Sony FDR-AX100 Handycam is the world’s first sub-$2000 4K consumer camcorder. Can film 4K XAVC S 24p and 30p at 60mbitps and also film a 3mbitps Mp4 file simultaneously. This is perhaps yet the most affordable high quality 4K camcorder in the world.
Category: CES
$35 Scope Smartwatch, sends Notifications over Bluetooth 4 from Android/iOS
Posted by – January 9, 2014
Basic Smartwatch design from Scope, Shenzhen based Tablet and now also Smartwatch maker. The Scope company already sold more than 1 million educational tablets to Thailand. Last month they already sold 100 thousand of their smartwatch.
OLEDCOMM shows Li-Fi, 10mbitps Internet by Light
Posted by – January 8, 2014
OLEDCOMM presents LiFi Transforms any LED light into Internet bandwidth. The light modulates at a very high frequency at up to 300 thousand times per second. Connect your bulb to your ADSL/Fiber box, and anywhere the light reaches, a receiver can download that data at up to an up to 10mbitps speed. For upload, the system can use infrared or something else. They are just waiting for an investor, and all of the world may be using this technology for sending Internet data in the future.
MT6588 Jezetek Amoi Smartphone, MT6589T, MT6572
Posted by – January 8, 2014
The latest MT6588/MT6589T smartphones shown by Jezetek.
USB Power Delivery standard, 100W, 20V, 5A charging from USB
Posted by – January 8, 2014
USB Power Delivery offers more power through USB charging, both ways, up to 100W, 20V, 5A over USB. You will easily be able to charge your laptop with USB. Power direction can also be both ways from the same cable. Power management allows each device to take only the power it requires and to get more power when required for a given application, power levels for each device can be controlled through new more advanced USB Hub. Also coming up a bit later will be a new dual-side Type-C connector for USB (roughly the size of MicroUSB), the spec to be done by the middle of 2014, with devices to be released in 2015.
TAO-Wellness isometric exercise system
Posted by – January 7, 2014
TAO-Wellness introduces TAO, to exercise at your desk, on the airplane, while watching TV or watching the kids. Isometrics, the science of applying pressure, has been used for thousands of years to improve muscle strength, tone and circulation which is why it is so fundamental to today’s most popular fitness programs like Pilates, Plank Exercising, and the 7-Minute Scientific Workout. However, TAO takes it a step further by adding a dynamic element. It makes you vary the pressure by coaching you through your workout, and then electronically capturing the results. TAO-Wellness has coined the scientific term for this type of exercise as “variobics.”
Why CES is important
Check back for my 75+ best videos from the CES 2014 here at http://ARMdevices.net to be posted these next days, CES is an amazing place where 5000 companies all make better value for money and more interesting products than Apple/Microsoft/Oracle/IBM and about a dozen other $100+ Billion US Tech giants who all snub the CES because they don’t like competition. CES is where 5000 of the most interesting hardware startups from all over the world are exhibiting all at the same time in the USA and it’s not to be missed.
Wearables and Internet of Things are huge advances for society once they get implemented right. Sure you can always argue that all tech was invented 20-50 years ago, and that nothing new has been invented since. Yet the CES is really important because it showcases 5000 of the most interesting hardware startups from around the world, all showing their latest work all at the same time. The engineers and even the marketing representatives mostly love their own products and have lived creating them for the past many months, most often for the past many years, most of them are doing their best. And most often you can find absolutely awesome things even if you have a very boring or critical opinion about consumer electronics innovation. Sure tech innovation could go much faster if society was organized differently, perhaps, where somehow efforts were added to each other instead of done in parallel by competitors who kind of hate each other too much. But this is thankfully happening now more and more thanks to Android and the open source hardware platforms (which ARM ecosystem kind of is, ARM designs are open source, anyone can make them, they just have to licence the architecture), those things as accelerated innovation are actually visible and each CES is better than the last, clearly.
I’m in Las Vegas to video-blog the CES this week
Posted by – January 5, 2014
Category: CES
Latest wearables, IoT, ARM Cortex-A12, new Exynos, new big.LITTLE, new 64bit, latest from Qualcomm, Nvidia, Rockchip, Allwinner, AmLogic, and all the other ARM chip providers, I’ll be posting the best videos on those, so check back here constantly over the next days and weeks.
Support ARMdevices.net through the Sourcing Service:
If you work in the consumer electronics industry, if you’d like to meet me in between the CES showfloor and the Las Vegas strip for lunch, or dinner to discuss your plans, ideas and get my advice on your business, you can book an hour of my time at the CES by subscribing to the ARMdevices.net Sourcing Service for $500 (which also includes a full Shenzhen based expert service to help you source the best devices out of China. That would also help cover my flight and hotel expenses. Even if you are not at CES but would like to video-chat with me after the CES, or meet me at an other conference maybe during the year (MWC? Hong Kong fair?), I would appreciate if you would signup for the sourcing service now.
