Category: Texas Instruments

Panasonic Eluga, 4.3″ qHD, OMAP4430 Dual-core 1Ghz

Posted by – February 29, 2012

Panasonic releases this beautiful new thin, stylish, awesome 4.3″ qHD OLED screen, Texas Instruments OMAP4430 1Ghz Dual-core, Android Ice Cream Sandwich phone. To be released worldwide in April, it’s waterproof and dust-proof, the price may even be competitive!

Dream Chip xBounds mirroring to their OMAP3 HDMI dongle

Posted by – February 29, 2012

xBounds is a new solution for low bitrate Android mirroring.

Neonode Optical IR Touch Screen technology at Mobile World Congress 2012

Posted by – February 28, 2012

Neonode does the IR touch screen technology used on the Sony PRS-650 and T-1, they also plan to bring this technology to LCD based tablets. Check here for some info on the next Neonode touch user interface technology.

Recon Head-up Android Display for Ski and Snowboard Goggles

Posted by – February 28, 2012

The Recond HUD Ski and Snowboarding Goggles, shows speed, altitude, vertical distance travelled, synchronized with your phone showing SMS, caller-ID, music playlist, all in the head-up display while the user is skiing or snowboarding. The price is just 360 Euro (+ the price of the Goggles)!

Texas Instruments OMAP5430

Posted by – February 27, 2012

Texas Instruments demonstrates the next generation OMAP processor platform, achieving they claim the worlds fastest ARM processor performance yet, to be released in devices possibly end of 2012, for sure by Q1 2013.

Texas Instruments MWC12 Press Conference

Posted by – February 27, 2012

Here’s the full video of the TI MWC 2012 Press Conference.

LG Optimus Vu vs Samsung Galaxy Note vs Samsung Galaxy Nexus


Here’s a video showing the screen quality and size differences between the LG Optimus Vu, Samsung Galaxy Note and Samsung Galaxy Nexus.

Web Browsing on OMAP5 vs Tegra3

Posted by – February 22, 2012

Texas Instruments posted this video showing the web browsing speed on the upcoming TI Dual-core OMAP5 ARM Cortex-A15 processor running at “only” 800Mhz compared to a 1.3Ghz ARM Cortex-A9 Quad-core processor (sounds like Tegra3, but TI does not specify if that processor is the Tegra3, I think it probably is). The OMAP5 ARM Cortex-A15 finishes the 20 complex HTML5 full page loads (while playing an Mp3 file and downloading a video file) in 95 seconds and on Tegra3 it takes 201 seconds. Check back here on http://ARMdevices.net next week as I will film much more on the TI OMAP5 ARM Cortex-A15 processor as Texas Instruments is going to showcase it at their booth. Let me know here in the comments which questions you would like me to ask the TI representatives about the preformance of the OMAP5! I can think of asking them about memory bandwidth vs OMAP4460/OMAP4470 and vs Tegra3, what frequencies it can run at, how many cores, what GPU performance vs OMAP4460/OMAP4470 and vs Tegra3.

Archos sells more tablets than Asus and Acer, has Europe’s number one sub-400€ tablet market share

Posted by – February 16, 2012

Archos worldwide revenues increased 106% in 2011 compared to 2010. For the tablet sales in Europe, Archos is the second biggest tablet maker tied to Samsung. For the sub-400€ tablet market in Europe, Archos is the number one. Archos yearly tablet sales in Asia has exploded 464% going from 4,4M€ to 24,9M€ in revenue.

Think about it for a second. Archos is a 250-employee company based in Paris, and they are the European leader for the sub-400€ tablet market, they are virtually tied with the Samsung tablet sales in Europe and they are far in front of giants like Asus, Acer, Motorola, Toshiba, LG, Huawei, ZTE, HTC tablet sales in Europe.

Archos revenue from US sales “only” increased 57% year/year from 18,2M to 28,6M, my theory is because Archos has to prioritize where to spend their cash for production and distribution. Just as the Samsung Galaxy S2, Galaxy Note were released in Europe and Asia before the USA, Archos also has to choose to prioritize shipments to the European and Asian market, some markets also where Archos may be able to extract larger margins and satisfy resellers more evenly (a US reseller constantly having to be out of stock gets angry..). Over the past 3-4 months, monitoring the forums at http://forum.archosfans.com one can see hundreds of messages of American consumers being somewhat dissapointed not being able to buy the latest Archos G9 series of tablets, and due to Texas Instruments OMAP4460 1.5Ghz Processor being delayed, Archos can only really start shipping that promised 1.5Ghz tablet speed since recently. Also to consider, Archos has yet to annonce a 3G/4G/LTE USB Stick carrier for the US market, as the US market isn’t compatible with the rest of the worlds open unlocked 3G/HSPA+ SIM card USB stick system (I do believe some carrier, at least an MVNO should soon be allowing Archos provide a USB stick compatible with their network).

Consider this, Archos is a 250-employee company, with currently their record yearly revenue at 171,4 Million Euros ($224.669 Million). Apple has 60400 employees and a 2011 revenue of $108.249 billion. That means Archos makes 481 times less revenue than Apple. Yet, Archos manages to be second largest tablet seller in Europe behind Apple and tied with Samsung.

