Category: Favorite companies

Interesting uses of Google TV

Posted by Charbax – October 17, 2010
Category: Set-top-boxes, 4K UHD, Opinions, Google, Google TV

I haven’t yet got the box, and I haven’t seen these features being confirmed or not by Google TV representatives, it’s being released right now in the US market. Here are some of my expectations for very interesting software and cloud service features to be available with the Google TV platform (currently an Intel CE4100 exclusive, but no reason it won’t work for ARM Cortex A9 SoCs soon as well). I base my speculation on a consideration that Google TV would be a totally open and centrally uncontrollable platform as Google has been describing it to be. If you have any means to confirm if any of these features can happen or not on Google TV, please post in the comments:

1. BitTorrent download/streaming: Just type in the name of a movie, TV show, game or song and it will download to an external USB hard drive, or perhaps even better, it will download to your cloud based storage, so-called online seedbox services which can download any BitTorrent on 1gbit/1gbit symmetrical connections and then stream you the downloaded content after minutes. Imagine such international seedboxing network, that can directly interlink and shares Petabytes among the most popular contents with each other, so in many cases, when you request a popular content, it will already be pre-cached on that seedbox or can quickly be cached within that network and instantly streamed to your Google TV box.

Not very legal? Who knows, laws can be changed by politicians, I expect Google TV could accelerate the implementation of Global Licence regulation, where everyone pays a sort of tax on their Internet Service Provider, which thus is redistributed to content creators directly, excluding old-media intermediaries.

It will be interesting to see if the local BitTorrent client app or if the global remote untracable encrypted seedboxing approach will dominate. I expect that this p2p app on Google TV cannot be blocked or remotely removed by Google, Sony, Logitech or by anyone else, that is, if the platform truly is open. I also expect live p2p streaming to work. So you could also watch any TV channel like this, with a quality bitrate that is the same as your own upload bandwidth, as everyone watching is expected to upload to other viewers in real-time so unlimited amounts of users can tune in for free to any live TV channel they want.

Subscribing to BitTorrent RSS feeds will be a great way to auto-download shows and have them ready stored on the USB hard drive to playback on your TV or to sync to your portable Android device.

2. Cloud-based DVR service: while I wonder if Google TV can record TV contents from its HDMI input, with or without needing to use the recently cracked HDCP copy-protection code, while it may be cool to store HD digital copies of TV contents on a simple external USB hard drive, the most interesting DVR feature of Google TV may be remote cloud based DVR services to be provided by Google and perhaps other cloud service providers. Basically, you hit the record button, and that content is recorded on the cloud. The way it truly would happen, is that Google is recording every TV channel all the time no matter what, and depending on laws and regulations, users should be able to get access to all of that content on-demand after broadcast.

This is one big Global cloud based DVR of all channels. Maybe it would require Google to also provide real-time compression of all those recordings so that people with slower bandwidths can still stream all those cloud DVR recordings. If laws and regulation for DVR use does not allow everyone from rewinding and watching everything on-demand, then at least as long as the user has scheduled any specific recordings, has clicked “record” before the show started, then all that content could be provided back. The question is, may the user click a “Record all channels all the time” button?

Google has been doing global cloud based DVR recordings for a while now, as they need it anyways for their content ID matching technology. So now, the release of Google TV may bring those cloud DVR recordings closer to YouTube as well, as TV contents will be posted to Youtube automatically, depending on rights with content makers. If a TV channel opts-in, 100% of their broadcasts can thus be automatically published to Youtube.

3. Game console: 3D graphics accelerating performance should be powerful enough to provide Wii-like gaming graphics. Logically, there will be emulators available for all Nintendo consoles up till N64 and more if Nintendo agrees to licence its games legally. Also, Google has been saying that video gaming is a big part of their plans for Android 3.0 Gingerbread, which probably also includes support thus for the Google TV platform. Which game controllers will be best to use? The Wii remote or any other decent Bluetooth remote control will probably work great for multi-player gaming.

4. YouTube Leanback: the key for Google TV is to provide an excellent Leanback experience for all web videos. It is absolutely important that when people search for anything, that the best most user targetted video for that topic is displayed in full screen instantly in one click. The recommendations algorithm that Google and other app providers need to implement as overlay layer on top of this Leanback experience is crucial as well. There needs to be one big green “Like” button and one big red “Skip” button of which all user ratings need to be carefully aggregated to thus provide personalized Leanback web video experience. This experience could be so good that it could take over most of people’s daily 5-hours of TV watching.

Imagine this scenario: Sit on your sofa, hit the green button. Leanback starts. It knows your topics of interest and launches a video in a mix of those genres that you like and from a source it thinks you will enjoy at that moment in time based on knowing your tastes. If you are in any specific mood for any specific contents, just type those in to tweak the recommendations algorithm at that moment to bring you contents in those more specified areas. At any moment you can add tags, add or select genres and topics to thus tweak what it brings to you at that moment.

The goal with Leanback is that the algorithm can bring you full screen video contents that should make you think following statement at every single time: Oh wow, this video is just awesome! more!

Eventually, Leanback should provide in-video automatic editing. If you are in a hurry, you could watch just the best parts of any video, skip past the boring parts. The way it learns what parts of videos are best, is that this green “Like” button and red “Skip” or fast-forward buttons can be pushed at any specific times by all users. When something really cool is going on in a video, you can hit the green “Like” button again, it thus creates hot-zones on all videos to thus be able to extract the best scenes and even add them to playlists together with the best scenes from other videos.

