30 more MWC videos to be uploaded starting tonight

Posted by – February 18, 2011
Category: Opinions, MWC

The Mobile World Congress press center closed 4PM on last day of the show (yesterday), and closed 7PM on each show day, making it nearly impossible for me to upload all my videos during the show, as I was constantly filming interviews and product demos from 8AM to 6PM each day, when show floor closes. I wish conferences like MWC would consider closing their press rooms, media centers at much later time, why not keep those open until 10PM or even later. I met many other video-bloggers complaining very harshly about them not being able to publish their videos during the show. We can’t find any fast upload speeds at hotels or any other place around Barcelona, and it’s the same in San Francisco, Las Vegas, Berlin, Hannover, conference organizers need to understand videos require a lot of upload bandwidth and that can only be found at press rooms, and thus they need to spend a 50€ or whatever is necessary to pay a security guard to keep that media room open until much later. Otherwise, the conference simply isn’t getting half as much video coverage published to the web as it could be getting. Conference organizers have to consider we video-blog in HD, and HD video files can be very large and thus require 10mbit/s or faster upload speeds for it to be workable. I met many other video-bloggers at MWC who simply gave up even trying to get their videos uploaded during the show. What is the point in organizing a conference if video-bloggers don’t have time to upload the videos with all the informations and news from all the exhibitors of the conference?

Except from the unfortunate early closing media center, this Mobile World Congress was probably one of the most awesome, most action packed conferences that I have ever video-blogged since I started video-blogging at CeBIT 2004. Look forward to many more videos to be posted here starting tonight.

Freescale talks i.MX6 ARM Cortex-A9 platform at Mobile World Congress 2011


Freescale announced their ARM Cortex-A9 Dual-Core and Quad-Core processor platform. Here´s an interview with Freescale about their performance and features.

Dialog Semiconductor real-time 2D to 3D conversion

Posted by – February 16, 2011

This is the first real-time 2D to 3D video conversion in silicon presented by Dialog Semiconductor at Mobile World Congress 2011, it may be useful for the upcoming glasses free 3D screen devices that are coming out. I am not sure though how they analyse the video to “guess” the 3D features in the images, do they analyse each static image or do they process frames before and after to determine 3D space based on the motion?

ST-Ericsson A9500 ARM Cortex-A9 Development Board

Posted by – February 16, 2011

This is the SKY-S9500-ULP-CXX aka SNOWBALL, the ST-Ericsson ARM Cortex-A9 development board, they put in there all the memory and everything needed to hack together end user products. It will be sold for about $200 from around April or May, it runs Android, Ubuntu and Meego thus far. You can find more information at http://igloocommunity.org

Blackberry Playbook to get Android Dalvik engine support?

Posted by – February 16, 2011

Here’s an interview with Blackberry about the Playbook, topics include the QNX software, the potentiallity for Android apps support through integrating the Dalvik engine, productivity apps on tablets, and a brief history of Blackberry and where it’s going.

Hoccer app at Mobile World Congress 2011

Posted by – February 16, 2011

App to send stuff from one device to another using swipes or movements.

Meego on Freescale i.MX51

Posted by – February 16, 2011

This is my first experience with Meego, it´s running on the Freescale i.MX51 development board presented by Nomovok at Mobile World Congress 2011, it may be one of the first ARM Powered Meego implementations to take advantage of hardware acceleration.

LG Optimus Pad

Posted by – February 16, 2011

The new tablet from LG, Honeycomb on Tegra2 powered, comes with LG´s built-in 3D camera, to allow consumers to make more 3D contents for their 3D HDTVs. It uses a 8.9″ capacitive touch screen, hdmi output, no usb host.

Mobile High-Definition Link (MHL)

Posted by – February 15, 2011

New standard first used in the Samsung Galaxy S2 to output HD and charge at the same time through the Micro-USB connector, it also allows for some data to be sent back from HDTVs such as using the TVs standard remote control to also remote control the device. The MHL 1.0 spec for now does not transmit Gigabit Ethernet or USB 3.0 Host functionality.

