Interview with a product manager of LG Smart TV about the processor used and software features of LG Smart TV. It may be priced closer to the ARM Powered Apple TV than the Intel Powered Google TV, to be confirmed.
Historic day for ARM
Posted by – January 6, 2011
Category: CES
Thank you Motorola. Thanks Microsoft. Today is a very fun day for ARM fans at CES.
I am still trying to calm down after the insanely awesome demonstration of full screen HD firefox multi-tab web browsing on Android in the fantastic Motorola Atrix 4G, HD Docking, 3 USB hosts, Laptop Dock, wow.
Microsoft is showing real Windows 7/8 UIs on the ARM solutions of Texas Instruments, Qualcomm and Nvidia.
LG makes an ARM Powered Smart TV to compete with Google TV and Apple TV.
I have video of honeycomb.
I’ve seen the Acer tablet in the halls, heard fun things about the Asus Tablet, Samsung shows an interesting Super Amoled Plus 4.5″ 1.2Ghz (Orion yet?) super phone.
Nvidia launches Project Denver ARM Platform for whole range of devices from mobile computing up to super computing, stuns media.
All this and CES hasn’t even really started yet! Tomorrow is going to be an even much more busier day with 2500 booths opening up.
I have 6GB of videos of all these awesome ARM related announcements, devices and interviews in my camera, but Las Vegas seems to not have any Internet Bandwidth to let me upload these files. Same problem as last year. Treasure Island barely uploads 40kb/s on ethernet, Sahara hotel’s $15/night ethernet in the room is even lower speed basically stalls any attempt at uploading videos. Venetian hotel does not provide WiFi internet access and the US 3G/4G/LTE/WiMax Mifis or USB dongles are not providing enough bandwidth to upload videos. The blogger press room is the only chance to get the videos uploaed, so please check back tomorrow for these videos and many more.
Related articles
- “Microsoft Officially Announces Windows on a Chip for Intel, AMD, ARM” and related posts (gottabemobile.com)
- CES 2011: Microsoft shows future Windows running on ARM chip (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
- Android phone becomes a laptop, AT&T’s dual core ATRIX 4G (tech.fortune.cnn.com)
- Nvidia unveils ‘Denver,’ its first CPU for PCs (infoworld.com)
- Nvidia forges ARM chip for PCs and servers (go.theregister.com)
- Project Denver puts Windows on Nvidia chips (ces.cnet.com)
- Microsoft Announces System on a Chip Architecture Support for Next Version of Windows (slashgear.com)
- NVIDIA chief confirms Windows coming to ARM chips (electronista.com)
Parrot Asteroid Android powered car radio/hands-free Bluetooth kit
Posted by – January 5, 2011
Here’s a new hands-free Bluetooth kit, voice activated, with 4 USB hosts and a line in audio jack, high quality audio, support for USB 3G dongles, it runs a customized version of Android on an ARM9 processor, uses a 3.2″ screen, it support installing third party applications. They are also showing a version of their Android in-car system on a 4.3″ touch screen for in-car navigation support as well.
Lenovo LePad Qualcomm Snapdragon Tablet U1 that docks in Intel core i5 laptop
The Lenovo ARM Powered tablet is $500 and the optional Intel laptop dock part is something like $800. Lenovo had shown this last year with a previous Snapdragon and Thunderbird’s customized Ubuntu Linux on the ARM part which I filmed then, but now they updated the ARM part to Android 2.2 on Qualcomm’s 8X50A is 1.3ghz 45nm processor (which they might upgrade to Qualcomm’s dual-core processor by the time this tablet comes out with Android Honeycomb), they say it’ll upgrade to Honeycomb, and it uses Lenovo’s LeAndroid UI layer (similar to LePhone UI that is available on the Chinese market, notice Paul Otelinni at Lenovo’s Aquanox party in the background of my last year’s LePhone video) as default home replacement.
Related articles
- Lenovo to Show First Tablets at CES (pcworld.com)
- Lenovo tablet line to be out in full force at CES (arstechnica.com)
- Lenovo to show first tablets at CES (infoworld.com)
- Lenovo bringing two tablets to CES 2011: U1 Hybrid resurrected? (slashgear.com)
Toshiba Tegra2 Tablet at CES 2011
Posted by – January 5, 2011
Unnamed for now, it’ll be released once Honeycomb is open sourced and available for others than Motorola for implementation. It’s got a 1280×800 capacitive 10.1″ touch screen, 5 megapixel camera and more. It’s being developed by a different group at Toshiba than the one working on the Folio-100 tablet that I filmed at IFA about 4 months ago.
