Author:

Charbax

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.

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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

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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!

Apple to (obviously) use ARM in next Macbook

Posted by Charbax – May 6, 2011
Category: Laptops, Opinions

Apple profits mostly thanks to ARM technology

Apple profits mostly thanks to ARM technology

Semiaccurate.com cites sources, and the whole blogosphere is erupting over the rumor that Apple is preparing to use ARM instead Intel in their next Macbook. Here’s my take on it:

Thanks to ARM technology, Apple has become the worlds second biggest company (valued at $322 Billion) after Exxon Mobil (valued at $411 Billion). Before using ARM, Apple was in near bankruptcy, and then they got the idea to make those ARM Powered iPod. And as the obvious thing in 2007 they introduced the ARM Powered iPhone. The iPhone now stands for more than 50% of Apple’s $70 Billion yearly revenues and the iPhone may actually represent more than 75% of Apple’s yearly $17 Billion profit.

ARM is the best way to make huge profits.

And Apple needs to find all ways to keep making big profits, as their share is priced so high, it can only stay as high for as long as they can find ways to continue to make huge profits.

The iPhone may provide Apple with as much as 334% profit margins. ($150 BOM and $650 average sale price)

The iPad may provide Apple with about 155% profit margins. ($225 BOM and $575 average sale price)

The Macbook Air, while expensive, probably only provide Apple with 64% profit margin. ($700 BOM and $1200 average sale price)

This is Apple’s ARM Powered laptop plan:

Make the thinner, lighter ARM Powered OSX laptop, with a Pixel Qi type screen they could achieve 30 hours battery runtime or more. It would cost them only $300 to make (BOM) and Apple probably thinks they can still sell it for at least $799 that’s a 166% profit margin, nearly 3x more profits for Apple compared to them still using Intel.

The question for Apple R&D is only this one, should they go ahead and use Apple A5 ARM Cortex-A9 (clocked higher than in iPad2’s 861Mhz) with some faster memory bandwidth design, put in there some more RAM and optimize their OSX/iOS mashup software for a release before this years Christmas already? Or should Apple wait for Apple A6 ARM Cortex-A15 and to try and have that ready for mass selling before Christmas 2012 at the latest? How do you think Apple will make that OSX/iOS ARM based OS mashup work for their next Macbook? (post in the comments)

You have to consider, I am not suggesting that Apple will succeed in continuing to keep making so huge profits on ARM Powered devices. I for example believe that the $87 Android Smartphones and the diversity in high-end Android smartphones is a significant threat to Apple’s iPhone profit margins and marketshare*. Though I am definitely sure that Apple will continue to make 100x more profits on their ARM Powered devices compared to their Intel based devices, and that thus Apple is obviously aiming to shift their Notebook line to ARM as soon as possible.

* especially if they continue making design mistakes like the Anntenna not working in left hand and the iOS devices recording your every move for years in an unencrypted cache file any friend/enemy/backdoor-hacker can snoop on over 100 million iOS device users until they manually decide to upgrade with their new 666MB iOS upgrade file.

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3 things Google TV needs from Google I/O in 4 days

Posted by Charbax – May 6, 2011
Category: Opinions, Google, Google TV

1. Support ARM Processors, to be in sub-$100 box. Even run a full Google TV UI “mode” from the HDMI output of every new Android smartphone (expect Google TV to become a part of Android’s Ice Cream Sandwich?)

2. Support apps like BitTorrent/RSS, Seedbox management with SFTP, Rapidshare/Megaupload streaming, make it the easiest way to pirate all movies and TV shows with a remote control on the TV.

3. Unlock Desktop User Agent in the Flash plugin. The only reason TV websites can block Google TV is because of the Flash plugin not hiding itself as a Flash-for-Desktop user agent. It’s only a question of Adobe and Google making the decision (if the rights holders keep blocking them), they can make Google TV unblockable. Even make it easy to sign up for fast and reliable proxy services all over the world if certain online web TV are being region blocked (make it easy for the world to stream US based Hulu/Netflix/Viacom/etc, UK based BBC, French based France Television, etc..).

I expect that Google is going to announce all 3 at Google I/O. What do you expect Google TV 2.0 is going to be like?

I think the Google TV software needs to be in every cheap media player, in every set-top-box, and basically, it needs to make it easy for every TV user to easily get access to all web video in as few clicks and as little typing as possible. It may bring a keyboard into every living room, but that usage needs to be as seamless and easy as possible, start typing the name of the show and hit enter to tune in to that show, show options, live, on-demand, legal free/paid/ads if available, “illegal” BitTorrent RSS-subscribe Seedbox/SFTP-service-for-anonymous one click reliable add to queue. Another cool app would be Sopcast, and also the first use of Sopcast through seedboxes for “illegal” 10mbit/s or more live streaming of every TV channel in the world, basically make it as seamless as possible for people to cut the cable/satellite cord and replace it with full freedom of on-demand media choices if they so want to, all designed for leanback mode.

