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Texas Instruments OMAP4430 Memory Bandwidth, Desktop Computing performance

Posted by – May 31, 2011

They can do Android on the phone and at the same time output Ubuntu on a HDTV or Computer monitor. In this video, TI answers some of the questions regarding the OMAP4430’s memory bandwidth for desktop computing level of performance in web browsing and other apps as well as other details about the status of this platform for use to run a full desktop/laptop OS. TI also claims to have the best Flash support, doing up to 1080p Flash video in the Android browser just software based today on OMAP4430, and Flash 11 for Honeycomb coming out in August or September should be taking full use of GPU hardware acceleration providing even smoother Flash support. OMAP4460 is the platform that TI currently is using with Google for TI’s full Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich support working on fully optimizing hardware and software.

HD Video Conferencing on Texas Instruments OMAP4430


Wow awesome. A few years ago I would film the HD video conferencing solutions that required $15 thousand setups (Lifesize, Sony Ipela, Cisco Telepresence..), now TI is showing HD video-conferencing that works on your next ARM Powered smartphone or tablet. Just connect your smartphone to your HDTV, use WiFi is available, but even over 3G and LTE, with just 512kbit/s you can do 720p video-conferencing on SIP or Skype, and with 1mbit/s upload or more you can even do 1080p video-conferencing using the latest OMAP4460 platform. This also can support up to 8 simultaneous videos. Sorry, but I am pretty much amazed. Soon enough, HD video-conferencing using just cheap ARM Powered devices will be a piece of cake.

Full Netflix support on Texas Instruments OMAP4430

Posted by – May 31, 2011

Texas Instruments supports the full required security features to support Netflix HD on an ARM Powered device. They are the first to showcase it.

Citadel 3D game on the OMAP4430

Posted by – May 31, 2011

Citadel is a very advanced 3D technology demo, it can be regarded as a way to benchmark the 3D performance of devices. So here it has been ported to the Texas Instruments OMAP4430 processor with SGX540 to showcase how advanced the 3D is that it can support.

VIA WonderMedia Prizm WM8710 ARM11 Gingerbread solution

Posted by – May 31, 2011

VIA’s subsidiary WonderMedia launches this new ARM11 platform for tablets, with a new much faster DSP for improved video playback, improved UI responsiveness, better graphics and 3D, the target still being to cheap low cost tablets which is a rapidly expanding market.

VIA WonderMedia SmartStream WiFi Direct to HDMI output

Posted by – May 31, 2011

VIA’s subsidiary WonderMedia is doing this ARM9 based platform to stream screen content to your HDTV wirelessly using WiFi Direct technology. It sounds like it ccould be a cheap way to wirelessly connect your Laptop, Tablet, even Smartphone to your HDTV without needing a cable. I wonder how WiFi Direct compresses stuff and how it manages high bitrate HD video, advanced 3D games and other such stuff.

Pixel Qi launches 10.1″ super thin 1280×800 screen

Posted by – May 31, 2011

Here’s a new comparison between Pixel Qi and the iPad followed by Mary Lou Jepsen’s status report on the latest Pixel Qi news, their first showing of the new 1280×800 thinner 10.1″ wide view screen.

MHL now in several phones at Computex 2011

Posted by – May 31, 2011

Mobile High-Definition Link (MHL) is now presented in several of the newest coolest smartphones and Tablets, including the Samsung Galaxy S2, HTC Sensation, HTC Flyer, Samsung Infuse, HTC Evo 3D, HTC Evo View 4G and more are going to be released soon.

Asus Memo, worlds first 7″ Honeycomb, they make it 3D even

Posted by – May 31, 2011

Check out this awesome 7″ Honeycomb UI, they had to put a 1280×800 7″ screen to support the current Honeycomb software, that’s the first time I see such high pixel density in a 7″ screen. Honeycomb will be further customized for 7″ and smaller screens, as they will resize icons so they get to be big enough for smaller screens, and all kinds of other screen size optimizations that Google and their partners are working on. The Asus Mimic is a cool Bluetooth headset basically, but feels more like an external mobile phone. You can dial on your tablet and talk in the bluetooth phone. I really like the idea of improving the Bluetooth accessories to function with 7″ tablets that thus can stay in the jacket pocket when you receive calls or when you dial numbers. For some reason, Asus does not want to release this product with a normal 2D screen, they want to wait and ship it with this 3D parallax barrier 7″ IPS screen. Let’s hope that does not add too much cost, thickness and weight and other worse screen quality artifacts to this otherwise pretty awesome 1280×800 7″ screen experience.