Related articles
- Toshiba Announces Tegra 2-Powered Honeycomb Tablet, Lets Its Name Remain A Mystery (androidpolice.com)
- Toshiba Tegra 2 Tablet Gears up for CES 2011; Release Likely During First Half of This Year (devicemag.com)
- Toshiba Hasn’t Finished With Its Tegra 2 Android Tablets [Tablets] (gizmodo.com)
- Toshiba announces unnamed Tegra 2-powered Android tablet, waits only for Honeycomb (engadget.com)
- Toshiba Tegra 2 Android Honeycomb tablet gets pre-CES preview (slashgear.com)
- Toshiba previews Honeycomb tablet, won’t ship until June (electronista.com)
Welcome to Las Vegas CES 2011 coverage
Posted by – January 5, 2011
Category: Exclusive videos, CES
Subscribe to my YouTube channel and refresh my RSS feed for lots of awesome upcoming CES 2011 video coverage of the best ARM Powered devices to be shown. The CES Unveiled event starts in a few minutes, expect a bunch of videos from there.
Freescale i.MX 6 is dual-core and quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor
Posted by – January 4, 2011
Category: Freescale
Here´s to more fun from Freescale, they just unveiled their ARM Cortex-A9 processor platform the i.MX6 series, available in dual-core and quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 cores running at up to 1.2 GHz each, five times the performance of Freescale’s current generation of processors that are used in devices, such as the Amazon Kindle, Ford SYNC, HP Photosmart eStation, etc. Up to 200 million triangles per second 3D performance (like a PS3 in the pocket..).
Freescale is positioning these low power chips for both consumer and automotive applications. Although a primary target is tablets where Freescale has seen significant interest from APAC vendors in using its flexible, low-power embedded solutions to meet the demand in the growing white box tablet market. Freescale processors now power 11 Android-based tablets on the market (but 23 tablets powered by Freescale will be shown at CES) in addition to supplying the processors for three out of the four most popular eReaders sold worldwide.
The product series is comprised of the single-core i.MX 6Solo, dual-core i.MX 6Dual and quad-core i.MX 6Quad processors. Key technical features of the series include:
· Industry-leading four-core design
o Up to four ARM® Cortex™-A9 cores running at up to 1.2 GHz per core
o Up to 1 MB system level 2 cache
o ARMv7, Neon, VFPv3 and Trustzone support
· Multistream-capable HD video engine delivering 1080p60 decode, 1080p30 encode and 3D video playback in HD
· Exceptional 3D graphics performance with quad shaders for up to 200 MTPS
· Separate 2D and vertex acceleration engines for uncompromised user interface experiences
· Stereoscopic image sensor support for 3D imaging
· Interconnect: HDMI v1.4 w/ integrated PHY, SD3.0, multiple USB 2.0 ports w/ integrated PHY, Gb Ethernet w/ integrated PHY, SATA-II w/ integrated PHY, PCI-e w/ integrated PHY, MIPI CSI, MIPI DSI, MIPI HSI, and FlexCAN for automotive applications
· Support for the VP8 codec
· Support for one of the broadest ranges of major operating system platforms in the industry
· Optional integration of an ePaper display controller for eReader and similar applications
Look forward to my full video coverage of i.MX6 at CES in the coming days.
Source:
Related articles
- Freescale i.MX 6: up to 1.2GHz quadcore chips for tablets/smartphones (slashgear.com)
- Freescale announces i.MX 6 processor series, wants quad cores in your smartphone (engadget.com)
- Freescale ups ante for tablets, phones with quad-core i.MX 6 (electronista.com)
Expectations for CES next week
Between January 3rd and 11th, I am going to video-blog from CES 2011, make sure to often refresh my RSS feed and/or subscribe to my YouTube channel, (at last year’s CES I published 75 videos), I’ll try to feature the coolest ARM Powered devices that I can find at the show.
