Advanced video games coming to Android devices

Posted by Charbax – August 12, 2010
Category: Gaming, Software, Opinions, Android

As the Nintendo 3DS might come with 3G and smartphone-like features, it is also about to be the time for the smartphones to include button layouts that are optimized for advanced 3D video games. As the OpenGL ES 2.0 3D rendering is getting so advanced with the latest ARM processors, all it takes to experience advanced video gaming decently on phones is game pad buttons on each side of the screen. While capacitive touch screens and accelerometers provide the start of an idea that gaming can work on these devices, to get the best possible experience, it is just a hardware issue relating to the hardware design.

Gaming emulators seem to work great on Android, it is to be seen if Nintendo will be bold enough to offer legal access to all its old games at fair prices to licence and download legally directly from within an official Nintendo game console emulator to be released in the Android market place. I think that the best pricing strategy that they could provide is $5 subscription pricing renewed each month that the games are played offering unlimited access to all Nintendo games on the specific supported platforms. Hopefully all Nintendo game console games emulated up until Nintendo 64 and Sega Dreamcast would be supported this way.

Another very interesting possible development, is that the portable gaming device will have so powerful graphics acceleration that it will actually be able to function as a HD video games console when connected using HDMI to the HDTV. Whether the latest portable ARM powered devices are able to render 1080p video games at full frame rates using HDMI to a HDTV, that is to be seen, but the development might be approaching that possibility. At least current hardware definitely might output Wii level quality graphics to any TV using the TV output. So the portable Android gaming device might not only compete with the Nintendo DS and the PSP, it might also compete with the Wii, XboX and Playstation 3.

Engadget is reporting on a rumor that Sony-Ericsson is preparing a 1ghz Snapdragon powered Playstation smartphone with Android 3.0 onboard. It is to be expected that Sony may want to keep exclusive access to their own games to be released for that new Android gaming platform. The slide-out gamepad design from under the device that is shown in Engadget’s mockup design, instead of the keyboard, is probably an okay solution for gamers.

I would like to see someone build a good elastic design for a wireless bluetooth gamepad accessory that can be strapped to each side of any smart phone or tablet of any size and shape and have good gaming buttons push inwards to cover as much of the screen bezel as possible. Even to snap into 4:3 gaming mode and 16:9 gaming modes as the user prefers. Thus a solution to nicely transform any Android device into an advanced video gaming device. The design below is not exactly good enough design for this idea, please let me know in the comments if you know any better design:

Archos 32 is a sub-$149 ARM Cortex A8 Android 2.2 iPod Touch competitor

Posted by Charbax – August 11, 2010
Category: Tablets, Texas Instruments, Archos, Android

Archos has always been at the forefront of embedded ARM innovations in portable gadgets (full disclosure, I am also the webmaster of ArchosFans.com and Forum.ArchosFans.com). Archos newest generation 8 line of devices is to be announced and released within a month or two from now, which are to include at least 5 tablet sizes, with Android 2.2 compatibility, based on the new Texas Instruments OMAP3630 45nm ARM Cortex A8 processor, same as in the Droid X and Droid 2, to provide even more advanced OpenGL 3D acceleration and improved video decoding and encoding features.

So as at least 5 different skews or sizes of Android tablets are to be released by Archos from 2.8″ to 10″ with planned pricing between $100 and $350 unlocked and out of any required contracts. This is why I think that this new series of Archos Android tablets is probably to be the cheapest ARM Cortex A8 based Android tablets to be available broadly on the market thus far.

This new Archos 32 (8GB), to be priced at and below $149, comes with a 3.2″ 400×240 WQVGA touch screen, WiFi and Bluetooth, composite video output, USB host, support for all video codecs including Mpeg4, H264, WMV, Mpeg2 and more at up to 720p and 12mbit/s bitrates and including audio codecs support such as Mp3, Flac, WMA and Ogg Vorbis. It is I think basically placed as a cheaper alternative to the iPod Touch, using the latest Android and being more opened in the way it interoperates with Windows, Mac and Linux machines not requiring synchronization through a software like iTunes, but connecting as a standard USB mass storage device.

While it would be best for these Archos Android tablets to receive the permission from Google to come with the Google Marketplace pre-installed on them, it may be that Google might still not allow it. Though it is then also very likely that users of the product will easily be able to find a Market4Archos.apk file on the Internet to easily install the full Google Marketplace, Gmail and other Google Apps experiences to this device exactly as if the feature was pre-installed officially. I am still confident that Google will soon expand Google Marketplace to many new types of devices, not only to $500+ Android smart phones, but also to Tablets, Laptops with the Chrome browser icon and Set-top-boxes.

