Category: Tradeshows

Freescale Tablet strategy at Computex 2011

Posted by – June 2, 2011

Freescale is still showing just the i.MX51 and i.MX53 platforms at Computex, but this time, they emphasize the aspect of customizing tablets for niche uses, kind of providing for the long tail of the tablet market. Especially in the Chinese market, which could amount to 7 million tablets this year alone, Freescale has a pretty significant market share.

Qualcomm’s Dual-core is asynchronous, demonstrated at Computex 2011

Posted by – June 2, 2011

Qualcomm now has their dual-core super fast ARM processor in several products shown at this trade show, they demonstrate how they suggest that thekir asynchronous implementation is superior to competing Dual-core implementations, anyone got some benchmarks?

Nufront Cortex-A9 Tablet and Desktop reference designs at Computex 2011

Posted by – June 2, 2011

They say that they can make a 2Ghz ARM Cortex-A9 Dual-core now, but for now they are demonstrating it at lower clock speeds on an Android tablet, an Ubuntu laptop and an all-in-one Ubuntu 11.4 desktop example.

Wyse T50 Thin Client on Marvell Armada 510 presented by Canonical Ubuntu

Posted by – June 2, 2011

Wyse T50 is an Ubuntu Core powered thin client device, it is powered by Marvell Armada 510 (1Ghz). It features DVI, Ethernet, 4 usb host ports and an sd-card slot.

A further update on Linaro status at Computex 2011


At Computex 2011, Linaro gave an update on their status, with some new technical demos showing graphics and other hardware acceleration that thy are working on.

7″ Honeycomb Viewsonic 7x shown at Computex 2011

Posted by – June 2, 2011

ViewSonic is showing their new Tegra2 based 7″ capacitive Android Honeycomb tablet, with a layer of their own vertical-only custom UI on top. The price is going to be $449 for the WiFi version and $529 for the 3G version when it gets released.

$60 Cortex-A9 Android Set-top-box

Posted by – June 1, 2011

The price is a bulk price, at least 300 pieces need to be ordered, does not include the chosen remote controller that can go from a couple dollars to twenty dollars depending on what type of remote control is used. Also there are different memory and other components that can be configured. Most importantly is the idea to communicate that an ARM Cortex-A9 powered set-top-box could potentially run Google TV basic for ARM as soon as that one is released. It depends if Google decides to support their Google TV implementation on the AmLogic 800Mhz single core implementation, it depends if Google is interested at all in supporting HDMI-out only until their open source Ice Cream Sandwich and allow everyone to make whichever Google TV on ARM implementations they want anyways.

Hands-on with Nvidia Kal-El Quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 1.2Ghz (or more) prototype tablet at Computex 2011

Posted by – June 1, 2011

This is Nvidia’s next generation Quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 implementation that will be clocked at the minimum at 1.2Ghz but could be clocked higher by the time they start shipping these, with 12x faster graphics compared to Tegra2, huge video decode power at something that might look like Quad-HD video decoding. In this video I try to launch some of the early demonstration apps, animations and games that Nvidia uses to showcase their Kal-El performance in that prototype tablet.

Acer Iconia Smart, 4.8″ 1024×480 wide screen Android Smartphone

Posted by – June 1, 2011

Acer I think makes pretty cool Android phones that cover low end but also like this one pretty differentiated high-end in the Android smartphone space. This is the first time I see this aspect ratio in a 4.8″ capacitive LCD screen, nice.

Honeycomb is shown on the Intel Oak Trail Atom at Computex 2011

Posted by – June 1, 2011

Here I filmed a video with one of Intel’s software product managers who worked on porting Android Honeycomb over to the Intel Atom platform. Those reference tablets shown at Computex 2011, they are heavy, hot, fat, battery runtime is probably short while battery is much larger, some seem to run really slow through the UI, they are probably expensive. Though it’s interesting that after Google TV, Chromebook, Google is also not making it impossible for Intel to try to do whatever they can to try to keep up with change. I’ve tried to ask some Intel people if they plan to licence the ARM architechture, or/and to start manufacturing ARM Processors for Apple, Sony or others, and they seem to tell me that why not, could be possible, just rumors, but who knows..

Gigabyte Gsmart G1310, G1315 and G1317D Android phones launched

Posted by – June 1, 2011

Those are using the cheap Qualcomm MSM7225 platform with dual-sim card support for one 3G sim card and one 2G sim card. Thus this type of phone, that could start retailing at $220 unlocked or that could be sold for even cheaper locked on pre-paid plans could be great to be used as a combination of basic Android smartphone, Mifi, using a cheap 3G data sim card and at the same time being used as your basic phone for your cheap pre-paid phone number. Gigabyte are first launching these in some eastern european countries.

