This is perhaps the coolest landline dect phone, because it runs Android, supports not only landline calling functionality, it can integrate with Skype, SIP, Google Voice and more over the WiFi at home and each set costs $149, you can have up to 5 of them running on the same dect network in your home.
Author:
Ice Cream Sandwich running on the ZiiLABS ZMS-20 based JAGUAR reference tablet
ZiiLABS uploaded this “Special Preview” video showing Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich running on the 1.5Ghz ZMS-20 ARM Cortex-A9 JAGUAR reference tablet, highlighting the new UI transitions, photo-browser, OpenGL and gaming.
You can find more information about the ZMS-20 processor at ziilabs.com
Samsung announces Exynos 5250, ARM Cortex-A15
Posted by – November 30, 2011
Category: Samsung
Here is the press release:
[SEOUL] Nov 30, 2011 – Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a world leader in advanced semiconductor solutions, announced today the industry’s first dual-core processor samples based on the ARM™ Cortex-A15 core. Designed specifically for high-end tablets, Samsung’s newest 2GHz dual-core Exynos 5250 utilizes 32nm high-k metal gate low-power process technology and will offer system-level designers an exciting new solution intended to meet the graphic-intensive, power-efficient requirements of these next-generation mobile products.
“The ARM Cortex-A15 brings unparalleled performance to our Exynos processor family and the exploding mobile marketplace,” said Dojun Rhee, vice president of System LSI marketing, Device Solutions, Samsung Electronics. “Designers need an application processor platform that delivers full high definition multimedia capabilities, fast processing speed and high performance graphics to meet end users’ expectation for a connected life on the go. The advanced low-power, high-performance processor technology of the new Exynos 5250 continues to deliver an unprecedented level of performance for users to enjoy a completely new mobile experience.”
Samsung’s new dual-core ARM Cortex-A15 based application processor, the Exynos 5250, is capable of processing 14 billion instructions per second (DMIPS, Dhrystone million instructions per second) at 2.0GHz, nearly doubling the performance over a current state of the art Cortex-A9-based dual core processor running at 1.5GHz capable of 7,500 DMIPS.
In particular, the Exynos 5250 design was architected to drive up to an industry leading 2560 x 1600 (WQXGA) display which reflects the significance of advanced display technology transitioning toward ever higher and sharper resolutions. These leading-edge features enable users to enjoy crisper video images on their mobile devices and deliver readability equivalent to real paper for an ultimate electronic reading experience.
To maximize power efficiencies at the system level, the Exynos 5250 has an embedded DisplayPort (eDP) interface that is compliant with panel self-refresh technology (PSR) applied to the timing controller (T-CON). The embedded PSR technology enables static images to be refreshed directly from the frame buffer memory incorporated in the T-CON, resolving the need for regular display refresh instructions to be made by the application processor in cases such as reading static web pages or e-books.
The 3D graphics processing capabilities, enhanced by more than four-fold over the 1.5GHz Cortex-A9 dual-core processor, and a stereoscopic 3D feature raise the bar of user experience on high-specification 3D gaming, user-interfacing and stereoscopic 3D video playback.
Moreover, the Exynos 5250 features a doubled memory bandwidth of 12.8 Gigabytes per second (GB/s) compared to current dual-core processors that support a maximum of 6.4GB/s to enable fast data processing features, superb 3D graphics and high-resolution display. This memory bandwidth is a key requirement for a processor to support WQXGA resolution displays.
Samsung’s Exynos 5250 offers a host of peripheral functions including an embedded image signal processor enabling 8 Megapixel resolution images at 30 frames per second, a full HD 60 frame per second video hardware codec engine for high resolution 1080p video recording and playback, a HDMI 1.4 interface for sharp and crisp multimedia content transmission, along with a diverse scope of embedded booting device interfaces such as SATA, UART, USB and external ports such as USB3.0, eMMC4.5 and eSD3.0.
The Exynos 5250 is currently sampling to customers and is scheduled for mass-production in the second quarter of 2012.
