Huawei launches their new proprietary Android UI Home Replacement at IFA 2012, I wish that Huawei allow the users disable that custom UI and that they let the user get a vanilla Android experience on their devices if they want.
Category: Smartphones
Huawei IFA 2012 Press Conference
Posted by – August 30, 2012
Category: Tablets, Smartphones, Exclusive videos, Texas Instruments, HiSilicon, Qualcomm, IFA, Android
Here are some of the highlights of the Huawei IFA 2012 Press Conference. They are launching a whole range of new Android phones Y201 pro for $129/129€, G330 for $199/199€, G600 for $299/299€, P1 for $399/399€ and D1 Quad XL for $449/449€ and tablets 10FHD and MediaPad 7 Lite on the European and worldwide markets in October, and they are also launching their new Huawei Emotion UI.
Huawei Ascend G330 for $199/199€
Posted by – August 30, 2012
4″ WVGA screen, 1Ghz dual-core Qualcomm processor, 512MB RAM, ships with ICS, JB upgrade likely.
Huawei Ascend Y201 pro, $129/129€
Posted by – August 30, 2012
3.5″ IPS, 800Mhz Qualcomm processor, 512MB RAM, ICS now with JB later.
Lenovo LePhone S899t smartphone using ST-Ericsson Nova A9500 launched in China
Posted by – July 12, 2012
There’s a new dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 3G TD-SCDMA Android ICS phone on the Chinese market to be sold at around $200 (1299RMB) starting mid-july on Lenovo’s Chinese website and China Mobile retail stores all over China. In addition to the Nova A9500, ST-Ericsson CG2900 and CW1100 connectivity solutions were also selected by Lenovo enabling GPS, Bluetooth, FM and Wi-Fi features. Maybe the screen size is 4.5″ IPS, is it a qHD resolution 4.5″ IPS screen? Let me know in the comments if you know more specs about this phone.
This could be a big deal if Lenovo and China Mobile plan to mass manufacture and mass sell this dual-core phone at sub-$200 price points all over China. That can help the ST-Ericsson A9500 platform reach a good position as a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 solution for affordable Chinese Android smartphones, ready to compete with the upcoming dual-core MediaTek MT6577 platform.
Source: press release at stericsson.com
Related articles
- Lenovo bringing two affordable Android 4.0 handsets to Chinese markets? (theverge.com)
- Lenovo LePhone K860 with Exynos Quad-Core CPU and 5-Inch HD Screen Spotted in China (news.softpedia.com)
- Lenovo LePhone S899t with ICS reportedly in the works for China Mobile (engadget.com)
$146 9.7″ Rockchip RK3066 Dual-core from Daza Electronics at Computex 2012
Posted by – June 17, 2012
Category: Tablets, Smartphones, Exclusive videos, Members Content, Allwinner, Rockchip, MediaTek, Computex, Android
5″ MT6575 for $150, 7″ IPS slim AllWinner A10 for $78, 9.7″ 1024×768 Rockchip RK3066 for $146 with minimum order quantities from 500 to 1 thousand units.
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Ubuntu on Android demonstrated at Computex 2012
Posted by – June 11, 2012
Just dock your Ubuntu on Android enabled phone to a dock and it outputs Ubuntu on your monitor/HDTV all powered by your ARM Powered phone. Is Canonical going to be able to convince all device makers to pay for it and to support it? Should Canonical try to make it an apk in the Google Play Store, based on the Android Native Code Development Kit for it to work on most current Android phones?
e-Top 3 Technology hacks any R/C Controlled car into a Bluetooth remote car
Posted by – June 11, 2012
Convert any remote controlled car into a Bluetooth remote control car. You open up your R/C car and insert their module (using a few cables and a soldering iron) and that converts into a Bluetooth remote device, then just install the Bluetooth remote app on your Bluetooth phone/tablet and that’s done.
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Seshu Madhavapeddy, General Manager, Mobile Devices Business Unit at Texas Instruments at Computex 2012
Posted by – June 5, 2012
Seshu Madhavapeddy talks about how Texas Instruments works on their OMAP4 and OMAP5 processors to be in the Galaxy Nexus and in a whole range of other high-end smartphone and tablet devices.