Find more pictures and more descriptions at: ArchosFans.com

You can discuss this at: Forum.ArchosFans.com

Source: fcc.gov
Found via: liliputing.com

Texas Instruments licences ARM Eagle series

Posted by Charbax – August 10, 2010
Category: Texas Instruments, Archos

Texas Instruments has had their awesome OMAP3430 series on the market now for around two years in the Archos 5, Archos 5 Internet Tablet, Motorola Droid, Palm Pre and with their new 45nm OMAP3630 version in Archos Generation 8, Droid X, Droid 2 and a bunch of other products to come. The ARM Cortex A9 based OMAP4 is to be expected in products for a bit later, maybe starting next year with amazing 1080p encoding and decoding and with extremely fast multi-core ARM processing built-in.

Building on its rich heritage of collaboration with ARM, Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) today confirmed that it was the first company to partner with ARM in the conception and definition of the next generation ARM® Cortex™-A series processor core (also known as “Eagle”) to be announced later this year. TI intends to use the new processor to further strengthen and extend its future OMAP™ platform offerings.

Now, Texas Instruments is the first processor maker to announce that they are licencing ARM’s next generation named the Eagle platform, possibly reaching products within a couple of years.

“We are thrilled to know that our customers will be the first to leverage the new ARM processor core’s far-reaching innovations via our industry-leading OMAP products. Successful mobile industry achievements revolve around the ‘high-performance, low-power’ mantra, and we believe the results of our collaborative effort echo the importance of this must-have balance.”

The names may be ARM Cortex A10 and Texas Instruments OMAP5 series.

What do you think may be the improvements for this ARM Eagle platform? Higher performance quad-core 3ghz 28nm or 32nm High-K Metal Gate processors at even lower power consumption and lower prices? ARM Cortex A8 does 2DMIPS per Mhz (2’000DMIPS at 1Ghz), ARM Cortex A9 does 2.5DMIPS per Mhz (6’000DMIPS at dual-core 1.2Ghz), how high is Eagle going to go? Is it A9 is 3x faster than A8, and Eagle is 8x faster than A8 solutions when running well multi-threaded code? Does Eagle go as high as 15’000 DMIPS on a quad-core design? You can discuss this in the comments.

Source: ti.com

High School students get the OLPC XO-1.5 HS Laptop with new keyboard

Posted by Charbax – August 5, 2010
Category: Laptops, Pixel Qi, OLPC

Uruguay has already given one laptop to every child between 6-12 years old. Now they want to give laptops to older students too from 12-15 years old. For this, OLPC has installed a keyboard that is more suitable for older kids:

Remember that OLPC is full at work on OLPC XO-1.75 which is a Marvell Armada powered OLPC laptop, which may also get a 8.9″ touch screen. And that OLPC is also full at work with Marvell to release the XO-3 tablet design by next CES.

As you can see with the hundreds of videos at my other video-blog http://olpc.tv, OLPC is a huge success wherever it is implemented. The ARM based versions that are coming, hopefully also using the newest version of the Pixel Qi screens, should allow for a significant lowering of the manufacturing prices and a much lower power consumption.

Source of this video: olpcnews.com

Android now leads US smart phone sales, increased by 886% from last year

Posted by Charbax – August 2, 2010
Category: Smartphones, Opinions, Google, Android

According to market analytics company Canalys second quarter 2010 smart phone sales report, Android is the fastest selling smart phone platform in the USA between April and June 2010, with 34% of the sales in the US market, in front of Blackberry RIM who sold 32% of smart phones and Apple iOS who sold 21%.

Canalys’ detailed, globally consistent data shows it is the collective growth of Android device shipments across a range of handset vendors’ portfolios that is most remarkable. With key products from HTC, Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and LG, among others, shipments of smart phones running the Google-backed Android operating system grew an impressive 886% in Q2 2010.

As I posted in my previous post Why are we still waiting for the sub-$250 Android super phones?, this market domination in the USA is reached by the combined Android vendors without them even starting to provide much cheaper Android phones. As in my opinion, the strength of Android is not only the differentiation and increased number of features and choices, I think it is also most importantly the opportunity for competition in the smart phone industry to bring lower unlocked smart phone prices. Once Android super phones are sold below $250 unlocked, and that those can be used for pre-paid plans without long term contracts, I believe that the Android market share will even further increase.