ARM releases free DS-5 Community Edition toolkit for native code Android acceleration
Here’s the press release:
ARM today announced the release of the ARM® Development Studio 5 (DS-5™) Community Edition (CE) – a free-to-use edition of its reference software development toolkit. The new edition is dedicated to the Android application developer community and helps them create native software for compute intensive tasks that can run up to 4 times faster than Java code. DS-5 CE complements the standard SDK and NDK Android development kits by offering developers a unique set of tools to help them achieve the performance and energy-efficiency advantages made possible when ARM native code is used in Android applications.
DS-5 Community Edition includes limited, but essential functionality from the premium DS-5 toolkit to help solve common Android application developer pain points. It achieves this by providing an integrated graphical debugger for NDK-generated code and visibility of advanced processor information, including ARM NEON™ Single Instruction Multiple Data (SIMD) registers. The new toolkit permits development of Java and C/C++ code in the same Eclipse integrated development environment (IDE) to maximise productivity and ease of use.
DS-5 Community Edition features a tailored version of the ARM Streamline™ Performance Analyzer for use with compatible Android development platforms. Streamline captures detailed, system-wide performance statistics from a variety of sources which helps developers to locate hotspots in their code and isolate potential causes. Platform builders can add support for Streamline by integrating an open source driver available from the Linaro website.
“With over half a million apps on the Android market today, developers need to deliver an outstanding user experience to succeed commercially,” said John Cornish, executive vice president and general manager, system design division, ARM. “ARM DS-5 Community Edition offers developers an easy to use environment for debugging and optimizing C/C++ code. This allows them to take full advantage of ARM processor technology using native code to deliver the performance and functionality that consumers demand.”
Availability
The DS-5 CE is available free-of-charge for use by individuals and organizations with annual revenue of $100,000 or less, and up to 10 employees. DS-5 CE is available from ARM and can be downloaded now. For more information go to:
- DS-5 CE:
http://www.arm.com/ds5community- DS-5:
http://www.arm.com/ds5- Linaro platform evaluation builds
http://www.linaro.org/downloads/
Related articles
- ARM DS-5 Community Edition: Enabling the Android Developer Community (blogs.arm.com)
- ARM launches toolkit for Android – Promises better performance than Java code (slashgear.com)
- ARM releases free Android development toolkit (linuxfordevices.com)
- ARM Debuts Tools to Help Android Devs Boost App Performance (phonescoop.com)
- ARM launches Android development kit with focus on power efficiency (engadget.com)
Rockchip RK2918 runs Ice Cream Sandwich
Rockchip is showing Ice Cream Sandwich running on their 1Ghz-1.2Ghz RK2918 ARM Cortex-A8 processor with the Vivante GC800 GPU. This may be one of the first demonstrations of Ice Cream Sandwich running on an ARM Cortex-A8 processor?
Thus expect some Ice Cream Sandwich firmware updates for the cool devices like the $149 Arnova 7 G2, $179 Arnova 8 G2, the $199 Arnova 10 G2 and the recently announced Arnova 9 G2 likely to be sold below $249 with a 9.7″ capacitive IPS touch screen, thus bringing nice single-core Ice Cream Sandwich tablet experiences for the low-cost market.
Related articles
- Arnova 9 G2, 9.7″ capacitive IPS RK2918 tablet (archosfans.com)
- Android 4.0.1 Ice Cream Sandwich source code released, how soon on every SoC? (armdevices.net)
- Rockchip Android 4.0 PAD Coming Soon: First Bite on Ice Cream Sandwich From Mainland China – the First Android 4.0 PAD in the World (prnewswire.com)
- Fuzhou Rockchip teases Android 4.0 PAD, brings Ice Cream Sandwich to the big screen (video) (engadget.com)
Panasonic to launch more Android devices
Panasonic is designing their own ARM Cortex-A9 processor at 1.4Ghz that can be used for Google TV type set-top-boxes. Here’s a video interview with Dr. Masaitsu Nakajima, General Manager of Panasonic’s Processor Core Technology, talking about their ARM Cortex-A9 for set-top-boxes:
Video posted by chipestimate.tv
As is said at the end of the video, Panasonic has plans for using ARM Powered Android in Tablets, and they probably also have plans for ARM Powered Android Smartphones, and I also expect Panasonic to use Android in some of their upcoming Camcorders, such as the Sanyo HD1000-type-design, with a 1-click Android functionality to upload the videos directly to YouTube over WiFi, with 1-click live stream to online live streaming systems like Ustream.tv and Justin.tv. I expect Panasonic to include Android in Photo cameras, and in their HDTVs using the ARM Powered Google TV platform. Look forward to major Panasonic branded Android devices news at CES, Mobile World Congress and following.