5. Content publishing: Google TV could turn out to be one of the futures central tool for creating your own TV contents and publishing it from your living room. The HD webcam such as Logitech’s is not only going to be used for HD video-conferencing, which already is ground-breaking and revolutionary (second best “just like being there” experience with family, friends, colleagues and customers). The HD Webcam could be used to record multi-user live podcast shows, with someone somewhere doing the real-time multi-camera editing, content that can be streamed live by unlimited other users and can be stored thus as TV shows. But it should also support uploading and publishing of any HD video contents from a camcorder, just plug in your HD camcorder to the USB connector of Google TV, and that video content can be published to YouTube HD this way.

6. Quad-HD content streaming: the reason Quad-HD does not yet exist in all our most modern HDTVs is not so much a technological issue, but more of an infrastructure issue. Regular terrestrial, satellite, cable TV networks supposedly do not provide enough bandwidth to provide Quad-HD TV contents on them. And in turn as well, no HDTV makers yet want to produce the Quad-HD screens saying the reason for not making them is because there is no content to watch. Google TV changes this. In theory, Quad-HD is just a newer processor inside of the HDTVs. The upgrade of processor inside of the HDTV to support 3840×2160 may just cost $50 more than the current 1920×1080 HDTV, at least if it is mass manufactured with quickly expanding demand. YouTube already supports Quad-HD content streaming. I estimate that the bandwidth required for on-demand Quad-HD video streaming could be around 24mbit/s. Many Google TV users may already have enough bandwidth to support this. And if full bandwidth is not always available, then any resolution above 1080p and below 2160p could be streamed at adaptable bitrates. It may be true that above 46″ Quad-HD screen may be required for good use of that extra resolution. But I have seen Quad-HD at trade shows for years now, and every time I see demonstrations, it simply is amazing and awesome, even just watching 8megapixel digicam pictures on a Quad-HD screen up close is an awesome experience, I find it 100x more interesting than the marketing fad that is 3DTV.

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Archos 70 Internet Tablet Review

Posted by Charbax – October 16, 2010
Category: Tablets, PMPs, Exclusive videos, Reviews, Texas Instruments, Archos, Android

First unboxing and review of the Archos 70 Internet Tablet, a $275 alternative to the $499 iPad and the $599 Samsung Galaxy Tab. I was amazed by how thin and light it is when I first took it out of the box, at 300 grams, it nearly feels like it’s an empty case without any electronics inside.

Archos 70 Internet Tablet

The capacitive touch screen on an Archos tablet is cool, I need to get used to that. Hopefully I will learn to type on it as fast as I do with my finger-tips/nails on my resistive screens. My plan this winter is to carry this 7″ Archos Android tablet with me everywhere in the inside of my jacket pocket. In this video, I try to show you multi-touch, web browsing speed, email, facebook, Google Maps Street View, Live wallpapers, video playback, HDMI output and more.

This review model is still running Android 2.1, while Archos is putting finishing touches to their faster and more optimized Android 2.2 firmware, hopefully to be ready in like days or so for when this device and its 101 big-brother actually ships worldwide. As I showed you in my previous video, Google Marketplace works on these Archos Android tablets using the gApps4Archos.apk one-click installation file. All codecs up to H264 high profile high bitrate 720p MKV works even on HDMI output (still to be tested and optimized in firmware). It’s only 300 grams (vs 380 grams Galaxy Tab and 680 grams iPad).

Pictures available at Picasa:
Archos 70 Internet Tablet Archos 70 Internet Tablet vs Archos 43 Internet Tablet Archos 70 Internet Tablet vs Archos 43 Internet Tablet Archos 70 Internet Tablet vs Archos 43 Internet Tablet Archos 70 Internet Tablet vs Sony PRS-650

You can discuss this video in the forum: http://forum.archosfans.com/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=38513

ARM Powered… Google TV?

Posted by Charbax – October 9, 2010
Category: Set-top-boxes, Opinions, Google, Google TV

The imminent release of the $300 Logitech Revue that runs Google TV OS, basically Android for set-top-boxes, uses exclusively an Intel CE4100 for now. One of the reasons for that may be 1080p@60fps h264 high profile high bitrate support (possibly, Intel muscling for some HW decoder exclusivity?). What I am wondering, is, how soon will the Google TV OS be announced to run on the next generation ARM Cortex A9 processors to be sold cheaper than intel? My guess is Google will announce ARM Powered Google TV partners early next year, once Google TV OS 1.0 is open sourced and released for free for anyone to use, after the initial launch exclusivity with Intel, Sony and Logitech and as initial interest for the platform increases.

Until then, ARM Powered “Smart TV” solutions are all over the market in set-top-boxes, media streamers, built-into modern Blu-ray players and HDTVs as you can see in solutions I recently filmed from Philips, LG, Samsung and Panasonic.

Google Marketplace now works on Archos Gen8 Internet Tablets

Posted by Charbax – October 9, 2010
Category: Tablets, PMPs, Exclusive videos, Reviews, Texas Instruments, Archos, Android

The full Google Marketplace with Gmail, Google Maps now works on Archos new range of Android Internet Tablets, it has been made available as a one-click installation file with the name “gApps4Archos.apk” in the ArchosFans forum by a forum user. In this video of the Archos 43 Internet Tablet, I also feature demonstrations of Skype (these Android tablets can be a perfect as cheap VOIP devices!), Bluetooth speakers, 720p MKV high bitrate video playback with DTS audio and a couple of action packed 3D games on the HDMI output.

