Uptek explains how they are doing their Android based set-top-box with customized UI solutions, and even VOD stuff.
Category: Set-top-boxes
Geniatech explains their AmLogic Cortex-A9 Single Core Set-top-box
Posted by – April 12, 2011
Category: Set-top-boxes, Exclusive videos, AmLogic, China Sourcing Fair, Geniatech, Android, Google TV
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.
Related articles
- Geniatech Android TV Set-Top-Box (armdevices.net)
Sunshing06.com ARM11 PCB for $40 in Shenzhen
Posted by – April 8, 2011
Sunshing06.com is designing these PCBA ARM Powered motherboards for tablets, set-top-box and other devices. The motherboard with the 1Ghz ARM11 processor is just $40. It supports 1080p at up to 30mbitps. Add to that a touch screen, battery and you’ve got a tablet. Or add some the connectors and you’ve got a set-top-box!
Zinwell does ARM Powered $70 Android Set-top-box
Posted by – March 2, 2011
Zinwell is one of the worlds top-5 Realtek based media player box makers, after Western Digital, Xstreamer, now they want to support full Android and eventually Google TV for ARM, so they take the Marvell Berlin (Armada 1000?) processor platform, even add DVB tuner and e-Sata ports, to provide full HD web browsing speed and the performance needed for full Flash and all Web videos and the like.
Cideko $139 (MSRP retail) Android Set-top-box
Posted by – March 2, 2011
Cideko is showing their Android Set-top-box with support for up to 1080p YouTube, and their interesting high-end remote control design with built-in keyboard, accelerometers, infrared and gyroscope.
$60 Android Cortex-A8 Set-top-box
Posted by – March 1, 2011
Shenzhen Ider Technology is showing two designs for Hummingbird ARM Cortex-A8 powered Android Set-top-boxes. One even has a built-in 2.5″ hard drive compartment. This type of box could potentially soon run Google TV experience OS!
3Gnet $70 Android Set-top-box
Posted by – March 1, 2011
This one could run the Google TV for ARM OS, it’s a Skyviia ARM9 based Android Set-top-box, with 3 USB host, up to 1080p video playback support, the UI is being worked on. They also have a Ziilab ARM Cortex-A8 version to be available for about $20 more.
Freescale talks i.MX6 ARM Cortex-A9 platform at Mobile World Congress 2011
Posted by – February 16, 2011
Category: Tablets, Laptops, Smartphones, Set-top-boxes, Exclusive videos, Freescale, MWC, Android, Chrome OS, Ubuntu, Windows
Freescale announced their ARM Cortex-A9 Dual-Core and Quad-Core processor platform. Here´s an interview with Freescale about their performance and features.
ST-Ericsson A9500 ARM Cortex-A9 Development Board
Posted by – February 16, 2011
Category: Tablets, Laptops, Smartphones, Set-top-boxes, Exclusive videos, ST-Ericsson, MWC, Android, Ubuntu
This is the SKY-S9500-ULP-CXX aka SNOWBALL, the ST-Ericsson ARM Cortex-A9 development board, they put in there all the memory and everything needed to hack together end user products. It will be sold for about $200 from around April or May, it runs Android, Ubuntu and Meego thus far. You can find more information at http://igloocommunity.org
Texas Instruments OMAP4 runs Android and Ubuntu at the same time
Posted by – February 14, 2011
Category: Tablets, Laptops, Smartphones, Set-top-boxes, Exclusive videos, Texas Instruments, MWC, Android, Ubuntu
Texas Instruments is showcasing that the OMAP4 ARM Cortex-A9 development platform can run full Android on the built-in LCD and Ubuntu on the HDMI output both at the same time, this is awesome. It shows how Texas Instruments OMAP4 can be used to power the upcoming all-in-one ultimate ARM Powered devices that combine Laptop and Media player functionality into the Smartphone.
Google TV seeks FCC regulation to start a WebTV revolution
Posted by – February 10, 2011
Google may or may not soon be allowed to add Hulu Plus to its Google TV boxes, which may provide the Google TV boxes access to most of the TV shows and other content that currently is being blocked on Google TV by US TV Networks such as Fox, CBS, ABC, NBC and Viacom. Why would they want to block Google TV? Cause it’s the trojan horse that disrupts TV from within, once consumers are only one click away from any YouTube video, only one click away from all VOD, legal or illegal, once this is easy to use and available for all in a sub-$100 cheap ARM Powered Google TV box, this is when those 5-hours per day people watch TV start spending more and more of that time watching content that is not owned or controlled by these networks.
