Category: Geniatech

Highlights of 2011 on ARMdevices.net

Posted by – December 31, 2011

I posted 573 videos from 15 tradeshows, with 7.1 Million views on my YouTube channel (doubling my total view count to 14.7 Million), thank you for your 7159 comments, 7397 Likes, thank you for reading my blog, watching my videos, commenting, rating, sending news tips and sharing! Thanks to my 4520 followers on Google+! Since August, I post most of my tech opinions on my Google+. Here are some of my Highlights in ARM Powered devices that I blogged on ARMdevices.net in 2011:

January
Microsoft announces and shows Windows 8 on ARM
All-in-one Motorola Atrix 4G launched
Nvidia announces Project Denver (I think it may be their ARM Cortex-A15 project)
OLPC shows ARM Powered XO-1.75 Laptop
Google confirms ARM Powered Google TV
Pixel Qi shows 7″ and announces 9.7″ and 10.1″ 1280×800
Seco shows pico projector in a lamp concept
view top-20 CES 2011 videos
February
CERN accelerates to 3.5TeV to find Higgs Boson (7TeV in 2014)
Archos has 22% of the tablet market share in France
Samsung Galaxy S2 is launched
Mediatek powers $80 Android smartphones
LG launches first OMAP4430 phone
Google has a giant Booth and dominates at MWC
My interview with Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich designer Mathias Duarte
Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 launched
TI talks OMAP5 ARM Cortex-A15
MHL is the new standard for HDMI output through the MicroUSB connector
I ask RIM when Playbook is to get Android apps support
ST Ericsson A9500 ARM Cortex-A9 development kit launched
Nvidia shows quad-core Tegra3
ST Ericsson ST6715 powers sub-$100 Android smartphones
Sony Ericsson Liveview is the first wearable Android wrist watch
view my top MWC videos
Arnova 8 launched
Arnova 10 launched
Asus Transformer Honeycomb laptop launched
March
Nintendo 3DS launched, first mass produced non-glasses 3D portable screen
Shenzhen Ider Sub-$60 Android Set-top-box launched
Zinwell shows $70 Android set-top-box
HTC Flyer with stylus launched
Beagleboard xM launched
TI DaVinci DM816x and DM814x can do 4K2K video playback
Hard Kernel Samsung Exynos 4210 tablet development kit launched
Trim Slice Tegra2 desktop launched
QNX talks about the Blackberry Playbook software
Seco ARM/x86 cross platform modules
Toradex shows Tegra2 on SO-DIMM form factor
My interview with ThePirateBay founder Peter Sunde
I’m interviewed on German Radio DRadio Wissen about my video-blogging
view top-15 CeBIT 2011 videos
view top-6 Embedded World videos
First Archos G9 rumors leak
April
Larry Page starts as Google CEO
Archos at the Shenzhen electronics fair
My review of the $95 Kinstone ARM Cortex-A9 Android tablet
My review of the $87 3.5″ capacitive Android Smartphone FG8, which I still use as my main smartphone today and it works great
Behind the scenes at a little Shenzhen Tablet/Laptop factory
Geniatech talks ARM Cortex-A9 Set-top-box
Karasnn talks cheap Mediatek Android Smartphones
My review of the $120 Android 3.5″ capacitive iphone4-clone H2000
Archos 7c Home Tablet, Rk2918 capacitive shown at Archos Shenzhen headquarters
Hello Kitty booth in Hong Kong
Arnova 10 G2 first demonstrated
AmLogic ARM Cortex-A9 set-top-box tested
Ramos ARM Cortex-A9 capacitive tablets booth tour
Rockchip RK2918 in a potentially sub-$50 Android Set-top-box
$125 ARM Cortex-A9 dual-core NEC/Renesas powered capacitive tablet by Livall.cn
Honeycomb keyrings at Rockchip RK2918 booth
My Android Tablet review in the Qatari Desert 2, 3
Archos dominates Hong Kong Android tablet sales
Walking around at the huge Shenzhen Smartphones market, where the worlds cheapest Android smartphones can be found
view top videos filmed at 3 Shenzhen and Hong Kong fairs in April 2011
May
The Chrome OS Team Answers some of my ARM Powered Chromebook questions at Google I/O
Solar Impulse does first solar-powered international flight from Switzerland to Belgium
Google Wallet launched
Samsung Origen Exynos 4210 development kit launched
Pixel Qi shows 10.1″ 1280×800 screen
HD videoconferencing shown on TI OMAP4430
TI talks OMAP4 memory bandwidth
June
ZiiLabs ZMS-20 Dual-core tablet reference designs shown
Android for point-of-sale systems
Cupp computing turns any x86 laptop into an ARM Powered Laptop
Pixel Qi can be solar powered
Shizhu shows Pixel Qi tablets
Walking with Monkeys in the Taiwanese jungle
Qualcomm Dragonboard MSM8260/MSM8660 development board launched
Microsoft shows Metro UI for Windows 8 tablets