Here’s a reminder of the new Archos Android Tablets that this Google Marketplace gApps4Archos.apk installation file works with:

Archos 28 Internet Tablet, 4GB, 2.8″ resistive screen: $99 (2.29x cheaper than iPod Touch!) (available next week)
Archos 32 Internet Tablet, 8GB, 3.2″ resistive screen, VGA camcorder, composite tv-out: $149 (available since a couple of weeks at certain online resellers like Amazon.com)
Archos 43 Internet Tablet, 16GB, 4.3″ resistive screen, HD camcorder, HDMI output: $199 (3x cheaper than Droid X!) (available next week)
Archos 70 Internet Tablet, 16GB, 7″ capacitive screen, front-facing webcam for video-chat, HDMI output: $275 (2.5x cheaper than Samsung Galaxy Tab!) 250GB version for $349 (available next week)
Archos 101 Internet Tablet, 8GB, 10.1″ capacitive screen, front-facing webcam for video-chat, HDMI output: $299 ($200 cheaper than iPad!) 16GB version for $349 (available next week)

OLPC to turn tablets into productive tools for learning with Marvell’s $5.6 Million grant

Posted by Charbax – October 4, 2010
Category: Tablets, Opinions, Marvell, Google, Pixel Qi, OLPC

Marvell has supported OLPC since the beginning, they have thus far provided the WiFi Meshing modules on XO-1 and XO-1.5. Marvell co-invested with Google, News Corp, Novell and the others into the founding of OLPC to bring about the XO-1 which forced Intel and the whole laptop industry to respond with the 100 Million netbooks that have been sold in the last 3 years to limit the effects of OLPC’s potential disruption of the laptop market. Marvell and OLPC have now signed an agreement in which OLPC is to develop XO-3 Tablet(s) based on one of Marvell’s ARM System On Chip processor solutions.

Marvell can justify the investment as an R&D investment in which everything OLPC develops, as all OLPC hardware designs are open source, can freely be used by Marvell’s manufacturing OEM partners to also release commercial tablet products based on these technologies.

OLPC will use these funds to develop the Tablet that can be used for productivity, for constructionist learning as Nicholas Negroponte said at the Mobilize 2010 conference last week:

How do you make tablets a constructionist medium? A medium where you make things, you don’t just consume them. Cause if it’s about kids and learning, it’s not like you feed a goose grain to make the foie gras. You have to make it for kids to use it, to make, to communicate. Whether it’s music, whether it’s text or whether it’s to write computer programs. And it has to be so low power, when it runs out of power you just shake it a little bit and it continues.

These are the challenges that OLPC will work on to implement in XO-3 before the target 2012 $75 release:

XO-3 Challenges

Why should children use tablets instead of laptops?

The future of OLPC: it’s a notepad.

notepad

The notepad is the oldest tool used by children in the class room. Imagine adding full online and offline interactivity to the notepad. Imagine a magic notepad that can display every page from every book, every image and every video ever filmed. To display low bitrate tutorial videos that work even in black and white mode like the ones of the Khan Academy, even have them be interactive and provided as learning games. The student can annotate all books, take notes and share them. The tablet is not only lighter and could be designed for cheaper, it also is the more usable form factor as an e-reader for reading all books ever written in the world. As Nicholas Negroponte says:

There is no way to justify a paper book. If you’d want to send 10 thousand physical books, you’d have to take every 747 out of service around the planet just to move them from wherever they are being manufactured. Physical books are a luxury.

I wonder if 7″ or 10.1″ Pixel Qi will be used, or both. The 7″ size may be optimal for it to be as light, cheap and durable as possible, it might be better for children to read books on a 7″ form factor than a 10.1″ one. For productivity, I think it should support both touch screen and some cheap $2 USB keyboards/mouse and use its built-in kick-stand. Children can easily carry a $2 keyboard/mouse when they need to be most productive. Maybe a thin keyboard to double as screen protector and which can be clipped onto the back of the device when in tablet/e-reader mode could be a nice design feature, although the screen needs to be unbreakable enough for children not to need worry about carrying the tablet without a screen protector.

For software, I think that OLPC should work with Google and the emerging tablet industry to customize Android for education. Maybe add Sugar apps support on top of Android OS as a secondary app platform “module layer” on top of Android. Basically, Sugar could be a custom UI layer on top of Android for the XO-3 tablet.

OLPC receives $5.6 Million grant from Marvell to develop XO-3 Tablet for education

Posted by Charbax – October 4, 2010
Category: Tablets, Marvell, CES, Pixel Qi, OLPC, Android

Marvell is giving $5.6 Million to OLPC to fund the development of the XO-3 Tablet, with bendable plastic Pixel Qi screen and education-centric customized software, that finalized XO-3 will be ready by 2012 for distribution to schools at a target $75 bill of materials and manufacturing each. OLPC and Marvell will have an early demonstration tablet prototype running Android to show in January at the next CES.

I think that they should definitely go for customizing Android for education. Maybe add Sugar apps support on top of Android OS as a second app platform. I wonder if 7″ or 10.1″ Pixel Qi will be used, or both. For productivity, I think it should support both touch screen and some cheap $2 USB keyboards/mouse and a kick-stand.

Source: xconomy.com

Some of the engineers working on ARM Cortex-A15

Posted by Charbax – October 4, 2010
Category: ARM

High performance, low power, low cost. Tarantino style.