Send me emails at charbax@gmail.com if you have any questions/suggestions about anything.
If you work in a company which I regularly video-blog, please consider signing up for advertising on ARMdevices.net for 2014, starting at $500 per 2 months for a banner in the right sidebar, $3000 for the whole year, $5000 for a banner (1/4th the size of the current Google Ad) on the top center of every page for the whole year. That banner can link to a category for your company’s products on ARMdevices.net for example http://138.2.152.197/category/companies/your-company-name/ and that would mean I will film more videos of the products from your company in priority at every conference, in Shenzhen or/and Silicon Valley if your company has any presence in any of those.
Have me video-blog in your factory:
If your company is a factory in Shenzhen, you can sign up for $500 at http://138.2.152.197/factoryfilming to have me come make some factory tour videos in your Shenzhen factory and company headquarter. The more sponsors, advertisers, sourcing customers and shenzhen factory customers I get, the sooner and more often I will return to video-blog in Shenzhen China.
If you are just a regular viewer of my videos, fan of what I do, if you would like to support my work (help pay for my travels etc), you can either signup to be a Member of ARMdevices.net for $20/year or you can also voluntarily send me as much money as you would like as a donation to my paypal email address: charbax@gmail.com thanks a lot!
ArcherMind Eyesight protector and other gadgets
Posted by – March 18, 2013
ArcherMind of Nanjing China shows some of their latest gadgets.
My video-blogging Highlights of CES 2013
Posted by – February 5, 2013
Video-blogging last month at CES was awesome. I’ve posted 75 videos filming with the ultra-high quality Panasonic GH3 camera on a Tiffen Steadicam Merlin 2 with vest and using the Kopin Golden-i 3.8 for augmented video-blogging. At the CES 2013, there were some significant ARM related announcements, demonstrations and releases. Here are some of my highlights:
1. Samsung announcing the Samsung Octa ARM Cortex-A15 and ARM Cortex-A7 big.LITTLE processor. (I didn’t get to film any interviews about Samsung Octa yet, here’s the 1-hour Samsung keynote) I did film the Samsung 2013 HDTV series (which features perhaps a latest newest ARM processor built-in for its smart tv and features)
3. Rockchip RK3188 quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 on 28nm HKMG process node launched for about Exynos4412-level performance in cheap tablets. Rockchip RK3066 dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 also reaching more devices on the market like the Archos Titanium tablet series at $7″ 1024×600 $119. 8″ 1024×768 $169, 9.7″ retina $249 and 10.1″ 1280×800 $199, the $169 Archos Gamepad and the Minix HDMI stick.
4. Allwinner A31 quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 in tablets being released: Archos launching Allwinner A31 Powered Platinum Tablet series in 8″ $199 and 9.7″ Retina $299, Allwinner A31 also shown by Eken and Sungworld.
5. Qualcomm launches Snapdragon 800 series, Qualcomm’s next generation ARM Processor records and playsback 4K video.
6. Nufront reaching maturity with their NS115 dual-core ARM cortex-A9 in many thin and light 7″ tablets coming out of China.
7. Infotmic launching iMAPx15 dual-core ARM Cortex-A5 processor for low-cost tablets and phones.
8. ARM Powered Set-top-boxes launched like new Marvell Powered Google TV boxes from netgear, Hisense, Asus and TCL and the OMAP4470 Powered Archos TV Connect.
9. E Ink on the backs of Smartphones being launched by Russian Yota Devices, can extend battery life on your smartphone by 10x (talking about weeks of battery life for your smartphone). E Ink was also showing their new awesome higher resolution and front-lit e-reader screens like in the awesome new Kindle Paperwhite (which I’ve got and that I’ll video-review) and the interesting super thin CST-01 E Ink wrist watch.
10. One Laptop Per Child’s latest XO-4 Touch ARM Powered laptop release with Neonode IR touch on Pixel Qi screen using Marvell’s Armada PXA2128 dual-core with companion core processor. OLPC also launches their XO learning OLPC XO Tablet, optimizing Android for productive use of Tablets in Childrens education worldwide.
