ARM’s advantage is not only a question of performance per milliwatt and price, it’s also mostly about it being a processor technology licenced by several processor makers. More makers of processors means lower prices, means more features. When manufacturers who are making the next Laptop, Tablet, Phone, Set-top-box, E-reader devices have more choices for the components that they can use, it helps bring prices down, it helps bring a more diverse set of hardware designs and features to the market.
As consumers and as fans of technology and progress, we should welcome more choice, more competition to the market.
While I can’t know Intel’s next generation performance and price, my guess though is that while they can probably bring something with their billions of dollars in R&D, it’ll likely still not be able to match the work done by the dozens of huge ARM processor makers all combined. As ARM is just a core set of processor IP, a lot of work is done on top of that by Texas Instruments, Marvell, Freescale, Qualcomm, Samsung, ST Ericsson, Nvidia, VIA, Broadcom, even AMD-spin-off Global Foundries is investing Billions in differentiating their way of doing ARM Cortex A9 multi-core using High-K Gate, 28nm process and more.
The performance we need is simply one that displays a web browser instantly on all screen sizes. So really, while we would like cloud computing performance to increase, the performance of our internet access devices only need to reach a certain magic level where all websites and web apps can be displayed instantly. From then on, processor improvements that bring savings on power consumption and price will be much more valuable than further increases in performance.
Sure Intel has lots of money and engineers in R&D, but one must question their motive; I think Intel wants to stay in control of the bulk of the PC/Laptop product categories than it really cares about value for consumers and about much improving access to computing for the more than 4 billion people who still don’t have access to the Internet.
Up until last year, I didn’t like the business model around Adobe Flash at all. My theory was that Flash was basically used by Microsoft, Apple and Intel to block mass adoption of open source Linux and embedded Linux operating systems as there was no good enough Flash support on open source computers and embedded devices.
On the other hand, and as I am not a developer with access to Adobe’s source code so I can’t really know how hard it is for them to optimize their proprietary source code, perhaps Flash isn’t as bloated as I thought, but that it really represents graphics intensive animations and embedding of videos which actually are really hard to process using multi-purpose processors and which really perform much better once it can be made to use the latest hardware acceleration.
Check out my video filmed with Adobe Flash products manager Richard Galvan at Mobile World Congress 2010 demonstrating Flash support on the ARM Cortex A8 based Nexus One and Motorola Droid as well as a very interesting demonstration of the controversial Creative Suite 5 authoring software suite on which Adobe is demonstrating the infamous “Export to iPhone” option, where developers can input any Flash application based on ActionScript3 and output it in the iPhone applications format. Thus develop once and output all hardware platforms.
The big talk right now on Techmeme is the funny war going on where Apple doesn’t want to support the Flash format on the ARM Cortex A8 based iphone, ipod touch and ipad. Even though technically, Flash certainly could work on those devices. It’s probably just a question of a few megabytes of plug-in code that would have to be installed with the Safari browser on those devices.
My guess? Steve Jobs and Steve Ballmer are angry at Adobe’s Open Screen Project. Up until last year, Microsoft and Apple had the exclusive platforms to have hardware accelerated Flash support on X86. Nobody else could get full Flash support, especially as Flash 9 fragmented into ActionScript3 based Flash projects which more and more displayed either not at all on Open Source OSes or displayed really badly, without hardware acceleration. My guess also is that Microsoft’s attempt with releasing Silverlight may also be a provocation against Adobe which pushed them further to optimize Flash for embedded Linux and thus support Flash everywhere else than Microsoft/Apple/Intel.
My point? To some degree, one of the main reasons Linux hasn’t yet caught on for mass market mass consumer adoption on desktops, laptops, tablets and phones has so far been the lack of decent Flash support. Sure, there are many many other factors. But Flash support was an important problem that up until recently released Ubuntu 10.4, hardware acceleration of Flash wasn’t even available for Linux!!
Of course I still wish Adobe would bluntly just announce that they will open-source Flash and licence it out for free (they can still release proprietary authoring tools that they can sell for lots of money to developers). And for sure, I am a proponent of HTML5, Ogg Theora 2.0 (based on Google’s On2 VP8 codec), for sure I can’t wait to see Google’s Native Client plugin for Browsers, Google’s 3D plugin for Browsers (like the very impressive new Google Earth for Google Maps in the browser (not for Linux yet)).
For now, especially as I expect Flash support in Android and Chrome OS can be fully hardware accelerated, run smoothly and nicely as Adobe has been investing hundreds of full time engineers in optimizing this process over the last couple of years. As I don’t expect any other aspects of Android and Chrome OS will feel any slower or any more bloated by adding Flash support. I don’t think Apple’s choice of excluding Flash is a good choice for their users.