Related articles
- Panasonic plans to go forth with Android to all of Europe this spring, North America is a definite maybe (engadget.com)
- Panasonic looking to offer smartphones outside of Japan (ubergizmo.com)
- Panasonic reconfirms plans to sell Android phones in Europe, North America (unwiredview.com)
- Panasonic renews hopes of Android smartphones in US, Europe (electronista.com)
- Panasonic eyes reentry to smartphone market outside Japan (slashgear.com)
- Panasonic reaffirms plans to bring its Android phones outside of Japan (intomobile.com)
Kyocera DIGNO ISW11K released on KDDI in Japan
Posted by – November 27, 2011
KDDI, Japan’s second largest carrier is launching Kyocera’s first major Android WiMax smartphone for the Japanese market, the DIGNO ISW11K.
Here are the specs:
Source: au.kddi.com
via: landofdroid.com
Related articles
- Kyocera Digno ISW11K headed to KDDI (ubergizmo.com)
- Japan Gets 8 New Cell Phones: KDDI’s Entire Winter Line-Up (techcrunch.com)
- Kyocera launch Digno waterproof 8.7mm thick Android smartphone (geek.com)
Follow me on Google+
Posted by – November 24, 2011
Category: Opinions
I’m quite active on Google+ since July. Thus far I have 3916 people circle me there. I post a lot of ARM related and general tech related posts, comments and opinions every day. You can circle me here: https://plus.google.com/106075758531242552855
I believe Google+ is already far better than Twitter and Facebook. These are my stats on each platform:
Google+: 3916 followers in 4 months
Twitter: 750 followers in 3 years
Facebook: 261 followers in 4 years
I think Google+ is going to get even much better as soon as Google implements clever recommendations algorithms for your stream. Based on your +1 ratings it will be able to display “People who +1 the kind of content that you +1 also +1 this content:”, thus filtering out the randomness and listing only the interesting posts automatically. Every good post will automatically get the deserved audience, more or less regardless of who is circling who.
Samsung roadmap guesses
Posted by – November 24, 2011
Here is my speculation for some of the upcoming high-end Samsung Android phones based on the recently rumored new Samsung Exynos 4412 Quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 at 1.5Ghz, and based on looking at the Texas Instruments OMAP4 roadmap and thinking the faster OMAP4 processors are fully backwards compatible requiring little design and software changes for Samsung to upgrade:
– Galaxy Nexus 1.2Ghz OMAP4460 dual-core SGX540 308Mhz 45nm launching before Christmas
– Galaxy Nexus 1.5Ghz OMAP4460 dual-core SGX540 384Mhz 45nm around January/February
– Galaxy Nexus 1.8Ghz OMAP4470 dual-core SGX544 384Mhz 45nm around March/April
– Andromeda (Galaxy S3) 1.5Ghz Exynos 4412 quad-core Mali-T604 32nm around May/June/July
– Hydra (Galaxy Nexus 2) 2Ghz OMAP5 ARM Cortex-A15 SGX6 28nm around September
– Quasar (Galaxy S4) 2Ghz Exynos 5 ARM Cortex-A15 Mali-T658 28nm around November
I’m using the names Andromeda, Hydra and Quasar because I think Samsung may at some point stop using the Galaxy name in every new phone.
