Author:

Charbax

Intel spreads FUD on ARM based Windows 8

Posted by Charbax – May 21, 2011
Category: Opinions, Windows

Intel spreads FUD

Intel spreads FUD

Intel spreads Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD). It is a practice that Intel is famous for using against competitors when they feel threatened. Intel does it by getting some of their top executives (but usually not the CEO) to say all kinds of negative things about competitors in more or less official setting (you don’t always find a video of the event). Intel did the same against AMD. Intel used FUD to slow the One Laptop Per Child revolution to try to control it with their Netbooks. Now that Microsoft is officially working on Windows 8 for ARM, Intel is using FUD against the ARM powered version of Windows 8 that is rumored to be a top priority investment at Microsoft with over 1000 of their top engineers working on full ARM support for Windows 8.

Windows 8 on ARM is the biggest threat to Intel ever.

Here’s how I expect Microsoft will solve the software compatibility issue for ARM version of most x86 Windows software to work:

Microsoft will launch the Windows Appstore for Windows 8

I believe the Windows Appstore will be central to Windows 8 on ARM and will provide for functionality that will make software compatibility between ARM and x86 versions of Windows seamless. If you click on an x86 compiled .exe file in Windows on ARM, it will simply link you up with the recompiled ARM version in the Windows Appstore.

This sounds like Piece of Cake, doesn’t it?

Quite simply, Microsoft can make a database of .exe file IDs based on hash tags, file size, file names, etc. if such x86 version of an .exe is clicked on, it can offer 3 choices:

1. Download ARM version in Windows 8 Appstore (if available, if not available, Microsoft gets an alert to hurry up and recompile themselves or to contact the developer to make it available, the user can get an alert about the status of ARM support on each app)
2. Launch in Virtualized Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) mode. x86 software virtualization may even be provided by Microsoft in the form of software as a service from the Azure cloud. Meaning, if the .exe is recognized it can instantly be run in this remote desktop virtualization service, otherwise the .exe is uploaded to the server and installed to be virtualized safely from there.
3. Basic x86 software could get emulated.

While Microsoft may not themselves be able to process the recompiling of all Windows .exe apps, they can certainly automatically do it on hundreds of thousands of existing open source Windows x86 apps and they can provide a one-click ARM recompilation software for all Windows app developers, that can take their closed source code, click one button to submit the ARM compiled version in the new ARM based Windows Appstore. Offering developers all kinds of new monetization features in the new Windows 8 Appstore, including also easy ways for users to keep over on ARM their eventual already purchased x86 software licence.

Short of launching a direct competitor to Chrome OS (could Microsoft launch an Azure OS?), Microsoft will likely make of cloud grid computing in combination with cloud virtual desktop a new type of service with ARM based Windows 8. I see it like that, I think Microsoft can provide APIs for app developers to hook into the Azure cloud to accelerate processing and rendering features. For example, the ARM version of Photoshop could render images automatically through the cloud, or the ARM version of Avid could also use a grid of cloud servers to speed up encoding. And user’s software licences, and user data, could be in general stored on the cloud, and Internet Explorer on ARM would be fully optimized for full HTML5 online/offline/native/3D accelerated web apps support.

This is how Ubuntu on ARM has about 100% of all the same Ubuntu Software Center apps available for Ubuntu on both ARM and x86, over 30 thousand apps are available to run fully on the ARM version of Ubuntu. It really is a piece of cake to recompile an app from x86 to ARM support, no need to require only the use of emulation or virtualization although those tricks will also be there.

Following is a video demonstrating Microsoft’s RemoteFX Virtual Desktop Infrastructure technology running on a Texas Instruments BeagleBoard xM ARM Cortex-A8 platform. Consider the VDI technology that Microsoft probably is working on for Windows 8 on ARM is probably to use some of these Virtualization features and serve them when needed from the Azure cloud, thus no need for local servers taking care of things. The VDI tricks can also be considered as temporary as the optimal thing is for all the apps, even advanced games to be ported to native ARM support. Though the hardware and cloud based VDI as well as hardware accelerated emulation are temporary solutions during this transition away from x86.

Microsoft supposedly has over 1000 engineers working on Windows 8 for ARM, it’s a big project. It’ll actually bring up desktop/laptop computing to also work in Smartphones and Tablets, it’ll be a bunch of user interface tools for that.

With ARM chips being “fast enough” to run most Laptops, Desktops, Servers, Set-top-boxes, the truth is ARM is becoming the biggest threat to Intel’s core business.

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Nokia/Microsoft to use ST-Ericsson U8500 ARM Cortex-A9 in Windows Phone 8

Posted by Charbax – May 20, 2011
Category: Smartphones, ST-Ericsson, Windows

Forbes reports from Carlo Bozotti, the Chief Executive of European semiconductor maker STMicroelectronics, that Nokia will use the ST-Ericsson U8500 dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 with Mali-400 in at least some of its upcoming Windows Phone 8 devices to be released as soon as Nokia and Microsoft are able to make them ready. Here’s a video I filmed with ST-Ericsson showing this processor platform:

The move marks a major shift for Windows Phone devices, which up to now have used chips from wireless technology giant Qualcomm. Even the HTC Trophy, which Verizon Wireless announced today — making it the latest Windows Phone to launch in the U.S. — has a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor.

