Author:

Charbax

I filmed the Augen $99 smartbook 6 months ago

Posted by Charbax – August 1, 2010
Category: Tablets, Laptops, Opinions, Rockchip, Google, Android

Engadget and a bunch of other blogs have been reporting these last few days about the cool Augen branded Android Smartbook and Tablets that are being released in the US market at affordable $99 and $149 prices by Super Market chain KMart. I just would like to remind my readers that I posted my video review of the Augen Smartbook 6 months ago on January 29th as it’s based on the Hivision PWS700CA and its cool RockChip ARM9 processor that runs Android in this video: http://138.2.152.197/2010/01/29/android-laptop-review-hivision-pws700ca/

and that the Telechips ARM11 800mhz based Augen $149 7″ Tablet that Engadget and plenty other blogs also are talking about seems to be based on the same 7″ resistive tablet hardware design that I filmed 5 months ago presented by MAG Digital at CeBIT 2010 in this video: http://138.2.152.197/2010/03/02/mag-digital-presents-windows-ce-that-looks-like-android-in-a-tablet/

To let you know my opinion. I think it is fantastic that Augen and KMart are promoting such cheaper Android Laptop and Tablet form factors as alternatives to the much more expensive Apple iPad and Intel Netbooks. Archos has also been selling the similarly priced Archos 7 Home Tablet on the worldwide market which I video reviewed 5 months ago, which is now broadly available in many retail and online stores below $200 for the 8GB version (and the 2GB version originally planned at $149, then $179 but for now they are mostly selling the 8GB version). That Rockchip based Laptop and Tablet platform also being upgraded to 1ghz still ARM9 to support newer Android 2.2 versions.

But as we have heard from Canonical developers and from hearsay and off camera chatter by Google people at the Google Q&A at Computex about Chrome OS on ARM Laptops, although the second generation 45nm ARM Cortex A8 with faster DDR RAM and faster I/O performance can be enough, the coming of ARM Cortex A9 platforms may be preferable to achieve the full desktop web browsing experience that most consumers may require for them to consider the ARM platforms as fully usable alternatives in the Intel/Microsoft dominated Laptop market. And the iPad and the whole bunch of smart phones that are currently spread all over the market, those may kind of set expectations at capacitive and ARM Cortex A8 performance at the minimum. So it will be interesting, capacitive touch screen manufacturers allowing, to see how soon and how cheap those capacitive Android tablet designs at full user interface speeds can reach the market. ARM9 and ARM11 resistive tablets are not bad for a start, they can give the consumers and bloggers a taste of what can be done with Android at retail prices below $200 and even below $100. The ultimate goal should be though that we should have full speed ARM Cortex versions of all these devices in all the stores, with the best capacitive screens for tablets or non-touch screens for Laptops, preferably Pixel Qi screens, and available below $200 without contracts, running free Linux based Android or Ubuntu OSes.

New Kindle just $139, first on i.MX508? Google Editions integration?

Posted by Charbax – July 29, 2010
Category: E-readers, Opinions, Google

The new WiFi-only version of Kindle is $139, it uses the latest generation of E-Ink screens, with faster refresh, better contrast. It might be the worlds first e-reader to use the latest Freescale i.MX508 processor, which means the e-ink controller is integrated in the ARM processor SoC, which allows for 21% smaller design, 15% lower weight and significantly lower cost, while improving the processing speed at up to Cortex level to achieve faster refresh rates and optimizing more things such as doubling of battery runtime, faster e-book downloading times, usable web browsing speeds and more.

Sub-$140 connected e-ink e-readers are a big deal. Amazon is already selling more e-books to the Kindle e-readers than they are selling paper books. And consider that Amazon is the worlds largest online retailer of paper books. This e-book revolution has happened in less than 2 years since the release of the Kindle. Since Amazon’s strategy is to make revenues and profits from sales of the content on their closed Kindle platform, it should be even possible for Amazon to further lower the price as needed, thus $99 Kindle shouldn’t be far away. What happens, is that from about 5 million e-ink e-readers sold in 2009, there might be 15 million of those e-ink e-readers sold pretty soon.