At the same time, something awesome is going on with Google and Sony vs Cable Networks and the Movie industry at the FCC. Arstechnica published this awesome article explaining how Google and Sony are supporting an FCC regulation called the AllVid system.
The trade association is trying to set limits on how easy it will be for devices like Google TV to access pay TV content and reassemble it into something that will reconfigure both television and the Internet.
That’s at the heart of the FCC’s proposal for an AllVid system, which Google very loudly supports. AllVid doesn’t exist yet, but the idea is to mandate an industry-wide gadget that you could plug into your broadband router and connect to your cable TV provider, then watch online video and pay channels through a variety of AllVid-friendly devices. Not surprisingly, Google and Sony love this idea, because it could transform the Google TV from just a neat product into a revolution.
Big cable hates the proposal, because that revolution could leave multi-video program distributors (MVPDs), if not in the dust, at least working in a far more competitive video environment.
Basically, what this could mean, is that content would be separated from technology. Content owners won’t be able to make exclusive streaming partnerships with one set-top-box maker and not be available on the other. What this means, is that Hulu and Netflix must be available on all devices and that there will be a standard user interface to access all those on-demand and streaming contents.
This probably also means that all of those TV Networks in the USA who are streaming their TV shows for free using ads from their websites, would have to provide all that content to all devices through standardized user interfaces. None of these content providers can choose to block any device from accessing any content, and the advertising and pay-per-view models will thus be standardized.
Big cable insists that the metadata used to create on-screen program guides is copyrighted. The Motion Picture Association of America protests that the AllVid idea would put studio content painfully close to sites like The Pirate Bay.
Program guides should not be copyrighted, that is ridiculous. Anyone should be allowed to list what is going to be on TV at any given time. And anyone should be allowed to list movie titles, directors, actors, plot and even display a poster for each of those contents.
The MPAA is correct, this will mean that pirated content will also just be one click away, but that will force content owners to allow for seamless access to all the contents either for free with ads or at very reasonable cost as pay-per-view. And this will also enable the next step for Government regulation, that is to standardize the all-you-can-eat subscription model so that one Global Licence cover the legal and free access to all contents.
Related articles
- ARM Powered Google TV confirmed (armdevices.net)
- The technical reason TV Networks can block Google TV (for now..) (armdevices.net)
- Hollywood: Google TV would put us in same ship as pirates! (arstechnica.com)
- Can cable block the Google TV revolution? (arstechnica.com)
Motorola Atrix 4G to cost $3220 on AT&T ?
Posted by – February 10, 2011
So the first reviews of this awesome “Best of CES 2011” device are reaching some blogs today including slashgear, bgr, crunchgear, engadget.
The talk on the blogosphere and on blogs.forbes.com is that the Motorola Atrix 4G will be $199 alone on 2-year contract, or $499 with the Laptop Dock on 2-year contract. I’m not sure what the Multimedia/Desktop Dock will cost, my guess is $199? (if someone knows the price of the multimedia/desktop dock, please post in the comments).
Notice, as most phones sold in the USA, consumers have to signup for a 2-year contract. I always think all blogs should make it a rule that all prices should include minimum and maximum pricing both unlocked, terminated (with early termination fees) and with those 2-year contracts.
AT&T 2-year contracts seem to cost approximately like this:
– $85 per month for 400 minutes of voice,
– $95 per month for 900 minutes of voice,
– $105 per month for Unlimited minutes of voice
with 2GB data and WiFi hotspot support. That’s between $2040 and $2520 for 2 years.
Total price of Motorola Atrix 4G (with both Laptop and Multimedia Docks) on AT&T for 2-years: between $2740 and $3220
This is not really new. Telco carriers are in the business of making tons of cash and money. This is business as usual.
Yet, as AT&T is making so many tons of money on the 2-year contract, I don’t exactly understand why AT&T doesn’t just give the Motorola Atrix 4G with both docking accessories at a more affordable price than something like this $700 upfront payment.
I mean, comon AT&T. Don’t you want to have some price competitive Android super phone options to destroy the iPhone now that your exclusive distribution deal with Apple is finished?
I’d hardly even consider the Motorola Atrix 4G for $499 with both Docks when the whole thing would be sold unlocked. I may be looking at a package for something like $1000 if I want it unlocked.