China does Electric Cars using Better Place battery swapping

Posted by Charbax – May 3, 2011
Category: Cars, Other

All new cars to be sold in China are to be electric, running on 100% clean renewable energy. All that is needed is political will. China seems to have that political will. They figured they’ve got enough pollution in their rapidly growing cities, they figured they’d like to be energy independent, they figured they need to make all their cars electric now.

Switchable electric batteries are the only solution for the full scale implementation of electric cars for the mass market today. Project http://betterplace.com is implementing a worldwide standard for battery swapping, charging connectors and re-charge infrastructure.

Better Place, China Southern Grid Sign Strategic Agreement Centered on Battery Switch Model

April 27, 2011

Guangzhou Municipal Government Signs Agreement to Aid New Partnership

TEL AVIV (April 27, 2011) – At a signing ceremony today in Israel with officials from Guangzhou, Better Place announced a strategic agreement with China Southern Power Grid Co. (CSG), the world’s eighth largest utility according to the Fortune Global 500. The agreement, which focuses on joint electric car and infrastructure projects in CSG’s service areas, will further advance electric cars with switchable batteries in China. The agreement calls for the companies to open a battery switch station and joint education center in Guangzhou before the end of the year, while working to formalize a joint-venture partnership.

Source: http://betterplace.com

This is relevant on ARMdevices.net because electric cars can have more ARM Processors in them than any other types of cars. An average electric car may have 47 ARM processors in it. Also, those need better wirelessly internet connected interactive in-car navigation systems (probably Android based) than any other car. As those need to make it easy for the driver to find re-charge stations, to find and order a battery swap, to monitor and manage battery capacity and more.

Trim-Slice, compact Tegra2 Desktop, now released for $199

Posted by Charbax – May 1, 2011
Category: Laptops, Exclusive videos, Nvidia, Ubuntu

Here’s a powerful super compact Nvidia Tegra2 ARM Cortex-A9 Dual-core 1Ghz based Desktop box, for now seems to run something like Ubuntu 11.4 (ARM netbook edition?), but the software support is a process that is a work-in-progress. Their pricing starts at $199 for the basic model, I will try to get a review unit, what do you think about this type of compact ARM Powered desktop?

Haifa, Israel – 30-Apr-2011 – CompuLab is announcing immediate availability of the NVIDIA Tegra 2 based Trim-Slice miniature computer.

Trim-Slice is offered in 3 configurations –

Trim-Slice Barebone – with 1 GHz Tegra 2, 1 GB RAM, HDMI port, Gigabit Ethernet, 4 USB ports, 2 SD slots and RS232 serial port. Trim-Slice Barebone MSRP is $199.

Trim-Slice Value – adds a 4 GB micro-SD card with Linux pre-installed and a USB 802.11n WiFi adapter. Trim-Slice Value MSRP is $219.

Trim-Slice Pro – with 1 GHz Tegra 2, 1 GB RAM, 32 GB SSD with Linux pre-installed, HDMI and DVI ports, Gigabit Ethernet, built-in 802.11n WiFi, 4 USB ports, 2 SD slots, RS232 serial port and a USB Bluetooth adapter. Trim-Slice Pro MSRP is $319.

OEMs and system-integrators can order Trim-Slice in volume with customization of feature set, branding and case finish.

Trim-Slice currently runs Linux and is supported in the mainline kernel revision 2.6.39. Support for other operating-systems is work-in-progress. “We design Trim-Slice with SW developers in mind” said Irad Stavi, Director of Business Development at CompuLab. “Developers that are looking for an open cost-effective high-performance ARM platform are likely to find Trim-Slice an attractive and unique solution that is very convenient for SW development.”

Source: http://trimslice.com/web/pr-11043

What to expect from Google I/O May 10-11th

Posted by Charbax – April 29, 2011
Category: Opinions, Google

Let’s have high expectations for this upcoming Google I/O developer conference to happen on May 10-11th in San Francisco, to be live streamed on the web. The Google engineers have been working very hard for months, even years, on a culmination of new software solutions that will likely dominate most of the devices to be found in the next years of Consumer Electronics tradeshows. Get ready for the biggest most action packed Google I/O event in the history of Google, read my following list of expectations.

1. Honeycomb to get open sourced. While the first Tegra2 based commercial Honeycomb tablets have been released and are being released, I expect Google will announce the opening of Honeycomb and Google’s support to optimize it for all the ARM SoC platforms, all including TI, Qualcomm, Rockchip, Freescale, Marvell, Telechips, NEC/Renesas, AmLogic, all should be getting it! All must get it! If it’s a long shot to expect Google to announce their support for all ARM Processors, them open sourcing it sure will make it happen anyways. I expect that several of these major ARM SoC vendors already have been working on Honeycomb for a while, and they all may start their announcements around Google I/O timing.