Source: ARMflix

Archos $99-$149 MiniTablet platform videoed

Posted by Charbax – October 1, 2010
Category: Tablets, PMPs, Exclusive videos, Reviews, Texas Instruments, Archos, Android

In this video, I try to show you the quality and to demonstrate the value of the Archos 32 Internet Tablet with Android. It’s the 3.2″ $149 8GB big brother of Archos 28 Internet Tablet which is to be sold below $99 with 4GB of storage and a slightly smaller 2.8″ screen, of about the same size as the HTC Tatoo, Sony Ericsson X10 Mini, Acer beTouch 110/120/130. This video shows how the experience is on such WQVGA resolution small screen Android device.

What do you think about this Archos Android WiFi-connected PMP, at 2.3x cheaper than the iPod Touch? Don’t you think it will be a no brainer for mass market consumers, if given the choice in stores, that they will choose this type of Android alternative to the iPod Touch?

Archos 43 Internet Tablet compared to Archos 5 Internet Tablet

Posted by Charbax – October 1, 2010
Category: Tablets, PMPs, Exclusive videos, Reviews, Texas Instruments, Archos, Android

An overview of the difference in screen size, touch screen quality, web browsing speed. More on video playback support including a test on streaming video over Samba file sharing.

Nicholas Negroponte keynote at the Mobilize conference: Give Every Child a Tablet

Posted by Charbax – October 1, 2010
Category: Tablets, E-readers, Opinions, OLPC

OLPC‘s founder Nicholas Negroponte discusses educational use of the tablet form factor followed by a discussion with Marvell’s co-founder Weili Dai. They are building the $75 XO-3 Tablet for education, to be showcased as prototype within 3 months by next CES. Possibly that the first prototypes may even get to be using the latest wide-view capacitive Pixel Qi LCD screens and the Marvell Armada 628 processor.

To be productive using a tablet, I think plugging a $2 USB keyboard and mouse could still be the best solution. As text entry can hardly be as fast on a tablet, even using haptic feedback or web based voice recognition technology. If the USB keyboard/mouse can be developed to cost $2-3 maximum, then I think it would make sense to provide each child with the $75 tablet and the $2-3 keyboard/mouse combo as well as some kind of cheap bag that holds them together or perhaps even better, the keyboard/touchpad could double as a thin, cheap and light screen protector for the tablet when carrying it around and could as well be clipped onto the back of the tablet when only using the tablet mode.

Filmed at the Mobilize conference organized by gigaom: http://gigaom.com/2010/09/30/mobilize-2010-negroponte-sees-tablets-as-creative-tool/

Archos 43 Internet Tablet Reviewed

Posted by Charbax – September 28, 2010
Category: Tablets, PMPs, Exclusive videos, Reviews, Texas Instruments, Archos, Android

It packs everything you can think of into 130 grams, with 4.3″ highly responsive touch screen, $199 price point for 16GB, no monthly subscription fees required (makes it much cheaper but similar in performance to Droid X), it can access 3G on Mifi or using Bluetooth tethering. In this video I demonstrate awesome HDMI output to browse the Internet on your HDTV, to play amazing 3D video games using the accelerometer or perhaps using bluetooth gamepad controllers too, and of course, to playback HD quality videos.

My unboxing of Archos 43 and 32 Internet Tablets

Posted by Charbax – September 27, 2010
Category: Tablets, PMPs, Reviews, Texas Instruments, Archos, Android

This is my unboxing video of the Generation 8 Archos Android tablets:

Archos 43 Internet Tablet (16GB) for sale soon for $199 in the USA and 199€ in Europe. (yes A43 is confirmed to be $199/199€ for 16GB Capacity). The Archos 43 Internet Tablet basically offers the same Android experience on a large yet very pocketable 4.3″ touch screen as on a Droid X using the same Texas Instruments OMAP3630 ARM Cortex A8 45nm 1ghz processor but for $199 all inclusive (no $599 unlocked pricing or $2000 with 2-year contracts), no monthly subscriptions required, though for 3G access and VOIP you need to use a Mifi or Bluetooth tethering. It comes with HDMI output and full video and audio codecs support up to MKV 720p high profile and high bitrate support (which I will test in my upcoming next videos).

Archos 32 Internet Tablet (8GB) for sale now on Amazon.com for $144 in the USA and 158€ on Amazon.de in Europe. This MiniTablet range by Archos offers basically a similar experience to the iPod Touch but for an amazing price starting at $99 for the Archos 28 to $149 for the Archos 32 which thus has slightly larger screen, a VGA camera and Composite tv-out.

In this video, I unbox them and boot them up for the first time:

Consider European prices include ~20% VAT taxes which is why the EU price of any consumer electronics devices is always higher than US prices which don’t include taxes.

You can discuss this video in my other forum: http://forum.archosfans.com/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=37752

Marvell Armada 628, 1.5 GHz Tri-Core Processor

Posted by Charbax – September 24, 2010
Category: Tablets, Smartphones, Marvell, OLPC

Marvell Technology Group
Image via Wikipedia

Marvell is unveiling this amazing new processor for smart phones and tablets, the Marvell Armada 628 has:

dual stream 1080p 3D video and 3D graphics performance with quad unified shaders for 200 million triangles per second delivered on ultra-low-power, long battery life smartphones and tablets

1080p dual stream 3D video applications (30 FPS, multi-format)

By supporting 1080p 3D at 30 FPS, does that mean normal non-3D 1080p at 60fps High Profile H264 also can be played back flawlessly?