Have you got any scoop or ideas for what I should video-blog at CES? What questions would you like me to ask the representatives of which specific companies? If you read on any other blogs about any interesting products showing at this CES, please post your suggestions for what I should film here in the comments of this post. You can also send me an email: charbax@gmail.com or you can even sms/call me or leave a voicemail between January 3rd and 11th at my US phone number +1 (702) 238 8630 (only active when I am in the USA).
Here are some of the things I am expecting or hoping to video-blog at CES:
– Lots of Froyo, Gingerbread and Honeycomb stuff. Android in everything!
– Several dual-core tablets are rumored. Nvidia’s Tegra2 is rumored could be one of the stars of the show, rumored to be the “reference design” for Honeycomb. Sounds great, but I am also looking forward to all the other upcoming Dual-Core ARM Processor platforms and I am wondering if products featuring these will be shown at this CES already.
– How soon are the Dual-Core smart phones and tablets being released and at what prices? Will LG, Samsung, Motorola or other present phones at CES to beat Nexus S already?
– ARM Powered Chrome OS Laptops and Google TV Set-top-boxes, I will be looking for the first clues of these products.
– Tablets, more tablets? Any new design features to allow tablets to be used more for productivity? Are some Honeycomb designs like Archos without the hardware Android buttons? Designs with foldable/swivel keyboards?
– Pixel Qi 7″, 10.1″, big OEM announcements? Hopefully these LCD screens will be ready for Kindle-LCD, ipad2, samsung galaxy tab2 and more hopefully mass manufactured and everywhere within the next 3 months.
– Texas Instruments next generation nHD pico projector in all kinds of phones, tablets and other devices at CES? Or not to be shown before February at Mobil World Congress? I’d like to see this type of pico projector be used together with sensors to detect when touching in user interfaces projected for example on a table (see my video of a table-pico-projector prototype UI demonstrated at CeBIT 2007), this could turn any ARM Powered device, even pocketable, into a large screen computing device.
– New ARM Powered platforms for cheaper and better smart phones, tablets and laptops? Rockchip may show ARM Cortex-A8 RK29xx, Broadcom may show BCM2157 for sub-$75 Android phones, is it time for VIA and Telechips to show new faster or/and cheaper solutions for new cooler low-cost Tablets, Laptops and Set-top-boxes?
– Are the new ARM Processors capable of full 1080p at up to 60fps with full high profile and full high bitrates of every codecs?
– Nintendo 3DS is coming in February/March, any other manufacturers to mass manufacture products to use that parallax barrier 3D screen from Sharp that doesn’t require 3D glasses?
– Are ARM Powered NAS boxes and Pogoplugs/Sheevaplugs going to be powerful enough to download and seed BitTorrents at full speed, allow for full speed gigabit LAN file sharing even on the cheaper solutions?
– How much is going to be LTE, how soon and are anyone showing anything to do with White Spaces yet? How soon could that be deployed and at which cost and with what range and authentication features?
– I’d like to see Sanyo release a HD3000 with WiFi/Bluetooth and optics and sensors closer to that of a DSLR. Or it will be interesting to see more DSLR type optics and sensors in more video camcorders and see how affordable those setups can become. It seems Sony, Panasonic and all other major camera makers are going in that direction for the next generation of best HD camcorders.
Please post your expecations/hopes in the comments or send me an email!
Rockchip RK2818 and RK29 demonstrated and explained
Posted by – December 27, 2010
Rockchip released their next generation of ARM9 based processor RK2818 and are teasing their next generation ARM Cortex-A8 RK29 to be shown by CES. RK2818 can be made with up to 1ghz frequency, supports more and faster RAM memory, comes with a fast DSP and GPU core to accelerate graphics and user interfaces. This new Rockchip processor makes it possible to run up to Android 2.1 on cheaper tablets such as the new $149 (possibly $179 with margins) capacitive Archos 7 Home Tablet v2, and have them perform better for web browsing than their previous generation ARM9 RK2808 processor, video playback and other things are also improved. Rockchip’s next gen RK29, to be showcased at CES, they say is ARM Cortex-A8 better than Apple A4, with 1080p encode/decode, 30 million triangles.
