Category: CES

Seco srl presents Pico Projector in a Lamp concept

Posted by Charbax – January 7, 2011
Category: Projectors, Other, Exclusive videos, Texas Instruments, CES, Android

Check this out cause it’s actually awesome. This is a concept device, integrating a Texas Instruments OMAP3530 processor platform running Android, WiFi, Bluetooth, into a lamp that takes power from any lamp. It’s a lamp, but it projects Android and apps to the wall, any video. Find more information about Seco at http://seco.it

Seco Q7 OMAP4 dual-core module

Posted by Charbax – January 7, 2011
Category: Other, Exclusive videos, Texas Instruments, CES, Android, Windows

This is the first OMAP4 dual-core module for the embedded form factor market for theindustrial environment for the mobile and automotive markets. Thanks to Seco’s pression on the q7 consortium, people can now swap the x86 module for an ARM architecture, it works for Windows, Android and Linux OS. Find more information at http://www.seco.it/

Freescale Powered MyFord Touch

Posted by Charbax – January 7, 2011
Category: Cars, Other, Exclusive videos, Freescale, CES, Windows

Freescale is powering the Ford Sync system called MyFord Touch, there is an i.MX51 processor in there and Windows CE based user interfaces and features providing in-car system for the Ford cars. This type of ARM Powered solution for the car, voice activated, is becoming a large part of what allows car makers to differentiate their cars in the market.

Motorola Atrix 4G

Posted by Charbax – January 6, 2011
Category: Laptops, Smartphones, Nvidia, CES, Android

Here’s an interview with the Product manager on Motorola Atrix 4G, Seang Chau, where he talks about how it was designed and how it works. This may be the coolest ARM Powered device ever shown at CES, Motorola promotes this as a full Laptop replacement! Yeah!

Microsoft shows full Windows for ARM Powered devices

Posted by Charbax – January 6, 2011
Category: Laptops, Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, Nvidia, CES, Windows

Check this out. This is the full Windows on ARM platforms developed by Texas Instruments, Qualcomm and Nvidia. Microsoft demonstrates a recompiled version of Microsoft Office for ARM, some other apps, talks about how it will support all the apps on ARM, this is awesome.

Honeycomb user interface demo

Posted by Charbax – January 6, 2011
Category: Tablets, Exclusive videos, Nvidia, CES, Archos, Android

I’m not really supposed to try to film this, but here it is. I try to click around in this pre-release Honeycomb Motorola Xoom tablet pre-production prototype instead of only letting it play the animated prepared UI videos from the gallery. Google is doing some awesome work in making software optimized for tablets. Like Archos has been doing it, they decided there’s no need for hardware Android buttons on Tablets. Other aspects of this UI suggests UI design that’s really being designed for high resolution touch screen devices.

Nvidia Project Denver

Posted by Charbax – January 6, 2011
Category: Exclusive videos, Nvidia, CES

Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang announces Nvidia Project Denver. Nvidia is investing big time in ARM Processor development. As Tegra1 and Tegra2 have already been quite huge contribution to the ARM ecosystem, now Nvidia is announcing it’s next big project called Project Denver, to build ARM Processors not only for Mobile Computing applications, but also for full desktop computing, cloud computing servers and even for super computers.

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Nvidia’s Mike Rayfield talks Project Denver, Tegra2 devices

Posted by Charbax – January 6, 2011
Category: Exclusive videos, Nvidia, CES

Do you wonder what’s the status of software on the Toshiba AC100, what delayed Tegra2 devices, what to expect from Nvidia Project Denver? Mike Rayfield, General Product Manager of the mobile business unit at Nvidia provides some informations on these things and more. I’ll look for much more informations at the manufacturers booths in the coming days.

Samsung Infuse 4G at CES 2011

Posted by Charbax – January 6, 2011
Category: Smartphones, Exclusive videos, Samsung, CES, Android

For now they don’t want to show the new Super Amoled Plus screen yet. And they don’t say on this video if this uses a new Honeycomb or the ARM Cortex-A9 Orion processor already.

LG Smart TV to be ARM Powered

Posted by Charbax – January 6, 2011
Category: Set-top-boxes, Exclusive videos, CES

Interview with a product manager of LG Smart TV about the processor used and software features of LG Smart TV. It may be priced closer to the ARM Powered Apple TV than the Intel Powered Google TV, to be confirmed.