Google is coming with the Google Editions E-book system later this summer, meaning next month or so. My big question is this, will Amazon allow Google’s e-book system onto all Kindles through a firmware update? The way for Amazon to allow this to happen would be for Google Book Store to be only complementary to Amazon’s current Book store. Basically, any titles that Amazon has in its store would be purchased through its own store, while google would only provide access to all contents that are not yet in the Kindle store. On those out of print or otherwise unavailable in Kindle Store contents, Amazon would be making a decent share of the revenue through a partnership agreement with Google. The point being that it could be great for Kindle and Google to have a partnership and a new firmware integration. If Amazon does not open its platform to Google, I expect we will see several new e-ink e-readers sold $99 or below from many manufacturers that will be using a special version of Android that Google must be working on to release with Google Editions. As Google will provide revenue sharing for the manufacturers of devices that access Google Editions and other online sources of monetizable contents, expect some type of AdSense for e-readers.

Source for this video: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com
Found through: http://techmeme.com

Can the Android bloatware user interfaces be turned off?

Posted by Charbax – July 24, 2010
Category: Opinions, Google

I am an Android fanboy. But I don’t like the different custom Android user interface designs such as Motorola Blur, HTC Sense, Samsung TouchWiz, Sony Ericsson’s nor Acer’s custom user interfaces, I think they are confusing and they are like visual bloatware. Please investigate following:

1. Is there a home replacement in the Google Marketplace that returns the full UI in Android to the default Android UI in all of the different Android phones? If not, then why isn’t Google officially releasing this default Android UI in the Google Marketplace? Does anyone have any contacts at Google to whome they could ask about this?

2. Will that Default Android UI Home Replacement provide a way to have exactly the same UI as on the Nexus One? And without voiding any of the warranties? And without consuming any extra RAM memory or slowing anything down in any way?

It’s very simple, but we need simple and definite answer on this. And we need answers from Google officially. Thanks.

I do understand that the reason for each of these different layers of designs on top of Android is that each of the phone makers feel that they have to differentiate their Android offerings from the competition. That consumers have to think that they are buying a HTC phone and that only HTC phones can do that or look like that. And so on.

But I would rather that the Android ecosystem immitate the Windows world, let all the default desktop user interfaces look the same. Stop confusing the consumers. Let them recognize the true value of the whole Android ecosystem. And phone makers should preferably compete on hardware and features for the prices.

I understand this idea is disruptive to the current Android business plans of each of the companies. But please, could we at least just get a little basic Home Replacement somewhere deep in the Google Marketplace that offers anyone with any Android phone to set it back to the Nexus One styled basic Android UI design?

I’ve been told in certain comments that Launcher Pro and some other Home Replacements were good. But I am looking for a Home Replacement that offers exactly the same UI designs as on the Nexus One. Please let me know in the comments if you know of a near or fully Nexus One UI Home Replacement that is available for any of Samsung Galaxy S, Droid X, HTC Desire, Sony Ericsson X10 or any of the other Android phones, what your experience is with it and on which of the phones.

Having to void warranties on those $500 devices just to get a normal UI is a terrible thing.

Read more at droiddog.com: Hey manufacturers, leave Android alone!

How to test and compare Apple’s iPhone 4 antenna design

Posted by Charbax – July 24, 2010
Category: Opinions

I don’t have the iPhone 4, nor any of its main Android competitors (I am considering a Samsung Galaxy S to test Super AMOLED and Hummingbird, but I still think it is far too expensive at 450€ unlocked), nor would I have the time to actually do this type of thorough testing, but here is how I would suggest that it would be best for an independent and trusted media to test the iPhone 4’s antenna. I think it could be much more useful to get the real user testing data than to wait through more back and forth between each of the companies advertising and spin doctors, news conferences, blogger fanboys and other media stunts.

1. Make 100 calls of at least 2 minutes in length with each device, holding it in the left hand. Preferably make the test using people not familiar with the issue at all (ask anyone in the street who have not read the news or seen any pictures of how Apple recommends holding the phone), just ask them to make the phone calls holding the phone with their left hand. Make sure the people are speaking to each other constantly for at least those 2 minutes per call as silent calls may emit less data and generate less dropped calls.