Broadcom BCM2157 to enable $75 Android phones within 3-6 months
Posted by – December 26, 2010
- Image via Wikipedia
It’s ARM11 at up to 800Mhz, HVGA 480×320 or WQVGA 400×240, 3G integrated on the chip, 65 nm digital CMOS process, support for Android 2.2 and up. That is what is claimed by Broadcom representatives in a Fortune Magazine CNN post.
To be clear, That sub $100 price is not the cost of materials, it is the suggested retail price after the manufacturers (and carriers) have taken their profits.
This could enable Android to accelerate into first position in worldwide Smartphone sales by next year in front of Symbian even, generating most of possibly as many as 500 million smartphones to be sold next year (up from 269 million smartphones sold in 2010 and 173 million in 2009).
Thus as Android might have been activating 30 thousand smartphones per day (less than 1 million per month) back on 1st January 2010 and has officially been announced to be activating 300’000 smartphones per day (9 million per month) by 1st January 2011 (900% growth rate year over year), if Android expansion accelerates as can be expected with this type of platform to reach sub-$100 and sub-$75 unlocked sales prices to reach China, India and other developing markets during 2011, it may reach an activation rate of closer to 1 million units per day by 1st January 2012 yet another 300% growth rate in a year.
Within a year, the smartphone could thus become the dominant fastest selling device to access the Internet in front of the laptop. While cheaper Android devices means the developing world can finally afford access to smartphones (better than Symbian stuff), it also means carriers in rich countries may have to come up with new tricks if they want to continue making huge profits on wireless phone services. As sub-$100 Android phones can be bought, consumers in rich countries will also decide to buy those with pre-pay services, more and more data centric, and that could trigger the disruption of the “carrier-subsidized” Android super phone carrier model. Which model is not as much about a carrier “subsidizing” a phone than it is about a consumer over-paying on 2-year contracts on a phone device presented as overpriced if bought unlocked.
If you thought Android’s huge growth was impressive while most phones are bought with 2-year $2500 contracts, just wait for Android’s continued growth once most of them will be bought below $100 without any contracts needed.
Source: broadcom.com
Found via: cnn.com
Related articles
- Broadcom announces dual-core BCM2157 processor, promises high-end features for cheap Android phones (engadget.com)
- Broadcom Readying Chip for Low-cost Android Smartphones (pcworld.com)
- Broadcom outs new Android smartphone platform (slashgear.com)
Salim Ismail, Executive Director of the Singularity University at LeWeb 2010
Posted by – December 26, 2010
At the Singularity University in Silicon Valley, 80 students in 2010 (picked out of 1600 worldwide applicants) study futures, law, finance, networks, biotechnology, nanotechnology, medicine, robotics, energy and space to prepare for that point of singularity when artificial intelligence meets human intelligence.
Find out exactly what is going on at the Singularity University at http://youtube.com/singularityu and http://singularityu.org you can also watch Salim Ismail presentation at LeWeb here.
John Ham, Founder of Ustream.tv at LeWeb 2010
Posted by – December 26, 2010
John Ham discusses interactivity for live video streaming, infrastructure scaling for high quality video streaming and other upcoming features of http://ustream.tv such as pay-per-view.
Joe Green, Co-Founder and President of Causes.com at LeWeb 2010
Posted by – December 25, 2010
Joe Green co-founded Causes.com with Sean Parker who founded Napster, the guy played by Justin Timberlake in the recent Facebook movie “The Social Network”. Causes.com allows anyone to use their Facebook and Twitter friends and followers to raise funds for any kinds of organizations. You can also watch his presentation of causes.com on stage at LeWeb with Loic LeMeur.
Marvell CEO talks about ARM Powered Windows
xconomy.com is posting an extensive interview with Marvell CEO Sehat Sutardja after the Holidays, of which they have posted an excerpt talking about what he thinks on Windows for ARM, he says it’s inevitable.
They have said publicly that they were going to support it; the question is when. I remember I went to an ARM forum at Microsoft four or five years ago, where they invited basically everybody in the industry. It was not a secret.
100 percent of cell phone devices and more and more electronics will use ARM, as a byproduct of the investment people have put into cell phones and mobile devices. Once you’ve written software for the handset, the same software can run in a TV, in a digital picture frame, in washing machines, in toys.
If it’s true that they are going to introduce Windows on ARM, it’s going to be better for ARM, it’s going to be better for Microsoft themselves. It’s better for everybody. But if not, in a year or two they will be there anyway.