Historic day for ARM

Posted by Charbax – January 6, 2011
Category: CES

Thank you Motorola. Thanks Microsoft. Today is a very fun day for ARM fans at CES.

I am still trying to calm down after the insanely awesome demonstration of full screen HD firefox multi-tab web browsing on Android in the fantastic Motorola Atrix 4G, HD Docking, 3 USB hosts, Laptop Dock, wow.

Microsoft is showing real Windows 7/8 UIs on the ARM solutions of Texas Instruments, Qualcomm and Nvidia.

LG makes an ARM Powered Smart TV to compete with Google TV and Apple TV.

I have video of honeycomb.

I’ve seen the Acer tablet in the halls, heard fun things about the Asus Tablet, Samsung shows an interesting Super Amoled Plus 4.5″ 1.2Ghz (Orion yet?) super phone.

Nvidia launches Project Denver ARM Platform for whole range of devices from mobile computing up to super computing, stuns media.

All this and CES hasn’t even really started yet! Tomorrow is going to be an even much more busier day with 2500 booths opening up.

I have 6GB of videos of all these awesome ARM related announcements, devices and interviews in my camera, but Las Vegas seems to not have any Internet Bandwidth to let me upload these files. Same problem as last year. Treasure Island barely uploads 40kb/s on ethernet, Sahara hotel’s $15/night ethernet in the room is even lower speed basically stalls any attempt at uploading videos. Venetian hotel does not provide WiFi internet access and the US 3G/4G/LTE/WiMax Mifis or USB dongles are not providing enough bandwidth to upload videos. The blogger press room is the only chance to get the videos uploaed, so please check back tomorrow for these videos and many more.

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Lenovo LePad Qualcomm Snapdragon Tablet U1 that docks in Intel core i5 laptop

Posted by Charbax – January 5, 2011
Category: Tablets, Laptops, Exclusive videos, Qualcomm, Intel, CES, Android, Windows

The Lenovo ARM Powered tablet is $500 and the optional Intel laptop dock part is something like $800. Lenovo had shown this last year with a previous Snapdragon and Thunderbird’s customized Ubuntu Linux on the ARM part which I filmed then, but now they updated the ARM part to Android 2.2 on Qualcomm’s 8X50A is 1.3ghz 45nm processor (which they might upgrade to Qualcomm’s dual-core processor by the time this tablet comes out with Android Honeycomb), they say it’ll upgrade to Honeycomb, and it uses Lenovo’s LeAndroid UI layer (similar to LePhone UI that is available on the Chinese market, notice Paul Otelinni at Lenovo’s Aquanox party in the background of my last year’s LePhone video) as default home replacement.

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Toshiba Tegra2 Tablet at CES 2011

Posted by Charbax – January 5, 2011
Category: Tablets, Exclusive videos, Nvidia, CES, Android

Unnamed for now, it’ll be released once Honeycomb is open sourced and available for others than Motorola for implementation. It’s got a 1280×800 capacitive 10.1″ touch screen, 5 megapixel camera and more. It’s being developed by a different group at Toshiba than the one working on the Folio-100 tablet that I filmed at IFA about 4 months ago.

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Welcome to Las Vegas CES 2011 coverage

Posted by Charbax – January 5, 2011
Category: Exclusive videos, CES

Subscribe to my YouTube channel and refresh my RSS feed for lots of awesome upcoming CES 2011 video coverage of the best ARM Powered devices to be shown. The CES Unveiled event starts in a few minutes, expect a bunch of videos from there.

Expectations for CES next week

Posted by Charbax – December 30, 2010
Category: Opinions, CES, Archos, Google, Pixel Qi

Between January 3rd and 11th, I am going to video-blog from CES 2011, make sure to often refresh my RSS feed and/or subscribe to my YouTube channel, (at last year’s CES I published 75 videos), I’ll try to feature the coolest ARM Powered devices that I can find at the show.

Have you got any scoop or ideas for what I should video-blog at CES? What questions would you like me to ask the representatives of which specific companies? If you read on any other blogs about any interesting products showing at this CES, please post your suggestions for what I should film here in the comments of this post. You can also send me an email: charbax@gmail.com or you can even sms/call me or leave a voicemail between January 3rd and 11th at my US phone number +1 (702) 238 8630 (only active when I am in the USA).