Samsung will likely also continue to release high-end phones using the best that Qualcomm and Nvidia can come with. Thus expect some Qualcomm Krait and Nvidia Tegra3 in some new Samsung phones also. The reason being Samsung is so big they need to use all the major processors in their phone designs, thus spreading their reach further over the market.
What do you think Samsung is going to release?
Ice Cream Sandwich on the Tegra3 powered Asus Transformer Prime
Nvidia just released this video demo showing Ice Cream Sandwich running on an Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime (click to pre-order for $499 on Amazon). It will be awesome to see if a full Chrome browser can be run on top of Ice Cream Sandwich for when a device like this is used in ARM Powered Laptop mode and using the HDMI output and USB/bluetooth keyboard/mouse in ARM Powered Desktop mode.
Engadget.com: Qualcomm S4 MSM8960 development platform tablet
This is the new Qualcomm S4 MSM8960 Krait development platform with the Adreno 225 GPU, on a pretty high-end tablet development kit, with a 1366×768 capacitive screen, 13 megapixel camera, 3D camera, 2megapixel front-facing camera for 1080p video conferencing and a bunch of other new sensors, fingerprint reader, an MHL connector, full sized SD card slot and more.
Source: engadget.com
Qualcomm also announced a new bunch of their Krait S4 ARM Processors due to arrive in Smartphones, Tablets, Laptops and more starting early next year:
The Krait CPU is the next generation of Qualcomm’s micro architecture and is purpose-built from the ground up for significant mobile performance and power management advantages leading to enhanced user experience and better battery life. The Krait CPU is an essential part of the Snapdragon S4 class of processors. Today, Qualcomm announced several new S4 chipsets, including the MSM8660A, MSM8260A, MSM8630, MSM8230, MSM8627, MSM8227, APQ8060A and APQ8030. These are additional chipsets to the previously announced MSM8960, MSM8930 and APQ8064. Snapdragon S4 MSM processors include Qualcomm’s leading-edge wireless modem technologies, including EV-DO, HSPA+, TD-SCDMA, LTE FDD, LTE TDD and Wi-Fi® standards.
Related articles
- AnandTech – Qualcomms New Snapdragon S4: MSM8960 & Krait Architecture Explored (carpetbomberz.com)
- Qualcomm announces more next generation S4 processors than you can shake a stick at (intomobile.com)
- Qualcomm Pads Snapdragon Lineup With New High-End Chipsets (techcrunch.com)
- Qualcomm announces a slew of new Snapdragon processors, upgrades, mobile games (engadget.com)
- Qualcomm intros Snapdragon S4 Liquid development tablet (electronista.com)
- Qualcomm Intros New Snapdragon CPUs, GameCommand, Games (pocketnow.com)
- Qualcomm unveils new Snapdragon smartphone processors (venturebeat.com)
- Qualcomm wants Snapdragon chip in TVs and more (slashgear.com)
Why I’m looking forward to video-blog at the LeWeb conference in Paris December 7-9th
Posted by – November 19, 2011
Category: LeWeb
LeWeb in Paris is one of the few web conferences in Europe every year where all the top most influential US, European and worldwide bloggers attend. Google, Facebook, Microsoft, IBM, LinkedIn, Ustream, Renault, CNN are sponsors, some of the most hopeful upcoming European Startups compete, all look to get most of the bloggers and industry insiders attention. Leo Laporte and the Twit.tv crew have a live show coverage on a stage in the middle of the event, Michael Arrington and the whole Techcrunch.com staff is there including MG Siegler, Robert Scoble takes pictures and blogs from the front row. Om Malik and his staff from GigaOm.com attend every year, Gade Rivera of Techmeme.com hangs around, this is the conference where I first met Chris Pirillo, Steve Gillmor and Kevin Marks (I don’t know if they will attend again this year). As you can see in the conference program, featured on the stage are going to be keynotes and discussions with Eric Schmidt, Marissa Mayer, Yves Behar designer of the OLPC, Niklas Zennstrom (Skype/Kazaa founder), JP Rangaswami, the CEOs or top executives at Twitter, Virgin Galactic, Foursquare, Deezer, Instagram, Flipboard, Airbnb.