2. Try to test this at different locations, be them central where signal reception is known to be strong as well as places where the signals are known to be weak.

3. When possible, test the different networks. For example, test other Android devices that use the same network as the iPhone 4 as well as testing the Android devices that work on other networks.

4. If possible, try to measure the bitrate and codec, thus quality of the phone calls. Perhaps one company uses lower voice call bitrate, stronger compression, maybe non standard compression technologies which may result in less dropped calls due to bad signal. For example, one phone brand on one network may have fewer dropped calls but also a lower voice call quality.

5. Report how many dropped calls there were out of 100 calls on each of the devices.

6. Launch downloads over 3G of certain different (un-cached) test 10 megabyte files hosted on specific servers. Ask the user to please hold the phone with their left hand and again with their right hand. Measure exact transfer bandwidth differences. Try to download on all the different phones at the same time and at the same location. If possible also compare upload speeds the same way if it is possible to upload something to a same server online using some browser or app based upload functionality.

I don’t think this should only be an issue about the number of bars displayed in closed, open source or hacked mobile phone OSes. This is about calls being dropped or not. And about 3G data transfer bandwidth.

If the iPhone 4 is proven to have significantly more dropped calls when the phones are held with the left hand, then I do think it would be fair for consumers to claim it to be defective and to demand a global recall. And they should be entitled a new one with a fixed antenna or for a full refund. Not within any 30-day usual return schedules, this would have to be valid for anyone having purchased a defective phone within the whole 2 years of the signed contracts. And I don’t think consumers have to be satisfied by just getting a $1 piece of plastic case to cover it.

The secrets behind Microsoft’s new ARM License

Posted by Charbax – July 23, 2010
Category: Opinions, Google

The biggest threat to Microsoft’s $62 Billion in yearly revenues and $24 Billion in yearly profits is the possibility that consumers and the enterprise start adopting sub-$200 Linux based ARM Cortex A9 laptops and desktops as the new standard for personal computing in the months to come. There is a high probability that Chrome OS and Ubuntu will turn out to work very smoothly on ARM Cortex A9 processors, so smoothly that most consumers might be satisfied with the experience of web browsing speed and for running basic applications like text editors but even basic video- and photo-editing once those are available on the cloud and powered by advanced HTML5 native code and caching mechanisms.

Microsoft clearly must be seeing this as the biggest threat to their core business and thus is probably preparing a version of Windows 7 for ARM. It won’t run all the .exe files that run on Intel/AMD/VIA x86 processors. But there may be tools for developers to recompile the most important applications and to make new drivers. The challenge is for Microsoft to present such a lightweight version of Windows for ARM in a way that consumers will still pay for the Microsoft Windows OS experience even as prices of those ARM Powered laptops arrive at under $200. The profit margins will be low for Microsoft and this will require for them to implement totally different and bold business models if they want to try to keep the same numbers in yearly revenues and profits to not have their share holders sell their stocks. It would probably be based on Windows CE 7, but since that one looks much like Windows CE 6, it would be all about how they could upgrade the user interfaces to make it look and perform as much like Windows 7 as they can.

Some other possibilities as to what Microsoft may be doing with this ARM Licence:

– To release a new lower cost ARM Cortex A9 powered XboX to compete with the upcoming Google TV platform. 10 years ago, Microsoft launched MSN TV and for years there has been Windows Home Center Edition but it never really was a success like Google TV has the potential to be. Features need to be implemented in a cheap ARM Powered hardware such as HD quality video-on-demand streaming, casual and advanced 3D gaming, lean back web experiences.

– To release a Tablet centric OS to compete with Android and iOS, it would be related to Windows Phone 7 Series and with some features of the ARM version of Windows 7.

– Microsoft may want to design and control their own version of an ARM processor and keep it for their products. Like Apple keeps A4 for their products.