Source: canalys.com
Found via: slashgear.com

Why are we still waiting for the sub-$250 Android super phones?

Posted by Charbax – August 1, 2010
Category: Smartphones, Opinions, Google

New Android super phones are arriving on the market every few weeks, promoted by all carriers and selling twice as fast as the iPhone. We are also seeing a few lower cost Android phones being sold with smaller resistive screens, using slower processors. Specialist sites like isuppli.com have analyzed the Bill Of Material of all those phones and they are saying that even the top of the line of Android super phones can be manufactured for $165 or below. My question is then still, as we are seeing more and more competition in the Android market, when are we going to be able to buy all those Android super phones at below $250, with unlocked 3G and 4G SIM card slots and no obligation to sign up for 2 years of very expensive, often over $2000 of subscriber contracts?

Before the official release of the Nexus One, I had speculated that it may be sold by Google directly to consumers below $200, as I thought that Google wouldn’t be interested in making a profit on the hardware as their strategy is to make a profit on advertising and online services. With probable pressure from manufacturers such as HTC, and from pressure by the big carriers, Google has not been allowed to yet introduce such a disruptive business model to the Android super phone market, at least not yet. It’s the same thing Andy Rubin told me off camera at Mobile World Congress, that Google wasn’t the one deciding what should be the pricing of the Nexus One.

It’s not only consumers in Europe and the USA who I think would be glad to get cheaper unlocked Android super phones, I believe there is a gigantic market available right there to the Android super phone manufacturers if they would aim to provide sub-$250 unlocked Android super phones to the people of developing countries. Each year, over 1 billion phones are bought by consumers worldwide, in fact, mostly in developing countries right now. Those handsets are mostly low cost Nokia phones and the likes. Super phones may be reaching only 100 million units sold each year so far. But that could easily double or triple from one year to the next, as soon as manufacturers decide to sell them at more reasonable cost to the consumers who want unlocked or who only care for pre-paid mobile plans. Most of the world’s nearly 5 billion mobile phone users are using pre-paid plans.

Shanzai.com recently published an editorial analyzing the upcoming wave of sub-$100 Android phones that could be coming based on the new low cost ST Ericsson 416MHz T6719 platform that I filmed in the Acer beTouch E120 and Acer beTouch E130 at Computex. Marvell may also be preparing a lower cost Android super phone platform as demonstrated in the O Phones line of Android super phones that is sold only in China for now. Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, Freescale and others surely have some low cost Android super phone platform plans that they must be preparing.

The issue is the conflict of interest that there might be between Android super phone’s current customers, which are the major European and American carriers, and the interest of consumers worldwide to see lower cost Android super phones with less constraints, less obligations and less contracts. Many consumers in Europe and the USA are paying the equivalent of 3 or 4 months rent every year just for their mobile phone contracts, which is insanely expensive when you think about it.

Wouldn’t it be nice if one could get a $250 unlocked Android super phone, with all the latest capacitive screens and fastest available ARM processors, also with 2 SIM card slots, one for eventual pre-paid or subscription based voice/sms SIM card, and the other for an eventual data-centric 3G or 4G service. On top of which it would still have all the WiFi and Bluetooth features, as well as video-chat that works on any network, and fully unlimited and unlocked features of tethering, Mifi function and HD video streaming, also coming on any networks. All that with HDMI output if needed and HD camcorders right there inside. Then also, sub-$125, there would be smaller resistive screens and lower performance ARM and single SIM normal devices but also unlocked and usable for pre-paid plans. Shanzai.com and Visionmobile.com speculate that advanced features can be included on the cheaper Android hardware using Mobile Virtualization.

Virtualization is new to mobile, but established in the data center, fundamental in cloud computing and increasingly popular on the desktop.

Mobile Virtualization lets handset OEMs, operators/carriers and end-users get more out of mobile hardware. It decouples mobile OSes and applications from the hardware they run on, enabling secure applications and services on less expensive devices today and deployment on advanced hardware tomorrow.

Without much of the cheap Android phones yet on the market, already Android is selling twice as fast as the iPhone. Imagine how much faster they will sell once the cheaper Android super phone prices start to be released. Perhaps a bit more competition in this market is needed to trigger this, perhaps manufacturers and carriers will be careful not to cannibalize their huge profit margins in Europe and USA while some of them will launch hundreds of millions of cheaper Android handset options in the developing countries.