For updates and links to info on how to win tickets you can follow LeWeb on twitter
So if you are interested to attend this conference you can register to attend at LeWeb.net and you can look forward to my video interviews to be posted here on ARMdevices.net from the conference around December 7-9th. I’ll try to video interview all the company representatives and bloggers that I listed here, if you have any questions that you would like me to try to ask to any of them, please post them here in the comments or send me an email at charbax@gmail.com
Ice Cream Sandwich works on ST-Ericsson Nova A9500 ARM Cortex-A9
Posted by – November 19, 2011
Category: ST-Ericsson, Android
Using a small modification to ICS to use software GL from Vishal Bhoj, Linaro engineer Mathieu Poirier was able to get ICS running on the Snowball board. This may be the first demonstration of Ice Cream Sandwich running on another SoC than the OMAP4?
FXI Cotton Candy, Exynos 4210 computer in a USB stick
Posted by – November 19, 2011
Norwegian FXI Technologies is showing their new Exynos 4210 ARM Cortex-A9 based computer in a 21 gram USB stick form factor. It has HDMI output, it powers from USB, has a built-in MicroSD card slot, WiFi and Bluetooth. It’s to be released next year.
Video by: booredatwork.com
Related articles
- FXI Introduces Cotton Candy – Dual-core Android Device Inside a USB Stick (phandroid.com)
- FXI Technologies develops Cotton Candy on a (USB) stick (digitaltrends.com)
- FXI Cotton Candy is an ARM PC in a USB stick (geek.com)
- Dual-Core Android PC Now Comes On a USB Stick (hardware.slashdot.org)
- USB Stick Contains Dual-Core Computer, Turns Any Screen Into an Android Station (laptopmag.com)
- Tiny USB Stick Brings Android to PCs, TVs (wired.com)
- This computer-on-a-USB-stick turns any device into an Android terminal (venturebeat.com)
- FXI’s Cotton Candy could turn every screen you own into a cloud client (engadget.com)
E Ink is giving away E Ink watches (US residents only)
E Ink is giving away 4 E Ink wrist watches worth $195 every Tuesday until the 13th of December on their Facebook page. All you have to do is “Like” the E-Ink page on Facebook and enter your name, email and click to let it grab your Facebook contact info. E-Ink wrist watches are pretty awesome, I got mine since June 2010 that I wear every day, I only had to install the batteries once in the beginning and it’s still running on the same small wrist watch battery. It’s nice to be able to change the design of your wrist watch, have it display the date and all in a very sunlight readable way. It’s just cool to know you’ve got an E Ink e-reader type screen on your watch. Check out this video where I show my E Ink wristwatch:
Here is more information about the $195 Phosphor E Ink watch that you can win on the E Ink facebook page: http://www.phosphorwatches.com/E-Ink-Digital-Hour-Clock-Watch-Stainless-Steel-p/70510565280.htm
Liliputing.com: Google Marketplace works fine on the Amazon Kindle Fire tablet
Posted by – November 17, 2011
Liliputing.com just posted this video showing how nicely the full Google Marketplace can be made to work on the $199 Amazon Kindle Fire. For the next step, I expect Amazon will update it to Ice Cream Sandwich, and when they do, I expect Amazon to pre-install the full Google Marketplace and all the Google Apps, just because that’s what is better for the consumer. And I think Amazon will figure out that it’ll actually increase their own content sales in terms of revenue per tablet to simply fully unlock the Kindle Fire.
It still doesn’t have HDMI output, kick-stand, MicroSD card slot, USB host, webcam, legal Mpeg2/AC3/DTS codecs up to 1080p legally either.
Source: liliputing.com
Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich running on the OMAP4 Pandaboard
Posted by – November 17, 2011
Texas Instruments released this video showing that Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0 now already boots fine on the OMAP4430 based $179 Pandaboard which you can buy at http://pandaboard.org. I expect that we might see Desktop-optimized user interfaces and a full Chrome web browser soon, maybe with Android 4.1 or 4.2. As I also think it’s important for every ICS smartphone to turn into a “desktop mode” when using the HDMI output and when a keyboard and mouse are detected.