Texas Instruments OMAP4430 Memory Bandwidth, Desktop Computing performance

Posted by – May 31, 2011

They can do Android on the phone and at the same time output Ubuntu on a HDTV or Computer monitor. In this video, TI answers some of the questions regarding the OMAP4430’s memory bandwidth for desktop computing level of performance in web browsing and other apps as well as other details about the status of this platform for use to run a full desktop/laptop OS. TI also claims to have the best Flash support, doing up to 1080p Flash video in the Android browser just software based today on OMAP4430, and Flash 11 for Honeycomb coming out in August or September should be taking full use of GPU hardware acceleration providing even smoother Flash support. OMAP4460 is the platform that TI currently is using with Google for TI’s full Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich support working on fully optimizing hardware and software.

HD Video Conferencing on Texas Instruments OMAP4430


Wow awesome. A few years ago I would film the HD video conferencing solutions that required $15 thousand setups (Lifesize, Sony Ipela, Cisco Telepresence..), now TI is showing HD video-conferencing that works on your next ARM Powered smartphone or tablet. Just connect your smartphone to your HDTV, use WiFi is available, but even over 3G and LTE, with just 512kbit/s you can do 720p video-conferencing on SIP or Skype, and with 1mbit/s upload or more you can even do 1080p video-conferencing using the latest OMAP4460 platform. This also can support up to 8 simultaneous videos. Sorry, but I am pretty much amazed. Soon enough, HD video-conferencing using just cheap ARM Powered devices will be a piece of cake.

Full Netflix support on Texas Instruments OMAP4430

Posted by – May 31, 2011

Texas Instruments supports the full required security features to support Netflix HD on an ARM Powered device. They are the first to showcase it.

Citadel 3D game on the OMAP4430

Posted by – May 31, 2011

Citadel is a very advanced 3D technology demo, it can be regarded as a way to benchmark the 3D performance of devices. So here it has been ported to the Texas Instruments OMAP4430 processor with SGX540 to showcase how advanced the 3D is that it can support.

VIA WonderMedia Prizm WM8710 ARM11 Gingerbread solution

Posted by – May 31, 2011

VIA’s subsidiary WonderMedia launches this new ARM11 platform for tablets, with a new much faster DSP for improved video playback, improved UI responsiveness, better graphics and 3D, the target still being to cheap low cost tablets which is a rapidly expanding market.

VIA WonderMedia SmartStream WiFi Direct to HDMI output

Posted by – May 31, 2011

VIA’s subsidiary WonderMedia is doing this ARM9 based platform to stream screen content to your HDTV wirelessly using WiFi Direct technology. It sounds like it ccould be a cheap way to wirelessly connect your Laptop, Tablet, even Smartphone to your HDTV without needing a cable. I wonder how WiFi Direct compresses stuff and how it manages high bitrate HD video, advanced 3D games and other such stuff.

Pixel Qi launches 10.1″ super thin 1280×800 screen

Posted by – May 31, 2011

Here’s a new comparison between Pixel Qi and the iPad followed by Mary Lou Jepsen’s status report on the latest Pixel Qi news, their first showing of the new 1280×800 thinner 10.1″ wide view screen.

MHL now in several phones at Computex 2011

Posted by – May 31, 2011

Mobile High-Definition Link (MHL) is now presented in several of the newest coolest smartphones and Tablets, including the Samsung Galaxy S2, HTC Sensation, HTC Flyer, Samsung Infuse, HTC Evo 3D, HTC Evo View 4G and more are going to be released soon.

Asus Memo, worlds first 7″ Honeycomb, they make it 3D even

Posted by – May 31, 2011

Check out this awesome 7″ Honeycomb UI, they had to put a 1280×800 7″ screen to support the current Honeycomb software, that’s the first time I see such high pixel density in a 7″ screen. Honeycomb will be further customized for 7″ and smaller screens, as they will resize icons so they get to be big enough for smaller screens, and all kinds of other screen size optimizations that Google and their partners are working on. The Asus Mimic is a cool Bluetooth headset basically, but feels more like an external mobile phone. You can dial on your tablet and talk in the bluetooth phone. I really like the idea of improving the Bluetooth accessories to function with 7″ tablets that thus can stay in the jacket pocket when you receive calls or when you dial numbers. For some reason, Asus does not want to release this product with a normal 2D screen, they want to wait and ship it with this 3D parallax barrier 7″ IPS screen. Let’s hope that does not add too much cost, thickness and weight and other worse screen quality artifacts to this otherwise pretty awesome 1280×800 7″ screen experience.