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Robert Scoble is one of the most influential bloggers on the web, he gives us an update and explanation on Quora, Android vs Apple, his Davos videos and more.
You can watch Robert Scoble’s pretty cool Lift presentation about the current status of Silicon Valley startups and tech companies in following video. Scroll forward to timecode: 1 hour 1 minute for Robert Scoble’s keynote (if anyone knows how to embed this video with deep link for starting at that time code, please post in the comments):
After the awesome CES last month, I expect an even better Mobile World Congress, from February 13-18th, I will post at least 50 videos here on http://ARMdevices.net showing you the best ARM Powered devices shown at that show. Here are some of the fascinating topics that I expect to film:
– Samsung’s ARM Cortex-A9 Orion processor with ARM Mali-400 graphics in Samsung Galaxy S2, Samsung Galaxy Tab2. Is it a 32nm process design already?
– Freescale to show first i.MX6 ARM Cortex-A9 reference board or even announce actual devices using it?
– Texas Instruments OMAP4 in actual products, more than just RIM Blackberry Playbook. I expect several phones and tablets will feature the 1Ghz OMAP4430 to be released by end of Q1 and they will probably show and announce devices with 1.5Ghz OMAP4440 for later availability.
– Google shows Honeycomb. Not just videos as they did at CES, but they actually allow everyone to play around with the UI. They should announce Google Music, an expansion of Google Voice for worldwide free VOIP usage. Honeycomb should bring open Google Marketplace for all tablets, for all devices, even laptops. I am hoping Google even announces Honeycomb for Rockchip, Telechips, MSM7227 as well. Honeycomb may be synchronized with the launch of Google TV on ARM as well, or at the least, Honeycomb Google Marketplace should work for Google TV screens. First showing of Chrome OS for ARM Powered laptops would be appropriate as well, full hardware acceleration demonstration for HD web browsing on all the ARM Cortex-A9 processors would be appropriate.
– Texas Instruments nHD Pico Projector could be demonstrated in several upcoming smartphones. Adding a built-in projector will be one of the coolest features of a modern smartphone.
– ST Ericsson U8500 ARM Cortex-A9 ready in Nokia’s next generation smartphone and tablet devices running Meego. But I also expect Nokia to announce and show a whole range of Android devices which I expect have been under development for a year.
– Nvidia to launch Tegra 2 1.2Ghz 3D edition with full 1080p all codecs high profile playback, faster multi-tab HD web browsing processing and they’ll announce and show some Tegra3 stuff as well.
– Qualcomm MSM8660, 8260 to be launched in range of new smartphones and tablets. This is Qualcomm’s big Dual-core Snapdragon processor design push. It may be huge and Qualcomm may dominate Dual-core smartphones as well.
– Marvell 628 Tri-core demonstrated in devices. May be the appropriate timing for them to show demos? Marvell in any case is powering the best example of ARM Powered laptop in OLPC XO-1.75 that should be shipping mid-year, and they certainly have some ambitious Marvell Armada XP ARM Powered server projects going on.
– Rockchip’s partners launch more RK2918 devices. Suitable for low-cost ARM Cortex-A8 tablet designs.
– New Telechips TCC8803 ARM Cortex-A8 designs for other low-cost tablet designs.
– It would be nice to test some Windows 7/8 ARM demonstrations. Microsoft can do a good job porting all the apps and fixing up all the necessary drivers. Let’s see what they have! It would be a nice surprise, but I don’t expect Microsoft to precipitate things too fast.
– Motorola releases Atrix 4G and Xoom by the show start. First Tegra2 phone that does it all and first Honeycomb tablet, so it will be fun.
– HTC releases their next generation Android phones and a tablet. It’s their replacement for Nexus One/HTC Desire/Droid Incredible. My wild guess is it could be based Qualcomm MSM8660 dual-core and include a HTC Tablet as well.
– RIM Blackberry demonstrates support for Android apps on the Playbook tablet. This way, they skip the need to start a whole new app marketplace from scratch.
– HP launches WebOS devices. Let’s see what it can do. I think HP will probably have to use Android though eventually. Hey, competition is always nice, but sometimes when a good open-source platform is free, everyone can just as well contribute to that same ecosystem and if anyone thinks they can make things better, they can fork it or demand the improvements implemented at the level of the Open Handset Alliance. HP did a beautiful ARM Powered laptop before in Compaq Airlife, I’d like to see them upgrade that with Qualcomm MSM8660 Dual-core platform and Honeycomb software.
– I’ll be looking for any demonstrations of platforms such as the Broadcom BCM2157 to enable cheaper Android phones. Sub-$100, how soon, how good.