My theory is that if/when a company like Archos can get access to more cash, they can increase the mass production of their products and I think Archos has no problems selling out of all of their inventory, pretty much regardless of the worldwide region. The likely upcoming Socialist French President Francois Hollande (likely to be elected April 2012 instead of Nicolas Sarkozy) can make it a National priority to use State cash to invest in promising high-tech companies like Archos, France can heavily and rapidly invest in Archos to help Archos grab even more worldwide market share in a tablet market analysts predict to more than double again in 2012 compared to 2011. More investments can create a situation where Archos can expand R&D and Marketing/Sales efforts in Paris, thus upgrading firmwares even faster, developing new hardware skews faster, optimizing manufacturing and BOM techniques faster, something Archos can use to increase the value for money even faster making it even easier to sell all stock regardless of volume produced. With significantly more cash for more production, faster R&D, I believe Archos can grow and be the French high-tech company to seriously compete with Apple worldwide.

The Android tablet market has exploded in 2011. I believe the daily Android tablets activations worldwide has now overtaken the iPad2. The regular stack of analysts will only demonstrate that when they estimate Q1 2012 tablet sales in early April. I base my estimation on the fact most major latest Android tablets were released not before December 2011 (Archos G9, Kindle Fire, Nook Tablet, Motorola XyBoard, Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0, Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7, etc), thus counting since December 2011 (and not October 2011 as the latest analysts have) positions Android tablets even more favorably against the iPad2. If you count the Samsung Galaxy Note as a tablet (which most analysts aren’t), it’s even more obvious that Android tablets daily activations have overtaken the iPad.

With excellent value for money in Archos ICS-capable tablets, such as the $279 Archos 101 G9 Turbo 1.5Ghz, the $229 Arnova 9 G2, the $199 Archos 70b Internet Tablet and the $149 Arnova 7b G2, all of them imminently fully running Ice Cream Sandwich, (all those are MSRP prices, street prices can be 20-30% lower than MSRP with volume) I believe Archos is well positioned to continue their growth in tablet market share. It’d be awesome to see Archos find the time to also provide an OMAP4460 1.5Ghz 7″ Kindle Fire killer (at around $249) and a 5″ Galaxy Note killer (at around $199) tablet with USB 3G/4G/LTE stick support as my favorite tablet sizes are 7″ jacket pocket sized and 5″ pants pocket sized.

Revenue for the fourth quarter 2011

In M€ non audited Q4
2011
Q4
2010
Var
(M€)
Var
(%)
EUROPE 46,3 24,6 21,7 88%
ASIA 8,7 2,2 6,5 300%
USA 10,2 8,8 1,3 15%
TOTAL 65,2 35,6 29,6 83%

 

Total revenue for 2011

In M€ non audited 2011 2010 Var
(M€)
Var
(%)
EUROPE 117,9 60,7 57,2 94%
ASIA 24,9 4,4 20,5 464%
USA 28,6 18,2 10,4 57%
TOTAL 171,4 83,3 88,1 106%

 

Yearly revenue (Million €)

2009 : 57,9 ($76M)
2010 : 83,3 ($109.5M)
2011 : 171,4 ($224.7M)

Source: Archos Q4 2011 earnings press release on abcbourse.com, boursier.com, easybourse.com and investir.fr

Windows 8 on ARM comes with Desktop (of course..)

Posted by – February 9, 2012

There has been false rumors going around the web for the past 2-3 months, spread by Mary-Jo Foley of ZDnet and Paul Thurrot of winsupersite.com, that somehow Windows 8 on ARM wouldn’t be getting Desktop mode and full Desktop apps. Those rumors are wrong. In the following video, Microsoft demonstrates (again) how Windows 8 on ARM is going to come with a full Desktop mode with full Desktop apps such as Internet Explorer and Office.

The question of course is how does Microsoft plan to support more Desktop apps on ARM. For example, can we install a full Chrome browser on Windows 8 on ARM, how about apps like Photoshop and Ulead video studio? I expect Microsoft to have support for some recompiled desktop ARM apps in Windows store and support for PC over IP remote desktop for some x86 apps that can work smoothly over remote desktop which I expect Windows Azure to host as a cloud service.

To simplify compatibility, Microsoft is promoting the new Metro style HTML5 based apps system. Sure enough, Metro style apps all work on ARM and x86. But I am also sure that Microsoft carefully plans to also allow recompiled desktop apps on Windows 8 on ARM, they will for sure provide recompilation tools, specifications for use on PCoIP protocols, even partly use some parts of emulation and an ARM based Virtualization hypervisor.

Archos 101 G9 Turbo 1.5Ghz for $279 at Woot.com today

Posted by – February 9, 2012

It’s basically as powerful (or more powerful) than a Tegra3 tablet, but at nearly half the price. The normal MSRP price (for the 16GB 1.5Ghz version) is $399 so this is a good deal! It’ll support Ice Cream Sandwich through an official firmware update probably coming later this month. Support for US-compatible 3G/4G/LTE USB sticks is possibly also soon to be announced (depends just on US carriers or MVNO’s allowing Archos to use their networks I think).