Here are more of my speculation for what I think the Microsoft Windows ARM announcement at CES could be about:
– Windows 7 version for ARM in 2011
– Windows 8 version for ARM in 2012
– Tweaking of Windows Phone 7 for Tablets
– Tweaking of Windows CE 7 for Laptops and Tablets
– XboX 720 could be ARM Powered, in the form of a pocketable tablet style product with gaming controls, with HDMI output thus doubling as portable and home console. The most modern ARM processors of 2011 will have graphics processing in the range of 200 million triangles per second, thus equaling the graphics capabilities of the XboX360 and PS3 in a battery powered pocketable product.
– Microsoft could be investing billions of dollars in tweaking their own ARM Processor designs in the style of Marvell or Qualcomm in cooperation with some specific ARM Processor designers and foundries. Their tweaks could be aimed specifically at powering future ARM Windows Laptops, Tablets, Desktops and Servers.
What do you think Microsoft will be announcing at CES that they have been doing with their ARM licence? Post in the comments.
Related articles
- Microsoft to unveil Windows 8 for ARM at CES? (armdevices.net)
- Coming soon: A new version of Microsoft Windows (usatoday.com)
- New Version of Windows Coming at CES? (cbsnews.com)
The Dual-Core ARM Powered products are coming
Buy a Gingerbread Nexus S now or wait for Dual-Core Android? That is the question early adopters have.
Nearly a year ago, Nvidia unveiled its awesome Tegra 2 platform at CES, I was there and I filmed it (2), (3). It took a while for Nvidia and its manufacturing partners to start bringing actual products with Nvidia’s Tegra 2 ARM Cortex-A9 processor onto the market. Possible delays may have been due to manufacturing problems or a wait for stabilized software, new versions of Android and Flash to support this new type of Dual-Core processor.
Other Dual-Core processors are about to reach products in the market as well:
– Texas Instruments OMAP4430 1Ghz ARM Cortex-A9 based products will be introduced in products to the market soon.
– Qualcomm MSM8660 or faster Dual-Core Snapdragon platform may be imminent.
– Marvell Armada 628 Tri-Core platform available in products soon offers upwards 200 million triangles per second.
– Samsung Orion with Mali-400 was unveiled last month (2), will probably show in products within months. Although some rumors also say Samsung may be using the Tegra 2 platform for some products to be shown even earlier.
– ST-Ericsson is working with Nokia to release some Dual-Core Meego devices probably soon.
– Nufront are releasing their Nufront ARM Cortex-A9 for Laptops and Desktops.
Google may focus on Tegra 2 for Honeycomb as some rumors are saying, just as Google prioritized their “Reference designs” like this:
Eclair + Froyo: Snapdragon (Nexus One)
Gingerbread: Hummingbird (Nexus S)
Honeycomb: Tegra 2 (Motorola’s upcoming Tablet)
A “reference design” to Google basically means the actual development hardware Google engineers work on to get their new software released. Though I expect Google and the Open Handset Alliance to bring-up Gingerbread and Honeycomb about as fast on all other Single-Core and Dual-Core platforms as well, just as Froyo got ready on all the other platforms relatively fast.
Dual-Core ARM Processors are probably also what we need for Chrome OS and Ubuntu powered Laptops and Google TV Powered set-top-boxes.
Microsoft to unveil Windows 8 for ARM at CES?
There are rumors that Microsoft will be showcasing some kind of Windows for ARM at CES January 6-9th, but also, it’s rumored that actual release may be “an early demo” because of the need for “ARM Drivers”?
What kind of drivers can possibly be needed to be ported for Windows or the like to work on ARM Powered systems?
Webcams? Those are in the SoC anyways aren’t they? Printers? Cloud printing solutions such as the one from Google or Apple’s AirPrint should solve that shouldn’t it?
Since all the main features of an ARM Powered laptop or desktop design are in the SoC, I have a hard time trying to imagine what kind of delay Microsoft would want to argue needs to be brought by hardware makers for their ARM Powered Windows OS to be ready for the market.
More likely Microsoft is working on an ARM compatible applications platform for Windows.