The uniformity is the result of Microsoft’s precise design guidelines for Windows Phone manufacturers. In the run-up to its big Windows Phone launch in the fall of 2010, Microsoft asked handset makers including HTC, LG, Samsung and Dell to utilize the same chipsets, display size and number of camera megapixels to give users a consistent experience across devices.

Earlier this year, however, Microsoft indicated it planned to open up Windows Phone development to other chipmakers. It now appears that ST-Ericsson, a joint venture between Geneva-based STMicroelectronics and Swedish telecom equipment and services supplier Ericsson, has been admitted to the Windows Phone ecosystem.

Another crazy rumor from Eldar Murtazin (who has been right before..) has been suggesting that Microsoft may be in talks to try buy Nokia’s Mobile Phone business flat out, probably for a bunch of tens of billions of dollars. Can you believe that?

My opinion is that Microsoft knows the ARM Powered mobile device space is where the future of technology is at, so short of yet releasing a Windroid fork of Linux based Android (that could launch Bing, own apps store etc..), Microsoft is probably going to do everything that they can to try to remain relevant in the smartphone and tablet space. Even if that might mean a $40 Billion buy-out of Nokia. Should the Finnish Nokia owners sell out to Redmond?

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Eric Schmidt talks about why Android gets more volume and more investments in the platform

Posted by Charbax – May 17, 2011
Category: Opinions, Google, Android

He has said it before, but perhaps not as explicitly when talking about tablets, and it’s always fun to see Eric Schmidt, Chairman of Google, explain Android’s strategy vs Apple.

Eric Schmid:
It’s a classic contest in high-tech. In that contest, you have a very well run, very focused, closed competitor who builds a great product that does something that is very usefull. That would be Apple. You have another competitor who makes all the technology available to everybody else, and using various creativity and various partnerships gets the benefit over everyone else’s creativity. Because there are more people involved in the open side of that, that side will eventually get more volume, have more investment, therefore have more creativity, more innovation, and ultimately the end user will choose the open one over the closed one.

Fareed Zakaria:
Except right now, the open one, all these tablets that are Android based, let’s be honest, they are not as good as the iPad and they are more expensive, which strikes me as unusual.

Eric Schmidt:
Which product will produce a lower cost product quicker? One manufacturer for a product or many manufacturers competing? The matter of fact is that we are just at the beginning of this fight. And the fight between two very well run, very large, very significant ecosystem companies, will ultimately produce great value for consumers because the fight between them will keep prices low, keep these systems honest and open and encourage the kinds of investments that people want to see. One of the greatest things about this contest is that people who win in this are the consumer.

(…)

There is pride in both approaches but they are completely different. In Apple’s case, they can continue to build beautiful and excellent products. The ecosystem that Google represents will continue and already has more volume, more users and will have more investment in the platform. Ultimately that will produce cheaper, better and faster products for everybody.

Posted by Fareed Zakaria on CNN GPS

ARM Powered Google TV now confirmed officially by Google

Posted by Charbax – May 14, 2011
Category: Set-top-boxes, Opinions, Google, Google TV

You got the tip from me from an anonymous source here since January (I have been speculating about it (2) (3) (4) for over a year), clues about it from ARM President Tudor Brown last year in November, and re-confirming rumors through Samsung in February, Google announced at Google I/O this week that Ice Cream Sandwich combines Android, Honeycomb and Google TV into one release (thus Google TV features on ARM), now it’s being reported by PC World that Google TV product manager Rishi Chandra is confirming the ARM Powered Google TV platform like this:

for the price issue, Chandra said that Google has now qualified ARM chips to be used to run the Google TV software, instead of just the Intel Atom chips that currently power the Revue. Moore’s Law–the inevitable increase in chip performance driven by increasing transistor density–will push the performance of the cost-optimized ARM chips up high enough to compete with Atom, while helping drive down the overall platform price, Chandra said.

I have thus far video-blogged over 60 ARM Powered Set-top-boxes from all the consumer electronics trade shows over the past 2 years, most are running Android, all of which could in theory run the Google TV software.

Of course, it is up to Google to decide what kind of hardware requirements they want to enfore for Google TV on ARM, if they want those to only feature the full suite of HDMI pass-through features, meaning HDMI input and output, Infrared blasters (to change the channel on your cable/satellite set-top-box), USB hosts, Bluetooth and more, then that would disqualify just about all of the ARM Powered set-top-boxes that I have filmed thus far. I wouldn’t know how much more those hardware features require, and perhaps that requires an ARM Cortex-A9 at the minimum to run all the overlay user interface features and preferably 1080p at 60fps support at the minimum.