What do you think Microsoft is going to do with this ARM License?

via: techmeme.com
source: arm.com

India’s $35 tablet is based on AllGo Systems design (specs inside)

Posted by Charbax – July 23, 2010
Category: Tablets, Opinions, Pixel Qi

Indian minister for HR Development HRD, Kapil Sibal announces $35 tablet project. It seems to be based on the Freescale i.MX233 system on chip, with a 7″ resistive 800×480 touch screen. Here’s my video with AllGo Embedded Systems, a R&D company based in Bangalore India, where they are showcasing their $35 tablet reference design at the Freescale Technology Forum in Orlando last month. This is likely to be the tablet that India’s HRD Minister is talking about:

The Bill Of Material is as following:
ARM9 Processor: $5 (Freescale i.MX233)
Memory: $3
WiFi B/G: $4
Other discret components: $3
Battery: $5
7″ 800×480 resistive touch screen: $15
Total bill of material: $35

It is of course a honor for me that the Indian Government watches my videos and bases their Government projects on those. I just wish India’s HRD would stop attacking the One Laptop Per Child efforts all the time. That Minister is quoted as saying that this project is their “answer to MIT’s $100 computer”. Why can’t he say that this is their answer to the $640 Apple iPad? Why does the Indian Ministry of Human Ressources have to attack the non-profit OLPC organization?

Already back in 2006, the HRD published very harsh statements against the OLPC project such as “India must not allow itself to be used for experimentation with children in this area”. After which HRD announced a totally bogus $10 laptop project which resulted in a USB stick. The result of which being, 4 years has passed, and very little has been done to help Indian children at getting any hope at getting a better education using technology.

The $75 OLPC XO-3 design uses a more powerful ARMv7 class processor (3x faster), a 10″ capacitive touch screen on an unbreakable plastic Pixel Qi LCD screen that allows it to run 40 hours on a battery instead of 4 hours of this India HRD project! The screen is a very important component, maybe the most important component to make this a revolutionizing success in the whole of India to hundreds of millions of children.

So if HRD wants to make a difference for the Children of India, they need to be open about the specifications of their open source hardware designs, they need to present the options in which ARM Processors they are trying to use, which features that would be included in the SoC and how much HRD would like to support the mass manufacturing of sunlight readable Pixel Qi LCD screen technology. And they should stop positioning this as India HRD vs OLPC but talk about it as India HRD + OLPC vs Apple iPad + Intel netbooks.

ARM and TSMC develop 20nm High-K Metal Gate process

Posted by Charbax – July 21, 2010
Category: TSMC, ARM

While the 45nm process such as the TI OMAP3630 (1ghz), Samsung Humminbird S5PC110 (1ghz) and Apple A4 (1ghz) have all just recently been released in the latest bunch of smart phones such as the Motorola Droid X, Samsung Galaxy S and iPhone 4, 28nm was also just recently announced by Global Foundries to be perfected and sampled this year, now also, here’s an announcement by ARM and TSMC working together to accelerate the time to market of the 20nm process designs as well:

TSMC signed up to work with ARM on the 28nm node which is headed toward qualification later this year. ARM will develop IP for at least two 28nm processes: TSMC 28nmHP (high performance, High-K Metal Gate) and 28nmHPL (low power, High-K Metal Gate). But the agreement doesn’t stop there; it commits to work on the 20nm node as well. That’s significant because ARM can begin development work earlier than ever before on a TSMC process. This assures the earliest-possible IP availability to our partners and an easier and faster route to deliver advanced products into the market.

This is going to be awesome in the ARM Cortex A9 processors.

via: engadget.com
source: blogs.arm.com

Boxee on ARM Powered Box coming soon

Posted by Charbax – July 17, 2010
Category: Set-top-boxes, Opinions, Nvidia, Google, Android

This is not Google TV on ARM yet, but this is a major achievement already, Boxee can run the full Boxee software experience on an ARM Powered box. Boxee is considered to be one of the best user interfaces for media streamers and Web TV. I wonder how much would need to change in D-Link’s Nvidia Tegra 2 Powered Boxee Box for them to be able to release a Google TV version of Boxee Box, and have the Boxee video navigation UI functionalities be an app on top of Google TV OS. My guess is the full Google TV experience requires HDMI input and output and an IR blaster (to integrate with existing cable/satellite boxes), thus would require a slightly upgraded version of this hardware.