Here are some of the things I am expecting or hoping to video-blog at CES:

– Lots of Froyo, Gingerbread and Honeycomb stuff. Android in everything!

– Several dual-core tablets are rumored. Nvidia’s Tegra2 is rumored could be one of the stars of the show, rumored to be the “reference design” for Honeycomb. Sounds great, but I am also looking forward to all the other upcoming Dual-Core ARM Processor platforms and I am wondering if products featuring these will be shown at this CES already.

– How soon are the Dual-Core smart phones and tablets being released and at what prices? Will LG, Samsung, Motorola or other present phones at CES to beat Nexus S already?

– ARM Powered Chrome OS Laptops and Google TV Set-top-boxes, I will be looking for the first clues of these products.

– Tablets, more tablets? Any new design features to allow tablets to be used more for productivity? Are some Honeycomb designs like Archos without the hardware Android buttons? Designs with foldable/swivel keyboards?

– Pixel Qi 7″, 10.1″, big OEM announcements? Hopefully these LCD screens will be ready for Kindle-LCD, ipad2, samsung galaxy tab2 and more hopefully mass manufactured and everywhere within the next 3 months.

– Texas Instruments next generation nHD pico projector in all kinds of phones, tablets and other devices at CES? Or not to be shown before February at Mobil World Congress? I’d like to see this type of pico projector be used together with sensors to detect when touching in user interfaces projected for example on a table (see my video of a table-pico-projector prototype UI demonstrated at CeBIT 2007), this could turn any ARM Powered device, even pocketable, into a large screen computing device.

– New ARM Powered platforms for cheaper and better smart phones, tablets and laptops? Rockchip may show ARM Cortex-A8 RK29xx, Broadcom may show BCM2157 for sub-$75 Android phones, is it time for VIA and Telechips to show new faster or/and cheaper solutions for new cooler low-cost Tablets, Laptops and Set-top-boxes?

– Are the new ARM Processors capable of full 1080p at up to 60fps with full high profile and full high bitrates of every codecs?

– Nintendo 3DS is coming in February/March, any other manufacturers to mass manufacture products to use that parallax barrier 3D screen from Sharp that doesn’t require 3D glasses?

– Are ARM Powered NAS boxes and Pogoplugs/Sheevaplugs going to be powerful enough to download and seed BitTorrents at full speed, allow for full speed gigabit LAN file sharing even on the cheaper solutions?

– How much is going to be LTE, how soon and are anyone showing anything to do with White Spaces yet? How soon could that be deployed and at which cost and with what range and authentication features?

– I’d like to see Sanyo release a HD3000 with WiFi/Bluetooth and optics and sensors closer to that of a DSLR. Or it will be interesting to see more DSLR type optics and sensors in more video camcorders and see how affordable those setups can become. It seems Sony, Panasonic and all other major camera makers are going in that direction for the next generation of best HD camcorders.

Please post your expecations/hopes in the comments or send me an email!

Pixel Qi partners with CPT for mass manufacturing dual-mode screens

Posted by Charbax – December 21, 2010
Category: Displays, CES, Pixel Qi, OLPC

Pixel Qi and CPT are preparing 3 different screen sizes to be mass manufactured in 2011, including a 7″ 1024×600 design that will be shown early January at CES in Las Vegas.

CPT has a monthly production capacity of 40 million LCD screens. That’s 480 million LCD screens per year. How much of these are going to be Pixel Qi types is to be seen. CPT is the worlds second largest manufacturer of mid-size (4.8″-11.6″) LCD screens (behind CMI).

I’m hoping that the 3 sizes that they are working on are 4.8″ or 5″, 7″ and 10.1″, sizes which I think are the best for Tablet and E-reader use. 4.8″ or 5″ being the largest to fit in normal pockets (passport sized), 7″ the largest to fit in jacket pockets and 10″ being current top Tablet and about the size of an A4 page. But I also think 11.6″ or 12.1″ screen size like the one Google wants for Chrome OS notebooks could also be a good size.

This alliance started early last summer when CPT showed a transflective screen of its own design at a Taiwanese trade show. Discussions between the two companies at that show made it apparent that Pixel Qi and CPT should work together to bring stronger product to market faster. A close alliance was formed and the teams have been working together quietly all fall. They have created samples of a 7” 1024×600 screens scheduled for mass production in early Q2 2011, which will be first publically shown at the CES 2011 exhibition in Las Vegas in early January 2011. This represents an expansion of Pixel Qi’s manufacturing strength beyond its first LCD manufacturing partner who has been shipping Pixel Qi’s 10” screen.