I think it is more likely and more logical that Google will decide to be as open as possible about Google TV on ARM, and thus support all the SoC that are currently being used and that will most likely be used. I think that means Google TV on ARM could work in “AppleTV/Roku mode”, meaning no HDMI inputs, just the Google TV experience of bringing the Web and WebTV on the TV on this separate HDMI port to your HDTV. That is why I expect there to be two kinds of Google TV on ARM:

1. Basic Google TV on ARM, this is HDMI output only, Bluetooth or RF/USB keyboards with mouse pad accessory can be used. This solution could work on 100% of the ARM Powered Set-top-boxes that I have filmed. And I believe this will be included turning every Android Smartphone/Tablet with Ice Cream Sandwich and every Tablet with Honeycomb 3.1 into a Google TV “for free”. See the Google Android Team’s response to my question submitted on the possibility of turning all Android devices into free Google TV devices when HDMI is used:

2. The Full ARM Powered Google TV experience, including HDMI pass-through, IR blaster, USB hosts, Ethernet, etc.. Since Chris DiBona answers to my question above “There’s all this other stuff that goes into a Google TV that isn’t in a phone”, well then, the Full ARM Powered Google TV will be that type that does it all. But that should not prevent an Android device with a basic HDMI output and not much else to still display many if not most of the Google TV UI features right there on the HDTV.

3. There is also a third scenario that I am envisioning, Google might use their Android Hardware division to plan out a new type of Multimedia TV Docking system for Android, using nothing more than HDMI, USB slave/host and evt MHL (that combines both into one Micro-USB connector). Basically the idea here is a cheap TV Dock that should work with most if not all Android Smartphones that have HDMI, USB (or MHL) to turn those into full Google TV, thus using the USB slave/host to transmit the right infos back and forward and feature in that Dock the right HDMI input and output, IR blaster, USB host duplicators, Ethernet connector, charging and more. The idea is a new Google Open Accessory design that could sell for $49 to dock any Android Smartphone with HDMI/USB or MHL and thus turn those into full Google TV. A solution which could evt also turn any ARM Powered Set-top-box into a full Google TV box also with adding the HDMI in/out, IR and more to those. Maybe it could be called the Google TV adapter, converter or extender.

Here’s the 56 minute session on some of the Google TV Honeycomb 3.1 upgrades and development tools at Google I/O:

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Worlds first Solar flight from Switzerland to Belgium underway

Posted by Charbax – May 13, 2011
Category: Energy Harvesting, Other

Watch the live video now here: http://www.solarimpulse.com

The flight should be 12 hours, 438 kilometers from Payerne Switzerland to Brussels Belgium. This is the worlds first attempt to make an international flight using a 100% solar powered airplane.

You can follow the flight live with video and metrics with the Solar Impulse app on Android Google Marketplace and Apple Appstore.

I’d like to know this from an aeronautical expert:

Could we build an electric airplane, no solar, just big batteries, how many people can be transported, how far and how fast? What if the range of an electric jumbo jet with 100 passengers was only 2 hours, that’s enough for half of all the short range gasoline powered flights.

Android robot funky dancer at the Google I/O party

Posted by Charbax – May 13, 2011
Category: Other

Here’s some nice behind the scenes at the Google I/O party, you get to see the world famous funky Taiwanese Android robot dancer as he makes fun with some of the Google people:

Samsung has released a nice looking HD video of the Chromebook experience (to be ARM Powered soon):

Chris Pirillo says Chromebook just killed the PC industry

Posted by Charbax – May 13, 2011
Category: Laptops, Opinions, Google, Chrome OS

My take on it is that the Chromebook is the first serious challenger to Windows/Mac in terms of being installed in a mass market retail product. It’s the first ever mass market Linux laptop (after the One Laptop Per Child non-profit reaching 2.5 million children with Linux Laptops in the developping world since 2007). It’s the first ever mass market ARM Powered laptop. It can be configured to be the cheapest laptop to make, the safest, the fastest, the thinnest, the lightest and the easiest to use. Chromebook may be the first successful carrier subscription based laptop.

For Chromebook to sell more than Windows, here’s what I think Chromebook needs to be:

– $199 or less in an ARM Powered configuration
– Use Pixel Qi with ARM and you’ve got 30 hours battery runtime in a sub-1kg 11.6″ or 12.1″ super slim form factor
– They should subsidize these in partnership with the carriers to do a subscription model for normal consumers like this:
1. Sell it for $99 or less on a 2-year contract with $10/month/100mb or $20/month/1GB 3G/LTE data plan
2. Bandwidth upgrades should be max $10/GB, $20/5GB, $30/10GB on-demand one-click
3. They can use carrier billing (thus carrier revenue share) for bandwidth upgrades, for cloud media subscriptions, on-demand, Chrome Web Store web apps and for all Google Checkout based online shopping
4. Provide an optional hardware upgrade once a year with contract extension. Used devices can be resold refurbished.
5. Provide 100GB or more cloud storage and full Google Apps for consumers with the subscription, offer guarantee of available of advanced web apps such as HD video editing (with many or most of the features of Avid/Finalcut), photo editor. And all these web apps must feel near instant to load and work offline, a web app should only need to get reloaded if it detects that there is a new version available. Gmail should load instantly for example.
6. Obviously, Google Voice and Google Music needs to be worldwide. They should also expand with a Google Video cloud storage. Basically they can allow people to upload 20’000 songs and 1’000 movies for free, the reason being, Google only needs to store one copy of each song or movie, and if the upload client (also on Chrome OS) detects that the file you want to upload already exists on Google’s servers in equal or better quality, it should instantly beam it to your account without actually requiring you to upload anything. Google should not care to try to filter out any “illegal” Mp3, Flac, DivX, MKV files. Eventually they can introduce unlimited music/movies subscription plans like Spotify/Netflix but they should aim at being able to include access to everything in those unlimited subscriptions, this might only be achievable through Government regulation of online content subscriptions.