What do you expect from Mobile World Congress? What would you like me to film in priority? Which questions should I ask to whom? You can also send me tips on what I should film at MWC to my email: charbax@gmail.com Do you agree or disagree with any of my expectations? Post in the comments.
This type of ARM9 Rockchip RK2818 based 7″ capacitive tablet presented by Hott can now be manufactured for below $140, possibly sold around or below $199 at US retail stores. It supports USB host, 3G USB dongle or a built-in 3G modem can be included for about $50 more.
Shenzhen Geniatech Co. Ltd presents some interesting Android Powered Set-top-boxes. These could be sold for around $100 like the Apple TV or Roku box, but they just run the full Android OS including support for lots of video codecs. While Android is not yet really optimized for use on a TV with a remote control, this type of device will support the Google TV software (in this case, without HDMI pass-through overlay features) pretty soon once Google releases that software source code. As you can see on androidauthority.com, it has an AmLogic ARM Cortex-A9 800Mhz processor. Same ARM cortex-A9 platform as used by InnoDigital for their next generation WebTube product.
Touch Revolution makes projected capacitive touch screens, and demonstrates here at CES 2011 some of their large capacitive touch screens integrated in demonstration prototypes for training bicycle, in-flight entertainment and just some very large 32″ multi-touching fun showcase.
The Vstone Robovie, also known as Kumotek KT-X is sold for $1500 and provides for some pretty impressive programmable moves, it’s bluetooth controlled. The robot comes with an easy to use (so they say) programming interface for inventing new moves, triggering more sounds and doing more fun things with it. You can find more information about this robot and more robots being made by this manufacturer at http://kumotek.com/products/humanoid.htm
At CES 2011, Sharp showed their 3.8″ parallax barrier 3D screen in their Android powered 3D phone on the Softbank network. Sharp is making the 3D screen that is in the upcoming Nintendo 3DS, it allows for amazing 3D screen without the need for 3D glasses. Thus as Sharp is ramping up mass production of that “parallax barrier” 3.8″ WVGA 3D screen, they are able to put it in Smart phones as well, which is how they are now shipping in Japan the Sharp 003SH and 005SH (with slide-out keyboard). Sharp is also entering the Tablet market with their new Tablet optimized screens at 5.5″ and 10.8″ super sharp high resolution LCD screens in the Galapagos Tablets now released in the Japanese market.
So what is it? Is it going to be 28nm Quad-core 2Ghz with Nvidia’s Geforce 9 series GPU?
We can only speculate for now. And Hexus.net and soltesza.wordpress.com are doing some speculation on this.
Hexus.net speculates that Tegra3 might launch during Mobile World Congress, that is to be seen. As the event likely is going to be a launch platform for plenty Tegra2 devices, Nvidia might not want to pre-announce Tegra3 too early, as it could maybe be argued it did announce Tegra2 a bit early at CES 2010 compared to when devices are actually shipping nearly a year later using the processor.
One thing to look for in Tegra3 may be faster memory bandwidth, faster memory I/O performance, DDR3 RAM (if that’s not supported in Tegra2?) all of those for smoother multi-tab web browsing performance. As far as I’ve tested using Firefox on Motorola Atrix 4G and Toshiba AC-100 that multi-tab web browsing can cause slow-downs. Tegra3 could use full 1080p@60fps full codecs full bitrates playback (Tegra2 seems to have problems even with smoothness at 1080p@30fps).
This video was posted by netbooknews.com
ARM and IBM have been collaborating for 3 years on designing smaller and smaller processors for the industry, improving SoC density, routability, manufacturability, power consumption and performance. Just a year ago, the standard was about 65nm for most ARM Cortex-A8 processors in devices on the market such as the Nexus One. About 6 months ago, 45nm ARM Cortex-A8 processors appeared on the market such as in the ipad/iphone4, galaxy tab/s, droid x/pro. Recent devices with Nvidia Tegra2 are 40nm. The next step for ARM Cortex-A9 dual-core and quad-core processors to appear on the market this year are in designs of 32nm (50% shrink off 45nm node) and 28nm (50% shrink off 40nm node). What’s next? They are working on 22nm and 20nm designs for 2012 and have been announcing since ARM Techcon last November that they have 14nm designs for as soon as 2014 that are under work with IBM.
You have to consider, it’s not possible to make them smaller than 0nm, there are no minus nanometers. Their achievements in shrinking processor designs are insane. The investments are huge. They have to invest billions of dollars in fundamental research of materials and processes, they have to invent new mathematical tricks. Some of these technologies take 10 years from the lab research to something that can be mass manufactured. To make it feasible, the ARM industry has to collaborate (2).