Anyways, it’s for sure Motorola still deserves “Best of CES 2011” award, no matter the pricing. Just because they are courageous enough to push the industry forward in terms of all-in-one ARM Powered device. It is understandable that Motorola wants to take ample profit margins on the accessories and not sell the laptop dock for $150 and TV dock for below $100 as they are supposed to. But for AT&T, well, it’s up to them. How fast do they want to sell these devices in the USA? If AT&T would sell the phone $199 on contract, and provide the accessories for $150 for laptop dock and $100 for tv/desktop dock, then they would have something really powerful to outsell the iPhone quickly and quickly get mass adoption. One can hope AT&T and the other carriers around the world who are looking into selling the Motorola Atrix 4G, that they all think hard about pricing, and that they bring the device with accessories to as many people as possible at some reasonable pricing.
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.
$100 Bonux HZ20A Android Set-top-box
Posted by – January 18, 2011
This Android Set-top-box uses the Ziilab ARM Cortex-A8 processor platform with 1080p video playback.
Motorola Atrix 4G wins “Best of CES 2011”
Posted by – January 15, 2011
The winner of ARMdevices.net Best of CES 2011 award goes to the Motorola Atrix 4G smart phone.
Congratulations! clap clap..
With the launch of this new Motorola Super Phone, we have witnessed a historic moment in the history of consumer electronics. Motorola unveils not only the most powerful smartphone yet based on Nvidia’s Tegra2 AP20H ARM Cortex-A9 processor, but has actually worked feverishly on making software layers on top of Android to provide for a Desktop/Laptop replacement experience, all powered by the phone! Motorola presents full HD resolution Firefox web browser running on top of Android, Citrix virtualization integration for running all other x86 apps that can be virtualized, they put Android in a Window so you can still run any Android apps in that Window when in Desktop mode! And this is the first generation of this type of product, so you are only witnessing the beginning of ARM Powered Pocketable Smart Mobile Devices to be able to power everything you would do on a Laptop powered by Intel/Microsoft. Expect even faster dual-core processors to run this type of product soon with unlimited amounts of tabs with lots of pictures/embedded videos and do it all fully smoothly.
Here is my 25 minute long video featuring the part of the keynote unveiling of the product as well as 16 minute interview with Seang Chau, product manager on Motorola Atrix 4G, Vice President and Chief Software Engineer at Motorola Mobility Inc:
To tell you the truth, this award does not mean Motorola Atrix 4G is perfect yet. I noticed some lagging on scrolling when browsing through 3 or 4 tabs with websites loaded such as ARMdevices.net Engadget.com and Gizmodo.com and having Flash videos play in one of the tabs and maybe other Flash instances such as some advertisement running in some other tab. Maybe the slow downs can be removed if Flash can be managed to only use processing and memory bandwidth on-demand or seamlessly when in the front tab. This type of slow down may be caused by any number of factors. Maybe the Software isn’t fully ready yet and can still be optimized. Maybe the Chrome browser on ARM would be faster than Mozilla Firefox. Maybe the Nvidia Tegra2 AP20H processor doesn’t yet have enough fast access memory bandwidth, not fast enough I/O speeds to let the Firefox tabs load their contents instantly enough when switching tabs. Although, I haven’t tested it yet, I wonder if the Tegra2 AP20H is not yet fast enough for full 1080p@60fps high bitrate high profile video playback of all video formats. I tried to playback the 9mbitps .MP4 h264 that my Sanyo HD1000 camcorder makes as well as the 5-24mbitps .MTS h264 that a Panasonic SH900 camcorder makes, those files are not yet recognized or launchable by the file browser. Too bad I didn’t have some standard 720p and 1080p MKV movies on my mass storage device that I tested.
Anyways, multi-tab browsing and HD video isn’t smooth on a regular Intel Atom netbook either, 480p YouTube seems also to be the maximum that can smoothly be played back using even a recent dual-core Intel Atom N550 Acer D255E netbook, and over 100 million consumers seem to be more or less satisfied with that or even slower experience. The key here is to see if the ARM Cortex-A9 platforms in Laptop/Desktop situations can match performance of Intel Atom. At least Motorola is hereby showing that they are investing heavily into this convergence, they are now definitely officially focused on speeding up ARM Powered performances to a level where consumers and enterprise can be satisfied to replace their Wintel machines. This is the big type of high-end Android product that AT&T wants to promote now that their iPhone exclusivity is finished. Motorola may be trying to say that they are not entering the Laptop and Desktop market, when in fact they are and they are pulling the whole smartphone industry in there with them.