11. Educational and fun robots: Lego Mindstorms EV3, Roboware Kimi and Parrot AR Drone 2.0
12. 1080p Android phones launched: ZTE Grand S LTE, Huawei D2, 6.1″ Huawei Mate, and Sony Xperia Z
13. 4K coming to the market: HiSense introducing $2000 4K 50″, $3500 65″ 4K and shows up to 110″ 4K TVs, Panasonic shows their first printed 4K OLED promising affordable high yield mass manufacturing, Panasonic showing an impressive 20″ 4K Tablet, Panasonic talking about 4K camcorder and showing a 4K 46″ and 20″ LCD TV, Sharp launching 32″ 4K Tablet, 60″ ICC-4K and showing 13.5″ 4K OLED, Samsung’s 4K 84″ TV for actual release, LG releasing 55″, 65″ and 84″ 4K and StreamTV upscaling and auto-3D.
14. Smartwatches: Italian startup I’m Watch has shipped over 30 thousand, Taiwanese WiMe shows one for $99.
15. Self-driving cars: Velodyne Lidar used by Google, Toyota showing Integrated Safety and Audi talking about their self-driving car.
16. Ubuntu Mobile OS launched, although I prefer their Ubuntu on Android implementation.
Gary Shapiro’s conclusions on CES 2013
Posted by – January 24, 2013
Category: Exclusive videos, CES
Gary Shapiro is the President and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association, the organizers of the Consumer Electronics Show CES. He says that CES 2013 has been the best CES ever. They call CES the center stage for innovation.
My only complaint (other than them closing the press room at 6:30pm, do they expect us to upload and publish all our videos filmed during the day in only half an hour?) is that I had nowhere near enough time to see everything. All 3300 exhibitors, 800 people speaking, so many different conferences and other related things around CES, tons of company’s private meeting rooms also showing off so many things. By the next year’s CES, maybe I can find a way to optimize my video-blogging further, somehow get the time to film more than the 75 videos that I’ve posted.
OLPC XO Tablet, XO Learning System launched
Posted by – January 24, 2013
Giulia D’Amico, Vice President of Business Development at One Laptop per Child Association (OLPCA) launches the OLPC XO Learning System, a user interface optimized for Children’s learning on Android Tablets. Vivitar is licencing XO Learning to launch their first OLPC XO Tablet in all WalMart stores in the USA by the end of Spring 2013. The initial Vivitar OLPC XO tablet features a 1.6Ghz dual-core (my guess Rockchip RK3066), 1024×600 screen, and the price is going to be very competitive (perhaps $99?), the target for WalMart is to reach all the Children in the USA in the next few months with this OLPC XO Tablet.
Every child has dreams and XO Learning directs the child’s passion, creativity and energy for these dreams into a new user interface that has 12 dreams. Such dreams include “I want to be” an artist, a musician and a scientist. Each dream features a rich learning experience and applications, books, games and videos that allow children ages 3 to 12 to naturally explore their dreams and learn at the same time.
“The challenge in computing and education is to use the technology to develop new ways for children to learn. The rich content of the dreams allows the child’s natural passion to be directed into learning experiences,” said Giulia D’Amico, the lead designer of XO Learning. OLPCA teamed with the legendary designer Yves Behar of Fuse Project and his team to create the XO Learning user interface and cover.
The content in XO Learning has been curated and selected for age-appropriateness and learning value by OLPCA, in collaboration with Common Sense Media, the leading non-profit organization dedicated to helping parents and teachers make informed decisions about media. Common Sense Media offers more than 18,000 media ratings and reviews based on both robust educational research and child development guidelines. XO Learning also offers a full range of parental controls and user IDs for up to three children, a dashboard where the child or the parent can review usage, types of content and the skills the child is developing. Press a single icon and XO Learning switches from English to Spanish with all new content depending on the language. Additional languages will be available in future releases.
press release
Read more at: xo-learning.org
OLPC XO-4 Touch Unboxing
Giulia D’Amico, OLPC Vice President of Business Development, unboxes and talks about the all-new XO-4 Touch One Laptop Per Child laptop, featuring the new Marvell Armada PXA2128 dual-core 1.2Ghz 40nm processor, Marvell 8787 WiFi chip and the Neonode IR Touch touchscreen technology. The OLPC XO-4 Touch now also features a HDMI output. Currently still running Fedora Linux based Sugar OS, the OLPC is thinking to port Sugar to Android to use on all OLPC Laptop/Tablet devices during 2013. Thus far, OLPC has shipped over 2.8 Million Laptops to children in schools worldwide. Australia is going to be the first country to deploy over 55 thousand OLPC XO-4 Touch laptop/tablets in the months to come.
Marvell presents OLPC XO-4 Touch and $30 Smile Plug Server for Schools
Marvell shows off the new OLPC XO-4 powered by the Marvell PXA2128 dual-core 1.2Ghz, Marvell 8787, and uses Neonode IR touch screen technology to thus add touch functionality to the One Laptop Per Child XO-4 laptop. Performance is thus increased and battery life further improved by using this latest 40nm process node Marvell ARM Processor in the upgrade.
