There are now 2 HDTVs that are MHL compliant, the Toshiba WL800A and the Samsung UN46D7000 now also got a firmware update that ads MHL support. Possibly that all new HDTVs will include this functionality. It allows for charging MHL compliant phones and tablets and to remote control them with the TV remote through one simple cable and one Micro-USB connector. Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich might add new MHL features to the UI, otherwise the MHL Consortium is trying to convince app developers and smart phone makers to design the apps and the OS to take advantage of the 1920×1080 resolution of the HDTV when using the HDMI output, to provide higher resolution user interfaces, higher resolution games, the ARM Processors and GPU in those phones and tablets are now getting powerful enough to output full 1080p UIs, videos and graphics, it’s time for the industry to take advantage of that! One pocketable phone can now combine the features of Android, Chrome OS and Google TV, it’s now a phone, a desktop, a set-top-box and a home console all in one!
Category: Laptops
OLPC XO-1.75 hands-on
I got to play with the new Marvell Armada PXA618 powered One Laptop Per Child XO-1.75 laptop during the ARM Technology Conference. It seems to already be very stable and run very fast, although this is still a beta prototype, with beta software, OLPC, Red Hat, Marvell still have some work to do to optimize the software and complete the hardware so that it can be mass produced and shipped to children around the world starting early next year. Here in this video I walk around with it outdoors for a few minutes and show you some of how it looks like.
Ericsson HSPA+ and LTE modems
Ericsson is one of the leaders in cellular network infrastructure, for the past 4 years they also make HSDPA, HSPA+ and now also LTE modems to embed in Tablets, Laptops and more.
ARM Cortex-A15
Nandan Nayampally, ARM’s Director of CPU Product Marketing provides an overview of the new and upcoming ARM Cortex-A15 processor, with its new optimized design it can reach huge new ARM Powered performance.
Latest news from Texas Instruments at ARM TechCon 2011
The OMAP5 ARM Cortex-A15 processor is taped out, they are about to show impressive samples soon, they will then be tweaking and optimizing it before release in commercial products within about a year. OMAP4 is being launched in the Motorola Razr and in the Samsung Galaxy Nexus phones, each more awesome than the other. Ice Cream Sandwich Android 4.0 works awesomely on OMAP4, Honeycomb 3.2 tablets like the Archos 101 G9 are being released now, TI is also looking forward to power products such as Laptops that run Chrome OS, Ubuntu and Windows 8.
Ubuntu at ARM TechCon 2011
They are showing Ubuntu 11.10 running on the Toshiba AC100, and Ubuntu 11.10 Server Edition running on the OMAP4 Pandaboard.
Raspberry Pi presents the $25 PC at ARM TechCon 2011
They plan mass production and deliveries by Christmas this year of the $25 ARM Powered PC. It’s basically a Broadcom ARM11 based SoC on a PCB with USB host, Ethernet, SD Card slot and a HDMI output.
Christoph Derndorfer and SJ Klein discuss the status of OLPC
Christoph Derndorfer is the managing editor at the unofficial http://olpcnews.com website and SJ Klein is the director of outreach, community content coordinator at One Laptop Per Child.
This video was filmed using the new JVC GC-PX10 camcorder at 36mbitps 1080p50 with the JVC MZ-V8/MZ-V10 external microphone, you can download the full sample file here on Google Docs
Texas Instruments OMAP 4430 runs Windows 8
Video showing Windows 8 running on a Texas Instrument OMAP4430 Dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor, it’s behind glass though they are not showing things react to touch in this video.
Source: anandtech.com
Qualcomm MSM8660 Dual-core runs Windows 8
Here’s an official video released on the Qualcomm YouTube channel showing Windows 8 running on their latest dual-core ARM Processor.
Source: QUALCOMMVlog
Microsoft also released this video showing that there is no difference between the ARM Powered device and the Intel Core i5 based device:
If you don’t have Silverlight you can download the WMV file here
Source: channel9.msdn.com
Nvidia Kal-El Windows 8 tablet hands-on
This seems kind of ready to me, why don’t they release this before Christmas?
