x GPU performance (vr-zone.com)
- Samsung Intros More Powerful Exynos 5 Octa Processor (phonescoop.com)
- New Samsung Exynos 5 Octa: 20% more CPU power, twice the graphic capabilities (phonearena.com)
- Samsung’s new Exynos 5 Octa (5420) processor unveiled. Twitter giveaway lets you win a Galaxy S4 Zoom, Tab 3 8.0, or Chromebook (unwiredview.com)

Rockchip launches multi-window Android user interface
Rockchip is launching their customized multi-window UI option for Rockchip devices based on Android 4.2.2. This custom UI option is provided for free for all makers of Rockchip based Android 4.2.2 devices. And this is just their first release of this special multi-window UI, if there is a lot of demand for it they will improve it and optimize it further. Rockchip uses graphics and hardware acceleration to optimize this multi-window UI.
What do you think about this custom UI? How does it compare with some previous Android custom UIs for multi-windowing by Samsung, LG and others? Do you think Google is going to release something like this in Android 4.3 or Android 5? I think there is a need to improve productivity and to improve the ways to use multi-tasking on Android, and some types of multi-windowing like this custom UI may be useful, but I think it may be important for these advanced UI features to not add bloat nor slow down the Android UI and they should I think only appear as an option for advanced users and for advanced usage. As ARM Processors performance increases, and number of cores increase, being able to do these types of simultaneous multi-tasking user interfaces may be the best or only way to really use the performance that is available with these new ARM processors on Android.
The Rockchip device maker CHUWI already has released a device with this new multi-window UI pre-installed and activated by default, here is their press release:
Rockchip shows sub-$10 Miracast/DLNA HDMI Dongle for all Android devices
Rockchip shows the worlds cheapest Miracast and DLNA HDMI Dongle, Rockchip programmed Linux on their most basic ARM Processor to support quick and easy Miracast and DLNA for any Android WiFi device that can support that, making a WiFi Direct connection to any smartphone, tablet and making it easy to stream all screen content onto the HDTV. Miracast is a default feature for any Android 4.2 device. No configuration, no password prompting, you just connect to the HDMI Dongle directly to start transmitting the screen content to the HDTV.
Rockchip shows H.265 and WebM VP9 video decoding on RK3188
Rockchip shows the world’s first H.265 and VP9 advanced video playback on their Rockchip RK3188 processor. Right now Rockchip is doing this software based decoding, with potential support for hardware based decoding coming later. This shows how the Rockchip RK3188 Quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 is fast enough to do such advanced software based video decoding. In the future, even Rockchip’s single-core and dual-core will support H.265 and VP9 codec, the goal is to have 1080p software based playback on RK3188 and 720p support on the Rockchip’s dual and single-core. The H.265 and VP9 support is added with a patch with no need to do a full firmware flash upgrade. The new H.265 HEVC and the WebM VP9 codecs can potentially save something like half the bitrate and file size at the same video quality.
$45 Dual-SIM 7″ MediaTek MT6515 Tablet with hot-swappable batteries
Check out this 7″ dual-sim-GPRS MT6515 dual-core ARM Cortex-A7 based tablet with hot-swappable batteries that I found on the market in Shenzhen. I think you can get IPS for $10 more and 3G-capable dual-sim MT6577 for $10-$20 more. I like the hot-swappable batteries.
Filmed by http://mobilegeeks.com
Shenzhen Tena RK3188 HDMI Stick and Set-top-boxes
Shenzhen Tena is a close and early partner with Rockchip designing and implementing Rockchip RK3188 based HDMI Sticks and Set-top-boxes, they have 14 production lines currently outputting 30K HDMI Sticks and Set-top-boxes per month but with a capacity that is much higher as soon as software is fully optimized and as soon as demand is maximized.
