Here’s one of the cheapest Realtek based 1080p media streamer boxes. It could even play Youtube in HD over its Ethernet connection if only Google would licence that out to set-top-box makers. The representative of Zinwell is saying that Google recently changed their policy for licencing of Youtube access to set-top-boxes by charging a huge $1 Million licencing fee just to be allowed to access the Youtube API to stream the videos. Zinwell says Flash 10 support might be added already by next month, which may be a workaround to support Youtube without having to pay the Youtube API licencing fee. I bought this device for 80€ and will post a video review of it here at http://138.2.152.197 soon.
IDTI, which I filmed their early prototypes at last year’s Computex, is now showing this finalized implementation of their technology in this touch screen product which is a 21,5″ 1080p screen that integrates their specific stylus based touch screen technology. IDTI’s touch screen technology claims to provide same visibility as capacitive screens but for a price closer to resistive screens, though it only works using their stylus.
Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, recently spoke about large screen Android Tablets at the Abu Dhabi Media Summit keynote (at timecode 10 minutes and 39 seconds). It’s a nice way of Eric Schmidt to indirectly confirm that Google is definitely going to support the development of Android based Tablets as alternatives on the market to the upcoming iPad.
When I say “phone”, you might have a really big phone, like a phone about “this” big (he shows a size of about 10″ diagonal for a tablet with his hands), also known as a Tablet, makes sense [to have] big screens (…) you are going to have them from many vendors including using Google’s Android Operating System.
How soon until Google announces official Marketplace support for all Android Tablets?
Of all the Android Tablets which I have filmed so many of at the last couple months at CES, Mobile World Congress and CeBIT consumer electronics shows, none of the companies presenting those tablets were able to confirm if and when they might be allowed to include the Google Marketplace on those tablets officially supported by Google. As you may know, the Archos 5 Internet Tablet and any other currently shipping Android tablets around the world, none are yet officially certified by Google to include the Google Marketplace.
As you can see from my videos of the Archos 7 Home Tablet, the Hott MD500, the $199 Freescale powered tablets, Creative Zii Egg, Altina’s 4.8″ Android GPS Tablet, the Camangi Webstation, Forsa 7″ Android Tablet, 1Cross Tech MIDhybrid, Hard Kernel ODroid and many many more which you can find at http://138.2.152.197/category/tablets/, Android Tablets can be sold for cheaper, they can come with or without 3G, they may not come with capacitive but only resistive screens to save costs, they may not include cameras or even accelerometers. They instead bring higher resolutions, larger screens, more connectors and ports (such as built-in USB host, HDMI outputs..) and most importantly, Android Tablets can be sold at more affordable prices and be sold at retail stores without the need to signup for 2-year subscription plans with telecom carriers. Basically, the Android Tablets can occupy the market segments that go from the iPod Touch to the iPad.
Will Apple have a hard time selling as many devices and making as much revenues and profits in a market when dozens or hundreds of Android based competitors are going to be available for a lot cheaper prices and offer if not at least the same, then likely more features because of differentiation through free market competition? Android Tablets are likely to come with Flash support, HDMI outputs, USB host ports, hard drive storage options, storage expantion, Pixel Qi screens, removable batteries, video-conferencing, full video and audio codecs support, mass storage device modes not requiring iTunes to synchronize media files, open source and even open firmware software updates for the installation of alternative Android firmwares and even alternative Linux OSes including Ubuntu, Maemo, Angstrom. Can Apple compete with that?
This following video starts at the correct 10m39s timecode when you click the play button, where you can see Eric Schmidt’s above statement regarding Google’s official support for Android Tablets:
You may copy and paste this embed code to your blog if you want the embedded video to start at that same timecode:
Asus is releasing their third generation of HD video players in the O!Play HD2, it plays all video formats, comes with a USB 3.0 connector, eSata, HDMI output and even in theory could play back Youtube in HD from its Ethernet connection if Google would authorize set-top-box makers to connect with the Youtube video API.
ARM talks to Robert Tolbert, Director of Product Management at Texas Instruments at Mobile World Congress about their latest OMAP 4 platform showcasing multiple display capabilities.
Once companies start getting the annotation, collaboration user interface aspects of the Android tablets and stylus touch e-reader functions right, this could unlock huge revolution in all areas where people need to collaborate on editing texts, potentially revolutionizing education, journalism, law, politics and more.
Motorola HS1001 is being released at CeBIT 2010, it features a very customized version of Android 1.6 running on its 2.8″ QVGA touch screen display. This cordless phone will be sold for 99€ in Europe and $149 in the USA. It supports 2h of cordless phone calling on the battery, comes with a MicroSD card reader.
Chinese manufacturer Hott is launching a design for a 4.8″ tablet based on a version of Android which they have customized to work for them on the ARM9 Rockchip based processor which comes with full video playback support. Check out these interesting Android customizations in this product that they proudly define as “iPad-killer”.
The design of this 4.8″ Android tablet by Hott is the most compact that I have seen so far. I think it is very nice that it only has a minimal screen bezel. Check out it’s size compared to my Archos 5 Internet Tablet with Android in the following pictures posted to Picasa (click to see the full size versions on Picasa):
The third release of the Android Native Development Kit (NDK) is now available for download from the Android developer site.
Among the new features of this Android Native SDK is following:
OpenGL ES 2.0 support
Applications targeting Android 2.0 (API level 5) or higher can now directly access OpenGL ES 2.0 features. This brings the ability to control graphics rendering through vertex and fragment shader programs, using the GLSL shading language.