view top-20 Computex 2011 videos
My first time flying on the Airbus A380 airplane
iWave Freescale i.MX51/53/27 based PCB designs
Genesi talks ARM hardfloat hardware acceleration
Freescale launches i.MX6 Quad-core processor in tablet reference design
Genesi launches new cheaper i.MX53 based ARM Powered Laptop platform
History and status of Freescale’s Microcontrolers
Freescale i.MX53 development kit
Boundary Devices 12″ i.MX53 Android tablet launched
Linaro status in June 2011
July
My first video of the Archos G9 tablets
August
Google buys Motorola (still processing through worldwide Government regulators needing to accept it)
September
Lenovo A1 7″ Android tablet launched
Toshiba shows awesome 55″ Quad-HD 4K2K screens, I want them to sell it below $1999 now!
Galaxy Note 5.3″ Super AMOLED HD Android smartphone launched, 2, 3
Galaxy Tab 7.7 shown with large Super AMOLED screen, has yet to be released, my guess the screen is too hard/expensive to manufacture for now and they may redesign to fit jacket pockets.
E Ink for credit cards shown
Samsung Galaxy S2 LTE shown, with 4.5″ Super AMOLED Plus screen
Sharp shows 8K4K 85″ HDTV, worlds best TV
My interview with E Ink about the latest news and developments at E Ink
Sony Android tablets P and S launched
Sony PRS-T1 Android E Ink e-reader with infrared dual-touch touchscreen launched
JVC GC-PX10 camcorder launched, has since become my new 1080p camcorder, the JVC Falconbrid processor can maybe soon record 4K2K video at prosumer-prices
Samsung Galaxy Y launched, cheapest Samsung Android phone yet, also see W, Y Pro
Samsung Super Clear LCD compared with Super AMOLED Plus
Huawei Mediapad 7″ 1280×800 Honeycomb Qualcomm MSM8260 tablet launched
3M invests in Pixel Qi
Arnova 10 G2 sold for $99 with newspaper subscription
My review of the sub-$100 N5Zero 5″ capacitive Rk2918 Android tablet
October
Sharp, Toshiba and Sony launch 4K2K Quad-HD TVs and Projectors, mass produce them and sell them below $2000 now, thank you!
Texas Instruments OMAP4460 selected as Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich reference platform for Galaxy Nexus ICS launch
OLPC Summit in San Francisco discuss latest OLPC news in October 2011
Raspberry Pi $25 ARM Powered Desktop launched
I’m Watch Android wrist watch launched
Ubuntu on ARM status in October 2011
Marvell PXA2128 “Tri-Core” tablet reference design launched
Freescale i.MX6 Quad-core Tablet reference design performance demonstrated
ARM Cortex-A7 big.LITTLE announced
ARM Mali Graphics status in October 2011
ARM Cortex-A15 prototype demonstrated
My interview with ARM Inc (USA) President Simon Segars
My interview with ARM CTO Mike Muller at the launch of the ARMv8 64bit architecture, after his keynote
My hands-on with the ARM Powered OLPC XO-1.75
MHL shows the latest HDMI Android features, your smartphone becomes your desktop, your home console and your Set-top-box
November
ARMv8 Technology Preview, a highly technical presentation video
Calxeda EnergyCore ARM Powered server launched with HP Project Moonshot, to disrupt the server market
AppliedMicro X-Gene ARMv8 64bit Server processor demonstrated running on FPGA, a bit more than a year before it’s ready
Mali T-658 announced, PS3 quality graphics in your pocket
My head-mounted augmented video-blogging system demonstrated and explained, 2
Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich source code is released, soon smoothly working on every ARM Processor, OMAP4430, ST-Ericsson A9500, Tegra3, Rockchip, ZiiLAbs ZMS-20 more coming..
Samsung announced Exynos 5250 ARM Cortex-A15
December
Archos Home Connect launched, probably best home radio alarm clock
Archos Smart Home Phone, probably best home DECT phone
Ice Cream Sandwich previewed on the Archos 101 G9 Tablet
My first video of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus
Test driving the Renault Twizy electric car
Archos 101 G9 1.5Ghz OMAP4460 Turbo launched, performance possibly around Tegra3 and priced $200 cheaper
Google Analytics launching social media analytics tools
My interview with Yves Behar, probably the top consumer electronics designer in the world
My interview with MG Siegler, the most influential Apple fanboy number 1
My interview with Gabe Rivera, Techmeme.com CEO, most influential tech news aggregator
I was interviewed for 10 minutes on Twit by Leo Laporte and Sarah Lane!, showcasing my head-mounted augmented video-blogging system and voicing some of my tech opinions