I’m being interviewed about how I started video-blogging and announcing a new feature for ARMdevices.net
Posted by – June 5, 2012
Category: Tablets, Laptops, Smartphones, HDMI Sticks, Exclusive videos, Opinions, Allwinner, MediaTek, Linaro Connect, Android
Here’s a 15 minute interview of me filmed by the Novacut guys using multiple high quality DSLR camera angles (you can watch it in 1080p!). I’m showing off some of the latest gadgets that I found in Shenzhen, I talk about why and how I video-blog from all the worlds consumer electronics trade shows since 2004, and I announce my next big feature on ARMdevices.net which is a $20/year Membership system to get access to buy all the best gadgets that I find at the trade shows all over the world, sourcing directly from the factories in Shenzhen and to get access to scans or pictures of the business cards of the people/distributors/suppliers that I video-interview (great for the buyers from around the world watching my videos and interested in having the best contact informations to the companies that I film). Look forward to the $20/year ARMdevices.net Membership system to be launched here in the days to come if I can find enough time to set it up while video-blogging here at Computex until June 10th.
Ubuntu on Android at Linaro Connect
Posted by – May 31, 2012
The most exciting thing is once the ARM Processors in phones are powerful enough to run a full desktop/laptop. Thus simply dock the Android phone and output a full Linux on your larger monitor.
Tizen prototype
Posted by – May 31, 2012
I’m checking out a Tizen development kit prototype for the first time. I’m not sure I understand the meaning of it, it seems there is not coming much out of Maemo, Meego, Limo, Bada etc. At least not yet. This looks to be a semi-continuation of Intel’s and Nokia’s open source project which makes me extra dubious.
Yooe MT6575 phone now selling
Posted by – May 27, 2012
This is the 5″ WVGA MT6575 phone, now selling out of Shenzhen for around $200. For now it’s a bit expensive (it should be closer to $150) perhaps because it’s not yet in full mass production.
MT6575 Cutepad 5″ phone
Posted by – May 27, 2012
This one does’t run ICS yet, but there may be an ICS firmware update for it somewhere online.
I’m back in Shenzhen! Here getting ICS installed on my Zopo ZP100 MT6575
Posted by – May 24, 2012
As I am going to be video-blogging the latest advances in Linux on ARM at the Linaro Connect Hong Kong conference next week, I just landed a few days early so that I can now again video-blog the latest news out of Shenzhen. It’s appropriate for me to video-blog the latest news in Shenzhen, monthly don’t you think? In this video, I got the Zopo staff at the Zopo store on Hua Qiang Bei Shenzhen to update the firmware on my Zopo ZP100 MT6575 ARM Cortex-A9 based phone because I had a hard time figuring out how to do it looking at the Chinese-only http://bbs.zopomobile.com (see how they talk on that forum about a re-upload onto Youku of my original Zopo ZP100 video) ICS seems to be extremely smooth on the MediaTek MT6575, I’m going to ask Zopo in the days to come what they expect to do about reaching the European, US markets and worldwide with this phone. Check back in the days to come for the latest news from Shenzhen as I’m hearing about an upcoming Dual-core MediaTek MT6577 to be in an upcoming Huawei 4.5″ low cost super phone (the rumor is 1499rmb = $237), the i.MX6 is being worked on by Shenzhen based PCB design houses, Rockchip is very close to take large market share for tablets out of Shenzhen with their new Dual-core RK3066 platform. Check back on http://ARMdevices.net for a lot of new videos about those. Let me know in the comments what you would like me to film and do in Shenzhen. I have some big plans to finally do something about group buys (through reliable and trusted Shenzhen based device makers and sellers) and I plan to launch some new special features here on http://ARMdevices.net during the next days and weeks so check back.
Opera Mini 7 and Opera Mobile 12
Posted by – May 13, 2012
Opera is being used by millions of people worldwide. Here’s the latest in Opera Mobile browsers technology. Opera Mini provides Internet access to hundreds of millions of feature phone users throughout the developing world, emerging economies, worldwide, and Opera Mobile is likely the third party browser of choice for smartphones. As smartphones become cheaper and cheaper, feature phones may quickly get replaced by cheap smartphones, Opera mobile merges Mini and Mobile to provide server-side web page compression and fast rendering technologies for a growing number of users worldwide.