This could mean we could soon get stuff like Unreal Engine for powerful 3D games on Android, N64 and Dreamcast games emulators, Quake3 for Android and plenty more games as well as 3D acceleration in Home replacements and in Android applications developed with tools provided by companies like Mentor Graphics, Digital Aria and more.
Dan Nystedt is reporting on Computerworld.com from a press meeting held by ARM in Taipei:
“The first tablet devices will launch in the second quarter by [mobile network] carriers,” said Roy Chen, ARM’s worldwide mobile computing ODM manager, during a press meeting in Taipei. “You’ll see a lot more in the third quarter.”
He said many tablet-like devices will be launched in China, but companies everywhere plan to launch tablets this year, including the top 10 telecommunications network operators.
Thus, you can look forward to huge amounts of hands-on video coverage of all these new ARM Powered tablets that will be released these next few months right here on http://138.2.152.197/category/tablets/
According to WSJ, Google is currently testing Android features on set-top-boxes.
It would be really nice to hear from Google what their strategy is for Android on HDTVs as well as for licencing Youtube HD access to cheap sub-$100 set-top-boxes that are based on Sigma Designs or Realtec processors, that come with Ethernet ports and which are powerful enough to stream 720p 2mbit/s or 1080p 4mbit/s from Youtube, if only they would provide an API to eventually display overlay advertising on the high bitrate videos or to charge end-users for the bandwidth through micro-payments.
I just bought the CinemaTube BV-5005 which is one of those Realtec based media streamers that should be able to strewam all contents from Youtube in up to HD but for some obscure licencing issues are not yet able to get access to the Youtube API for streaming legally. I will be posting an extensive video-review and an interview filmed at their CeBIT booth one of these next few days.
The service—which runs on TV set-top boxes using elements of Google’s Android operating system—allows users to search content from Dish as well as other Web video, like YouTube, and to personalize a lineup of shows, according to these people.
Viewers can search by typing on a keyboard, instead of using a remote control. Google hopes to link the service up with its nascent TV ad-brokering business, allowing it to target ads to individual households based on viewing and TV search data.
When I checked the Hivision stand on the 2nd of March, they told me someone had stolen several of their devices including their 7″ Android tablet. Luckilly, JKKmobile.com went by their booth the day before the official opening of the trade show to film this video:
New Mio Moov with capacitive multi-touch 3G ARM11 Tegra1 powered GPS navigation device, with a keyboard connected to the leather case, with an interface built on top of Windows CE.
Freescale is showing their reference design for sub-$200 tablets. The target is that tablets can soon be sold below $200 to end consumers that are able to run any Linux-based OS, including Android or Chromium OS – based on the open-source code available at http://chromium.org
In this video, Freescale’s product manager of Software Development demonstrates the status of their optimizations of running Chromium OS on their i.MX51 based devices, among other form factors is the recently announced $199 tablet form factor. It even supports hardware acceleration of HTML5 based video playback.
This means, full power Chromium OS could be made available in the next few months in Laptop and Tablet form factors to be sold well below $200 unlocked without contracts. The main question is how fast and how smooth will the Chromium Browser feel on ARM Powered devices? This is to be seen and tested very soon! Follow my video-blog for hands-on reports showing performance of Chromium OS running on all the ARM Powered devices very soon. Check also for Chrome browser running within Android, or for Chromium OS modified to add Android apps support, thus merging the two.
I also wonder, how much more does a $65 ARM Powered laptop cost if it uses an ARM Cortex A8 processor like the ones from Freescale instead of the ARM9 or ARM11 based ones from rockchip, VIA, Samsung and others. If the price increase is within $35, then welcome will be all the sub-$100 full power smooth ARM Powered Chromium OS laptops and tablets! Without actually knowing the real price difference between the ARM9, ARM11 and ARM Cortex based cheap laptops, my guess is that the availability of sub-$200 and sub-$100 Chromium/Android Laptops/Tablets is a possibility.
How soon will we see Google sell unlocked Chromium/Android on ARM powered laptop/tablet/e-reader convertibles with 50-hour battery life on Pixel Qi screens at http://google.com/laptop?
ARM is presenting this hardware based secure payments and authentication system which all future mobile devices may be shipping with. The functionalities of those calculators that people use for their netbanking can thus be integrated in the future mobile phones, to let people do secure payments and authentication using a simple 4 number pin code on their mobile phone. The way they do it is that they guide the keyboard entries directly into a separate secure encrypted OS that functions separately from Android to do the secure authentication that then sends back the certificate (or how it’s called) back to the web based application. This kind of system, I would guess, could also be integrated in laptops, or you could use your phone to authenticate yourself on any website very securely using any computer.
Creative is working on these Creative Zii Egg products based on their ARM based processor. Creative is also working on an ARM Cortex A8 based processor for their next generation of these products.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=c26d3343-e1a1-4df4-89f3-adce1580f55c)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=163d2d2d-5728-402a-b8e6-b28c2948c484)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=23bbd800-9f68-498c-9efd-a047fe56351b)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=46c593a7-ecdf-4ad7-8098-341aca25dc2f)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=a6c9776d-a5c5-4465-9702-d3f2298eb5b9)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=a5be5276-3bdb-4ec0-8329-37325039611e)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=09333e46-54c1-4f14-a553-3b07ed20ca2a)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=f154d41a-e93c-454b-86cb-a87a72548f74)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=e73d80c6-f34d-4be9-a11d-1598a9ab328f)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=09aec1b7-8096-4533-b2ed-9bfb953dbe66)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=062b72e4-1d18-4c6f-82e2-ebf324a8e2ec)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=1df108b9-68fc-46e4-b311-a704f84e60cb)