What will happen? I think consumers will enjoy Flash support on Android, Chrome OS and other embedded Linux it also looks very impressive and nicely hardware accelerated in Ubuntu 10.4. If Apple persists in wanting to exclude the Flash plugin for non-technical reasons, consumers will likely buy Android and Chrome OS devices instead. In any ways, competition is good and in the coming months, it will be very interesting for me to film demonstrations of Android Tablets, Phones and Laptops with hopefully full and smooth Flash support.
Vodaphone is releasing their first own-branded Android phone, described as a low-cost Android phone. It has got a 2.8-inch resistive screen, a 3.2MP camera and runs Android 2.1 Eclair. To be released in May. It also comes with a suite of Vodafone 360 Apps (for Facebook widgets integration and the like), it is to be seen how the Vodafone 360 experience as apps on Android compares with Vodafone’s previously released Linux Mobile Foundation based 360 phone.
How low will the price be? Will Vodafone go all the way and sell this phone for £99 on a pre-paid plan? Interestingly Vodafone is pointing out this feature in their press release:
2. Vodafone’s proprietary pre-pay balance indicator permanently displays the customer’s latest balance status – it is updated after each voice call, SMS, start up, and also every 12 hrs when idle mode. There is also a soft-key configured for convenient top up.
This type of task bar, status bar overview of pre-paid credit status with one-click top up could really accelerate the adoption of pre-paid plans for Android devices instead of buying them with very expensive 2-year contracts. The Android phone sold like this would still be locked to only work on Vodafone for 2 years, but would at least only require pre-paid services hopefuly reasonably priced for voice, sms and most importantly for data usage of web browsing and apps.
As manufacturing cost for this 2.8″ resistive Android phone might be below $100, this could really provide a taste of what is to come in terms of reaching huge worldwide market share for Android, reaching emerging markets as more than 4 Billion people around the world still don’t have a smart phone and Internet access. How soon the sub-$50 Android phones with sub-$3/month pre-paid Internet data access in all the developing countries?
Vodafone own-brand devices are available in 31 Vodafone subsidiary or partner markets. It is the world’s second largest mobile phone operator behind China Mobile. See an overview of Vodafone’s market share in this Wikipedia article.
The latest monthly report by AdMob on US-based web usage on smartphones (of sites and apps where AdMob is serving ads) shows that Android phones combined are now being used more than the iphone OS devices.
By these numbers, one can speculate if the overall share of Android devices sold per month in the USA is about to overtake the overall monthly share of sold iPhones, iPod touch and iPads.
Consider that most of the iphone OS share consists of iphones and ipod touch that were bought by consumers during these past 2 years. While most of the Android devices used at this point were purchased during the past 6 months. So this may increase the likelihood that Android sales per month have already overtaken the monthly sales of iPhones.
Consider that the Chinese market is getting several “Ophone” branded phones, which are based on modified Android OS source code. Consider also that the US and European market have not yet received significantly cheaper Android phones on their markets although many are planned to be released soon. Once pre-paid or totally unlocked Android phones are sold below $200 without contracts, those may expand the market share of Android phones even faster, as consumers likely much prefer a $200 unlocked phone or locked on pre-paid plans than a $200 locked phone that comes with a $3500 2-year contract.
In AdMob’s numbers the Google Nexus One device is only achieving a 2% marketshare. My guess is that Google doesn’t need to sell more Nexus Ones at this point. The Nexus One is only there to push the Android market forward. Google isn’t going to compete with its partners yet. Nexus One is basically like a Development Kit for the Android industry that is also available to early adopters who can buy it over the web. But the more interesting business models will come once Google is selling Android phones at http://google.com/phone at below $200 unlocked and out of contracts.
Another leak released by androidcentral.com unveils that Dell also has plans for releasing a “true “netbook”” that is ARM Powered, to run Android probably customized for Laptop form factors.
The code-name is Athens, 11″ SVGA 1024×768 screen, optional 3G, WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity modules. There is also the code-name Sparta to be released perhaps as soon as June that may be a convertible Laptop and Tablet form factor.
Hard Kernel already has a 3.5″ gaming-oriented device which I filmed a couple of months ago (see here), now they are also announcing a 10″ tablet device named ODROID-T.
Here are the full specs:
Samsung S5PC110 Cortex-A8 1Ghz with 512KB L2 cache
3D Accelerator SGX540(up to 20M triangles/s and 1000M pixels/s)
512MB Mobile DDR 400Mega data rate
10.1inch 1366 x 768 LVDS interface(capacitive touch)
1080p video playback via HDMI cable
Today’s Dell Android product leaks continue with this 7-inch Android tablet design powered by the ARM Cortex A9 based Nvidia Tegra2 processor! It’ll also have an optional DVB-T and ATSC TV tuner module. 1.3 megapixel camera and an SDHC card slot.