Vido Yuandao RK3188 Tablet Factory Tour
Vido Yuandao Window88 shows around their Shenzhen factory where they are currently manufacturing Rockchip RK3188 based tablets and a lot of other tablets. Here you get a tour around their R&D department, the production lines, packaging, testing and more. One of the tablets that Vido outputs is the Vido Mini One on 7.85″ RK3188 of which you can see my video of here and see a tour at Vido’s booth with more Vido videos to come on http://ARMdevices.net
This is how it looks when I film this type of video at the Vido factory using my Steadicam Merlin 2 on vest:
[s2If !is_user_logged_in()]
Logged-in Members of ARMdevices.net ($50/year) can see the full contact information for this company from the business card here. Become a Member Now! |
[s2If is_user_logged_in()]For you member: Find the business card for this company here[/s2If]
Resuming uploads on ARMdevices.net after my father’s funeral
It’s been more than a month now that I have been trying to dry the house in Switzerland that my father inundated when he died in the shower without having a house insurance. I’ve been scraping off floor carpets and doing some of all the stuff that needs to be done. I’m now taking a little break from that here on the Kos island in Greece, where I am now going to spend time on the beach Wi-Fi and my 3G sim card to publish hundreds of videos that I’ve filmed last month in Asia. I plan to soon start automatically publishing a new video on http://ARMdevices.net every 12 hours, if I can find an easy way to queue publishing up automatically. I also plan to launch some new services for distributors of smart devices worldwide, so check back for that. I would like to hire a young student type enthusiast of my video-blogging to help me with the writing of long relevant titles, descriptions and to help me manage my video publishing queue on YouTube and on my Blog. Let me know if you may be interested.
The whole night of the 1st of April 2013, during the last time that I saw my father (March 29th to April 8th), me and my father watched these YouTube videos (here embedded as a 45-video playlist) during the whole night. Read more about how I watched those YouTube videos with my father at: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7xXqJFxvYviz1rtxUWTvCkIpqOjjXNo-
My father is dead
Gérard was my father, he watched many of my videos but he didn’t tell me much about what he thought about them. I wish I had geared my father up with a wearable computer to detect his heart-attack, if that is what killed him. My father died a few years too early to be able to take part in Singularity, as artificial intelligence can soon use video and our recorded responses to make us live forever believably in a virtual reality. But my father never wanted to be recorded, pictures with him are rare, especially in the last 20 years. I visited him in Switzerland about 10 times a year in the last few years using Easyjet. He lived alone since my mother left him 20 year ago, but he loved talking to people. My father could amaze anyone with his smart and fast wit filled with humor, cultural references, football references. He could start talking with anyone in the street, in stores, at stadiums, and he’d be able to entertain them and talk at least half an hour about football. My father has been fully invested in watching every single football match since the early 50’ies, he knows everything about every football player and trainer throughout Europe. His and my favorite teams are Servette FC in Switzerland, Inter Milan, Napoli, Juventus in Italy, Borussia Mönchengladbach and Dortmund in Germany.
Please understand that I am delaying the publishing of about 50 videos that I filmed in Asia, in Shenzhen and in Computex Taipei these past 2 weeks as I am flying back to Europe to be with my Sister and to take care of the things that need to be done.
A couple of months ago, the last time I saw my father, my father and me enjoyed watching youtube videos a whole night, read more about that night on the playlist page:
Cambrios Silver nanowires to revolutionize touch screens and displays
Sriram Peruvemba is the new Chief Marketing Officer at Cambrios, the company that is shipping silver nanowire based inks to the transparent and flexible conductor markets. Their ClearOhm material is already replacing ITO and enables high-conductivity transparent film ranging from 10 to 300 Ohms/square. In this video, Sri showed us examples of products already in the market – All-In-One computers from LG Electronics, large area monitors from eTurbotouch, mobile phones from NEC/NTT Docomo, kiosk monitors from G-Vision etc.- that use their ClearOhm silver nanowires. While at Computex we saw more and more devices with touch screens in them, the market appears to be growing rapidly and having more transparent and more conductive touch screens makes perfect sense. And with electronic paper and flexible OLED products getting close to mass production, transparent conductors that can also be flexible/bendable/rollable would be very desirable. We will bring you more updates on this technology in future videos.