Check it out at http://www.woot.com/

Found via: androidpolice.com

Teradici PCoIP, optimized remote desktop on TI’s OMAP4460

Posted by – February 1, 2012

Teradici is doing software optimization using the PCoIP (PC-over-IP) protocol to run a full x86 desktop remotely over the Internet onto an OMAP4460 device. Here in this demo remotely using an x86 desktop that is over 2000 miles away (and considering that Internet connections at trade shows can be unreliable).

Texas Instruments shows latest Augmented Reality Tablet demos

Posted by – February 1, 2012

Using software from Total Immersion and Metaio, Texas Instruments is showing their latest status of hardware acceleration on the DSP, Still Image Co-processing for Augmented Reality applications, games, navigation and more.

Status of Ubuntu for ARM Laptops and Servers

Posted by – January 24, 2012

David Mandala, Manager of the ARM Team at Canonical talks about the status of Ubuntu Linux on ARM Laptops and Servers, and about their plans for Ubuntu on ARM until 2014 and beyond. Who wouldn’t want to buy an awesome $199 ARM Powered Ultrabook, 13.3″ screen, ARM Cortex-A9 1.5Ghz TI OMAP4460 or 1.8Ghz TI OMAP4470, thinner, lighter than Intel Ultrabooks, 2x longer battery life on a smaller thinner battery (10x with the sunlight readable Pixel Qi), 1GB or 2GB RAM for full speed Chrome and Firefox web browser speeds?

Talking about the status of Ubuntu on TI OMAP3 (beagleboard), OMAP4 (pandaboard), Marvell, Freescale, Calxeda, plans for Quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 optimizations by Ubuntu 12.10, ARM Cortex-A15, ARM Cortex-A7, ARMv8 64bit, the imminent inclusion of full hard-float optimization in Ubuntu 12.4 on ARM:

With Ubuntu 12.04 on ARM there is also hard-float support (ARMhf), as previously talked about on Phoronix, and this will mean a huge performance boost for many workloads. Mandala said the performance boost they are seeing is between 5% and 30% improvement for floating-point operations. Also benefiting greatly for end-users is improved font-rendering, web-page scrolling, and other operations from this ARM hardfp support. Other code is also benefiting due to better use of the stack calling convention.

Source: phoronix.com

Orchard Inc Toughlet, Pixel Qi tablet for commercial ruggedized outdoor use

Posted by – January 24, 2012

Orchard Inc raised $4 Million for a tablet startup, here showing their titanium aluminium enclosure design, water resistant, unbreakable, with Pixel Qi and OMAP4 Powered Android, designed for outdoor use.

OMAP5 at CES 2012

Posted by – January 20, 2012

Texas Instruments was showing the OMAP5 ARM Cortex-A15 processor for the first time at CES 2012 running on their new development kit which they were showing to people but not allowing video recording of yet.

Engadget.com was the first to be allowed to film a demo of it:

Look forward to much more on the Texas Instruments OMAP5 platform at Mobile World Congress next month and in the months to come until devices start shipping using OMAP5 by the end of the year or early next year.

Windows RT on OMAP4470 Texas Instruments 1.5Ghz ARM Cortex-A9 Tablet

Posted by – January 20, 2012

Here’s Windows 8 on an ARM Powered Tablet, running on the Texas Instruments OMAP4470 1.8Ghz processor with the SGX544 GPU. This is the first time that I saw the OMAP4470 in a tablet and it’s the first time that I briefly touched Windows 8 on an ARM Powered tablet (as you can hear in the video, I wasn’t supposed to be allowed to touch it). Look forward to much more on OMAP4470 and Windows 8 on ARM in the months to come.

Augmented Video-blogging Hangout featuring the Kopin Golden-i at CES 2012

Posted by – January 16, 2012

Here’s a Google+ Hangout recorded while at the Kopin Golden-i reception held at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas during CES 2012. Demonstrating and talking about my Augmented Video-blogging using their device, and other uses of this headmounted display device and other news from the CES. You can fast forward to about 34 minutes 40 seconds in for the demo by Motorola Solutions’s Product Lead on the Golden-i, Nicole Tricoukes, explaining how the Golden-i headmounted computer works and what Motorola Solutions plans to target it for when they plan to mass produce it and release it in the second half of the year (you can watch her TEDx presentation)

Toshiba Excite X10 launched in the USA, OMAP4430 1.2Ghz thinnest lightest 10.1″ Tablet

Posted by – January 15, 2012

The Toshiba engineers use a magnesium casing and a new type of display where they are directly bonding the touch panel to the display itself, eliminating the air-gap between those two, helping them to get it to be really thin and really light.

Motorola Kopin Golden-i at the Verizon booth at CES 2012


The Motorola Kopin Golden-i is being showcased at the Verizon booth at CES 2012, demonstrating hands-free wearable computing user interfaces for Industrial uses such as Construction, Medical, Public safety, Utilities and more. I’ve been using this for the past 2 months to attempt to have a wearable computing augmented video-blogging system, using Google+ Hangouts On Air with the headmounted display showing a live chat and live status updates from Google+, Twitter, Email alerts and more.