ZiiLABS ZMS-20 playing 1080p High Profile
ZiiLABS released this video demonstrating 1080p high profile level 4.1 H.264 with CABAC, deblocking and 8×8 transforms. Played on the ZMS-20 based JAGUAR platform.
Android 4.0.1 Ice Cream Sandwich source code released, how soon on every SoC?
Wow, Google just released the source code for Ice Cream Sandwich in this Google Groups post.
Expect all Gingerbread-capable devices be able to upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich rapidly. The question is only how soon each ARM SoC can have it fully hardware accelerated? Who is doing that work of doing all the hardware optimizations? Who is eventually disabling or tuning down certain hardware accelerated advanced user interface features in the software if that hardware is not powerful enough or of lower performance?
As of course one can expect all the latest high-end Dual-Core ARM Cortex-A9 processors to support this soon, including all devices on the TI OMAP4, Samsung Exynos 4210, Qualcomm MSM8260/8660, Nvidia Tegra2 and Tegra3, St-Ericsson U8500/U9500 and more. Imagine how awesome it is going to be to see firmware updates upgrading all Tablets and Smartphones using following cheap SoCs to Ice Cream Sandwich:
– TI OMAP3630/3530/3430 ARM Cortex-A8
– Samsung Hummingbird ARM Cortex-A8
– Freescale i.MX51/53 ARM Cortex-A8
– Marvell PXA618 Single Core
– Qualcomm 8255/8255T Single Core up to 1.5Ghz
– Rockchip RK2918 ARM Cortex-A8 1.2Ghz
– Telechips 8803 ARM Cortex-A8 1.2Ghz
– AmLogic 8726 ARM Cortex-A9 Single Core 800Mhz
– NEC/Renesas EV2 ARM Cortex-A9 Dual Core 533Mhz
– Qualcomm MSM7227 ARM11
– Mediatek MTK6573 ARM11
– VIA 8710 ARM11
and more! Does anyone know how to get a confirmation from each of these ARM SoC providers to get an idea about how soon and if they expect to get full Ice Cream Sandwich support? Who is going to make that work, do each SoC provider, each device maker have to do all the work or is Google contributing a lot of those software optimizations already as part of the open source Android 4.0.1 code release?
How soon can we expect to find some awesome sub-$100 and sub-$200 fully capacitive, fully smooth Android phones, tablets running on the amazing Android 4.0.1? Can we expect them all now to be fully officially allowed to pre-load the full Google Marketplace, having the full Google-supported Tablet features, official tablet services pre-loaded, no questions asked? I expect Google’s new Ice Cream Sandwich Compatibility Definition Document to allow for every one of those SoCs full compatibility, even the cheapest, and not requiring any specific sensors, screen sizes, buttons, 3G features or other to get official Google Marketplace on those.
I expect that we may see Ice Cream Sandwich on all these SoC, even the ARM11 based ones, starting as soon as before the end of the year, or maybe in January or February of next year. I expect all cheap tablets and phones to run the latest Ice Cream Sandwich, all come with the official Google Marketplace legally pre-loaded, regardless of sensors present. I also expect either Android 4.0.1 or perhaps later coming Android 4.1, Android 4.2 to also provide full support for Set-top-boxes, Laptops, E-readers and more. That means, I expect this to provide a full Google TV experience on HDMI out. I expect this to provide a full Chrome browser when outputting a HD output and keyboard/mouse is detected. I expect this to provide the best ever user interface and applications platform for E-Ink and Pixel Qi based e-readers, powering a better reading experience.
Source: techmeme.com
NewGadgets.de: Samsung Galaxy Nexus Hands-On
Posted by – November 15, 2011
This is obviously the best phone ever released. I’ll try to get it soon so that I can test Ice Cream Sandwich and film my own video-reviews. Until then, check it out here:
Source: newgadgets.de