The Inevitable Convergence, Exynos 4412 getting too powerful for just being in a phone, SGS3 needs to use MHL for ICS+Chrome OS+Google TV
The new 32nm Exynos 4412 1.4Ghz Quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 with Quad-core Mali-400 (probably cranked up at a higher frequency than before) launched by Samsung in the Galaxy S3 looks to be totally amazing. It may be one of the absolute fastest ARM Processors to date. That brings awesomely smooth and fast Android 4 ICS user interfaces on the gorgeous 4.8″ 1280×720 pentile Super AMOLED HD screen. And with advances in Android, new features using hardware acceleration, they’ll always find a way to put to use the extra performance. But if these newest ARM Processors now come with enough memory bandwidth to run a full Laptop as smoothly as using x86, if these newest ARM Processors can run 1080p Set-top-box user interfaces at 60fps on any 55″ HDTV, if these newest ARM Processors have amazing GPU power that can in theory run console quality games even on a 1080p HDMI, then why aren’t there accessories and docks to allow for that? Why didn’t Samsung announce a range of Laptop Docks and Google TV docks for the Galaxy S3?
Here’s my quick concept image for an MHL LapDock accessory that I’d like to see accessory makers sell on the market at $99-$149 depending on the quality/size, it should be similar to the Motorola LapDock 500 Pro but designed for MHL phones:
MHL enables a new market for LapDocks similar to the Motorola Atrix series, where you dock your smartphone and it powers your ARM Powered Chrome OS Ultrabook, Google TV Set-top-box and Home Console.
I think it is important to notice the huge leap in performance year/year of these latest and upcoming new ARM Processors. The new Exynos 4412 is nearly 2x more powerful than last year’s Exnoys 4210. Not just by the doubling of cores, that doesn’t actually double performance but more like increases it by 50% (at same frequency, and only for very multi-threaded tasks), the main thing is the smaller process node design, the increased memory bandwidth, cleverer memory bandwidth architecture also enabling a faster higher clock speed Mali-400 GPU. Basically what you are getting is 2x more performance for less power consumption, that’s pretty exciting and pretty kick-ass in my book. And we are not even yet arrived at the ARM Cortex-A15 which then again upgrades the performance even more!
Now all that is needed is for Google and the industry to merge Android, Chrome OS and Google TV. When you dock it in a Laptop Dock or Desktop Dock, it should switch to a full Chrome OS mode (or Ubuntu, not to forget Microsoft is welcome to add the Windows 8 app for $29.99 in the Google Play store. Or somewhat pre-install “Windows 8 mode” as a secured dual-boot when partnering with the smartphone maker). When you dock it to a Multimedia Dock it should switch to a full Google TV mode, maybe even with HDMI input and IR blaster if the Dock supports that, and also the new GPU is now near XboX 360 power even though it’s not yet the Mali-T604 and Mali-T658 which increases graphics even further next year.
The issue is Samsung and some others are maybe afraid to disrupt their own existing markets of selling Laptops, Chromebooks, Set-top-boxes and new 3DTVs with built-in Google TV, so maybe, just maybe, at the corporate headquarters of Samsung they fear the inevitable convergence. But if Samsung doesn’t want to promote the convergence that these new post-PC ARM processors enable, then competitors have a wide open door to use that for marketing. One little pocketable soon enough wearable device can now power all your productivity, content consumption and entertainment. The performance has arrived, it’s only a matter of someone deciding to start making, selling and marketing the new user interfaces that enable the full convergence.
Samsung Galaxy S3 may be the first smartphone with full ARM TrustZone support for enabling 100% security in everything online
Posted by – May 4, 2012
The newly announced Samsung Galaxy S3 may not only have an amazing new 32nm Quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor with a new accelerated higher frequency Quad-core Mali-400 GPU offering perhaps the fastest ARM SoC in the world at the moment. Samsung may also have done the right choice to fully enable and activate ARM TrustZone through the MobiCore integrated security platform directly onto the Exynos 4412 SoC. The Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) is joint venture between ARM (40%), Gemalto (30%) and Giesecke & Devrient (30%) which is currently in the process of getting approval from the European Commission for European Wide mass adoption as the default secure mobile authentication system.
While ARM TrustZone has been talked about for a while, it being supported in many ARM Processors, as far as I know it hasn’t been activated on any of those processors yet, the full Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) ecosystem has not yet been implemented in a mass market phone. The idea is to provide a 100% secure system for mobile payment, enterprise productivity, mobile banking applications, online commerce and premium content services. I believe ARM TrustZone can even be used for a fast and easy 100% secure authentication on your phone every time you log-in to your Google Account, and I believe that you may even set it up to 100% securely authenticate you when you log-in to any Open ID or other username/password protected websites on the Internet, Facebook, Twitter and any others included.