If Google can deliver on those things and quickly, which is what I expect them to be able to do, then I think it’s obvious Chromebook could become the number 1 PC/Laptop OS as quickly as they became number 1 OS in smartphones since the Nexus One was released.

Can we expect to see some ARM Powered Chromebooks (or Chromiumbooks) at Computex in Taiwan at the end of May from all the Taiwanese notebook designers (Inventec, Pegatron, Wistron, Foxconn, Shuttle, Gigabyte etc..) who design upwards 90% of worldwide notebooks?

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Android@Home enables 100 Billion new ARM Powered devices

Posted by Charbax – May 12, 2011
Category: Internet of Things, Other, Opinions, Google, Android

Android Open Accessory Development Kit

Android Open Accessory Development Kit

Android@Home enables the Internet of Things.

The biggest announcement at Google I/O was the launch of the Android@Home Open Accessory Development platform. This is the platform for a whole new world of accessories and connecting everything through Android to the Internet. Suddenly, we are smart about all things and all things become smart.

Now we are not only talking about about connecting 7 Billion people to the Internet with Android Smartphones, now it becomes about connecting 100 Billion things through Android to the Internet.

Why the Internet of things? Why using Android?

The cost to add an ARM processor such as one of the ARM Cortex-M series, with sensors, switches and wireless connectivity in every appliance in your home may cost as little as few cents or a few dollars per device. It’s so cheap that as soon as an open standard is established and as soon as applications are planned out, all devices will get connected with this technology. Watch my video with Nuvotron NuMicro at Embedded World 2011 about the cost ($0.50-$2) and use of ARM Cortex-M0 32bit microcontrollers in all types of devices.

Here are some of the infinite amounts of uses for putting ARM processors in everything:

– Put a smart control in every lamp and the lights follow you, if you move to another room the lights automatically turn off, you save power. They automatically dim if they detect you’re relaxing or watching TV.

– Put a smart control in all your doors, in all your windows, in all your power outlets, integrated with your heating systems, water systems.

– Add sensors, ARM Processors in your pillow, blanket and in your bed, to monitor your sleep and wake you up at the right time between the right sleeping cycles. You’ll feel better the whole day and you’ll optimize your sleeping times. It’s more healthy, makes you more productive and saves you time.

The trick is that even as the Internet of things has been possible for a while, and even as prices to add smart controllers and sensors in each thing costs $3, people haven’t been doing much of it yet just because the control, management, interactivity systems around this have not been standardized and open yet. If you want to build the Internet of things it has to be built around you and for you and not among each thing and only for each thing. That is why Android is your interface into that world of things, and Google supports the open Adruino platform to enable these developments in an open industry. Android is the UI for the Internet of Things. Android is how you guide it, how you see it, it’s how you control your things.

Expect the next consumer electronics trade shows to showcase more and more ARM Powered things to connect with the Android ecosystem, look forward to an industry about to get really creative in how to use and feature that Internet of Things most efficiently.

ARM President Tudor Brown talks about the Internet of Things at the ARM Technology Conference:

Andy Rubin’s former co-founders on Danger (Sidekick, see these videos from 2004) Matt Hershenson and Joe Britt demonstrate and launch the new Android Open Accessory API and Android@Home platform at the Google I/O 2011 Day 1 Keynote:

IBM’s video on the Internet of Things:

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Solar Impulse to attempt worlds first international solar flight tomorrow

Posted by Charbax – May 12, 2011
Category: Energy Harvesting, Other

Tomorrow May 13th 6AM Swiss Time, weather permits, Solar Impulse will attempt to fly a 100% Solar Powered airplane from Payerne Switzerland to Brussels Belgium. The prototype, piloted by André Borschberg, will take off from Payerne airfield and climb to an altitude of 3600 meters. The plane will head for France, pass over Luxembourg and land at Brussels Airport. Here’s my Interview with Solar Impulse co-founder Bertrand Piccard:

Schedule Friday May 13th 2011 (UTC +2) (liftoff is scheduled for 6AM Central European Time, this Midnight EST (New York), Thursday 9PM 12th May PST (San Francisco)):
06:00 approximately Take-off from Payerne aerodrome bound for Brussels Airport
20:30 Hangar doors open/ building 117 (logistical details below)
21:00 approximately Land at Brussels Airport
22:00 approximately Briefing in the hangar with Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg
23:00 End of the event

Although the flight has been confirmed, the Flight Director may still decide to postpone it or alter the route up until a short time before takeoff.

Tomorrow, you will thus be able to track the flight live on http://solarimpulse.com and via the Smartphone app “Solar Impulse Inventing the Future” available in Android Google Marketplace and Apple Appstore. The airplane’s position, altitude and speed will be shown live and cameras fitted inside the cockpit and at “Mission Control Center”, the mission’s nerve center, will allow you to experience the adventure live.

The purpose of Solar Impulse is to inspire all of us to think big, to become more ambitious, that we can as Humans pretty much do whatever we want. Solar Impulse is a philosophy. We can reach the moon, send Humans to Mars, fix global warming, make all new cars electric, feed the hungry and solve poverty.