I guess they still need to do a lot of work on the whole ARM and x86 Intel compatibility system so all the .exe files “just work” on ARM (virtualized, emulated, or whatever trick they are working on..), and for that a bunch of software optimizations still need to be done.
They should be selling or giving those ARM Powered Windows 8 Tablets away at least to the developers during the coming weeks and months? You can right now download Windows 8 Preview Edition at http://dev.windows.com but this is not yet the ARM version of that Preview software.
Source: thisismynext.com
Acer confirms at IFA: No ARM Laptops before Windows 8
I got it confirmed by a high-ranked product strategy manager (on Ultrabooks) at Acer that Acer will likely not release an ARM Powered Laptop before Windows 8 is ready. That probably means, he says, not before the beginning of next year. He says though that he does not know about Acer making ARM Chromebooks or not. I have to emphasise that this guy is in charge of the strategies around Acer’s new Ultrabook, so he might not know everything that is being worked on in his 7757-employee, $20-Billion-revenues-per-year company.
Sorry about my article posted on July 23rd, quoting yet another turns-out-to-be-a-false-rumor Digitimes article where the Acer CEO was reportedly saying that Acer’s ARM laptop was imminent.
Another perhaps interesting aspect of Acer’s business to consider is that while Acer complains of lowering profit margins and lowering consumer spending on Intel Powered Laptops and Desktops (in exchange for more spending on ARM Powered Smartphones and Tablets), companies like Lenovo and Dell seem to be suggesting in other speeches that they are doing ok. I do not know if Lenovo’s numbers about them being the fastest growing PC maker has something to do with them having recently acquired NEC and Medion, it surely is interesting to follow the profit margin and growth-disruption that ARM devices are doing to the PC business.
The imminent $199 ARM Powered Chromebook is the single most disruptive threat to Intel, Microsoft, Apple and the PC/Mac profit margins business.
Acer Aspire S3 Ultrabook, starts at 799€ up to 1199€
Acer is also launching one of those new thin Intel Core i powered Ultrabooks, expensive, but thin but they promise power. I haven’t yet seen one with 2 USB3 ports, I wonder why they don’t design them with that. The price starts at 799€ and goes up to 1199€ depending on configuration, using any among Intel Core i3, i5, i7, SSD or Hard Drive and the amount of RAM.
Toshiba Portege Z835 Ultrabook, $999 starting price
Here’s a very thin Ultrabook from Toshiba.
Lenovo IdeaPad U300s Ultrabook, $1199 starting price
Lenovo is launching this new Ultrabook based on the second generation Intel Core i5 and Core i7 processors, pricing starts at $1199, goes up perhaps to about $1999 with all kinds of options in terms of dual or quad core processor, 128GB or 256GB SSD memory, 2GB, 4GB or 8GB RAM. They have done some ventilation design so there are no vents under the laptop, it’s aluminium everywhere, so it stays cold under the laptop even though this is a quite powerful new processor.
Acer to release an ARM Powered Laptop next week!
x86 is becoming more and more problematic for Laptop makers as the retail prices are lowered, component and manufacturing costs remain high, profit margins are lowered and the overall Laptop market growth is being slowed by consumers using gradually more and more of their consumer electronics budgets on ARM Powered Tablets and Smartphones instead of x86.
Acer’s previous CEO got fired about 3 months ago as their board of directors were angry at them not investing enough of their potential into releasing more ARM Powered devices, those that can maximize profit margins and enable real growth.
The big question for this ARM Powered Acer Laptop is to know if this will run the Tegra2, does that provide enough memory bandwidth for a good multi-tab web browsing experience, if they somehow have been able to provide a version of the 1Ghz Tegra2 with more memory bandwidth for Laptop use, or if performance is simply going to be similar to the awesome ARM Powered Toshiba AC100 released last year.