These dual-mode reflective and transflective LCD screens are crucial to realize the combination of Tablet and E-reader into one product. Without this type of screen, I don’t believe tablets can be used for reading books as backlights are not meant for reading, and for e-readers to use LCD also makes them more versatile thus also including all the tablet functions into one same product. Most importantly, this screen technology improves battery runtime for ARM Powered devices considerably, as in a 10″ ARM Powered tablet or laptop, the backlight probably consumes about 80% of the devices overall power, consider thus a screen that can work without a backlight or with a lower backlight intensity, and you have a battery runtime multiplied by as much as 5x in that same product. Thus an ARM Powered Tablet or Laptop that had 10 hours battery runtime on a regular backlit LCD may have up to 50 hours using this type of screen. Thus also making this screen absolutely crucial for projects like OLPC and the Indian education $35 tablet project if they want to make it viable that these devices can be used places where there isn’t a lot of power.

Source: pixelqi.com/blog1/

Google TV devices “delayed”, may not show at CES

Posted by Charbax – December 20, 2010
Category: Set-top-boxes, Opinions, CES, Google, Google TV

The New York Times reports Toshiba, LG, Sharp, Samsung and Vizio have Google TV projects going, that they may have been all planning to unveil those at CES but that Google may have asked them to delay their unveiling until next software update including full Google Marketplace support is ready. Samsung may still show a couple Google TV devices at CES, Toshiba has confirmed they won’t, Vizio might show some Google TV stuff but only privately and maybe not to be blogged about.

So Google faces challenges in getting American TV networks to agree to allow them to stream TV shows from the web on the Google TV platform. I have estimated that if Google and Adobe wanted, if the negociations with US TV networks wouldn’t lead to a solution, that they could unleash a software update to present both the browser and the flash plugin as “User Agent: Generic” making detection by US TV networks impossible and thus forcing them to either remove online TV streaming completely or just regard Google TV as same user terminal as any “normal” laptop or desktop computer.

So let’s assume Google TV will have only a limited showing at CES, perhaps Google is trying to coordinate a giant unveiling of second phase of Google TV at CeBIT in March, by that time, more of the major manufacturers could present boxes, Google would present not only Google Marketplace and smoother software integration, they could launch world wide Google TV support (not limited to US anymore), they could also, as suggested by Tudor Brown ARM President last month, present cheaper ARM Powered Google TV devices such as the concept of a $99 ARM Powered Google TV box.

The $99 ARM Powered Google TV set-top-box is an important target, as that makes it affordable enough that everyone will buy one, providing full performance for 1080p YouTube streaming and the HDMI pass-through and IR blaster features, it would provide for the perfect platform to revolutionize TV.

OLPC XO-3 unbreakable Pixel Qi to show after CES

Posted by Charbax – November 3, 2010
Category: Tablets, Marvell, CES, Pixel Qi, OLPC

OLPC is working to design an unbreakable screen and thus may not have the XO-3 prototypes ready to show at CES in January. Marvell and its partners will likely have lots of tablets to show by then though. An unbreakable and sunlight readable Pixel Qi screen is an important feature of the XO-3 to make it a viable option for developing countries, as well as its abilities to be used for full productivity and for fast text input.

Source: pcworld.com

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

Tim Sweeney talks about Unreal Engine on ARM Powered devices

Posted by Charbax – January 25, 2010
Category: Tablets, Laptops, Smartphones, Set-top-boxes, Software, Exclusive videos, Nvidia, CES, Android

Tim Sweeney is the founder of Epic Games, he is in charge of the Unreal Tournament, Gears of War and plenty more very famous game franchises. But not only does his company make games, Epic makes the most famous and most popular 3D game engines on which hundreds of other games all over the industry are based on.

Now the Unreal engine is being launched for the Nvidia Tegra2 processor and has been showcased to run on other OpenGL ES based ARM Powered devices like the ipod touch.

In this interview, I ask when we will see Android devices with support for the Unreal Engine, and how many games does he think will work on all these ARM Powered devices that have the advanced 3D acceleration built-in.

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