ARM Powered Chromebooks to be released soon

Posted by Charbax – May 12, 2011
Category: Laptops, Exclusive videos, Google, Chrome OS

As a reply to my ARM Powered Chromebook Chrome OS notebook question posted online, the Google Chrome Team confirms that while they are focusing right now on getting the Intel Powered Samsung and Acer devices out the door on June 15th, the Chrome OS team is also working hard on ARM support and the ARM Powered Chromebooks should be released soon after. Their wording is the ARM Chromebooks are “hot on the trails” of the Intel Powered ones. This could be the first mass market ARM Powered laptop ever released.

The advantage of an ARM Powered Chrome OS device is that it is thinner, lighter, runs longer on a battery and especialy could be sold for a lot cheaper. I’m expecting the ARM Powered Chromebooks to sell below $199 for them to become the new best selling notebook platform.

Watch the Chrome Team live, as they may answer about Chrome OS on ARM

Posted by Charbax – May 11, 2011
Category: Google, Chrome OS

Chrome OS is I think the first real challenger to Microsoft Windows and Mac OSX to actually be able to reach a mass market through retail stores and carrier subscription plans. Google has announced the global release of Chromebooks starting June 15th, but for now, those are only Intel Atom based. I asked them about the ARM Powered Chrome OS on their Google Moderator, let’s see if we get a good answer about the status of Chrome OS on ARM, the live Fireside Chat with the Chrome Team starts now at 3PM PDT (Midnight Central European Time):

Vote for my Chrome OS on ARM questions at Google I/O

Posted by Charbax – May 11, 2011
Category: Google, Chrome OS

Please vote now for the following two questions for the Google I/O Fireside Chat with the Chrome team (to be live streamed on http://google.com/io at 3PM PST today, about 2 and a half hours from now), please use the following links to the Google Moderator to up-vote my questions so that we are more likely to get these answers:

When are you showing the ARM Powered Chromebooks? Are ARM Cortex-A9 processors with lots of RAM fast enough today? What is the status of Chrome OS on ARM?

Please vote here now: http://goo.gl/Nybov

Retweet this: RT: @charbax Let’s get the Chrome team to answer about the ARM Powered Chromebooks: http://goo.gl/Nybov

What hardware requirements do you enforce for manufacturers to get access to the Chrome OS source code? Can anyone use Chromium OS today with the full Chrome Web Store on any hardware without asking Google for permission?

Please vote here now: http://goo.gl/mod/XAsv

Also feel free to add your own good questions to the Chrome team in that Google Moderator and post your question links in the comments so we can also vote for your questions.

Honeycomb source code to remain closed until Q4? Who has access now?

Posted by Charbax – May 11, 2011
Category: Opinions, Google, Android

Who in the industry has access to Honeycomb 3.0 and 3.1 source code today? We were hoping for Google to announce 3.1 being open sourced around Google I/O but now it seems Google might not provide any Honeycomb open source code before Ice Cream Sandwich in Q4 this year?

Also watch the Android team’s response to Android being 100% open source (including all the drivers) (at 16m20s time code)

I understand the gigantic work involved for Google to write all the code, implement the programming APIs and everything else involved around Ice Cream Sandwich. Regardless of how quickly Google put together Honeycomb for tablets to have something ready at Mobile World Congress in February, I think it would just look wrong if for some reason we only have $500+ Android tablets based on Tegra2 made by a handful of priviledged companies somehow having any type of Honeycomb software on them for another 6 months. Given the amount of companies (nearly 375 of them filmed here), small to medium sized, who are investing their futures in making Android tablets, Tegra2-Honeycomb-exclusivity-until-Q4 would probably be quite scandalous. This is what I am expecting must be happening right now secretly with the Honeycomb 3.0 and 3.1 source code behind the scenes:

1. All “serious” tablet companies using all the major ARM Processors do have access to Honeycomb now, or will get access very soon. By “serious” company, I could mean the companies in which Google can trust not to leak the source code. That could mean that these “serious” Android tablet companies need some kind of a track record of being serious with this market.

2. Google should be transparent about which chip provider does have access to Honeycomb source code today, and which chip provider will get access soon. I believe all chip makers from at least ARM Cortex-A8 performance and upwards should be allowed to work on optimizing any current Honeycomb source code to work and timely be shipped with all the tablets that do get released with those specific chips in them. I do not believe that a Tegra2-only club for Honeycomb would be taken with a smile from the rest of the industry. All chip providers that have tablet makers showing products on the market and showcasing them at all the “serious” tradeshows today, including AmLogic, Freescale, Marvell, NEC/Renesas, Qualcomm, Rockchip, ST-Ericsson, Samsung, Telechips, Texas Instruments, VIA, all those should get that access and be able to ship Android tablets with Honeycomb in Q3 this year.

I’ve sent some of my Google contacts some questions regarding the actual status and plans for Honeycomb’s source code and support on the variety of ARM chip providers, while I am waiting for their reply, I wouldn’t know for sure what the actual happenings are behind closed doors before, during and after Google I/O in terms of officially supporting Honeycomb 3.1 on other platforms than just Tegra2.