For users who don’t require the feature of old TV integration with cable/satellite set-top-boxes but who only want the future experience of VOD, media streaming and web TV stuff, it would be cool to know how likely or unlikely it might be to be able to load Google TV OS for ARM once it is open sourced by Google on this Box and have Boxee’s complete set of features and user interfaces as a 3D accelerated app on top of Android. In my video interview with Boxee from CES, the Boxee representatives say that Boxee Box is designed to be open source and hackable:

There is an SD card slot on the side. We know that a lot of developers and hackers really like to side load the OS and have their own apps, so we are trying to make it as developer friendly as possible.

Foxconn 10″ capacitive Android Tablet

Posted by Charbax – July 14, 2010
Category: Tablets, Exclusive videos, Computex, Android

Foxconn is one of the largest manufacturers in the world, here they are showing a reference design for a 10″ capacitive multi-touch Nvidia Tegra 2 Powered Android tablet, which they could thus provide for brands that would want to sell these perhaps cheaper than the iPad all over the world. Although Foxconn is known to manufacture for Apple, and Apple is known to demand exclusivity on components, it is to be seen how keen Foxconn will be to provide capacitive touch screen tablets to the competition. When an eventual Apple ~10″ capacitive touch screen exclusivity might expire? When Google will finally announce official support for Marketplace and optimized features for tablets?

MiShark64 is a $36 video games emulator

Posted by Charbax – July 14, 2010
Category: Gaming, PMPs, Exclusive videos, Computex

Sanmos Microelectronics Corp. is launching some cheap video games emulators, available from $13 with 8bit-only pre-loaded games or for $36 for the MiShark64 with MicroSD card slot and video game emulation support of upwards 10 thousand games (one can “find” on the Internet) from 8bit NES (FC), GB, GBC, 16bit SNES (SFC), Sega MD and up to 32bit GBA games. The MiShark64 also includes a composite TV-output and video playback support of RMVB, DAT, RM, MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, FLV, H.263, WMV, AVI, ASF, 3GP, VOB formats and Audio codecs support of MP3, WMA, WAV, AAC, APE, FLAC. It comes with an integrated 800mA Li-ion battery good for 2 hours of portable use, but it can also be used on the TV and comes with 2 game controllers for that.

Forever Plus Corp Digital Microscope in a panda bear

Posted by Charbax – July 14, 2010
Category: Other, Exclusive videos, Computex

Forever Plus Corp is showing new easy to use USB microscopes, they come with drivers for Windows or Mac, a special software to capture pictures video from the microscope or to do stuff like measuring the size of very small thing. I think it is pretty awesome to have cheap digital microscopes to magnify very small things onto the computer monitor or onto a HDTV. I plan to use one of these in my video reviews when it might be relevant to magnify small parts of cool products.

ARM CEO Warren East keynote at Freescale Kinetis Cortex-M4 launch

Posted by Charbax – July 13, 2010
Category: Other, Freescale, FTF

Freescale is one of the manufacturers partnering with ARM on making the new Cortex-M4 type of processors, Freescale calls them the Kinetis Cortex-M4 Microcontrollers. Cortex-M4 may help to enable to connect all things to the internet, such as the oven, the fridge, motors, medical and industrial applications. It’s something about adding DSP and programmable features into cheap Microcontrollers that may be put into all devices to help connect them to the Internet for cheap. Do you have some good ideas of what Cortex-M4 will be used for in the market? Write in the comments.

Rockchip RK2818 to come at 1ghz with improved DSP

Posted by Charbax – July 13, 2010
Category: Tablets, Laptops, PMPs, Rockchip, Archos, Android

Rockchip may be the new “China Processor”, that ARM Processor coming out of China that can be found in some of the cheap Android Tablets and Laptops. This could be a major part of China’s attempt at providing every component of future low cost computing devices, even the processor. The new version of the Rockchip processor is said to be faster, RK2808 is 600mhz while RK2818 can go to 1ghz. But according to Toms Hardware, this new Rockchip RK2818 might still be ARM926EJ-S ARMv5 based.