The new ARMADA 628 tri-core processor incorporates a number of advanced processing and power management features. The tri-core design integrates two high performance symmetric multiprocessing cores and a third core optimized for ultra low-power. The third core is designed to support routine user tasks and acts as a system management processor to monitor and dynamically scale power and performance. The tri-core architecture provides superior performance and lower power over dual-core designs while maintaining industry compatibility and leadership — ensuring a richer, faster and smoother experience than any other ARM-based processor available today.

That sounds like Marvell is awesomely at work using its ARM Architecture licence, customizing their processors as much as they can to design those processors how they think is best with their expertise and 5000 employees.

The ARMADA 628 is also designed to be the first mobile CPU to provide high-speed USB 3.0 connectivity, which offers 10x faster performance than USB 2.0.

Hmm nice, I can’t wait to be able to transfer those terrabytes of data from one hard drive to the other faster that tens of hours.

The ARMADA 628 is based on a Marvell-designed ARM v7 MP compatible CPU offering 1.5 GHz performance. It offers support to use LP-DDR2 or DDR3 memory up to 533 MHz, a highly flexible display controller capable of driving four simultaneous displays at up t o 2K x 2K resolution, and a highly robust security subsystem that includes a secure execution processor. An integrated 3D engine renders 200 million triangles per second for an immersive game play experience and a multi-format video engine supports dual stream 1080p video for a true 3D visual experience. In addition, the ARMADA 628 supports DirectX, Open GL ES 2.0, and Open VG 1.1 – ensuring complete compatibility with the most hotly anticipated mobile game titles. ARMADA 628 supports RIM OS, Android™, Linux, Windows Mobile, and full Adobe Flash.

Key Features

World’s first “tri-core” application processor
Up to 1.5 GHz for the two main cores and 624 MHz for the third low power core
“Heterogeneous multiprocessing” with “hardware-based Cache Coherence”
1 MB System Level 2 Cache

I am really looking forward to see some devices using this new processor.

Perhaps now this new Marvell 528 processor generation (as I expect could be the numbering of the Desktop/Laptop derivative of the 628) will be fast enough as well to power Desktop and Notebook class devices like these ones I filmed:
http://138.2.152.197/2010/01/18/marvell-slim-desktop-solution-ebox-based-on-the-marvell-armada-510-processor/
http://138.2.152.197/2010/01/06/marvell-armada-510-based-12-1-arm-powered-laptop/

Will Marvell use 628 in the upcoming OLPC XO-3 low cost low power tablet for education project?

Source: marvell.com
Found via: techmeme.com

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Archos CEO keynote video presenting its Generation 8 series of Android Tablets in Beijing China

Posted by Charbax – September 23, 2010
Category: Tablets, Opinions, Texas Instruments, Archos, Google, Android

I’ve said it before, I am an Archos fanboy, and I am really looking forward to their 5 new tablets coming out on the worldwide market during these next few weeks. I briefly filmed those tablets at IFA, see my videos of the 101, 70, 28, 32 and 43 tablets. Here is the full keynote video of Archos CEO Henri Crohas, showing the Gen8 Archos Android Tablets a couple of weeks ago in Beijing China:

$299 ARM Cortex A8 45nm 1ghz omap3630 10.1″ WSVGA capacitive Android 2.2 tablet 8GB. $349 for 16GB version
$275 ARM Cortex A8 45nm 1ghz omap3630 7″ WVGA capacitive Android 2.2 tablet 16GB, $349 for 250GB version
$199 ARM Cortex A8 45nm 1ghz omap3630 4.3″ FWVGA resistive Android 2.2 tablet 16GB
$149 ARM Cortex A8 45nm 800mhz omap3630 3.2″ WQVGA resistive Android 2.2 tablet 8GB
$99 ARM Cortex A8 45nm 800mhz omap3630 2.8″ QVGA resistive Android 2.2 tablet 4GB, $119 for 8GB version

I think those new Archos Android tablets are very good value for money. Google Marketplace can very likely be installed on all of them as the previous Archos 5 Internet Tablet with Android which was released October 2009, got the Google Marketplace on it through a solution released since November 2009 in the http://forum.archosfans.com

No matter what Google or anyone else says, Android 2.2 is great for tablets, most of the apps from the Google Marketplace, probably 99% of them will work just fine on the Archos series of Tablets, apps requiring a back-facing camera, GPS/Compass, 3G or hardware buttons are a minority. Archos can playback most video formats, including h264 MKV high profile at up to 720p with high bitrates (to be tested and confirmed if that reprensents more than 90% of all 720p movies currently traded on p2p networks).

Archos also released this animation illustrating their advantages in hardware design over the iPad:

This keynote presentation is available as a slideshow with prompter subtitles at: http://www.archos.com/_pres_hc.html Here are a couple of some of the best slides:

Fascinating article about ARM in the New York Times

Posted by Charbax – September 21, 2010
Category: Opinions, ARM, Google

ARM CEO and other Executives provide very interesting quotes in a new article in the New York Times:

The number of ARM chips produced a year, which go into many different products, dwarfs the hundreds of millions of chips sold by Intel, the world’s largest chip maker in terms of revenue. Inevitably, analysts often portray the companies as mortal enemies, dueling for dominance in the chip market. ARM executives play down such a dramatic story line in their typical, low-key fashion.

“People want there to be this David and Goliath struggle between us and Intel,” Mr. East said. “It just isn’t that way.”

I wonder also if Intel strategists are resting on their laurels and not seeing ARM as a threat to its Netbook, Laptop, Desktop, Set-top-box (Google TV) and Server markets?

“We don’t look like Intel,” he said. “We’re never going to be a $100 billion outfit.”

Yet ARM just unveiled new chip designs that could carry its products into servers and networking equipment — Intel’s turf.

