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.
This is an Interview with Rajeev Kumar, consumer product line manager for Freescale’s Multimedia Applications Division, demonstrating the first prototype reference design board running the first sample of Freescale’s new i.MX 6Quad processor platform. This is the industry’s first Quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 SoC combined with a full 64bit memory bus. I try to ask Rajeev Kumar about the performance, the features, the design. They use triple-play graphics designed in partnership with Vivante. Look forward to more videos here on http://ARMdevices.net about the i.MX 6 processor.
They make algorithms for measuring pedestrian navigation, using the Freescale Fusion sensors, accelerometers, gyro, to measure every step and the distance of every step. The target device is a smartphone.
William Hohl is ARM’s Worldwide University Relations Manager, he talks about what ARM does for universities worldwide, for students to learn to work on ARM technologies, working on curriculum and tools suggestions and standardization.
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?
Using Freescale’s Sensor Fusion solutions, the accelerometer and some algorithms can improve the magnetometer as so-called e-compass, an improved compass that knows in which direction you are heading, speed things up for augmented reality, and any application that requires the compass.
If you have heard about any awesome stuff to be shown at the FTF, any cool companies that you think that I should interview, please post your tips here in the comments or send me your tips at charbax@gmail.com or on the Submit news page.
Freescale is one of the manufacturers partnering with ARM on making the new Cortex-M4 type of processors, Freescale calls them the Kinetis Cortex-M4 Microcontrollers. Cortex-M4 may help to enable to connect all things to the internet, such as the oven, the fridge, motors, medical and industrial applications. It’s something about adding DSP and programmable features into cheap Microcontrollers that may be put into all devices to help connect them to the Internet for cheap. Do you have some good ideas of what Cortex-M4 will be used for in the market? Write in the comments.
In this video, Jerone Young, Partner Engineer at Canonical explains the status of software optimizations and development to make ARM Powered Laptops and Desktops a reality. He tells about some of the fascinating challenges where Canonical is working together with the their partners at the Linaro group of companies (ARM, Freescale, IBM, Samsung, ST Ericsson, Texas Instruments…) to realize a full desktop experience on ARM Powered devices, including full and fast web browsing and full access to most of the most useful Ubuntu applications.
It’s about hardware acceleration, about standardization of boot process and other aspects of the ARM platforms, this is about focusing development efforts to solve the most important challenges and provide thus open source and free software tools to be used by all ARM Powered Linux based products. With faster memory bus speeds coming up in the next generation of Desktop-centric ARM Processors, such as support for DDR3 RAM speeds, the implementation of multiple cores as in upcoming ARM Cortex A9 processors, the standardization of how to use graphics and video hardware acceleration to speed up user interfaces, applications and features. Those are the challenges that Canonical and its partners are working very hard on and plan to implement in actual products that can start to be sold to the mass market during these coming months.
As you have been able to see in hundreds of videos here on ARMdevices.net, many, many prototypes of ARM Powered laptops are being shown at trade shows. Huge laptop makers like HP, Toshiba, Dell, Lenovo, Quanta, Compal, Inventec, Pegatron, all of those and many more have shown or have announced ARM Powered laptop projects. Yet to actually launch these to a very large market, the ARM Partners are first collaboratively making sure that those devices provide a user experience that is fast enough for most consumers.
ABI Research releases forecasts on ARM Powered laptops, tablets, they correctly predicted the 2009 netbook sales and have many other research papers, reports and forecasts out. In this video, we discuss the growth of Android vs the iOS devices, we discuss the potential of tablets, smartbooks, the possible disruption of Telecom business models. Cheaper ARM Powered smartphones and other devices.
R.Colin Johnson, Technology Editor at http://eetimes.com offers his impressions on the Freescale Technology Forum. The launch of the new Freescale Xtrinsic sensors, Cortex M4 and more. Check more videos he filmed of the first day keynotes at FTF at his blog: http://nextgenlog.tv
Imagine not needing a power button to turn on your phone, just pick it up. Imagine cheaper warranty as manufacturers will know when devices were damaged because of usage error such as fall or banging. Imagine new user interfaces that are much more relying on sensors as the new Freescale Xtrinsic sensors can measure stuff 2000 times per second (the bandwidth and architecture being better). Imagine also sensors combining their abilities through fusion, again, no need to wake up the main ARM processor of the device to do all kinds of things! Imagine the device knowing exactly how it is touched, how it is moved, how it is held, the touch is not anymore only on the screen! This means better battery usage, months maybe even years of seamless standby. The new Xtrinsic sensor only needs 12 micro amps of power to be turned on all the time!
So this is what Windows Compact Embedded 7 looks like! The unskinned version of WinCE7 looks basically quite a lot like WinCE6, but perhaps this new version of Windows CE has got some new optimizations to use ARM Cortex A8 and the more advanced hardware acceleration fully. And perhaps Windows CE 7 is meant to receive layers of customized user interfaces put on top of it, like Windows Phone 7 Series and like other potential UIs that partners of Microsoft surely are working on. Can this be considered an alternative to Windows 7 for ARM processors? I don’t know. How much can it really do?
Freescale is one of the leaders in putting processors and technology into cars. Freescale has put as much technology as they can on this concept car to showcase what we might see in the future out of the automotive industry.