Google needs to officially confirm that they are working with these ARM processors to support Honeycomb 3.1 in Q3 this year and I think that most Android tablet fans would be totally happy and satisfied:

– Freescale i.MX53 Cortex-A8 1Ghz
– Samsung Hummingbird ARM Cortex-A8 1Ghz
– Samsung Exynos 4210 ARM Dual Cortex-A9 1.2Ghz
– TI OMAP4440 ARM Dual Cortex-A9 1.6Ghz
– Marvell Armada 600
– Qualcomm MSM7227 ARM11 600Mhz 45nm with Adreno
– Qualcomm Snapdragon 8255 1.5Ghz 45nm
– Qualcomm Snapdragon Dual 8620 1.5Ghz
– Rockchip RK2918 ARM Cortex-A8 1.2Ghz
– Telechips 8803 ARM Cortex-A8 1.2Ghz
– NEC/Renesas EV2 ARM Dual Cortex-A9 533Mhz
– AmLogic ARM Single Cortex-A9 800Mhz

If Google has been and is cooperating with at least each of these SoC platforms, then I think we have no problem.

But if on the other hand, it somehow turns out that most of these alternative SoC vendors are somehow locked out of the Honeycomb party until finally getting source code access in Q4 and maybe not being able to release actual tablets with that code before Q1 2012, well then I think there will be some very angry people around the worldwide Android tablet industry.

Given the relatively big level of secrecy from all SoC vendors involved, I would like to interpret that as a clue that they must all be silently and cooperatively working closely with Google ever since before even the Motorola Xoom was released last February. And if they didn’t all have access already before last February, then hopefully they have all quietly gotten access or are getting access by now.

Google announced that over 100 Million Android Smartphones have been sold thus far. If 80% of those are sold on 2-year contracts generating revenues at an average of $1200 per phone over the 2-year contracts (in the US for example that number is most often higher than $2000), then that could mean Google’s Android has a huge influence on a global revenue of potentially more than $120 Billion, possibly over $80 Billion of which have been generated just in 2010 alone, with 2011 global Android industry revenues possibly clinching upwards twice as much as Smartphone growth is more than doubling every year. The Android Smartphone may be a $160 Billion industry in 2011 alone. Over $250 Billion in 2012 maybe. We are not talking peanuts. And with all analysts saying Tablets are the post-PC interface, Google may feel some type of pressure from the big guys of tech, not only the manufacturers but also the carriers (who are touching most of those huge Android related revenues), so it can be understandable that Google does things very carefully around Android, and to bring Android’s market share from 40% to over 80% in the next few months, Google may want to focus on top level secrecy in all of their cutting edge Android developments.

While I can understand that, and as a huge Google fanboy I want them to dominate over everything, but let’s see if we can get more informations on Honeycomb openness and the industry’s access to Honeycomb now under this Google I/O conference. I haven’t yet watched the Google Executives Q&A with Andy Rubin where some of the Android openness questions are answered, if anyone has the link to that video or any other related sources of informations please post those links in the comments.

If you are an industry insider and if you would like to tell me any secret information about the status of Honeycomb in the industry related to 3.1’s likelyhood to work on any or all of these SoCs during Q3 this year, you are welcome to contact me at charbax@gmail.com and if you want I can keep your name secret if you allow me to report here on your info.

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Impressions from the Google I/O Android Keynote, Day 1

Posted by Charbax – May 10, 2011
Category: Opinions, Google

– Ice Cream Sandwich merges Android, Honeycomb, Google TV and more. To be open source in Q4 2011, but is there going to be a Honeycomb 3.1 Open Source FAR SOONER? I posted this question to the Honeycomb Highlights session that is going on reight now, vote for it here http://goo.gl/mod/mwZ2 so that we can hopefully get a reply from the Honeycomb Insights Session or the upcoming Fireside Chat with the Android Team http://goo.gl/mod/fIP5

Does Google support Honeycomb/Ice Cream Sandwich on CHEAP Android Tablets, all the $100-$300 ones using TI OMAP3/4, Rockchip, Telechips, NEC/Renesas, AmLogic, Freescale, Marvell, Hummingbird etc? Please explain timeline of full open sourcing/support

– Android team releases Open Accessory Development Kit, this probably means Open Hardware reference designs based on the latest ARM Cortex-M series microcontrollers and other ARM Processors. The idea is also with Android @ Home to enable users to seamlessly interact with a whole range of connected devices in the home, users can buy dozens of accessories for their Android, working over USB-Host, Bluetooth, WiFi (did they also announce some kind of other low-cost wireless networking technology? Some kind of RF?) Find more informations at http://accessories.android.com

– Google launches new Cloud Media Platforms for Movies and Music. Those are US-only for now (probably for licencing issues). I think Google should do folowing with their cloud media plans:

1. Take them global, if media conglomerates want to sue Google for going global, take them on, Google is big enough to never have to loose a lawsuit against any media content corporations.

2. Integrate with Spotify, Last.fm, Rdio and other cloud streaming services, this way Google can try to make the content deals, but they don’t have to, they can just re-sell or point their users towards integrating with those content providers that already have the regional deals.