I filmed the Augen $99 smartbook 6 months ago

Posted by Charbax – August 1, 2010
Category: Tablets, Laptops, Opinions, Rockchip, Google, Android

Engadget and a bunch of other blogs have been reporting these last few days about the cool Augen branded Android Smartbook and Tablets that are being released in the US market at affordable $99 and $149 prices by Super Market chain KMart. I just would like to remind my readers that I posted my video review of the Augen Smartbook 6 months ago on January 29th as it’s based on the Hivision PWS700CA and its cool RockChip ARM9 processor that runs Android in this video: http://138.2.152.197/2010/01/29/android-laptop-review-hivision-pws700ca/

and that the Telechips ARM11 800mhz based Augen $149 7″ Tablet that Engadget and plenty other blogs also are talking about seems to be based on the same 7″ resistive tablet hardware design that I filmed 5 months ago presented by MAG Digital at CeBIT 2010 in this video: http://138.2.152.197/2010/03/02/mag-digital-presents-windows-ce-that-looks-like-android-in-a-tablet/

To let you know my opinion. I think it is fantastic that Augen and KMart are promoting such cheaper Android Laptop and Tablet form factors as alternatives to the much more expensive Apple iPad and Intel Netbooks. Archos has also been selling the similarly priced Archos 7 Home Tablet on the worldwide market which I video reviewed 5 months ago, which is now broadly available in many retail and online stores below $200 for the 8GB version (and the 2GB version originally planned at $149, then $179 but for now they are mostly selling the 8GB version). That Rockchip based Laptop and Tablet platform also being upgraded to 1ghz still ARM9 to support newer Android 2.2 versions.

But as we have heard from Canonical developers and from hearsay and off camera chatter by Google people at the Google Q&A at Computex about Chrome OS on ARM Laptops, although the second generation 45nm ARM Cortex A8 with faster DDR RAM and faster I/O performance can be enough, the coming of ARM Cortex A9 platforms may be preferable to achieve the full desktop web browsing experience that most consumers may require for them to consider the ARM platforms as fully usable alternatives in the Intel/Microsoft dominated Laptop market. And the iPad and the whole bunch of smart phones that are currently spread all over the market, those may kind of set expectations at capacitive and ARM Cortex A8 performance at the minimum. So it will be interesting, capacitive touch screen manufacturers allowing, to see how soon and how cheap those capacitive Android tablet designs at full user interface speeds can reach the market. ARM9 and ARM11 resistive tablets are not bad for a start, they can give the consumers and bloggers a taste of what can be done with Android at retail prices below $200 and even below $100. The ultimate goal should be though that we should have full speed ARM Cortex versions of all these devices in all the stores, with the best capacitive screens for tablets or non-touch screens for Laptops, preferably Pixel Qi screens, and available below $200 without contracts, running free Linux based Android or Ubuntu OSes.

New Kindle just $139, first on i.MX508? Google Editions integration?

Posted by Charbax – July 29, 2010
Category: E-readers, Opinions, Google

The new WiFi-only version of Kindle is $139, it uses the latest generation of E-Ink screens, with faster refresh, better contrast. It might be the worlds first e-reader to use the latest Freescale i.MX508 processor, which means the e-ink controller is integrated in the ARM processor SoC, which allows for 21% smaller design, 15% lower weight and significantly lower cost, while improving the processing speed at up to Cortex level to achieve faster refresh rates and optimizing more things such as doubling of battery runtime, faster e-book downloading times, usable web browsing speeds and more.

Sub-$140 connected e-ink e-readers are a big deal. Amazon is already selling more e-books to the Kindle e-readers than they are selling paper books. And consider that Amazon is the worlds largest online retailer of paper books. This e-book revolution has happened in less than 2 years since the release of the Kindle. Since Amazon’s strategy is to make revenues and profits from sales of the content on their closed Kindle platform, it should be even possible for Amazon to further lower the price as needed, thus $99 Kindle shouldn’t be far away. What happens, is that from about 5 million e-ink e-readers sold in 2009, there might be 15 million of those e-ink e-readers sold pretty soon.

Google is coming with the Google Editions E-book system later this summer, meaning next month or so. My big question is this, will Amazon allow Google’s e-book system onto all Kindles through a firmware update? The way for Amazon to allow this to happen would be for Google Book Store to be only complementary to Amazon’s current Book store. Basically, any titles that Amazon has in its store would be purchased through its own store, while google would only provide access to all contents that are not yet in the Kindle store. On those out of print or otherwise unavailable in Kindle Store contents, Amazon would be making a decent share of the revenue through a partnership agreement with Google. The point being that it could be great for Kindle and Google to have a partnership and a new firmware integration. If Amazon does not open its platform to Google, I expect we will see several new e-ink e-readers sold $99 or below from many manufacturers that will be using a special version of Android that Google must be working on to release with Google Editions. As Google will provide revenue sharing for the manufacturers of devices that access Google Editions and other online sources of monetizable contents, expect some type of AdSense for e-readers.