Thanks for watching my videos of 2011, Happy New Year!

Geniatech shows Ice Cream Sandwich Set-top-box preview

Posted by – December 31, 2011

Geniatech sent me this video demonstrating a preview version of Ice Cream Sandwich running on one of their Set-top-boxes. The processor is not yet confirmed, I don’t know if it is ICS running on the single-core AmLogic ARM Cortex-A9 AML8726-M which I filmed Genitech a few months ago demonstrating here and here. I think ICS is the version of Android to merge (passthrough or non-passthrough) Google TV features over onto ARM Powered devices with HDMI outputs, ICS set-top-box developments are to be confirmed at CES next week.

Read more about the Geniatech ARM Cortex-A9 set-top-box platform at: geniatech.com

Latest Android Tablet/Smartphone Trends out of Shenzhen and Hong Kong, at 3 tradeshows


Following is my summary and my top-20 videos filmed during 10 days spent in Shenzhen and Hong Kong, at 3 tradeshows, filming, interviewing, uploading and posting 97 videos from the Shenzhen Electronics Fair (April 8-10th), China Sourcing Fair (April 12-15th) and HKTDC Electronics Fair (April 13-16th). With all those many videos posted, it can be hard for you to look through all of them to find out which are the best. That is why I now always summarise my best videos in a post in the Top Video Lists category. Many awesome new ARM Cortex-A9 tablets and cheap smartphones were shown.

New major ARM processor trends from the Shenzhen and Hong Kong tradeshows and markets:

Based on the overwhelming amount of new videos filmed related to those new processors, I added 3 new Chip provider categories to ARMdevices.net:

AmLogic, I filmed 9 new videos: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9] (in order of most to least interesting), it’s a new low-cost Single-Core Cortex-A9 processor, clocked at 800Mhz for now, it can be found in the first sub-$100 Cortex-A9 tablets (resistive). The performance of these are likely better than 1Ghz Cortex-A8, but I will test this on my Kinstone AmLogic tablet sample (that I bought for $130 (850 renminbi)) and report in my upcoming second part video-review soon.

Mediatek, I filmed 10 new videos: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10] (in order of most to least interesting), this low-cost ARM9 processor seems to win big in the Chinese made emerging Android smartphones market. It’s absolutely amazing how cheap some of the Mediatek MTK6516 based Smartphones are being sold at, I bought a $87 FG8 Mediatek MTK6516 based Android Smartphone (that looks similar to a HTC Desire with its casing design). With Mediatek’s upgraded ARM11 3G-enabled MTK6573 Smartphone processor coming up, they may again make big wins in the Chinese smartphone market and bring sub-$100 maybe soon sub-$50 Android smartphones to the worldwide (not only emerging) mass market. Amazing.