Is ARM presaging an era with no more $100 billion giant dominant corporations in the consumer electronics industry? ARM solutions enabled Apple to more than triple its gigantic valuation on the Nasdaq over the past 5 years, but are these mega Silicon Valley companies going to continue to be so large?

Investors appear enthralled by ARM’s business. Over the last year, the company’s shares have nearly tripled, to a close on Friday of $18.34, from a low of $6.52. Rumors have swirled that Apple may acquire ARM, though such a move seems unlikely given ARM’s broad partnership model.

“I laughed about it with the folks at Apple,” Mr. East said. “It is completely nonsensical.”

It is simply not going to happen. The EU and ARM’s obligations to its partners would not allow it to happen.

“Apple and the Newton made the company exist,” said Mike Muller, one of the founders of ARM and its chief technology officer. “The Newton never went anywhere, but it got ARM started and gave us some credibility.”

Dealing with hand-held devices and cellphones forced ARM to operate under severe power restrictions. It chased milliwatts, while Intel chased horsepower.

Once ARM has reached the desired level of performance at a desired level of power consumption, then it means ARM can bring competition to a market, which creates an environment for a faster rate of innovation among companies. Once full web browsing is demonstrated to work on ARM, once full WebTV and VOD interfaces fully work on ARM, it will mean that the ecosystem of ARM providers can replace the need for Intel in these areas.

“We’ve always known Cambridge is not the center of the universe,” Mr. Muller said. “If you’re in Silicon Valley, you might make that mistake.”

The company offers choice to customers through various types of licenses. A customer can take ARM’s basic design at face value or choose a license that allows it to create custom products.

“We’re encouraging specialists to do what they’re good at,” Mr. Muller said.

The companies making ARM Cortex A8, A9 and A15 designs, such as Texas Instruments, Freescale, Samsung, ST Ericsson, Nvidia, Rockchip, VIA and Telechips those are using the one type of ARM licence. While Marvell, Qualcomm and Microsoft are using another type of ARM licence which allows them to differently customize their processor technology offerings.

Intel and Microsoft secure the vast majority of profits available in computers and servers, leaving the likes of Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Acer to fight over a few dollars per machine.

Apple has shown that the largest profit margins are available in adopting the ARM ecosystem and philosophy of product design and marketing. It is likely that we will soon see all the major PC, Laptop and Server manufacturers shift to using ARM solutions, which will both allow to lower cost to customers and increase the profit margins at the same time!

Source: nytimes.com
Found via: techmeme.com

Pixel Qi 7″ screens coming too

Posted by Charbax – September 20, 2010
Category: Tablets, E-readers, Displays, Opinions, Archos, Pixel Qi

Pixel Qi is the single most revolutionary LCD screen technology, adding the benefits of low power, reflectivity, long form and outdoor readability all the while providing a switch on the side of the device to provide full color backlight mode to the screen as well. Thus combining Tablets with E-readers, making 50-hour tablet battery runtime without increasing battery size a possibility and bringing full color video, web browsing and full Android UIs to E-readers. The 10.1″ screen will be announced soon for more products than just Notion Ink and Innoversal:

We will be announcing other products carrying Pixel Qi screens here in this blog; stay tuned.

Pixel Qi provides some insights into the reason why several tablet projects including the ones to use Pixel Qi have been delayed because of the success of the disruptive iPad:

Tight supply chain and 100% factory usage this spring and summer coupled with Apple’s disruptive iPad effectively had a 1-2 punch impact: delaying most tablet makers from coming to market as early as they wished. The situation has eased: the supply chain is more robust and factory capacity is widely available. Many of our device makers used this downtime to refine their designs with the result being even more exciting offerings that are highly differentiated from the iPad with options well beyond ATT for carriers. These device maker partners will be making more announcements coming this fall.

And so, a screen that I think would be perfect for the Archos 70 Internet Tablet, the Samsung Galaxy Tab and the Foxconn ARM11 Powered 7″ Tablet reference design, Pixel Qi is announcing the development of the 7″ Pixel Qi screen size. Here’s also who needs to absolutely use the 7″ Pixel Qi screen, the $35 Indian HRD Tablet Project!!!

We are developing a 7” screen for tablets and ereaders that is planned for mass production in H1 2011. Samples will be available earlier, perhaps by late Q4 2010.

In my opinion, everyone in the industry with 7″ and 10.1″ LCD tablet projects, all need to be a part of this revolution and need to use this amazing screen. Hopefully with mass manufacturing and large serious orders, the screen will be cheap enough to be close to the price of a normal LCD, hopefully the yield and the long term performance in use will be just as good as normal LCD.

Source: http://pixelqi.com/blog1/2010/09/17/pixel-qi-tablet-availability-diy-screen-success-and-other-updates/

PocketBook 360 review (part 1)

Posted by Charbax – September 18, 2010
Category: E-readers, Exclusive videos, Reviews, Samsung, Archos

Here is an overview of the design and the size of the PocketBook 360 e-ink e-reader. This e-reader device has a nice compact 5″ e-ink screen with a nice screen cover design making it pocketable unlike the Kindle. This device is widely available on the worldwide markets such as for $193 on Amazon.com and remains one of PocketBook’s best selling products thus far, making PocketBook the third most popular e-ink e-reader manufacturer. In my next part of this review that I will post in the next few days, I will show you the user interfaces of the latest firmware update. Wouldn’t it be cool if such pocketable e-ink e-reader device was to get 3G/WiFi/Bluetooth as well as a Wacom-style digitizer screen or Sony’s new infrared/laser touch screen technology?