I think that the more likely situation is that Microsoft does not want to make its long time partner Intel think that Microsoft is doing anything to precipitate things away from x86 onto ARM platforms. I believe that Microsoft’s main goal is to prepare a Windows for ARM just in case the upcoming ARM Powered laptops and desktops become a huge trend and thus Microsoft would rather not leave that market segment exclusively to embedded Linux OSes like Chrome OS for ARM, Ubuntu for ARM and other optimized Linux OS.
Also likely Microsoft wants to have a strong ARM Powered Tablet oriented Windows OS. Thus the UI for Tablet use could be similar to Windows Phone 7.
Logically, to be competitive, the licencing price of Windows 8 for ARM should be at most half the price of same licencing on Intel.
Source: bloomberg.com
Via: ubuntuforecast.com
Related articles
- Microsoft ARMs Windows for iPad assault (allegedly) (go.theregister.com)
- Report: Microsoft bringing Windows to ARM chips (news.cnet.com)
- Rumor: Microsoft to talk about an ARM version of Windows at CES [Hard to believe] (intomobile.com)
- Microsoft Windows for ARM devices set for CES 2011 (techradar.com)
- Microsoft plans Windows tied to ARM chips: reports (marketwatch.com)
- Microsoft to Announce an ARM Processor Compatible Version of Windows OS (slashgear.com)
- Microsoft to announce ARM-based Windows at CES? (engadget.com)
- Microsoft Plans to talk Windows on ARM at CES, but Products a Ways Off [Mobilized] (mobilized.allthingsd.com)
iWave launches iW-i.MX51 SOM
Bangalore based embedded design house iWave Systems Technologies has recently released High end, low cost, Low power SOM (70mm x 70mm) based on Freescale’s i.MX51 (Cortex-A8 ) Multimedia application processor. This Platform runs Win CE 6.0 R3, Android2.1 and Linux 2.6.28 Operating Systems.
This integrated, high performance, Low power module can be used for a wide range of applications in Industrial, Medical, Security/surveillance, Digital Signage and Automotive. The key features of this module are i.MX51/800MHz processor, on board 128MB/512MB RAM, 128MB/2GB NAND Flash, Micro SD with Edge and Expansion connectors for supporting Dual LCD/Camera, Multiple USB/SD/SDIO, TV, SPI, I2C etc interfaces. Any product development can be developed in about 10 weeks time.
Features/Specification:
1. i.MX51 Processor, PMIC, 512MB DDR2, 2GB Nand Flash, MicroSD,
2. 230 pin edge connector: Ethernet MII interface, Two MMC4.0/SD Mem 2.0/SDIO1.2, TwoI2C Interfaces, Two USB2.0 Host, Two UART Interfaces, SPI interface, SSI (Audio) Interface, CSI Interface-1, Display Interface-1, One Wire interface, TV-OUT, GPIOs, Power,
3. Expansion Connectors: NAND Flash (Expansion), Processor EIM Bus (16 bit multiplexed bus), 4×4 Keypad interface, CSI interface-2, Display Interface-2.
Contact: mktg@iwavesystems.com
More info: iwavesystems.com
Pixel Qi partners with CPT for mass manufacturing dual-mode screens
Pixel Qi and CPT are preparing 3 different screen sizes to be mass manufactured in 2011, including a 7″ 1024×600 design that will be shown early January at CES in Las Vegas.
CPT has a monthly production capacity of 40 million LCD screens. That’s 480 million LCD screens per year. How much of these are going to be Pixel Qi types is to be seen. CPT is the worlds second largest manufacturer of mid-size (4.8″-11.6″) LCD screens (behind CMI).
I’m hoping that the 3 sizes that they are working on are 4.8″ or 5″, 7″ and 10.1″, sizes which I think are the best for Tablet and E-reader use. 4.8″ or 5″ being the largest to fit in normal pockets (passport sized), 7″ the largest to fit in jacket pockets and 10″ being current top Tablet and about the size of an A4 page. But I also think 11.6″ or 12.1″ screen size like the one Google wants for Chrome OS notebooks could also be a good size.