The reason for wanting smaller process size is to consume less power, to increase performance and to potentially lower cost of devices at the same time (factoring out the increasing cost of R&D for smaller designs through very huge scale).
Watch my video of IBM’s Vice President of Semiconductor Research and Development, Dr. Gary Patton, keynoting on how they are getting to 14nm ARM Processor designs and smaller:
A rumor coming from nocutnews.co.kr is that Samsung may have its Dual-Core Samsung Orion ARM Cortex-A9 processor ready to put in their upcoming Galaxy S2 (and likely also Samsung Galaxy Tab2) to be presented February 13th at Mobile World Congress.
Found via: slashgear.com
Other possible specs:
– Android 2.3
– 4.3-inch 800 x 480 Super AMOLED Plus touchscreen
– 1GB RAM
– 9mm thin
– 1080p camcorder
– Mali-400 means 1080p 60fps support, or 1080p 3D playback through HDMI output
Watch my video of the Samsung Orion processor. When I spoke with the Samsung representatives before shooting this video, they hinted that it could be ready earlier than June, thus a February unveiling and demo with mass production a bit later is a possibility.
As you have seen here on ARMdevices.net during these past 2 weeks, I filmed and posted 106 videos of the 106 coolest products I could find at CES 2011 (6 are still to be posted in the next few days), this is my record for the number of videos filmed at a trade show since I started video-blogging at consumer electronics trade shows since CeBIT 2004.
Here is the top-20 best products that I filmed at CES 2011
1. Motorola Atrix 4G, this is the direction for this industry, convergence in the area of Mobile Computing.
2. Exclusive Honeycomb UI hands-on (not just video of the UI), I actually clicked through the reference Honeycomb OS UI for about a minute in that video while the Motorola representative was looking the other way. Anyone else posted a similar actual Honeycomb UI video and not just pre-recorded video?
3. ARM Powered OLPC XO-1.75 laptop, One Laptop Per Child already invented the Netbook market, now they are pushing the Netbook/Laptop industry into becoming ARM Powered to lower power consumption, lower complexity and lower cost. They are nicely using the high-end Marvell Armada 610 processor for full laptop performance.
4. Archos 101 Home Tablet, Rockchip is pretty amazing, they came from nowhere a year ago (as far as I knew), and now they are powering over 50 Android tablets at CES. This Archos 101 Home Tablet could be sold for as low as $199-$249 at retail when it comes out in a couple months (depends if you listen to what Rockchip or Archos says), it’s 10.1″ capacitive touch screen, HDMI output and very compact and light form factor, it comes with Rockchip’s new RK2918 ARM Cortex-A8 1Ghz processor which they claim is more powerful than Hummingbird/Apple A4, does 1080p playback, and most importantly, they say, allows for more affordable ARM Powered devices. And Rockchip is expanding into Laptops and Set-top-boxes as well, where they likely will provide their knowledge and experience providing an all-in-one turn-key-solution for cheap Chrome OS on ARM and Google TV on ARM solutions, to be provided by all the cheap Chinese manufacturer, possibly starting at CeBIT in March, or by China Sourcing fair in April, or Computex in June and beyond.
5. Pixel Qi shows 7″ and announces 9.7″ and 10.1″ 1280×800, these announcements hopefully give us a clue as to we soon may see mass produced devices like Kindle 4 or iPad 2 use this screen technology, and not only the nice Notion Ink tablet which may be reaching some few consumers now but not in large enough scales to fund mass manufacturing and real mass adoption of this new type of screen.
6. LG Optimus black, amazingly light 109gr OMAP3630 Android Super Phone (same power as Droid X) and also uses LG’s new NOVA super bright 700nit display.
7. Sony-Ericsson Xperia Arc, they dominated the Japanese 2010 smartphone sales, now Sony-Ericsson wants to dominate worldwide smartphone sales. The Xperia Arc is also extremely light at 117gr and uses Sony’s big push into mobile displays, their new Bravia LCD display. I wish they would allow for easy one-click Home replacement to become fully 100% Vanilla UI like on a Nexus S.
8. Windows on ARM, there were no booth demos yet, but the excitement at Steve Ballmer’s keynote was insane, this is the end of an era called Wintel.
9. Acer Iconia Tab A500 Tegra2 Tablet, seems to me Acer is showing one of the best looking new major Nvidia Tegra2 based Android Honeycomb tablets.
10. Innodigital shows ARM Cortex-A8 (Samsung) and ARM Cortex-A9 (Amlogic) Android based Set-top-boxes, the ARM Cortex-A8 is already on the market at $168 and the A9 one will come within a couple months for around $268. Those could run Google TV for ARM when that becomes available. Those are the best performing ARM Powered Android set-top-boxes I have seen yet.