This is a big deal because it is the first truely tablet optimized OS ever made. See my video interview with Matias Duarte a product manager on Honeycomb UI design at Google.

2. Ice Cream Sandwich to be shown for the first time. One of the reasons Google said they delayed Honeycomb open sourcing was to provide an integration of the new Honeycomb features that can scale down to Smartphone sized screens, and that also means to certain previous Froyo tablets which may not either be totally compatible with at least the initial Honeycomb source code. Basically, it may be Gingerbread with Honeycomb’s improved multi-tasking, improved widgets, improved web browser and more on top.

While Google will integrate the full optimizations for flashy impressive Dual-Core next generation super smartphones, I also expect Google to bring a light version of Ice Cream Sandwich suitable for Sub-$50 Android smartphones to reach 2 Billion more people around the world. See my initial video review of the $87 FG8 Android Smartphone that I found a couple of weeks ago in Shenzhen China.


3. Chrome OS to be released and open sourced. I expect a dozen Chrome OS notebooks to be released during the show, half of which to be ARM Powered, possibly using Tegra2, TI OMAP4 and possibly also the Qualcomm Snapdragon Dual-core, if not even more SoC to be demonstrated with Chrome OS installed. Google and ARM having optimized the V8 javascript engine on ARM, they should be achieving awesome speeds for multi-tab heavy javascripts and flash web browsing. Although that may require new optimized memory bandwidth on those processors for them to perform fast enough for all consumers not to notice any slow downs. The big deal is also for Google to demonstrate full offline functionality, even video editing, photo editing working perfectly offline and online in Chrome OS. They need to show very impressive 3D games support in Chrome OS. Other native code functionality in Chrome OS. They will announce the pricing schemes for consumers being able to buy those Chrome OS notebooks starting in June, price could be as low as $99 for a unsubsidized ARM Powered Chrome OS notebook, but they will unveil subscription plans at $10 or $20 per month to include HSDPA/LTE wireless bandwidth, the bandwidth that can easily be topped up for people who need more wireless data.

This is a big deal because it finally makes ARM Powered laptops a mass market possibility. Sure enough, Ubuntu 11.4 Netbook Edition is fantastic also on ARM, but Chrome OS will make Linux and ARM Powered laptops for the first time a reliable choice for the consumer buying laptops on the mass market.

4. Google TV 2.0 for ARM to be open sourced. This improved UI, with full Google Marketplace support. I expect it to work on all the ARM Processors, including even the cheapest platforms such as Rockchip, Telechips, AmLogic and more. I expect Google to fork two versions of Google TV, one Full and one Basic, the Full version doing all the advanced HDMI pass-through, overlay stuff and IR blaster, the basic version doing just HDMI out and WebTV only. If TV networks in the USA still want to block Google TV regarding it as their worst enemy and trojan horse, Google and Adobe will probably unlock full undetectable Desktop User Agent Flash support, making it impossible to block full screen Flash playback. Adobe and Google still may want to fight it over with the TV networks to get some kind of distribution deal still, but if their lawyers don’t come to an agreement, Google simply will be forced to unlock full access that cannot be detected in a full Desktop class web browser on the TV. Expect though Google to announce Movie distribution deals with all the major Movie production companies, at least for the USA. I expect Google TV 2.0 to be released worldwide. Pricing to start at $59 for an unsubsidized ARM Powered Google TV basic box.

This is a big deal because it makes the ARM Powered Set-top-boxes a useful mass market opportunity. Easy video-on-demand on the TV can change how people watch TV.

5. Google’s Social Network premieres. I am expecting them to come with the first really useful social network. Not some wall for stalking old high school connections, and not some for following famous people’s SMS messages, and not just the types of experimentations that were Wave/Buzz, but something now really useful to the point people will be using it to find new colleagues, find new friends, do new activities locally and far away, create new content in new collaborations, be productive socially but also enable a new type of fun through social, once they succeed this is going to be a big deal and will make people wonder why tech bloggers have regarded so highly of Facebook/Twitter/Linkedin/Friendfeed.

What do you think Google will announce by the Google I/O conference on May 10-11th? Post your ideas in the comments.

LG to make ARM processors

Posted by Charbax – April 27, 2011
Category: Opinions

LG has announced that they are licencing the ARM Cortex-A9, ARM Cortex-A15 and ARM Mali-T604 architectures. LG wants to lower cost, differentiate and lower their time to market bringing new ARM Powered Smartphones, Tablets and Set-top-boxes to the market. 3 months ago at CES, I filmed the following interview with LG SmartTV product manager where he explains some of how LG is planning to use ARM in their lower cost and higher performance LG SmartTV Set-top-boxes to come:

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