In practice, RK2808 reached 1.1 DMIPS per MHz, while a core based on the Cortex A8 is 2 DMIPS per MHz and the recent Cortex A9 is 2.5 per DMIPS MHz. Even at 1 GHz, a Rockchip will be about two times slower than what the Cortex competition offers (at a higher price).

The question might be, how much cheaper are ARM9 based devices? Rockchip might still be only for low-end lower cost devices mostly made by Chinese manufacturers. The good news is this new Rockchip can support Android 2.1 and 2.2 (while RK2808 can only do Android 1.5). It’s got to be thanks to its newer and better DSP graphics accelerator, with screen support at up to 1024×768 which could be great to power cheap ARM Powered laptops and low cost 10″ Android Tablets. Availability may be after September for a bunch of new RK2818 based products or maybe also simply quick upgrades of RK2808 based designs. I wonder if the new 720p video playback on RK2818 may be improved, while RK2808 could only playback H264 MKV 720p at up to 2.5mbit/s.

Source: Toms Hardware France (in french)

Newgadgets.de: Toshiba AC100 Dynabook AZ is Tegra-2 Powered

Posted by Charbax – July 12, 2010
Category: Laptops, Nvidia, Android

Wow, the Toshiba AC100 Cloud Companion smartbook is some serious looking ARM Cortex A9 laptop right there, being launched soon! It’s based on Nvidia Tegra 2 1ghz ARM Cortex A9 system on chip, with a nice HDMI output on the side of the device (full 1080p output!), it runs a customized version of Android optimized for the Laptop form factor. It comes with 512MB DDR2 (333 MHz) RAM, 16GB Flash (up to 32GB version available), 2 USB host ports, 10.1″ 1024×600 LED backlit LCD, SDHC card reader, 1.3 megapixel webcam, Bluetooth, WiFi-N and a weight of 870 grams. Toshiba may launch this in Europe in August as a kind of high end thin premium laptop priced 349€ for WiFi-only version and 449€ for the version with built-in 3G HSDPA.

Source: NewGadgets.de, Youtube channel

Youtube 4K, for realz?!!!!!

Posted by Charbax – July 9, 2010
Category: Displays, 4K UHD, Web, Opinions, Google, Google TV

Google announced this new resolution support on Youtube a bit weirdly: 4K is 4096×3072 thus 3072p. It is not “4096p” and not “1096 x 3072 pixels”. Or is 4K supposed to amount to 4 Million pixels? Here’s the text from Youtube’s announcement (as posted at this moment to http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2010/07/whats-bigger-than-1080p-4k-video-comes.html):

Today at the VidCon 2010 conference, we announced support for videos shot in 4K (a reference resolution of 4096 x 3072), meaning that now we support original video resolution from 360p all the way up to 4096p.

We always want videos on YouTube to be available in the highest quality possible, as creators intend. In December of last year, we announced support for 1080p, or full HD. At 1096 x 3072 pixels, 4K is nearly four times the size of 1080p. To view any video in a source resolution greater than 1080p, select “Original” in the video quality pulldown menu:

Here’s my reaction:

– WHOAAAWWW! Is this 1st of April or something? Is Google talking for real?

– What is the bitrate going to be for 4K? My guess, based on calculating the bitrate per pixel of 2mbit/s for Youtube 720p and 4mbit/s for Youtube 1080p is that for 4K it would be something like 24mbit/s. That’s within the same bitrate as our 15 year old DV format (like miniDV tapes). That’s like the top bitrate established for 1080p AVCHD format. This is totally manageable! We can get 50mbit/s and 100mbit/s “easilly” over here in Scandinavia. If Google would provide full bandwidth delivery of Youtube 4K worldwide, we could seriously enjoy this!

– I wish the LCD and Projector industry focus on making Quad HD or 4K screens (however they should be called) instead of that 3D fad thing. Logically, thanks to Youtube 4K, we could be getting 4K HDTVs and projectors for less than $1000 by this time next year. Because the processors are already ready, they just need to be put into mass manufactured screens and projectors.