11. Joyplus, Pierre Cardin showed Samsung ARM Cortex-A8 7″ Capacitive low cost tablets. Those pretty much can perform like a Samsung Galaxy Tab, basically run the same Samsung Hummingbird ARM Cortex-A8 processor with 1080p video playback (I don’t know what bitrate/codec complexity limitations it has), but instead of costing over $600, these are to be sold in bulk at $150 and possibly retail a bit over $200, depending on screen quality.
12. Shenzhen ACT 4.8″ capacitive Marvel PXA935 clamshell Android, really nice 4.8″ capacitive Android Tablet using a Marvell processor and dual-sim card slots in a clamshell form factor with keyboard.
13. NEC LT-W Android Dual-Screen Tablet, it’s actually pretty cool to see such dual-screen Android tablet concept. Although text input is too slow, it probably still needs a real external keyboard solution for full speed text entry.
14. NEC Tegra2 Powered 7″ Laptop, there’s a 7″ capacitive Tegra2 with full keyboard Tablet/Laptop combination prototype. I’d like to see such form factor in a jacket pocketable size.
15. Ramos ARM Cortex-A9 Tablets, Ramos is famous in making cheap PMPs and are now launching Amlogic based ARM Cortex-A9 Android tablets. I also filmed Nufront’s ARM Cortex-A9 10″ and 14″ Laptops and Tablets.
16. Polaroid, Yifang, Pierre Cardin, Match Tech, Yootechpros all presented 9.7″ Android Tablets, now Apple’s exclusivity on the screen is finished. Now all Android tablet manufacturers may use the exact same LG IPS capacitive touch screen as used in the iPad.
17. Freescale i.MX508, next generation platform for e-ink e-readers, shows 8fps fast e-ink refresh rates, Android user interfaces for e-ink e-readers. This processor platform will probably be in a large part of the future e-ink e-readers.
18. RIM Blackberry Playbook, most awesome thing about this demo is to experience the power of Texas Instruments OMAP4430 ARM Cortex-A9 processor, see how nicely QNX’s embedded Linux OS does multi-tasking. This specific tablet seems to be pretty great, uses a new bezel touch sensitive user experience, but that also increases the size of the bezel.
19. Seco srl’s Pico Projector in a Lamp concept, watch this one, it’s really fun. This concept could turn out to be in many lamps, adding pico projectors onto every wall, displaying informations and changing moods in your room. Texas Instrument’s new nHD Pico Projector is so small, so low cost, uses so little power, we may see it in many if not in all ARM Powered devices soon, in all mobile phones, all tablets, all cameras such as the GE PJ1. I especially am looking forward to the user interface of turning any pocketable device into a large screen computer projecting the desktop onto any table and having multi-touch sensors built-in.
20. Nvidia’s announcement of Project Denver, they are making a super high performance ARM Processor not only for super phones, super laptops but also for super computers. This may be Nvidia’s custom ARM Processor design or ARM Cortex-A15 based design. Get more infos from my interview with Mike Rayfield on this subject.
Find more of my top CES videos in my Top-24 videos filmed at CES of products not covered by Engadget.
Opera Software is optimizing a version of their Opera Browser for Android Tablets, thus providing some higher resolution user interface features.
This Android Set-top-box uses the Ziilab ARM Cortex-A8 processor platform with 1080p video playback.
This one runs a Samsung Hummingbird Cortex-A8 1GHz processor, with 1080p support, HDMI output, 3G option and more.
This one runs Rockchip RK2918 ARM Cortex-A8 at 1Ghz, 1080p video support, Android 2.2/2.3, HDMI output, USB host and more.
They show an 8.4″ capacitive (M9C) and resistive (M901) Android tablet (resistive is about $30-$40 cheaper) running the Rockchip RK2818 ARM9 processor.
Uses a 10.1″ resistive screen, can be manufactured for below $199 using the Marvell 166 processor. Marvell is working on user interface layers on top of Android suitable for Tablets to be used in education leading the way towards the OLPC XO-3 Tablet to be based on the faster Armada 610 processor.
ZTE has this 7″ resistive Qualcomm MSM7227 ARM11 Android Tablet on the market, with built-in 3G connectivity.
They use Rockchip ARM9 and Telechips ARM11 in these approximately $100 bulk priced 7″and 8″ Android Tablets.
This is Canon’s new mid range consumer camcorder series that includes HF M41, HF M40, and HF M400 camcorders.
You can watch sample video recorded with this camera here:
24mbitps@1080p:
Download sample video file on Google Docs (100MB for 36 seconds)
12mbitps@1080p:
Download sample video file on Google Docs (33MB for 23 seconds)