3. Google should introduce Global Subscription Plans for each of the Google Marketplace categories, $5/month for unlimited music, $10/month for unlimited movies and TV shows, $3/month for unlimited apps, $5/month for unlimited games, $4/month for unlimited ebooks, $20/month for ALL-INCLUSIVE subscription plan, and make this global, work for all countries. All content providers can opt-in or opt-out, they should not care if the big content providers don’t care to join this disruptive subscription system, eventually, enough independents will be a part of this global subscription plan that the model will become the new standard. Google is big enough they can make the plan Mp3.com tried to implement 10 years ago actually work on a global scale for the first time.

4. If not enough content becomes part of the global subscription system, make it easy for pirates to import/upload all their pirated contents onto the Google cloud, with guarantee of privacy, meaning Google would never snoop on pirates pirated content or tell anyone about who might be pirating what. Just let everyone upload as many Mp3, DivX, MKV, epub that they want onto the cloud, Google can actually provide just about free unlimited storage for all, the reason for that is Google only needs to store one copy of each pirated file on their cloud. If they feel brave, their cloud upload client software can “beam” files instantly if Google detects that it already has this exact file or a better version of this file on their cloud.

Google I/O Live Video feed embedded here

Posted by Charbax – May 10, 2011
Category: Google




You can post comments here in real-time using Disqus and I’ll try to embed a live chat here before it starts.

Google I/O is today and tomorrow, watch it live

Posted by Charbax – May 10, 2011
Category: Google

Today are Ice Cream Sandwich, open sourcing, Google TV integration, lots more Android surprises, Chrome OS tomorrow with all the commercial products to come with that. Make sure you tune in live for the show at 9AM PDT on http://google.com/io

I’ve briefly been able to speak with all 3 of these people on this picture over this past year at different conferences. Andy Rubin boss of Android Apple-killing, Vic Gundotra boss of Facebook-killing and Sundar Pichai boss of Chrome OS Microsoft-killing. All three of which are more or less Intel-killing.

Perhaps I will embed some kind of Google chat room together with the live video embed once things start today.

Mary Lou Jepsen of Pixel Qi at TEDxTaipei

Posted by Charbax – May 9, 2011
Category: Displays, Pixel Qi, OLPC

All screens are manufactured in Asia. 40% in Taiwan, 40% in South-Korea, 10% in Japan and 10% in Mainland China. The Drums are rolling for hopefully some very very big announcements coming from Pixel Qi’s manufacturing partners for big product orders soon. I’m hoping for Kindle4 and iPad3 to announce the use of Pixel Qi starting this summer. Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs have the power to change the display industry. All they have to do is to sign to order a few millions of these screens with the LCD makers (hopefully they have done so already..) and the low power sunlight readable display revolution will reach us all.

Also watch: John Ryan COO of Pixel Qi and John Watlington Vice President of Hardware Engineering at OLPC

You have to consider, while it has been 23 months ago that I published my first Pixel Qi interviews from Taiwan (2), (3), (4), (5), (6), (7), (8), (9), (10), (11), (12), (13), (14) while that might sound like a long time, in the display industry, 2 years is peanuts. Things move rather slowly there. Since then, there has been an economic crisis and a sort of re-focus from netbooks to tablets, although netbooks have sold more than 100 million units in 3 years, the display investments are focused on tablets. The display business can be considered to be the worlds biggest non-profit industry, the 5 biggest LCD makers who produce 90% of the worlds LCDs, produce for $120 Billion in screens every year but can only make small profit margins out of that because of the strong competition and the large volumes shipped. Those companies that produce the worlds LCD screens have very high costs, very high risks, little flexibility. Let’s hope Pixel Qi has amply well convinced the big LCD makers like Quanta, CPT, Chi Mei, Samsung, LG, Sharp, Sony, Foxconn, let’s hope that they have all signed with Pixel Qi and that they are all right now in the process of tuning the mass manufacture of millions of these screens for all the worlds upcoming Chrome OS notebooks, ARM Powered Macbooks, Kindle4s, iPad3s, a solution for using the interactive UIs of Android on all the worlds e-readers. It would also be nice to double the battery runtime and improve outdoor readability on all the worlds Smartphones using Pixel Qi.

Google TV is still the future of TV, more rumoring before Google I/O

Posted by Charbax – May 8, 2011
Category: Opinions

Android and Google TV merging

Android and Google TV merging

Here are more of the latest rumors on the web (together with my latest heavy dose of speculations) about Google TV that could get announced at Google I/O on Tuesday and Wednesday (to be live streamed on the web).

Google TV is awesome, but thus far it fails because of Intel. Obviously, the solution to this is the ARM Powered version of Google TV released in the open source.

The latest rumor on Google TV is that Google will include the Google TV UI mode in Android Ice Cream Sandwich, basically, every ARM Powered Android smartphone becomes a Google TV set-top-box for free when using HDMI output.

At Google I/O, Google may announce the merger of Android, Google TV and Honeycomb into one ARM Powered OS release for Smartphones, Tablets and Set-top-boxes.

That means, the basic ARM Powered Google TV 2.0 is likely HDMI output only. To also bring support for overlayed features on top of “regular” TV, with one or several HDMI inputs, IR blasters, USB hosts, Bluetooth remotes, Ethernet connectors and more, Google might announce a new type of Multimedia TV Docking system for Android, using nothing more than HDMI, USB slave/host and evt MHL that combines both into one Micro-USB connector.