Source for this video: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com
Found through: http://techmeme.com

Can the Android bloatware user interfaces be turned off?

Posted by Charbax – July 24, 2010
Category: Opinions, Google

I am an Android fanboy. But I don’t like the different custom Android user interface designs such as Motorola Blur, HTC Sense, Samsung TouchWiz, Sony Ericsson’s nor Acer’s custom user interfaces, I think they are confusing and they are like visual bloatware. Please investigate following:

1. Is there a home replacement in the Google Marketplace that returns the full UI in Android to the default Android UI in all of the different Android phones? If not, then why isn’t Google officially releasing this default Android UI in the Google Marketplace? Does anyone have any contacts at Google to whome they could ask about this?

2. Will that Default Android UI Home Replacement provide a way to have exactly the same UI as on the Nexus One? And without voiding any of the warranties? And without consuming any extra RAM memory or slowing anything down in any way?

It’s very simple, but we need simple and definite answer on this. And we need answers from Google officially. Thanks.

I do understand that the reason for each of these different layers of designs on top of Android is that each of the phone makers feel that they have to differentiate their Android offerings from the competition. That consumers have to think that they are buying a HTC phone and that only HTC phones can do that or look like that. And so on.

But I would rather that the Android ecosystem immitate the Windows world, let all the default desktop user interfaces look the same. Stop confusing the consumers. Let them recognize the true value of the whole Android ecosystem. And phone makers should preferably compete on hardware and features for the prices.

I understand this idea is disruptive to the current Android business plans of each of the companies. But please, could we at least just get a little basic Home Replacement somewhere deep in the Google Marketplace that offers anyone with any Android phone to set it back to the Nexus One styled basic Android UI design?

I’ve been told in certain comments that Launcher Pro and some other Home Replacements were good. But I am looking for a Home Replacement that offers exactly the same UI designs as on the Nexus One. Please let me know in the comments if you know of a near or fully Nexus One UI Home Replacement that is available for any of Samsung Galaxy S, Droid X, HTC Desire, Sony Ericsson X10 or any of the other Android phones, what your experience is with it and on which of the phones.

Having to void warranties on those $500 devices just to get a normal UI is a terrible thing.

Read more at droiddog.com: Hey manufacturers, leave Android alone!

How to test and compare Apple’s iPhone 4 antenna design

Posted by Charbax – July 24, 2010
Category: Opinions

I don’t have the iPhone 4, nor any of its main Android competitors (I am considering a Samsung Galaxy S to test Super AMOLED and Hummingbird, but I still think it is far too expensive at 450€ unlocked), nor would I have the time to actually do this type of thorough testing, but here is how I would suggest that it would be best for an independent and trusted media to test the iPhone 4’s antenna. I think it could be much more useful to get the real user testing data than to wait through more back and forth between each of the companies advertising and spin doctors, news conferences, blogger fanboys and other media stunts.

1. Make 100 calls of at least 2 minutes in length with each device, holding it in the left hand. Preferably make the test using people not familiar with the issue at all (ask anyone in the street who have not read the news or seen any pictures of how Apple recommends holding the phone), just ask them to make the phone calls holding the phone with their left hand. Make sure the people are speaking to each other constantly for at least those 2 minutes per call as silent calls may emit less data and generate less dropped calls.

2. Try to test this at different locations, be them central where signal reception is known to be strong as well as places where the signals are known to be weak.

3. When possible, test the different networks. For example, test other Android devices that use the same network as the iPhone 4 as well as testing the Android devices that work on other networks.

4. If possible, try to measure the bitrate and codec, thus quality of the phone calls. Perhaps one company uses lower voice call bitrate, stronger compression, maybe non standard compression technologies which may result in less dropped calls due to bad signal. For example, one phone brand on one network may have fewer dropped calls but also a lower voice call quality.

5. Report how many dropped calls there were out of 100 calls on each of the devices.

6. Launch downloads over 3G of certain different (un-cached) test 10 megabyte files hosted on specific servers. Ask the user to please hold the phone with their left hand and again with their right hand. Measure exact transfer bandwidth differences. Try to download on all the different phones at the same time and at the same location. If possible also compare upload speeds the same way if it is possible to upload something to a same server online using some browser or app based upload functionality.