Asus Padfone, put the phone in behind the tablet

Posted by – May 31, 2011

This is Asus new announcement. Put their phone in a slot behind the tablet. I have tried to ask some of their representatives if this means only the phone has a processor, or if both the phone and the tablet have the same Qualcomme Dual-core processor, some have told me it’s got two processors, but someone else told me they both share the same processor. Logically there is a HDMI output and a USB Host connector in there. Dos this make sense to you? Or does it make more sense to put your phone in the pocket and the tablet wherever else you want to have it and a full power ARM SoC in each. Maybe it’s just Asus who doesn’t really want to charge double the price for this combination but prefers to try to provide the processor-less tablet as a $200-$300 accessory. This may be their Atrix dock.

Asus Slider, to be released in June

Posted by – May 31, 2011

Here’s a look at the Honeycomb powered Asus Slider to be released in June. Asus says their Eee Pad Transformer is popular, is this one going to be as popular? Are they going to price this one as much as the Transformer plus the keyboard add-on?

ARM President Tudor Brown Computex 2011 keynote

Posted by – May 30, 2011

Tudor Brown, President of ARM, delivers a keynote speech on the status of the ARM industry and where it’s headed. Here at the Computex 2011 trade show in Taipei Taiwan, look forward to a whole bunch of new ARM Powered devices. As 25 Billion ARM processors have been shipped thus far, look forward to even more uses for these ARM Processors, with the Internet of Things and infinite other uses to turn everything smart.

Linaro update at Computex 2011

Posted by – May 30, 2011

Linaro provides an update on the latest Linaro news at Computex 2011 in Taipei.

Samsung Origen, the new $199 Exynos 4210 development board

Posted by – May 30, 2011

Linaro and Samsung announced the new $199 Dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 development board featuring the 1Ghz Exynos 4210 processor, 1GB DDR3 memory with fast memory bandwidth.

CUPP Computing transforms all Laptops to ARM Powered laptops

Posted by – May 30, 2011

Here at Computex, CUPP Computing just released their first ARM Powered module. You take out the hard drive and replace it with this Texas Instruments ARM Powered board, one keyboard shortcut to jump instantly from your x86 OS to any ARM Powered OS, be it Android, Ubuntu, Chromium OS and other.

Read more here: http://www.jkkmobile.com/2011/05/punk-this-module-from-cupp-computing.html

Google Marketplace needs subscription plans for better monetization of content

Posted by – May 28, 2011
Category: Opinions

There are some talks in some blogs about Android app revenues versus iOS. While it’s true iPhone users usually are the types of people ready to spend more money on things like the Apple appstore and iTunes for on-demand paid app and content downloads. Android on the other hand does show they can generate more revenues for example for the creators of Angry Birds who are making 2x more money today every day being a free app on Android compared to being a paid app on iOS.

While Google can improve monetization through advertising and Google Wallet features, carrier billing and more, that is great. But here is how Google will totally dominate in the world of Apps, Music, Movies, eBooks and more.

Google can implement an app subscription plan in the Google Marketplace, $3/month for unlimited apps (developpers can opt-out or opt-in in a one-click email..), and the whole paid app business model will be removed. $3/month for unlimited access to apps including automatic app updates is fair. It’ll be paid automatically through carrier billing in most cases. Google can thus have an extra $5 Billion in revenues per year for Android app developers, considering 150 million Android users can opt-in to pay $3/month ($36/year) for unlimited apps.

That $5 Billion per year can get distributed to all developers based on the popularity and based on the amount of use (can be counted by the second if the Android user allows Google to monitor that). As well as by the ratings, comments and other types of measurable user feedback. Creators of free Android apps will receive a windfall of new revenues from this subscription model, and creators of paid apps will also actually discover that being part of the $3/month subscription access, they will also make significantly more revenues as long as they make quality apps that many people download and use.

That would be just the app subscription plan revenue.

Google can do the same for eBooks, Music, Movies, Chrome Web Store Web-apps and more. Here are the fair subscription prices that I expect Google to introduce:

– $3/month for unlimited Apps (Android and Web Apps)
– $5/month for unlimited Music
– $10/month for unlimited Video (YouTube, Movies and TV)
– $2/month for unlimited Text (eBooks, Blogs and Newspapers)

Google can thus provide an all-content subscription plan: $20/month for unlimited access to everything.

This is where Google either waits for Governments to implement this, or else they can implement it now themselves as a private corporation, but as a corporation that is interested to provide open platform for better monetization of content. Google could thus suggest that they don’t have to be the only ones thus handling the subscription money. Where Google may or may not take a 2-5% transaction fee on the subscription plan, the important thing is that the majority, more than 95% needs to get distributed to the content makers. Thus Google wouldn’t mind if other reliable companies charge the same subscription fee, and Google still contributes to provide their statistics on the popularity and rated quality of all the content. Google could even suggest that it would be most fair if this type of monthly subscription plan was even at some point automatically collected as a tax by fair Governments on all citizen of the world. If everyone pays through taxes, unlimited access to content online may end up being closer to $10/month per person or less.