The XO 4.0 is powered by the Marvell ARMADA PXA2128. Optimized by ARM v7 high-performance mobile processors with Hybrid-SMP technology at up to 1.2GHz, the PXA2128 reduces power consumption by roughly half and enables an extended battery life thanks to a low-power mobile (LPM) processor.
Features of the Marvell ARMADA PXA2128 include:
Marvell optimized ARM®v7 dual High-Performance Mobile (HPM) processors with Hybrid-SMP technology at up 1.2GHz
Architecturally matched ARMv7 Low-Power Mobile (LPM) processor optimized with Hybrid-SMP technology for extended battery life
Dual-channel independent memory controllers (LPDDR2 or DDR3/DDR3L)
Multiple power islands, dynamic voltage/frequency scaling, clock and power gating and standby modes
Powerful hardware accelerators for 2D/3D graphics, 1080p video, HiFi audio codecs and camera ISP
Dedicated security engine with hardware keys, secure memory and ARM® TrustZone® for secure boot and cryptographyMarvell’s Avastar 88W8787 delivers the wireless performance and range that will make the XO 4.0 a connected learning experience. Designed for both simultaneous and independent operation of the following:
IEEE 802.11a/g/b and 802.11n payload data rates for Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN)
Bluetooth 3.0 + High Speed (HS) (also compliant with Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR)
FM transmit and receive (digital encoder/decoder FM radio with RDS/RBDS)
The device supports the 802.11i security standard through implementation of the AES/CCMP, WEP with TKIP, AES/CMAC, and WLAN WAPI security mechanisms
Panasonic 4K Camcorder, 20.4″ 4K and 47″ 4K IPSa Displays
Posted by – January 24, 2013
Pansonic is showing off their 4K Camcorder prototype, displaying real-time 4K 30fps video to their 20.4″ prototype 4K IPS alpha LCD display, they are also showing playback of recorded 4K video to their 47″ 4K prototype IPS alpha LCD display.
$99 WiMe Smart Watch NanoSmart NanoPhone NanoWatch
Posted by – January 24, 2013
Check out the $99 (retail MSRP) http://www.wime.tw NanoPhone that can be used as the NanoWatch wrist watch. It connects to your Smartphone using Bluetooth and it can also use its own built-in GPRS SIM card modem. The Wime NanoWatch does not run Android, but its embedded Linux OS synchronizes with Android: “Smart advisor that will remind you the new SMS, miss call, Gmail of your android smart phone”. They gave me a review sample, I’ll try to post a video review in the days/weeks to come. I’ll try to figure out exactly what kind of features work yet in sychronization with my Bluetooth Android devices. Let me know in the comments what I should try to test on it.
Cubify 3D Printing ecosystem by 3D Systems, create and share 3D mockups
Posted by – January 22, 2013
3D Printing is being hyped by some bloggers as possibly enabling some type of peer-to-peer device printing revolution. I’m not totally sure about that. But as all the worlds consumer electronics and pretty much everything that we use in our lives most likely has been 3D printed while the industrial designers, architects and all creative creators think up, design, improve upon all the devices that we use. Upcoming new more affordable 3D Printers such as Cubify’s $1299 Cube 3D printer, printing in PLA or ABS plastics, allows more people to take part in the process of thinking up, 3D printing all types of mockup, molds, 3D print basic forms that possibly also can be used in certain basic circumstance.
MHL at CES 2013
Posted by – January 22, 2013
The MHL Consortium (Mobile High-Definition Link) shows some of the latest uses for the MHL connector, using Micro-USB to output to HDMI and charge at the same time. Providing up to 7.1 audio and 1080p video. HDMI sticks like the Roku Streaming Stick can charge through the MHL connector.
Eken shows $148 Allwinner A31 quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 Tablet
MOQ 1000 is $148 with a 1280×800 screen, they show 11.6″ prototype, $140 Remote controlled quad-copter drone with camera and self balancing (similar to Parrot) with support for WiFi and Bluetooth Android and iOS remote control, $122 9.7″ RK3066, $102 10.1″ 1280×800 VIA8850, $76 7″ 1024×600 IPS RK3066, A31 9.7″ and more. Eken sells about 150 thousand tablets per month. They also sell 600-700 thousand tablet PCBs per month to other small to medium sized Chinese tablet manufacturers.
World Wide Touch Technology (Holdings) Limited shows FingerQ PrivacQ Biometric Fingerprint platform for encrypted chatting
Posted by – January 22, 2013
World Wide Touch Technology (Holdings) Limited shows their Biometric Fingerprint platform for encrypted chatting. Including an Android smartphone cover case that includes such biometric fingerprint reader.