I don’t think this should only be an issue about the number of bars displayed in closed, open source or hacked mobile phone OSes. This is about calls being dropped or not. And about 3G data transfer bandwidth.

If the iPhone 4 is proven to have significantly more dropped calls when the phones are held with the left hand, then I do think it would be fair for consumers to claim it to be defective and to demand a global recall. And they should be entitled a new one with a fixed antenna or for a full refund. Not within any 30-day usual return schedules, this would have to be valid for anyone having purchased a defective phone within the whole 2 years of the signed contracts. And I don’t think consumers have to be satisfied by just getting a $1 piece of plastic case to cover it.

The secrets behind Microsoft’s new ARM License

Posted by Charbax – July 23, 2010
Category: Opinions, Google

The biggest threat to Microsoft’s $62 Billion in yearly revenues and $24 Billion in yearly profits is the possibility that consumers and the enterprise start adopting sub-$200 Linux based ARM Cortex A9 laptops and desktops as the new standard for personal computing in the months to come. There is a high probability that Chrome OS and Ubuntu will turn out to work very smoothly on ARM Cortex A9 processors, so smoothly that most consumers might be satisfied with the experience of web browsing speed and for running basic applications like text editors but even basic video- and photo-editing once those are available on the cloud and powered by advanced HTML5 native code and caching mechanisms.

Microsoft clearly must be seeing this as the biggest threat to their core business and thus is probably preparing a version of Windows 7 for ARM. It won’t run all the .exe files that run on Intel/AMD/VIA x86 processors. But there may be tools for developers to recompile the most important applications and to make new drivers. The challenge is for Microsoft to present such a lightweight version of Windows for ARM in a way that consumers will still pay for the Microsoft Windows OS experience even as prices of those ARM Powered laptops arrive at under $200. The profit margins will be low for Microsoft and this will require for them to implement totally different and bold business models if they want to try to keep the same numbers in yearly revenues and profits to not have their share holders sell their stocks. It would probably be based on Windows CE 7, but since that one looks much like Windows CE 6, it would be all about how they could upgrade the user interfaces to make it look and perform as much like Windows 7 as they can.

Some other possibilities as to what Microsoft may be doing with this ARM Licence:

– To release a new lower cost ARM Cortex A9 powered XboX to compete with the upcoming Google TV platform. 10 years ago, Microsoft launched MSN TV and for years there has been Windows Home Center Edition but it never really was a success like Google TV has the potential to be. Features need to be implemented in a cheap ARM Powered hardware such as HD quality video-on-demand streaming, casual and advanced 3D gaming, lean back web experiences.

– To release a Tablet centric OS to compete with Android and iOS, it would be related to Windows Phone 7 Series and with some features of the ARM version of Windows 7.

– Microsoft may want to design and control their own version of an ARM processor and keep it for their products. Like Apple keeps A4 for their products.

What do you think Microsoft is going to do with this ARM License?

via: techmeme.com
source: arm.com

India’s $35 tablet is based on AllGo Systems design (specs inside)

Posted by Charbax – July 23, 2010
Category: Tablets, Opinions, Pixel Qi

Indian minister for HR Development HRD, Kapil Sibal announces $35 tablet project. It seems to be based on the Freescale i.MX233 system on chip, with a 7″ resistive 800×480 touch screen. Here’s my video with AllGo Embedded Systems, a R&D company based in Bangalore India, where they are showcasing their $35 tablet reference design at the Freescale Technology Forum in Orlando last month. This is likely to be the tablet that India’s HRD Minister is talking about:

The Bill Of Material is as following:
ARM9 Processor: $5 (Freescale i.MX233)
Memory: $3
WiFi B/G: $4
Other discret components: $3
Battery: $5
7″ 800×480 resistive touch screen: $15
Total bill of material: $35

It is of course a honor for me that the Indian Government watches my videos and bases their Government projects on those. I just wish India’s HRD would stop attacking the One Laptop Per Child efforts all the time. That Minister is quoted as saying that this project is their “answer to MIT’s $100 computer”. Why can’t he say that this is their answer to the $640 Apple iPad? Why does the Indian Ministry of Human Ressources have to attack the non-profit OLPC organization?

Already back in 2006, the HRD published very harsh statements against the OLPC project such as “India must not allow itself to be used for experimentation with children in this area”. After which HRD announced a totally bogus $10 laptop project which resulted in a USB stick. The result of which being, 4 years has passed, and very little has been done to help Indian children at getting any hope at getting a better education using technology.