Another point in Youtube’s announcement that I would like to learn something about and maybe start to counter:

To give some perspective on the size of 4K, the ideal screen size for a 4K video is 25 feet; IMAX movies are projected through two 2k resolution projectors.

I have seen Quad HD LCD screens at trade shows. Those were in the 50-82″ range I think. They are absolutely amazing (Sergey Brin has one), some of the most impressive demonstrations I have ever seen in going to most of the trade shows since 2005. See my video of the Samsung 3840x2160p 82″ LCD HDTV. See my video of the JVC 4K2K HDTV and Projector.

I believe that one can see higher than 1080p on HDTV starting below 50″ sizes. The iPhone 4 has a 326DPI 3.5″ screen. I don’t see why we can’t get higher DPI on our HDTVs than 52DPI on a 42″ HDTV? Why should the iPhone 4 have a 6x higher DPI than my 42″ 1080p Full HD HDTV? If they were to put 4K processor in my 42″ HDTV, it would still “only” have a 111DPI, still much less than what they have done on the iPhone 4. Sure my 42″ HDTV has 132 times larger surface area than an iPhone (a 42″ HDTV could fit 132 of iPhone’s screens), if you want to set a standard for what the DPI per field of vision should be based on the iPhone 4 held at half arms length (50cm) with 326DPI screen, then a 42″ HDTV with 4K screen of 111DPI would need to be seen within 1.5 meters of a distance to get the same effect. Usually a sofa is placed 4-6 meters away from the LCD HDTV. Perhaps people will want to sit closer to the screen to experience something closer to 4K quality. At the photo exhibitions and museums of paintings, it is common for people to approach the images at distances closer than 1 meter to appreciate the details in the image. Perhaps 4K would be more suitable sizes above 50″ and preferably perhaps even above 60″ in diagonal. 67″ 4K HDTV would have a 70DPI thus achieve same pixels per angle of view at 2.5 meters distance. 65″ 1080p HDTV is $2500 today at Best Buy, how much more would it cost to include the latest 4K processor in there to stream 4K contents from Youtube 4K? Perhaps 4K HDTVs in the living room can be displaying any of our existing 12megapixel images taken with any recent digital photo camera, slideshows on a 4K screen look awesome. Thus Picasa could be streaming out some amazing customized and personalized slideshows, to be marvelled at in the living room at closer distance than usual.

Another point in Youtube’s announcement that I would like to discuss:

Because 4K represents the highest quality of video available, there are a few limitations that you should be aware of. First off, video cameras that shoot in 4K aren’t cheap, and projectors that show videos in 4K are typically the size of a small refrigerator. And, as we mentioned, watching these videos on YouTube will require super-fast broadband.

Now, let’s discuss, when are cheap 4K encoders going to be available? What hardware is required in the camcorder to encode that resolution effectively (and not also use up too much bandwidth in its compression). How expensive are the 4K decoders really?

Is 4K support something that could come with the upcoming ARM Cortex A9 processors?

I would think that this could be a nice challenge for ARM processor providers to work towards. They have now reached 1080p playback for a while already, even though it only really comes with ARM Cortex A9 to small low power consumer devices. Media streamers though have done 1080p playback for a few years already. I filmed the first 1080p KiSS Technology players at CeBIT 2004:

With Moore’s law, doubling of playback processing every 18 months, 4K decoders should have been ready since the second half of 2008 already, and in Set-top-box devices that shouldn’t cost more than the KiSS Technology DP-600 shown in 2004, less than $300 today? Perhaps next year we will be able to see Google TV boxes with 4K and Youtube 4K streaming support on $2K 65″ 4K LCD HDTVs or $1K 4K projectors?