Dell is announcing (or leaking) this 4.1″ WVGA OLED based (probably Super AMOLED), to run Android 2.1, AT&T and worldwide HSDPA versions to be released this year also with Dell’s proprietary “Stage UI” overlay user interface.
Here’s another new Android phone announced (or leaked) by Dell, to use the Qualcomm MSM7230 800mhz processor, 14.4Mbps download and 5.6Mbps upload HSPA, 512MB RAM, TV-out, Bluetooth 3.0 in this “curved glass” design. Dell is designing some kind of “Stage UI”, similar to HTC’s own Sense UI for their customized Android home screen and user interfaces.
Here’s a design for an Android phone by Dell to be released next year, it will be based on the next generation Qualcomm MSM7230 processor, come with a 2.8″ QVGA screen, 14.4Mbps HSPA and is said that it will be sold for cheap.
Here’s another Android tablet presented by Eken at the China Sourcing Fair in Hong Kong. It runs a 600mhz VIA ARM Processor, USB-host, SD card slot, the 3G-module is optional.
So you might have seen my video of the Hott MD500 that I posted from CeBIT here last month. Hott is now showing the 7″ Android tablet called the MD700 at the China Sourcing Fair in Hong Kong. The price in bulk is said to be probably around $130 USD.
How does Google control what services, software and hardware ships in Android handsets? The search giant has built an elaborate system of control points around Android handsets.
To dig deeper we spent two months talking to industry sources close to Android commercials – and the reality has been startling. From a high level, Google uses 8 control points to manage the make-up of Android handsets:
I love Android, yet I am also the webmaster of the Archos Fans community. Archos is basically so far still the only Android Tablet manufacturer in the world (although 50+ Android Tablets have been shown at trade shows, nearly none of those are yet available on the market). Thus Archos, this little French company with less than 100 engineers, has had an Android device on the market since September 2009 and yet NO legal official way for them to pre-install the Google Marketplace, Gmail, Gtalk on their devices. There are illegal ways to install Google Apps on the Archos tablets, even a very simple .apk to transfer to the tablet over USB that does all the necessary Google Apps installations pretty easily.
This whole unofficial Google Apps deal is absolutely not sustainable, it’s like some kind of cyanogen thing. The mass market consumers that buy ipod touch and ipads would never accept to have to go through such unofficial channels to get some sort of “Google Experience” on their device. For the 50+ Android Tablets to be released to the worldwide markets these next few months, Google will have to unlock the Google Experience for more hardware configurations.
As the roadmap of Android is top secret, as Google geniuses prepare their Knock Out blows against Apple/Microsoft/Nokia/Intel, I think we as Android fanboys can also rather straight forwardly guess what that roadmap likely is going to be.
I see it a bit like some kind of trojan horse approach. Deep down I am sure Google does not want to do evil, but to reach the goal of providing sub-$100 Android devices that do all the VOIP, VOD, Credit Card and ID replacement, RFID, Augmented Reality, GPS, Social Networking and all that other stuff, Google first simply has got to play it nice with the largest Manufacturers and the largest telecom carriers.
I was at the Mobile World Congress recently at the Q&A with Eric Schmidt, you could hear really fun questions being asked by provocative telecom industry people, such as Google wanting to “Steal the telecom industry’s voice minutes”, that Google wants to “Transform the telecom industry into dumb pipes”. Those transformations are for real, and I am sure the Google top strategists are aiming to reach those goals as soon as possible. But Google alone, even though they have the most and best PHDs cannot make the $100 unlocked Google Phone/Tablet/e-reader/set-top-box happen. So they have to work in certain levels of secrecy with the right big companies that need to have their investments recouped before Google opening up the next level of Android openness to the whole industry.
The Hong Kong Electronics and Sourcing fairs and the China Consumer Electronics Fair were just held in Hong Kong and Shenzhen. I had tried for 3 weeks after CeBIT to find a sponsor to cover my flight and hotel costs so that I could go there and bring you 50 videos of all the new products that I expected to be shown there. But I did not succeed to convince any sponsor for going to film in Asia this time, so I am for now staying in Copenhagen where I am currently filming some interviews at the Cphpix Copenhagen Film Festival: 1, 2, 3.
I don’t know for sure how much innovation and new products were shown by the Chinese manufacturers at these Trade Shows these past few days. I didn’t yet spend enough time translating all the Chinese blogs and searching more for those most interesting Android tablets, new cheaper Android phones, new interesting e-readers, ARM Powered Laptops and more.
I guess also that this year’s CCEF, HKTDC and HK Spring Sourcing fairs may not have been too popular among those European and US based bloggers that I know. Maybe they don’t go there for a reason.