The $75 OLPC XO-3 design uses a more powerful ARMv7 class processor (3x faster), a 10″ capacitive touch screen on an unbreakable plastic Pixel Qi LCD screen that allows it to run 40 hours on a battery instead of 4 hours of this India HRD project! The screen is a very important component, maybe the most important component to make this a revolutionizing success in the whole of India to hundreds of millions of children.

So if HRD wants to make a difference for the Children of India, they need to be open about the specifications of their open source hardware designs, they need to present the options in which ARM Processors they are trying to use, which features that would be included in the SoC and how much HRD would like to support the mass manufacturing of sunlight readable Pixel Qi LCD screen technology. And they should stop positioning this as India HRD vs OLPC but talk about it as India HRD + OLPC vs Apple iPad + Intel netbooks.

ARM and TSMC develop 20nm High-K Metal Gate process

Posted by Charbax – July 21, 2010
Category: TSMC, ARM

While the 45nm process such as the TI OMAP3630 (1ghz), Samsung Humminbird S5PC110 (1ghz) and Apple A4 (1ghz) have all just recently been released in the latest bunch of smart phones such as the Motorola Droid X, Samsung Galaxy S and iPhone 4, 28nm was also just recently announced by Global Foundries to be perfected and sampled this year, now also, here’s an announcement by ARM and TSMC working together to accelerate the time to market of the 20nm process designs as well:

TSMC signed up to work with ARM on the 28nm node which is headed toward qualification later this year. ARM will develop IP for at least two 28nm processes: TSMC 28nmHP (high performance, High-K Metal Gate) and 28nmHPL (low power, High-K Metal Gate). But the agreement doesn’t stop there; it commits to work on the 20nm node as well. That’s significant because ARM can begin development work earlier than ever before on a TSMC process. This assures the earliest-possible IP availability to our partners and an easier and faster route to deliver advanced products into the market.

This is going to be awesome in the ARM Cortex A9 processors.

via: engadget.com
source: blogs.arm.com

Boxee on ARM Powered Box coming soon

Posted by Charbax – July 17, 2010
Category: Set-top-boxes, Opinions, Nvidia, Google, Android

This is not Google TV on ARM yet, but this is a major achievement already, Boxee can run the full Boxee software experience on an ARM Powered box. Boxee is considered to be one of the best user interfaces for media streamers and Web TV. I wonder how much would need to change in D-Link’s Nvidia Tegra 2 Powered Boxee Box for them to be able to release a Google TV version of Boxee Box, and have the Boxee video navigation UI functionalities be an app on top of Google TV OS. My guess is the full Google TV experience requires HDMI input and output and an IR blaster (to integrate with existing cable/satellite boxes), thus would require a slightly upgraded version of this hardware.

For users who don’t require the feature of old TV integration with cable/satellite set-top-boxes but who only want the future experience of VOD, media streaming and web TV stuff, it would be cool to know how likely or unlikely it might be to be able to load Google TV OS for ARM once it is open sourced by Google on this Box and have Boxee’s complete set of features and user interfaces as a 3D accelerated app on top of Android. In my video interview with Boxee from CES, the Boxee representatives say that Boxee Box is designed to be open source and hackable:

There is an SD card slot on the side. We know that a lot of developers and hackers really like to side load the OS and have their own apps, so we are trying to make it as developer friendly as possible.

Foxconn 10″ capacitive Android Tablet

Posted by Charbax – July 14, 2010
Category: Tablets, Exclusive videos, Computex, Android

Foxconn is one of the largest manufacturers in the world, here they are showing a reference design for a 10″ capacitive multi-touch Nvidia Tegra 2 Powered Android tablet, which they could thus provide for brands that would want to sell these perhaps cheaper than the iPad all over the world. Although Foxconn is known to manufacture for Apple, and Apple is known to demand exclusivity on components, it is to be seen how keen Foxconn will be to provide capacitive touch screen tablets to the competition. When an eventual Apple ~10″ capacitive touch screen exclusivity might expire? When Google will finally announce official support for Marketplace and optimized features for tablets?