Canonical explains the status of Ubuntu on ARM Powered Laptops

Posted by Charbax – July 5, 2010
Category: Laptops, Software, Exclusive videos, Freescale, FTF, Ubuntu

In this video, Jerone Young, Partner Engineer at Canonical explains the status of software optimizations and development to make ARM Powered Laptops and Desktops a reality. He tells about some of the fascinating challenges where Canonical is working together with the their partners at the Linaro group of companies (ARM, Freescale, IBM, Samsung, ST Ericsson, Texas Instruments…) to realize a full desktop experience on ARM Powered devices, including full and fast web browsing and full access to most of the most useful Ubuntu applications.

It’s about hardware acceleration, about standardization of boot process and other aspects of the ARM platforms, this is about focusing development efforts to solve the most important challenges and provide thus open source and free software tools to be used by all ARM Powered Linux based products. With faster memory bus speeds coming up in the next generation of Desktop-centric ARM Processors, such as support for DDR3 RAM speeds, the implementation of multiple cores as in upcoming ARM Cortex A9 processors, the standardization of how to use graphics and video hardware acceleration to speed up user interfaces, applications and features. Those are the challenges that Canonical and its partners are working very hard on and plan to implement in actual products that can start to be sold to the mass market during these coming months.

As you have been able to see in hundreds of videos here on ARMdevices.net, many, many prototypes of ARM Powered laptops are being shown at trade shows. Huge laptop makers like HP, Toshiba, Dell, Lenovo, Quanta, Compal, Inventec, Pegatron, all of those and many more have shown or have announced ARM Powered laptop projects. Yet to actually launch these to a very large market, the ARM Partners are first collaboratively making sure that those devices provide a user experience that is fast enough for most consumers.

This story as discussed on Slashdot: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/10/07/06/1256252/Surveying-the-Challenges-of-Linux-On-Cortex-A9-Based-Laptops

30 minutes with Jeff Orr of ABI Research

Posted by Charbax – June 30, 2010
Category: Exclusive videos, Opinions, FTF

ABI Research releases forecasts on ARM Powered laptops, tablets, they correctly predicted the 2009 netbook sales and have many other research papers, reports and forecasts out. In this video, we discuss the growth of Android vs the iOS devices, we discuss the potential of tablets, smartbooks, the possible disruption of Telecom business models. Cheaper ARM Powered smartphones and other devices.

Technology Editor at EETimes offers impressions from the Freescale Technology Forum

Posted by Charbax – June 27, 2010
Category: Sensors, Exclusive videos, Freescale, FTF

R.Colin Johnson, Technology Editor at http://eetimes.com offers his impressions on the Freescale Technology Forum. The launch of the new Freescale Xtrinsic sensors, Cortex M4 and more. Check more videos he filmed of the first day keynotes at FTF at his blog: http://nextgenlog.tv

Freescale MMA9550L, the new Xtrinsic family of autonomous sensors

Posted by Charbax – June 24, 2010
Category: Sensors, Other, Exclusive videos, Freescale, FTF

Imagine not needing a power button to turn on your phone, just pick it up. Imagine cheaper warranty as manufacturers will know when devices were damaged because of usage error such as fall or banging. Imagine new user interfaces that are much more relying on sensors as the new Freescale Xtrinsic sensors can measure stuff 2000 times per second (the bandwidth and architecture being better). Imagine also sensors combining their abilities through fusion, again, no need to wake up the main ARM processor of the device to do all kinds of things! Imagine the device knowing exactly how it is touched, how it is moved, how it is held, the touch is not anymore only on the screen! This means better battery usage, months maybe even years of seamless standby. The new Xtrinsic sensor only needs 12 micro amps of power to be turned on all the time!

Windows CE 7

Posted by Charbax – June 24, 2010
Category: Tablets, Exclusive videos, Freescale, FTF, Windows

So this is what Windows Compact Embedded 7 looks like! The unskinned version of WinCE7 looks basically quite a lot like WinCE6, but perhaps this new version of Windows CE has got some new optimizations to use ARM Cortex A8 and the more advanced hardware acceleration fully. And perhaps Windows CE 7 is meant to receive layers of customized user interfaces put on top of it, like Windows Phone 7 Series and like other potential UIs that partners of Microsoft surely are working on. Can this be considered an alternative to Windows 7 for ARM processors? I don’t know. How much can it really do?