The key is how does Google demonstrate a new standard for a TV Docking Station that works on most if not all Android smartphones with a HDMI output, optionally a USB Host, Bluetooth and WiFi? How does Google add support for HDMI overlay, IR Blasting, Ethernet and all those other things that may be expected from an ARM Powered Google TV, especially if it’s to be powered by the Smartphone?

Google could release an open hardware design for a Google TV port duplicator accessory with a target price of around $49, this would be Google’s suggested Multimedia TV Dock for Android, with HDMI in/out, IR blaster, USB host duplicator, Ethernet connector and Bluetooth dongle adaptor for like $49 between any Ice Cream Sandwich smartphone and your set-top-boxes and HDTV to add those features (related to overlaying stuff on “regular” TV).

Regarding Google’s delays in Music:

I think that Google wants nothing less than to provide all the worlds users full unlimited access to all music for less than $5 per month, obviously the record companies don’t want Google to disrupt them so fast, that’s probably why there has been delays.

Google should not delay Google TV or Google Music till they get distribution deals. What Google should do is phone up their buddies at Adobe, unlock the Android Flash player so it cannot be blocked with true Desktop User Agent, then they should go FULL ON like Mp3.com did 10 years ago, make the distribution platform work for all the independent content creators like the ones on YouTube now.

Related articles

RISC is inherently lower power

Posted by Charbax – May 7, 2011
Category: Opinions

Here is a quote by ARM CMO Ian Drew at mobile-device.biz:

“Intel has always innovated through process improvement,” said Drew, “But it’s not just about the transistor. You have to also consider the architecture, SoC design, the broader ecosystem, and so on.”

So Drew isn’t contesting the significance of Intel’s technological breakthrough. But while a smaller manufacturing process undoubtedly confers power/performance benefits, so does the micro-architecture, the efficiency of the whole SoC, software optimisation, and so on.

We put it to Drew that Intel had said it was a ‘misconception’ that ARM’s architecture was somehow intrinsically more power-efficient than Intel’s. “Fewer transistors means lower power,” he countered. “so RISC is inherently lower power.” Drew also pointed out that ARM has already announced test chips at 22 and 20nm already, with foundry partners TSMC and GlobalFoundries also working on those processes, and that IBM is already working on 14nm.

David Patterson on blogs.arm.com Professor of Computer Science at UC Berkeley since 1977 who coined the term RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer):

The importance of maintaining the sequential programming model combined with the increasingly abundant number of transistors from Moore’s Law led, in my view, to wretched excess in computer design. Measured by performance per transistor or by performance per watt, the designs of the late 1990s and early 2000s were some of the least efficient microprocessors ever built. This lavishness was acceptable for PCs, where binary compatibility was paramount and cost and battery life were less important, but performance was delivered more by brute force than by elegance.

However, these excessive designs are not a good match to the smartphones and tablets of the PostPC era. RISC dominates these “Personal Mobile Devices,” because

  • It’s a new software stack and software distribution is via the “App Store model” or the browser, which lessens the conventional obsession with binary compatibility.
  • RISC designs are more energy efficient.
  • RISC designs are smaller and thus cheaper.

The table below from Microprocessor Report supports these last two claims:

Comparing performance per megahertz, x86 is 4% – 8% faster than ARM or MIPS. More significantly, this table suggests ARM and MIPS have 40% – 50% better energy per MHz and their size is a factor of 3X to 4X smaller than x86.

Independent of these architectural battles, Personal Mobile Devices rely on “Systems on a Chip” to reduce size, improve energy, and to lower costs. If processors are available as IP blocks, any company can create a single SOC rather than use many separate chips on a printed circuit board, as is the case with PCs. Thus far, there is no serious x86 IP competitor to the many fine RISC IP options, so SOCs based on x86 can only come from AMD or Intel.

Sources:
http://mobile-device.biz/content/item.php?item=30305
http://blogs.arm.com/software-enablement/377-risc-versus-cisc-wars-in-the-postpc-eras-part-2/
Found via: @ARMCommunity, 2

Related articles

Gartner, IDC, ABI and others are making up numbers? Really?

Posted by Charbax – May 7, 2011
Category: Opinions

German techno-wizard Sasha Pallenberg with Canadian side-kick Nicole Scott give us a wise demonstration out of Taiwan of how some of the so-called market analysts such as Gartner are able to make up numbers that somehow get picked up by a lot of bloggers and news.

This video was published at: netbooknews.com

I got a little heat yesterday in some comments in my article Apple to (obviously) use ARM in next Macbook for making up some numbers about why I think it’s obvious Apple makes most of their profits from their ARM Powered devices and thus must be planning their ARM Powered Macbook.

While many of the numbers do get released by many of the companies in this industry each quarter, it still does not always make everything clear for everyone, they still omit pointing it out clearly when 50%+ of Apple’s revenues and 75%+ of their profits comes from one product, and they obviously don’t tell us what exactly they are spending most of their secret R&D, production and components budgets on, so things are open for us all to make those interpretations and publish our market predictions!