NEC/Renesas, I filmed 7 new videos: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7] (in order of most to least interesting), about 2 years ago, NEC Electronics and Renesas merged and out of that merger is coming this new NEC/Renesas EV2 ARM Cortex-A9 Dual-Core 533Mhz processor, the SoCs based on it are very low priced. Consider this to be the Japanese ARM Cortex-A9 Dual-Core entrant. Some of my reports claim that a nice capacitive tablet design based on this processor can be sold in bulk for as little as $110, $125 or $135. I bought a sample from Livall.cn for $171 which I will soon video-review further.

My top-20 best Shenzhen/HongKong April 2011 videos:

1. Archos 7c Home Tablet, RK2918 Capacitive, Archos are building amazing value tablets based on the Rockchip RK2918 ARM Cortex-A8 1.2Ghz processor, with great capacitive touch screens, and they are bringing that to the definitely sub-$200 price range. As I am probably the biggest Archos fanboy in the world (I’m the admin and founder of http://forum.archosfans.com), I found it super fascinating to meet their expert staff and visit their Shenzhen headquarters.

2. Arnova 10 capacitive RK2918 to be released in May, at possibly $229 MSRP, for this 10.1″ capacitive Rockchip RK2918 ARM Cortex-A8 1.2Ghz tablet, it’s hard to find better value 10″ tablet. Consider this kind of price is for a product that will be massively available at all retail stores in Europe and the USA, that price is the retail price, including all import taxes, fees, margins and everything. I believe Archos can make huge sales of their new Arnova line, especially now that they are able to bring ARM Cortex-A8 performance and nice capacitive screens to these entry-level priced devices.

3. Best of Shenzhen: $87 Android 3.5″ capacitive phone, MTK6516 FG8, that is my initial video review of my new FG8 $87 Android Smartphone. Mediatek MTK6516 based, with Android 2.2 Froyo and a 3.5″ HVGA Capacitive touch screen. This is amazing to see how cheap the Android smartphones are getting. Check back for my further video reviews coming up to show the performance and features of this cheap smartphone platform.

4. Shenzhen Behind the Scenes 1: Hongda Factory tour, a fascinating look inside of a small Shenzhen consumer electronics factory. That day they are manufacturing Intel Atom based netbooks, the day before they were making cheap Freescale i.MX51 based tablets for utopiacn.

5. Geniatech explains their AmLogic Cortex-A9 Single Core Set-top-box, an interview with the product manager on this sub-$100 AmLogic based set-top-box, watch this to get an idea how the potential upcoming Google TV on ARM based set-top-box makers are planning their global sub-$100 ARM Powered Set-top-box market entry.

6. $95 Cortex-A9 Tablet Review, Kinstone KS-UMD070A9, my initial review of this sub-$100 (bulk, resistive) ARM Cortex-A9 AmLogic 800Mhz Single Core tablet. I’ve got the review sample right here, so I will post a further full video review with benchmarks, video codec tests and other speed tests as soon as I get the time, check back for that.

7. Shenzhen Behind the Scenes 3: Richtechie.com, Freescale i.MX51/53 PCB designer, have a look behind the scenes at a PCB designer in Shenzhen. This PCB design house makes Freescale i.MX51 motherboards and they are working on their upcoming i.MX53 based PCB designs. They work with utopiacn.

8. Archos at the Shenzhen Electronics Fair, not much news in this video, it’s just interesting to see how Archos has a big booth at the Shenzhen Electronics Fair and uses it to do sales of their devices towards growing their sales in the Chinese mainland market.

9. Catwalk girls show Tablets and Smartphones in Shenzhen, just fun if you would like to see how the Tablets and Smartphones are the center of the trendy topic at the Shenzhen Electronics Fair.

10. NEC/Renesas EV2 ARM Cortex-A9 Dual-Core 533Mhz in videos with Livall.cn, Gaia, Ebot, Quality Industrial and TAL Electronics.

11. Rockchip Rk2918 in a Set-top-box, this could power a sub-$50 ARM Powered Google TV Set-top-box.

12. Honeycomb at the Rockchip booth (just keyrings for now..), once you get Honeycomb on the Rockchip RK2918 (could be happening by Google I/O on May 10-11th?), that could create the most explosive disruptive mix for the tablet industry. Also check-out my video of the Rockchip RK2918 based laptop which could also provide great value for an ARM Powered laptop running Chrome OS or Honeycomb.

