New Mio Moov with capacitive multi-touch 3G ARM11 Tegra1 powered GPS navigation device, with a keyboard connected to the leather case, with an interface built on top of Windows CE.
Freescale is showing their reference design for sub-$200 tablets. The target is that tablets can soon be sold below $200 to end consumers that are able to run any Linux-based OS, including Android or Chromium OS – based on the open-source code available at http://chromium.org
In this video, Freescale’s product manager of Software Development demonstrates the status of their optimizations of running Chromium OS on their i.MX51 based devices, among other form factors is the recently announced $199 tablet form factor. It even supports hardware acceleration of HTML5 based video playback.
This means, full power Chromium OS could be made available in the next few months in Laptop and Tablet form factors to be sold well below $200 unlocked without contracts. The main question is how fast and how smooth will the Chromium Browser feel on ARM Powered devices? This is to be seen and tested very soon! Follow my video-blog for hands-on reports showing performance of Chromium OS running on all the ARM Powered devices very soon. Check also for Chrome browser running within Android, or for Chromium OS modified to add Android apps support, thus merging the two.
I also wonder, how much more does a $65 ARM Powered laptop cost if it uses an ARM Cortex A8 processor like the ones from Freescale instead of the ARM9 or ARM11 based ones from rockchip, VIA, Samsung and others. If the price increase is within $35, then welcome will be all the sub-$100 full power smooth ARM Powered Chromium OS laptops and tablets! Without actually knowing the real price difference between the ARM9, ARM11 and ARM Cortex based cheap laptops, my guess is that the availability of sub-$200 and sub-$100 Chromium/Android Laptops/Tablets is a possibility.
How soon will we see Google sell unlocked Chromium/Android on ARM powered laptop/tablet/e-reader convertibles with 50-hour battery life on Pixel Qi screens at http://google.com/laptop?
ARM is presenting this hardware based secure payments and authentication system which all future mobile devices may be shipping with. The functionalities of those calculators that people use for their netbanking can thus be integrated in the future mobile phones, to let people do secure payments and authentication using a simple 4 number pin code on their mobile phone. The way they do it is that they guide the keyboard entries directly into a separate secure encrypted OS that functions separately from Android to do the secure authentication that then sends back the certificate (or how it’s called) back to the web based application. This kind of system, I would guess, could also be integrated in laptops, or you could use your phone to authenticate yourself on any website very securely using any computer.
Creative is working on these Creative Zii Egg products based on their ARM based processor. Creative is also working on an ARM Cortex A8 based processor for their next generation of these products.
Firstview Electronic HK Limited is showing the PC706V which may be one of the worlds cheapest laptops, it runs Android on a low cost and low power VIA 8505 ARM based 533Mhz processor, with 128MB RAM, 2GB Nand flash, 7″ 800×480 screen, WiFi, SD card reader Nand flash, 7″ 800×480 screen, WiFi, SD card reader 3G dongle support. It’s supposed to run 4 hours on a 2100mah battery, it loads websites slower than a more expensive computer, but it can be made for only $65 in the Chinese factories when ordered by big resellers in large quantities.
Liquavista is demonstrating a new type of screen technology which could provide very low power black and white and color screens based on the LCD manufacturing process, though where the screen refresh rates can be automatically turned down below 1hz. Together with Pixel Qi http://138.2.152.197/2010/01/08/charbax-tests-pixel-qi-at-ces-2010/ or as an alternative, this type of LCD screen technology will enable all Tablets and Laptops to also become full e-readers and could in theory have 50-100 hours battery runtime or longer.
Interview with Oleg Naumenko, General Manager of PocketBook about the new PocketBook 601 (cheap Freescale based), about 302/602 (resistive touch) and 603 (wacom touch) e-readers.
Onyx is talking about their latest status of the firmware updates that they are making for their implementation of embedded Linux in a wacom touch screen enabled WiFi e-ink e-reader the Onyx Boox, also sold at Bebook Neo. They are also talking about the imminent release of a 3G version, different designs, larger e-ink screens and the eventuallity of using Android OS in future devices or as a firmware update in the current one.
http://1crosstech.com is showing a cool looking combination of a 6″ e-ink e-reader on one side, with a 3.2″ HVGA Android LCD on the other side, and also with a touch panel keyboard input and a whole bunch more hardware features such as a 3G sim card slot, WiFi, Bluetooth an accelererometer, VGA webcam for video-conferencing and more.