The other big question is do they run Chrome OS, Ubuntu, Android Honeycomb or all of the above? Wouldn’t it be awesome if Acer came forward and said something like “Hey, we will support more than 1 OS, even Windows 8 when it comes out, simply choose your OS in a multi-boot menu and we will provide updates for each OS over the Internet or they can be updated through the SD card”. I think multi-boot multi-OS support is the key to enable a successful ARM Powered Laptop product for convincing the early adopters now while the whole Linaro software is being optimized and worked on, while memory bandwidth on ARM Powered laptops may or may not provide a fully smooth multi-tab full javascripts and Flash web browsing experience, and while so many nice OS are competing with each other to provide the best most hardware accelerated web browsing experience. I would for example very much like Chrome OS on this, but the look of Android Honeycomb on a Laptop sure is nice and Ubuntu on ARM is becoming awesome!
The news arrives by way of company chairman and CEO J.T. Wang as he addressed concerns about the company dropping from the second world’s largest PC manufacturer to the fourth largest during the second quarter of 2011. He said that to regain its lost market share, the company plans to adopt a new strategy to create “more value instead of pursuing volume growth.”
This is Awesome! ARM Powered Laptops are CHEAPER, use much lower power, thinner, lighter, would be perfect in a $199 ARM Powered Acer Chromebook, this is a perfect way for Acer to introduce something new to dominate a market.
Finally, instead of simply pushing out x86 powered reference design laptops based on Intel and AMD x86 chips, now Acer is investing to differentiate, improve, optimize, customize and design awesomeness through ARM Powered laptops that run embedded software.
Acer is not the only one!
Last month, Digitimes reported that Several vendors plan to offer ARM-architecture notebooks.
Several vendors, including Samsung Electronics, Toshiba, Acer and Asustek Computer, plan to develop ARM architecture notebooks, with products possibly to be launched as early as the end of 2011, according to industry sources.
Samsung may release Exynos 4210 Powered Chromebooks! Toshiba is probably doing an AC200! Asus is also rumored to be preparing a 13″ ARM Powered Android Laptop similar to its Asus Transformer!
Look forward to A LOT of FUN TIMES ahead in the ARM Powered Laptop market. Which ARM Processor with how much memory bandwidth and which software OS would you like to run on your next ARM Powered laptop?
via: liliputing.com and tomshardware.com
Related articles
- ARM Powered Chromebooks to be released soon (armdevices.net)
- Genesi launches new cheaper/better i.MX53 based Laptops and Desktops (armdevices.net)
- Acer to deliver ARM notebook within nine days (go.theregister.com)
- Acer to Launch Laptop with Nvidia Tegra Processor, Reports Say (pcworld.com)
Linaro ARM Linux optimizations status at the Freescale Technology Forum
Discussion with Linaro employees about the status of ARM Powered laptops.
Genesi launches new cheaper/better i.MX53 based Laptops and Desktops
Here is the board for now, they are going to launch the new Genesi i.MX53 based Laptops and Desktops around July or August, providing more performance, using lower power, at lower cost. The current Genesi Efika MX Smartbook i.MX51 based laptop is selling for $199, the Genesi MX Smarttop i.MX51 Desktop is selling for $129, they plan for the next generation i.MX53 based Laptop (Smartbook) and Desktop (Smarttop) to be sold for even cheaper. They are also working to combine their ARM based Laptop with the Pixel Qi screen as soon as it’s mass produced.
Also watch my video interview with Konstantinos Margaritis talking about the way Genesi is optimizing Linux on ARM to make it up to 300% faster on these ARM Powered laptops and desktops.
Genesi’s Hard Float optimizations speeds up Linux performance up to 300% on ARM Laptops
Konstantinos Margaritis is a Senior Software Engineer at San Antonio based Genesi, he talks about how Genesi is pushing Linaro forward to recompile all the apps and everything around Linux to use hard float, to re-optimize floating point applications on ARM Powered Desktop/Laptop designs. Watch this video interview to find out how Genesi is doing these software optimizations on Debian for the i.MX51 and i.MX53 platforms in their ARM Powered Smartbook designs. How soon are ARM Powered laptops going to have enough performance optimizations in them to demonstrate that ARM is fast enough to power Desktop/Laptop designs so that every consumer can be satisfied with the performance?
Ubuntu 11.4 with Unity Desktop
Canonical shows their new standard user interface. What do you think about Ubuntu’s Unity interface?