Related articles
- Motorola Atrix hitting March 1st, according to AT&T document leak? (engadget.com)
- AT&T’s Motorola Atrix: More Teasers (pcworld.com)
- AT&T Motorola ATRIX 4G due March 1? (slashgear.com)
- Exclusive: Motorola Atrix confirmed for May UK release (dialtosave.co.uk)
ARM Powered Google TV confirmed
Posted by – January 14, 2011
I have it on very high authority from someone at Google (to remain anonymous) that an ARM Powered Google TV platform is coming soon.
The specifics of how Google TV on ARM allows for differentiation (also called fragmentation), if there is support for versions without the whole HDMI-passthrough/IR-blaster overlay features, if Google TV on ARM has 1080p@60fps requirements or if 720p@30fps can be enough, if there will be support for cheaper ARM11 platforms such as Korean Telechips based Android-ready boxes, all of that is yet to be confirmed. But a bloggers logic says that eventually all ARM platforms and setups should be compatible. But as with delay in providing official Google Marketplace on non-standard Android Tablets (in a world of Android makers wanting to compete with iPod Touch and iPad), Google has authority to also decide to block or delay official Marketplace or other official features of Google TV on non-standard and cheaper Set-top-box devices.
I have been rumoring this for many months here on ARMdevices.net (1, 2, 3, 4) that Google TV on ARM would be a certainty, it’s also been talked about by ARM President Tudor Brown back in November that “If Google TV is to be mainstream, it must be built on a lower power system, …on lower cost technology”.
Recently, an unofficial jailbreak on Google TV also confirmed my speculation that the main reason TV Networks can block Google TV is because of the Flash Plugin officially announcing itself in the browser to be of Google TV user agent. Jailbreaking thus allows to install a hacked Flash Plugin that cannot be detected by websites.
Just as since Computex in June 2010 (Bonux, Keenhigh mediatech), I filmed several interesting ARM Powered Android Set-top-boxes at CES 2011 such as the ARM Cortex-A9 Innodigital WebTube and two more Android WebTV solutions that I still have to upload, all of these ARM Powered Android Set-top-box solutions should be able to run a basic Google TV software just as well.
Consider that Google has to cater to not pre-announcing future products too early as to not cannibalize the sales of the existing Intel powered Google TV boxes such as the Logitech Revue, the stuff from Sony and the upcoming Google TV solutions from Vizio, Toshiba, Samsung, Sharp, LG and others (some of those may already be ARM Powered, who knows..). Thus expect the official announcements to happen closer to the date when the Google TV software on ARM is ready for mass marketing and closer to sales.
I still believe that a sub-$100 ARM Powered Google TV Set-top-box could be one of the most revolutionary things to happen to TV since it was introduced in the late 1920ies. The revolution is when an affordable sub-$100 box (that everyone can afford) provides easy UI and meaningful algorithms for one-click instant access to all the worlds legal or illegal VOD contents. Instant access for all to every video ever made. Any video maker can be instantly broadcast on an infrastructure to be seen everywhere according to an algorithm based on ratings to determine quality and originality. People watch an average of 5 hours of TV per day, it greatly aspires to be revolutionized.
Innodigital WebTube, Android ARM Cortex-A9 set-top-box
Posted by – January 9, 2011
They are showing Samsung Hummingbird ARM Cortex-A8 model available now for $168 and showing their next generation running on ARM Cortex-A9 , they have a cool bunch of remote controls with Android buttons, shortcuts and even gyroscope based RF remote controller.
Logitech Revue at CES 2011
Posted by – January 9, 2011
Status of this ground breaking Google TV Powered smart TV solution made by Logitech. This video features some information on the software updates and developments happening on this platform.
Related articles
- Logitech Revue hack brings Android Market, requires brute force (engadget.com)
- Hack the Logitech Revue, Google TV… with an Arduino (electronics-lab.com)
Rockchip presents RK2818 and RK29xx series Processors at CES 2011
Posted by – January 7, 2011
Rockchip is doing some awesome work to provide ARM Processor platforms highly integrated with stable turn key solution Android software at very cost effective prices, thus they are powering many of the cheap affordable and usable Android tablets and other devices coming up including Laptops, Set-top-boxes, Mobile Phones and more.