Anyways, I will try to bring you exclusive videos of a bunch of awesome ARM Powered products that I have right here to review, I’ve got a $95 10″ Android VIA-ARM Powered laptop (watch me showing a brief preview of it in the video below), I’ve got an Intelligent Mobile Hotspot Mifi adapter by Novatel Wireless, I’ve got the touch-screen PocketBook 302 with WiFi/Bluetooth and I’ve also got a Bluetooth wireless foldable keyboard by Chinfai Leicke. I’ll post extensive video reviews of those and more as soon as I find the time.
While this specific ARM Cortex A8 implementation performs great on integers, power consumption, heat dissipation, price, floating-point performance still needs some improvement with ARM Cortex designs to come. Consider also that Ubuntu 9.04 used in this test is only the first implementation of Ubuntu for ARM Cortex and that Ubuntu 10.4 which is imminently going to be released will significantly improve ARM performance of those benchmarks.
The ARM Cortex-A8 sample that we tested in the form of the Freescale i.MX515 lived in an ecosystem that was not competitive with the x86 rivals in this comparison. The video subsystem is very limited. Memory support is a very slow 32-bit, DDR2-200MHz.
I guess it’s not yet possible for Van Smith in this test to make an apples to apples comparison as the current ARM Cortex A8 are still oriented at Smart Phones and thin and light Tablets rather than full SmartBooks for full desktop-like performance requirements of the more desktop-performance oriented next generation ARM Cortex designs.
The goal for ARM when reaching the markets of Laptop and Desktop form factors is to reach the level of performance required to run full high resolution Web Browsers at full speed, where the OS with the browser boots instantly, with fast enough RAM where unlimited tabs open instantly, where hardware acceleration of embedded videos functions smoothly and where even the Native Client and 3D features run fully within the ARM Powered Web Browser. Once that level of performance is reached, further performance improvements will be less important than lowering the power consumption and lowering the cost of the next processors. Once everything most users need to have processed on their devices seem to run instantly, reaching the instant browser performance level, why would anyone want to increase the performance of client device oriented processors further?
AMD spin-off called GlobalFoundries is looking to make one of the fastest ARM Cortex A9 implementations as a 28nm process size, using High-K Metal Gate instead of the Silicon Dioxide Gate of previous processors. This allows for smaller and even faster processors.
The implementation of high-κ gate dielectrics is one of several strategies developed to allow further miniaturization of microelectronic components, colloquially referred to as extending Moore’s Law.
My question would be like this: Does this basically mean that AMD investors are investing heavily in designing ARM processors instead of X86?
AMD spin-off is going ARM, Nvidia is going ARM, VIA is going ARM, that may leave Intel a bit alone with the X86.
I was right when I immediately deducted back in August 2009 that Google’s purchase of On2 would likely lead to them open-sourcing and releasing On2’s VP8 video codec as a free open-source video codec to be used as the HTML5 video format.
Google could use VP8 codec on Youtube in HTML5 mode, and force everyone using Youtube to upgrade to HTML5 browsers
Newteevee.com is reporting that Google plans to announce VP8 video codec for HTML5 at next month’s Google I/O conference in San Francisco.
This means the world will get an open-source and free video-codec to use in all consumer electronics, to use in all websites and for the distribution of all video contents. Look forward to small Chinese manufacturers not anymore having to pay ridiculous $20’000 or more licencing fees to the Mpeg Consortium through “Sisvel” and other such hugely expensive licencing costs which manufacturers have to pay to exhibit products in Europe or in the USA for simply being able to playback those formats. Consumer electronics products will likely ship with Google’s Video codec installed by default and only unlock access to proprietary codecs through a codec licence unlocking system through letting users pay the licence themselves or only unlock the functionality at the time of sale and not during the conference exhibitions.
Using this new VP8 for HTML5 could potentially save Google and other content and distribution companies millions of dollars in H264 licencing costs for sites like Youtube. Google Chrome and Firefox will thus ship with HTML5 video codec pre-installed in the browser, and obviously that Android, Chrome OS will come with it too. And Google will likely freely provide all the tools for hardware acceleration on all hardware platforms as well.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=0b85f2ba-2e6f-46ee-be2d-92124f8ad54a)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=fe422345-2d90-4dc0-a525-e3d84854fcb9)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=de93f124-7892-4f31-98f1-2eee9dbdfab7)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=56baae66-1328-4bf3-a774-dae1e061af68)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=80445d62-c01b-4313-ab77-526d86133335)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=b2943a80-0a69-4c4a-96c2-926ae8831dd2)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=473ec297-fa1e-4cca-bc1f-797d4608e0da)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=33c5d1e1-0abf-4151-8a0e-6f1d17b7da4a)