MiShark64 is a $36 video games emulator

Posted by Charbax – July 14, 2010
Category: Gaming, PMPs, Exclusive videos, Computex

Sanmos Microelectronics Corp. is launching some cheap video games emulators, available from $13 with 8bit-only pre-loaded games or for $36 for the MiShark64 with MicroSD card slot and video game emulation support of upwards 10 thousand games (one can “find” on the Internet) from 8bit NES (FC), GB, GBC, 16bit SNES (SFC), Sega MD and up to 32bit GBA games. The MiShark64 also includes a composite TV-output and video playback support of RMVB, DAT, RM, MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, FLV, H.263, WMV, AVI, ASF, 3GP, VOB formats and Audio codecs support of MP3, WMA, WAV, AAC, APE, FLAC. It comes with an integrated 800mA Li-ion battery good for 2 hours of portable use, but it can also be used on the TV and comes with 2 game controllers for that.

Forever Plus Corp Digital Microscope in a panda bear

Posted by Charbax – July 14, 2010
Category: Other, Exclusive videos, Computex

Forever Plus Corp is showing new easy to use USB microscopes, they come with drivers for Windows or Mac, a special software to capture pictures video from the microscope or to do stuff like measuring the size of very small thing. I think it is pretty awesome to have cheap digital microscopes to magnify very small things onto the computer monitor or onto a HDTV. I plan to use one of these in my video reviews when it might be relevant to magnify small parts of cool products.

ARM CEO Warren East keynote at Freescale Kinetis Cortex-M4 launch

Posted by Charbax – July 13, 2010
Category: Other, Freescale, FTF

Freescale is one of the manufacturers partnering with ARM on making the new Cortex-M4 type of processors, Freescale calls them the Kinetis Cortex-M4 Microcontrollers. Cortex-M4 may help to enable to connect all things to the internet, such as the oven, the fridge, motors, medical and industrial applications. It’s something about adding DSP and programmable features into cheap Microcontrollers that may be put into all devices to help connect them to the Internet for cheap. Do you have some good ideas of what Cortex-M4 will be used for in the market? Write in the comments.

Rockchip RK2818 to come at 1ghz with improved DSP

Posted by Charbax – July 13, 2010
Category: Tablets, Laptops, PMPs, Rockchip, Archos, Android

Rockchip may be the new “China Processor”, that ARM Processor coming out of China that can be found in some of the cheap Android Tablets and Laptops. This could be a major part of China’s attempt at providing every component of future low cost computing devices, even the processor. The new version of the Rockchip processor is said to be faster, RK2808 is 600mhz while RK2818 can go to 1ghz. But according to Toms Hardware, this new Rockchip RK2818 might still be ARM926EJ-S ARMv5 based.

In practice, RK2808 reached 1.1 DMIPS per MHz, while a core based on the Cortex A8 is 2 DMIPS per MHz and the recent Cortex A9 is 2.5 per DMIPS MHz. Even at 1 GHz, a Rockchip will be about two times slower than what the Cortex competition offers (at a higher price).

The question might be, how much cheaper are ARM9 based devices? Rockchip might still be only for low-end lower cost devices mostly made by Chinese manufacturers. The good news is this new Rockchip can support Android 2.1 and 2.2 (while RK2808 can only do Android 1.5). It’s got to be thanks to its newer and better DSP graphics accelerator, with screen support at up to 1024×768 which could be great to power cheap ARM Powered laptops and low cost 10″ Android Tablets. Availability may be after September for a bunch of new RK2818 based products or maybe also simply quick upgrades of RK2808 based designs. I wonder if the new 720p video playback on RK2818 may be improved, while RK2808 could only playback H264 MKV 720p at up to 2.5mbit/s.

Source: Toms Hardware France (in french)

Newgadgets.de: Toshiba AC100 Dynabook AZ is Tegra-2 Powered

Posted by Charbax – July 12, 2010
Category: Laptops, Nvidia, Android

Wow, the Toshiba AC100 Cloud Companion smartbook is some serious looking ARM Cortex A9 laptop right there, being launched soon! It’s based on Nvidia Tegra 2 1ghz ARM Cortex A9 system on chip, with a nice HDMI output on the side of the device (full 1080p output!), it runs a customized version of Android optimized for the Laptop form factor. It comes with 512MB DDR2 (333 MHz) RAM, 16GB Flash (up to 32GB version available), 2 USB host ports, 10.1″ 1024×600 LED backlit LCD, SDHC card reader, 1.3 megapixel webcam, Bluetooth, WiFi-N and a weight of 870 grams. Toshiba may launch this in Europe in August as a kind of high end thin premium laptop priced 349€ for WiFi-only version and 449€ for the version with built-in 3G HSDPA.

Source: NewGadgets.de, Youtube channel