This alliance started early last summer when CPT showed a transflective screen of its own design at a Taiwanese trade show. Discussions between the two companies at that show made it apparent that Pixel Qi and CPT should work together to bring stronger product to market faster. A close alliance was formed and the teams have been working together quietly all fall. They have created samples of a 7” 1024×600 screens scheduled for mass production in early Q2 2011, which will be first publically shown at the CES 2011 exhibition in Las Vegas in early January 2011. This represents an expansion of Pixel Qi’s manufacturing strength beyond its first LCD manufacturing partner who has been shipping Pixel Qi’s 10” screen.
These dual-mode reflective and transflective LCD screens are crucial to realize the combination of Tablet and E-reader into one product. Without this type of screen, I don’t believe tablets can be used for reading books as backlights are not meant for reading, and for e-readers to use LCD also makes them more versatile thus also including all the tablet functions into one same product. Most importantly, this screen technology improves battery runtime for ARM Powered devices considerably, as in a 10″ ARM Powered tablet or laptop, the backlight probably consumes about 80% of the devices overall power, consider thus a screen that can work without a backlight or with a lower backlight intensity, and you have a battery runtime multiplied by as much as 5x in that same product. Thus an ARM Powered Tablet or Laptop that had 10 hours battery runtime on a regular backlit LCD may have up to 50 hours using this type of screen. Thus also making this screen absolutely crucial for projects like OLPC and the Indian education $35 tablet project if they want to make it viable that these devices can be used places where there isn’t a lot of power.
Source: pixelqi.com/blog1/
Google TV devices “delayed”, may not show at CES
Posted by – December 20, 2010
The New York Times reports Toshiba, LG, Sharp, Samsung and Vizio have Google TV projects going, that they may have been all planning to unveil those at CES but that Google may have asked them to delay their unveiling until next software update including full Google Marketplace support is ready. Samsung may still show a couple Google TV devices at CES, Toshiba has confirmed they won’t, Vizio might show some Google TV stuff but only privately and maybe not to be blogged about.
So Google faces challenges in getting American TV networks to agree to allow them to stream TV shows from the web on the Google TV platform. I have estimated that if Google and Adobe wanted, if the negociations with US TV networks wouldn’t lead to a solution, that they could unleash a software update to present both the browser and the flash plugin as “User Agent: Generic” making detection by US TV networks impossible and thus forcing them to either remove online TV streaming completely or just regard Google TV as same user terminal as any “normal” laptop or desktop computer.
So let’s assume Google TV will have only a limited showing at CES, perhaps Google is trying to coordinate a giant unveiling of second phase of Google TV at CeBIT in March, by that time, more of the major manufacturers could present boxes, Google would present not only Google Marketplace and smoother software integration, they could launch world wide Google TV support (not limited to US anymore), they could also, as suggested by Tudor Brown ARM President last month, present cheaper ARM Powered Google TV devices such as the concept of a $99 ARM Powered Google TV box.
The $99 ARM Powered Google TV set-top-box is an important target, as that makes it affordable enough that everyone will buy one, providing full performance for 1080p YouTube streaming and the HDMI pass-through and IR blaster features, it would provide for the perfect platform to revolutionize TV.
anandtech.com: Benchmark of top ARM Cortex-A8 SoC GPUs
Posted by – December 19, 2010
Check out this interesting GLBenchmark 2.0 at anandtech.com, they compare the performance in benchmarks for following devices:
– Nexus S and Samsung Galaxy S using SGX540
– myTouch 4G and T-Mobile G2 using Adreno 205
– iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and iPad using SGX535
– Nokia N900 and Motorola Droid using SGX530
– Nexus One, Optimus One and HTC EVO 4G using Adreno 200
Not in the benchmark, Droid X, Droid 2 and the Archos Gen8 Tablets have SGX535.
It will be interesting to see what will happen once possibly more competition comes with ARM Mali-400 in the upcoming ARM Cortex-A9 dual-core processors and where its performance might be. Also I’d like to know what kind of performance Tegra 2 does for this 3D stuff. What Qualcomm Adreno 220 is cooking for its upcoming dual-core Snapdragons. And what 3D on-die GPU Marvell is going to use (supposedly does 200 million triangles per second) in its upcoming 628 Tri-core processor.
Find the full GLBenchmark 2.0 article over at: anandtech.com
Related articles
- Samsung Hummingbird declared fastest chip by GLBenchmark 2.0 (intomobile.com)
- LG Optimus 2X Preview: The Most Powerful Android Phone (brighthub.com)