Sub-$200 4.3″ capacitive Android Smartphone

Posted by – February 15, 2011

Yuhua Teltech released this Marvell powered Android Smartphone they call the Touchstone. It’s basically like one of those HTC HD, Droid X, except it costs less than $200 instead of the $500+ that the big brands such as HTC and Motorola are selling those form factors for. It runs on the Marvell PXA935 processor (also known as Tavor P65), same as in the Dual SIM clam-shell Dion MID from Shenzhen ACT that I filmed at CES and which Yuhua Teltech is also manufacturing as well. This device has been sold in China, India and some other emerging markets for 6 months already, Yuhua Teltech wants to bring this device to the European and US market, and they are announcing their next generation Gemstone design which will have a faster Marvell processor and dual-sim support.

Malata releases new Tegra2 Tablets

Posted by – February 15, 2011

Their designs are used by ViewSonic, Interpad, HiSense and others. Now they use a better screen with 1280×800 resolution and wider viewing angles. They are also making a version with a new 9.7″ 4:3 aspect ratio.

Honeycomb will work on cheaper tablets!

Posted by – February 14, 2011
Category: Tablets, MWC, Archos, Android

I got this confirmed from a source at Google (to remain anonymous) that Honeycomb will likely work just fine on all the cheaper tablets, such as the ARM Cortex-A8 ones like Archos and even the super cheap ones with Rockchip ARM9 or Telechips ARM11 processors. We’re all set for disruptive Android Tablet future with no need to be member of a “high-end special club” to get Honeycomb and especially to be allowed the Google Marketplace and all Google Apps. Google are to update the compatibility guidelines for devices to be Google Marketplace compatible and they “simply” add more filters to prevent consumer confusion.

I’ll try to get this confirmed and explained on video by some Google representatives during the Mobile World Congress.

Texas Instruments talks OMAP5, OMAP4

Posted by – February 14, 2011

Texas Instruments OMAP Product Line Manager Brian Carlson presents the amazing OMAP5 ARM Cortex-A15 processor, to sample this year, ship in products next year, and OMAP4 devices that are about to ship, what kind of performance can be expected.

Honeycomb on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

Posted by – February 14, 2011

Honeycomb is simply awesome. It’s the first OS ever made really designed for tablets. Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 runs on the Nvidia Tegra2 processor and has a really cool new design.

Honeycomb Designer Matias Duarte Interview

Posted by – February 14, 2011

Chief Honeycomb designer Matias Duarte explains how Google develops Honeycomb.

Google MWC 2011 Booth Tour

Posted by – February 14, 2011

Smoothies (with taste of Honeycomb, Donut, Gingerbread..), Slides, Pictures taken, 50 Android app demos, 50 Android OEM demos, sofas, lava lamps, free water, free stickers, free candy, where are the Nexus S givaways?

Texas Instruments OMAP4 runs Android and Ubuntu at the same time


Texas Instruments is showcasing that the OMAP4 ARM Cortex-A9 development platform can run full Android on the built-in LCD and Ubuntu on the HDMI output both at the same time, this is awesome. It shows how Texas Instruments OMAP4 can be used to power the upcoming all-in-one ultimate ARM Powered devices that combine Laptop and Media player functionality into the Smartphone.

Chrome OS on the Texas Instruments OMAP4 ARM Cortex-A9 platform

Posted by – February 14, 2011

This is just the Chromium OS based on the open source Chromium OS source code, until manufacturers and Google bring up Chrome OS to real ARM Powered laptops and desktops to be shipped hopefully soon.

Samsung Galaxy S WiFi 5.0

Posted by – February 14, 2011

Samsung is doing a 5″ LCD Hummingbird 1Ghz based WiFi-only Android Tablet! Basically, it does look awesome. To be seen what kind of prices Samsung plans to sell this for, my guess is it won’t be cheap, $300-400 maybe. I like this, it’s not Exynos ARM Cortex-A9, but this pocketable 5″ tablet design is cool.

Mediatek MTK6573 powers $80 3G Android Smartphones

Posted by – February 14, 2011

Cheaper Android phones is key to making Android the absolute most popular smartphone platform of the future, bringing the mobile Internet and apps to potentially billions of people around the world. Mediatek is showing their new ARM11 based SoC platform for sub-$80 Android smartphones at Mobile World Congress, this is one of the areas that I find to be the most fascinating.