13. Review: $120 Hero H2000 MTK6516 Android Froyo Powered iphone4-copy, my initial video review of my new $120 iphone4-clone that seems to run Android 2.2 super smoothly on this 3.5″ HVGA capacitive touch screen Mediatek MTK6516 based Hero H2000 smartphone. It’s probably manufactured by Karasnn.com.

14. Epudo Telechips Cortex-A8 tablets, the new Telechips 8803 ARM Cortex-A8 1.2Ghz processor may be reaching stability for Android Gingerbread support. Telechips 8803 ARM Cortex-A8 1.2Ghz Gingerbread also featured in videos with Digilink and huashiguang.

15. MID123.com Hummingbird Gingerbread Tablet, Gingerbread seems also to be reaching stability on the Samsung ARM Cortex-A8 Hummingbird processor platform.

16. Karasnn.com Hero Android MTK6516 Smartphones, interview with one of the potentially leading Mediatek MTK6516 based Android smartphone makers.

17. Meizu M9, $380 Android phone with Retina Display, interesting to see a 3.5″ Retina Display and the Samsung Hummingbird ARM Cortex-A8 1Ghz processor in this new Meizu M9 phone. At $380 unlocked it’s expensive, but surely less expensive than an iPhone while having pretty similar hardware performance. Meizu has several stores in the Shenzhen electronics market area, they seem to be a relatively big smartphone brand in China.

18. Trend Technology (HK) Ltd does Android Tablets, discussion with an insider how to get those tablets made and distributed.

19. Performance test on AmLogic ARM Cortex-A9 Android Set-top-box, testing the performance doing web browsing and more on this AmLogic development board. It seems fast!

20. Ramos booth tour, featuring Ramos W18, 9.7″ capacitive ARM Cortex-A9 AmLogic Android Tablet, Ramos has nice new products. Also check my videos of the Ramos T8Pro and Ramos V70/T11Pro/T11AD.

While in Shenzhen, I filmed following 5-part series of videos showing a bit of the Behind the Scenes of Shenzhen, the capital of the world for consumer electronics manufacturing:
1: Hongda Factory tour
2: utopiacn, Apad Android Tablet maker
3: Richtechie.com, Freescale i.MX51/53 PCB designer
4: Walking around the Shenzhen smartphone market
5: 3Gnet Factory Tour

Flying back from Hong Kong to Copenhagen using the excellent and cheap airline Qatar Aiways, they can provide free stop-over in Doha (that can be booked using their Multi-city online booking feature), also check these 3 videos that I filmed, they are not very tech related, but they show the atmosphere in an interesting Middle-eastern Golf country:
1. Arrived in Qatar
2. Walking the Souq Waqif, the Corniche and checking out the Doha skyscrapers at night
3. Desert Safari with Arabian Adventure Qatar (includes a fun Video-review of the NEC/Renesas based dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 533Mhz capacitive 7″ tablet from livall.cn)

Geniatech explains their AmLogic Cortex-A9 Single Core Set-top-box


Shenzhen Geniatech shows a pretty impressive ARM Cortex-A9 AmLogic (Single Core 800Mhz) Set-top-box which they have told me can actually be sold in bulk starting at $70, here I interview their product manager about their status, where they want to bring this product, if he thinks they could be getting Google TV software for this.

Geniatech Android TV Set-Top-Box

Posted by – January 27, 2011

Shenzhen Geniatech Co. Ltd presents some interesting Android Powered Set-top-boxes. These could be sold for around $100 like the Apple TV or Roku box, but they just run the full Android OS including support for lots of video codecs. While Android is not yet really optimized for use on a TV with a remote control, this type of device will support the Google TV software (in this case, without HDMI pass-through overlay features) pretty soon once Google releases that software source code. As you can see on androidauthority.com, it has an AmLogic ARM Cortex-A9 800Mhz processor. Same ARM cortex-A9 platform as used by InnoDigital for their next generation WebTube product.