My top-15 videos filmed at IFA, Best of IFA 2010

Posted by Charbax – September 12, 2010
Category: Opinions, Top Video Lists, IFA, Archos, Google, Pixel Qi

The IFA consumer electronics show was cool, from September 2nd to 8th in Berlin Germany, I video-blogged 65 videos of the best products that I could find at the show. Here, as my Best Of IFA post, I would like to list the top-10 videos of the top-10 products of IFA 2010 that I filmed:

1. Archos 101 Internet Tablet, first 10.1″ capacitive Android 2.2 Froyo ARM cortex A8 45nm Tablet to be sold below $299. It’s really thin, at 480gr it’s 30% lighter than the iPad yet offers 12% wider screen surface (better for movies and TV shows). HDMI output and USB host and full video and audio codecs support. All that for $200 cheaper than the iPad.

2. Archos 43 Internet Tablet, nicely priced below $199 alternative to HTC EVO and Droid X, with no expensive contracts needed for this 4.3″ Froyo Android 2.2 experience

3. Archos 28 Internet Tablet, first ARM Cortex A8 45nm Android 2.2 Froyo device to be priced below $99 with no contracts needed, that’s 2.3 times cheaper than the iPod Touch

(yup, I am an Archos fanboy.. but so is ARM and Texas Instruments too..)

4. Toshiba AC-100 ARM Tegra2 Powered Android Laptop, this is the first mass produced ARM Cortex A9 powered laptop to be brought to the market, it is a significant product. Toshiba has done a super good keyboard and mouse-pad design for it and it is really thin and light. Now of course, all that is needed, is better software for it. I don’t think it is enough for them to just take open source Android and port it to it and add few custom widgets on top. They need to port the full Chrome web browser to Android. They need to officially support a triple-boot configuration on this ARM Powered laptop with Chrome OS for ARM and with Ubuntu for ARM also being optional OS to boot into. Also, I do think the $299 price point is a bit high. The idea with the ARM powered laptops is that they are going to be much cheaper and better value than the Intel powered ones. I think the relatively high price is only due to Toshiba being the first to market and them wanting to enjoy larger profit margins while they wait for all the other manufacturers to join the party. Also, once they get the Pixel Qi screen in there, the battery runtime will be close to 40 hours on such a device.

5. PocketBook 903 Pro, I really like the idea of 3G/WiFi/Bluetooth and Wacom-style digitizer in an A4 sized e-ink e-reader. I would like Chrome-to-phone like features, to throw any article and ebooks from my web browser directly onto such more readable display, and then I would also like to see connected annotation collaboration and communication features added, all those things are just software things.

6. Sony Reader PRS-650 Touch Edition, I am impressed with Sony’s new touch screen technology for their new e-readers. Although I would say it is a bit sad that Sony never updates their e-reader firmwares, that this 229€ version does not include WiFi nor Bluetooth nor 3G for connectivity. Still, the finger and stylus laser based touch screen technology is great for UI navigation and for annotations. I also like the fact that Sony is marketing it to be supporting free library borrowing of all e-books, I much prefer borrowing all ebooks for free and legally than paying $10 per ebook or pirating them. The electronic ebook library concept will be fascinating way for people to access all ebooks for free.

7. Samsung Galaxy Tab, for sure one of the big highlights of this IFA is to see such a huge company as Samsung going all in with the 7″ capacitive Android tablet market, I can’t wait to see how successful their marketing will be with this against the iPad. The whole area of discussions around Google supporting of Android tablets, it is simply fascinating. Of course, obviously, the Samsung Galaxy Tab is highly overpriced at 799€ without contract and 1359€ with 2-year contract. But it sure is a nice product and the tablet market really makes me happy.

8. UMEC Freescale i.MX51 based 7″ Android tablets, I like the features and possibilities of this hardware. See my other Freescale tablet videos such as the one running Chromium OS on it, it should be totally possible.

9. iMuz 5″ Android tablet, this South Korean company seemed to me to have pretty good Telechips ARM11 based Android tablet devices on display.

10. Sharp’s Parallax Barrier 3D screen, it’s pretty amazing to experience it at the trade show on display. This is the 3.8″ WVGA 3D screen that the Nintendo 3DS is going to use. It really works, although probably best with 3D games once the Nintendo comes out than with low quality built-in 3D cameras. You have to hold the screen in the middle and around exactly 30 centimeters from your eyes, my guess though with the Nintendo, this might become easy to get used to hold it like that and I also like Nintendo will have a slider on the side that will enable to lower or to completely remove the 3D effect of the screen.

My follow-ups:

11. Interpad’s Tegra2 Powered Android 2.2 Tablet, a really nice Android tablet too, to be priced 399€. I think it is based on the Malata Android tablet design that I filmed at Computex.

12. Toshiba Folio 100 Tegra2 Android tablet, yet another Tegra2 10.1″ capacitive Android 2.2 Tablet to come out, also priced above 399€.

13. Philips GoGear Connect, one of the first non-3G Android devices based on the Freescale i.MX51 ARM Cortex A8 processor with official Google Marketplace support but price is likely going to be above 249€.

14. Samsung YP-G50, another lower cost Android media player device, also to compete with the iPod Touch, with official Google Marketplace support and a slower Samsung ARM11 processor, the price is also likely to be at least the same as the iPod Touch.

15. Mobile Tech 5″ Android Tablet, this company is also making some interesting Telechips ARM11 based Android tablets.

If you have any other preferences for Best of IFA, you are welcome to post those in the comments.