Basically consider these usage scenarios:
1. E-commerce: You click to buy something online, no need to type in credit card infos. Your phone automatically turns on in safe mode (identifiable by secure LED light lighting up on the side of the phone), you type your 4 digit pin code, payment 100% secure activated, the web page automatically updates, no click needed, and says thanks for your payment.
2. NFC or Online Payments/Money transfers: Tap your phone with the person you want to give some money to, or click on payment link in email or elsewhere online. Your phone automatically turns on in safe mode (identifiable by secure LED light lighting up on the side of the phone), you type your 4 digit pin code, payment or money transfer 100% secure activated. Both receiver and sender automatically get confirmation payment or money transfer has happened instantly.
3. Securely log-in to your Google or other web account. Click to login. Instead of using Google’s current 2-step verification (code being sent by SMS or Android app), a new easier, better and more secure 2-step verification system is established using ARM TrustZone TEE. As soon as you click to login, you don’t even need to type your password in the web browser, your phone automatically turns on in safe mode (identifiable by secure LED light lighting up on the side of the phone), you type your 4 digit pin code, you are 100% securely logged into your Google account.
Etc. Same system for 100% securely logging on to corporate networks and applications. You can also setup different pin codes depending on the different class of applications. For example your important payment systems may have a different pin code than basic website logons.
The idea of the ARM TrustZone Trusted Execution Environment is that once that security LED light is turned on on your phone, you can be assured that what you see on the screen is the encrypted alternative OS environment to authenticate you and authorize actions that it then encrypts and sends back through the Android OS to the Internet. For example it displays “Paying $20 to X” as you enter your pin code and click OK or you click cancel if you don’t agree. Again using encryption. Using systems of 128bit encryption, in theory this system should be 100% secure. As long as users always make sure to check that the security LED light is on on their phone when they enter their pin codes and click for authorizations.
If implemented correctly, ARM TrustZone will not only much improve security online, it will also make authentication and authorization processes easier and faster online. With the Galaxy S3 and the correct implementation of ETT support throughout the Internet, the Chrome browser, Android, you may never need to remember usernames and passwords for all websites again, you just use the same few PIN codes on your phone to do all your authentications, authorizations and every type of secure authenticated activities on the Internet.
I am very excited about the upcoming mass adoption of ARM TrustZone, because I believe we are going to see an explosion of awesomely advanced applications for secure authentication, online payments, mobile payments and the feeling for users is going to be that they are soon going to trust using their phones to replace their wallets, passports, credit cards, and that people are going to have a tool to be able to trust any and every website, as those will never be able to see your passwords as consumers will always be protected by the normal set of consumer protections and that online scams, online security breaches will be a thing of the past. ARM TrustZone Trusted Execution Environment means the end of paper money, it means the end of ticketing, it means the end of credit cards, it means the end of membership cards, it means the end of usernames and passwords online.
Here is the press release:
G&D announces MobiCore® integrated security platform to support Samsung GALAXY S III in Europe
Munich, May 4, 2012 – Giesecke & Devrient (G&D) today announced that its MobiCore security platform will be integrated in Samsung GALAXY S III smartphones distributed in Europe. Thanks to MobiCore, the NFC-capable smartphone from Samsung will be the first mobile device to boast a protected area on its application processor in which security-sensitive applications can be securely run and downloaded dynamically. The MobiCore platform will provide a secure execution environment for mobile payments authentication, emails or corporate VPN access.
The first application installed in the Mobicore-protected area on the Samsung GALAXY S III is a digital rights management (DRM) application which provides digital content with effective protection against misuse. In addition, G&D’s Trusted Service Management (TSM) solution will enable organizations such as network operators and banks to install and customize additional security-critical apps in the protected area of the smartphone. Samsung GALAXY S III, with integrated MobiCore security platform, will be made commercially available first in Europe and will then be rolled out globally.
Related articles
- Google Wallet should use ARM TrustZone for 100% security (armdevices.net)
- ARM, Gemalto and G&D form joint-venture to secure mobile devices, improve privacy (thenextweb.com)
The Shenzhen Speakers Factory
Posted by – April 23, 2012
Is this my best video yet? This is a same factory that is soon going to switch to assembling MediaTek MT6575 Android Ice Cream Sandwich phones. I hereby offer you an exclusive look inside the assembly line, see the people that build your speakers in Shenzhen China.
In the part 1 of this Shenzhen Factory Tour, I enter the Shenzhen Factory, walk around the lobby and meeting rooms before walking over to a part of the assembly line.