The big established Labels, Movie Studios, TV Networks, Book Publishers, Newpapers and Proprietary app makers initially may want to opt-out from the cheap global subscription model, sure they might. On one hand Google cannot prevent users from still using as much alternative BitTorrent dowloading as they want. On the other hand, the pure economics of the subscription model will prevail, and while old content monopolies loose their control on content distribution, they will also realize that the subscription model is the best way to proceed and is the best way to increase content revenues and at the same time discourage piracy through a fair subscription pricing. Also, Google can provide content owners the choice to offer their on-demand paid content not for free but at a rebate for people who have that all access subscription. Thus new movie releases could be $2 instead of $4 for all-access subscribers, ebooks could be $5 instead of $10 for all-access subscribers. But content owners can quickly calculate that it mostly makes more sense to provide free access to content for the all-access subscribers, as new releases get more demand, those content creators also in turn automatically get paid much higher share from the global all-access subscription system.

Google can also continue to provide advertising revenues for all content makers which they will also work to increase through Google Wallet easy payments thus much higher advertising revenue.

Google Wallet, your Android becomes your wallet/ID/tickets/offers and more, but does it use ARM TrustZone yet?

Posted by – May 27, 2011
Category: Opinions, Google

Google wants to replace your wallet, your passport, your ID, to be used for ticketing, for local offers, coupons, deals and more. But is it secure yet?

We need this pin code mode and it needs to be fully 100% secure. But is it yet secure in this first implementation with NFC on the Nexus S 4G? Does Google yet use some type of deep hardware level security like the ARM TrustZone Mobile Payments platform?

We need this pin code screen to show up full screen, and there needs to be some kind of light diode indicator confirming that you are in 100% secure mode. That kind of pin code screen needs to come up to confirm every login, every payment, every money transfer. If they can do that in the way ARM is suggesting with TrustZone, this should make of this system a fully secured way to replace wallets, ID, Passports, tickets, coupons and more.

I want to login to my Google Account using my phone’s pin code security system. I want this system to replace all login username/passwords on the web. This system needs to become the new interface for a new type of OpenID system. Google released in February an SMS based secure login service that they offer to all Google Account holders today. But SMS is not seamless, it’s not really usable, the pin code screen needs to popup on your smartphone right there as you are trying to login, authenticate your access or to pay for something. That pin code authentication mechanism could perhaps be replaced by some kind of bio-metric authentication, or a kind of screen lock mechanism. Think of it like that calculator that you use for your security for your net banking, it needs to be the same integrated right into your phone.

Here’s the 1-hour video of this Google Wallet announcement, embedded to start at time-code 22 minutes (you can rewind and watch the whole thing if you want) where Rob von Behren talks about the NXP PN65 based Secure Element solution, which sounds like this is true hardware based security!

Renault launches electric cars for real

Posted by – May 27, 2011
Category: Cars, Other

Yup, all new cars can now be electric, and we can setup the renewable energy to power them and the battery switch stations and charge stations at all parking spots as fast as those new cars can get onto the market.

Microsoft to show Windows 8 ARM Tablet Edition next week!?

Posted by – May 27, 2011
Category: Opinions, Windows

Windows 8 for ARM Tablets to be shown next week?

Windows 8 for ARM Tablets to be shown next week?

Follow my blog here next week (subscribe to my RSS and to my YouTube Channel) as I will provide you with complete video-coverage from the Computex trade show in Taipei where Microsoft is rumored to be planning to showcase their Windows 8 for ARM Tablet Edition for the first time. I will try to ask Microsoft representatives about how they plan to release the Windows 8 for ARM, what will be the hardware requirements, what will be the software compatibility, how they plan to merge that with their Tablet and Smartphone strategies and more on that. I don’t expect Microsoft to be ready to answer all these questions yet, as they are probably working with thousands of engineers on this very secret project. But I will try. If I do manage to meet some Microsoft representatives at Computex that could say something about Windows 8 on ARM and explain something about Microsoft’s upcoming ARM Powered tablet strategy, what would you like me to ask them?

If anyone knows how I could meet Microsoft OEM chief Steve Guggenheimer at Computex, if there might be any private demonstration rooms at the trade show where Microsoft might want to demonstrate their UI and perhaps talk in an interview, please let me know, you can always Submit News here on the site or send me an email to charbax@gmail.com if you have any tips about anything that you think that I should film at the Computex trade show.

50 years ago today

Posted by – May 25, 2011
Category: Opinions

May 25th 1961, President Kennedy did this speech.

Why doesn’t Obama do a speech today about sending Humans to Mars within this decade?

Read Robert Zubrin’s suggestion to build a transorbital railroad posted today in the Washington Times

We should set big goals to do really big things fast. Because we can.

What big projects would you like us to take on and how can we convince our leaders to make more of those speeches?