Impressions from Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s keynote at IFA 2010

Posted by Charbax – September 7, 2010
Category: Opinions, IFA, Archos, Google, Google TV

Video cameras were not allowed during Eric Schmidt’s keynote at IFA, so I didn’t try to film it, you can stream the full keynote video now on http://ifa-tv.de and probably that Google will post it later too on http://youtube.com/google. I didn’t get ask my major Google questions during the Q&A, but you can find my question and guessing to their reasoning below. Here are my major impressions:

1. Speech to Speech translation in Android is awesome. They did an on stage demo with an english speaking Google engineer (Hugo Barra, Product manager of Android) and a German speaking Google engineer. They had a fast conversation from one to the other, where the Android system would translate speech from one language to the other. Simply fantastic and awesome! Soon enough, one will be able to approach another user who speaks another language with an Android phone, preferably wear a headset, and simply start talking to each other with a second delay until speech is translated and synthesised in own language.

2. The new version of Street View for the new version of Google Maps on Android is also awesome. The little Street View man can be dragged around on the screen, Google knowing all 3D aspects of all buildings and streets, then it provides a video game like effect zooming in on further down on the street thus potentially navigating around Street View much faster and in a cooler way. It will be fun also once Google starts adding into Street View all the publicly published pictures and videos that any Android user could make, thus improving Street View to include user-submitted more up-to-date imagery from the whole world. Would allow even for entering buildings (with proper rights I imagine opt-in included). Augmented Reality is cool and I think Street View will merge with it.

3. Google TV will revolutionize TV. I spoke with Logitech and Sony representatives here at IFA. My impression is that it will hi-jack TV networks and eventually replace the need for TV channels with a choice for viewers to get access to any video content from anywhere. I also think BitTorrent and live p2p streaming support on Google TV cannot be blocked, so that too will be awesome. HD Video Conferencing should also be included with the box, I expect Logitech will include that as an option but they would not confirm the specifics of it (how their HD webcam would work on the only Intel Atom processor of Google TV, perhaps dual-core Intel Atom I am guessing, but still far lower system configuration than currently required for Logitech HD webcams to use for HD video conferencing.

Here is the question I would have asked Eric Schmidt during the Q&A:

1. I have filmed 100s of Chinese/Taiwanese/korean/french manufacturers showing cheap Android tablets, laptops and set-top-boxes at IFA and at all the other consumer electronics trade shows the past year and a half. None of these devices are allowed by Google to ship with the Google Marketplace. Why isn’t there a special version of Google Marketplace for all these devices? Why doesn’t Google offer an .apk download of Google Marketplace for anyone to download on any Android device for free on Google’s website? The cheapest Chinese Android tablets/laptops are $100, while the Samsung tablet is 799€, Dell tablet is 599€ (both unlocked), the Toshiba laptop is 299€ (no Google Marketplace either). Can’t Google monetize products without GPS/3G/compass just as well? Why require such expensive hardware components if Google’s declared goal (during the keynote) is to reach 3-4 billion people with Android in the next 5 years? Is Google also planning to do just as much evil requiring expensive hardware for access to the application stores on Chrome OS and Google TV?

My guess the answer to this which they wouldn’t have provided would be something like following:

– Google has partnered with major hardware manufacturers for Android, and as an exchange for such huge support for the Android platform, Google promises not to allow for faster disruption in the market to not leave these major manufacturers enough time to make as much profit margins as they can. Basically Android is not much cheaper for the end consumers than Apple iPhone is. While Carriers are making more money with Android than with iPhone (because of lower cost of purchasing the device with more competition in the Android market), the major OEM manufacturers are helped by Google to keep as high profit margins on these Android products as possible. All these companies are jealous of Apple and want to have as much money as possible selling these products.

Maybe the rest of the non-invited lower cost Android industry should partner up around alternatives to the Google Marketplace, such as the Archos http://appslib.com marketplace. App developers should be convinced to submit their app on at least one such alternative marketplaces.

Maybe the media needs to be more involved in critisizing this lack of openness in the way the “with Google” branding happens in the Android ecosystem. Maybe major media should demand an answer from Google and this may speed up the rate of Google responding by simply opening up access to the Apps on Marketplace to all devices for free without unfair hardware requirements.

The other question I would have liked to ask:

2. Is Google TV going to work on ARM Powered devices too? Is Google waiting for ARM Cortex A9 for that announcement to happen?

– I know Google TV will work on ARM Processors too, I see no reason that it would not be supported. As Chrome OS is developed for ARM, as Android runs on ARM and as Google TV is a mix of Android and Chrome technologies. HDMI input and output and the IR blaster can be added to likely any ARM set-top-box device with also preferably powerful web browsing processing support. The overlay features on HDMI throughput might require pretty advanced GPU acceleration.

– I believe ARM Powered Google TV can be made for much cheaper than Intel Powered Google TV. $99 for ARM vs $299 for Intel.

Look at this leaked picture and video of the Logitech Revue Google TV set-top-box, rumored for $300 in the USA (maybe with required cable/satellite package subscription plans) when Google TV launches during the next couple of months in the USA:

Source for these Logitech Revue Google TV images: http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/logitech-revue-google-tv-hands-on-impressions/

Onyx Boox X60

Posted by Charbax – September 6, 2010
Category: E-readers, Exclusive videos, Freescale, IFA, Onyx

Onyx International has improved their hardware design to provide a drop proof protection for the glass wacom enabled 6″ e-ink screen.