Chumby powers the Sony Dash (interview with Chumby)

Posted by – January 8, 2010

Interview with Steve Tomlin of Chumby about how they have worked with Sony to make the Sony Dash. Chumby has been making Flash based widget systems for embedded Linux powered small screen tablet devices that are not meant to be put in the pocket but that are meant for the home. On your office desk, in the kitchen, in the living room, you can activate any among thousands of widgets that automatically scroll informations, videos, audio from the Internet. You can use it to wake up to music from Last.fm, Pandora, with videos from Youtube, RSS feeds, your latest Facebook comments, IM, it can alert you when you get new emails and more.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Sony Dash at CES 2010

Posted by – January 7, 2010

This was probably one of the most interesting announcements at the Sony CES press conference. It has a pretty nice 7″ capacitative touch screen, USB host and $199 is an okay price! I’d really like clever USB accessories such as somehow a detector in a pillow and have the Dash wake you up at the end of your sleep cycles instead of in the middle, wake you up with the most relevant informations from your email, IM, social networks, RSS feeds and using videos from Youtube or music from Last.fm or Pandora.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

I am video-blogging using an ARM Powered laptop!

Posted by – January 7, 2010

This is a worlds first, so does the Lenovo staff tell me. I can insert my SD card from my Sanyo HD1000 into the SD card reader of the Lenovo Skylight Smartbook, and right from within their Firefox based web browser, log-in to Youtube, click upload, select the file from the SD card and simply click to upload it! I actually uploaded this 1280×720 9mbit/s 25MB video clip using their built-in AT&T 3G connection, it took about a couple of minutes to upload over 3G. The same can of course be done faster over WiFi. With more tests to come up, I will try to figure out if the Youtube video-blogging using this ARM Powered laptop can be done just as fast as using an Intel powered laptop. And the ability to constantly upload videos from the bag over 3G and automatic WiFi roaming could be really interesting. The built-in USB host could also host future wireless dongles such as WiMax, White Spaces, LTE or some wireless broadband technologies to make it even faster to upload HD videos using it.

Another really cool thing is that the H264 baseline 9mbit/s 1280×720 Sanyo HD1000 video files playback nearly flawlessly on this ARM Powered laptop using its media player application.

Dell 4.8″ Android Tablet shown at CES 2010

Posted by – January 7, 2010
Category: Tablets, CES

Engadget just posted this picture from the Dell event:

Dell Slate tablet

It’s Android, it’s Dell, it’s 4.8″ Tablet. But Dell seems to only be teasing about it. Engadget only saw it for about 3 seconds.

Google Nexus One at CES 2010

Posted by – January 6, 2010

Here it is! The first ARM Powered hardware sold by Google directly at http://google.com/phone

It’s $529 unlocked for now. Please comment here if you think that I should buy one or wait for those Android phones to be available for less than $200 unlocked as I speculated that the price could have been for this device.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Lenovo Skylight at CES 2010

Posted by – January 6, 2010

Here is Lenovo’s first ARM Powered laptop, it looks really awesome, I will film more of its Interface, software and features during the next few days. So check back! If you have some specific features you would like me to test on this ARM Powered laptop, please post in the forum comments thread for this video.

Lenovo’s official marketing video:

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Marvell Armada 510 based 12.1″ ARM Powered laptop

Posted by – January 6, 2010

Here is Marvell Armada 510 1.2GHz powered laptop that is capable of 1080p video playback. I will film it more in detail showing the status of the Ubuntu Linux implementation, show the performance of the web browser and more features of this laptop during the next few days.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Saygus Vphone

Posted by – January 6, 2010

Here is the first Marvell PXA 310 based Android smart phone released to the market.

You can find the specs at http://www.saygus.com/vphone

USB 3.0 superspeed

Posted by – January 6, 2010

The USB Implementers Forum are showing new USB 3.0 devices.

Lexmark Interact S605 and Lexmark Platinum Pro905 touch screen printers

Posted by – January 6, 2010

Lexmark are using embedded Linux, 4.3″ capacitative touch screens, WiFi and Ethernet Internet connections directly to the printer in combination with their Flash Lite based applications and features, one can automatically print things from the Internet.

Information about the Lexmark Interact S605: http://www1.lexmark.com/products/view/All-in-Ones/Lexmark-Interact-S605/catId=cat10004-category&prodId=5370-product

Information about the Lexmark Platinum Pro905: http://www1.lexmark.com/products/view/All-in-Ones/Lexmark-Platinum-Pro905/catId=cat10004-category&prodId=5474-product

Asus Chairman Jonney Shih talks about the Asus ARM based Smartbooks in the works

Posted by – January 6, 2010

Basically, he says Asus are working on ARM Powered laptops, they are just not going to show them yet. I asked him off camera afterwards if the EeePad Asus Tablet rumor was for real and if Asus was working on any Android devices, he said they were working on it but not showing anything for now.

Asus Chairman Jonney Shih talks about Linux, Android, Chrome OS on laptops

Posted by – January 6, 2010

Basically, he is saying that Asus prefers to use Windows only for now.

PicoChip Provision Fem2cell technology

Posted by – January 6, 2010

Fem2cells can help create better wireless broadband networks based on 3G and White Spaces technologies. PicoChip Provision provides the chip that powers most Fem2cells in the world.

Cortex-A9 browsing example

Posted by – January 6, 2010
Category: CES, ARM

Uploaded by ARMflix

WiFi is bad at CES, video-uploads coming later

Posted by – January 6, 2010

I am not able to get enough bandwidth or any connection at all on the WiFi hotspots at the CES press events at the Venetian hotel (is CES not really interested in having bloggers blog about their tradeshow?), the Venetian press room has no working wifi and 6 ethernet cables to share among 2000 journalists. Also, the $10 daily WiFi access at my hotel room at Imperial Palace constantly drops off so I can for now not upload my first CES HD quality videos.

So for now I send you this blurry picture:

Today, I have seen some awesome looking ARM Powered laptops powered by Marvell and Qualcomm and the Lenovo one looks really great.

I will upload my videos daily as soon as I have access to the real Press Room at the convention center, perhaps starting tomorrow, where I am sure that they will provide hundreds of megabits per second upload speeds.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

I have arrived in Las Vegas

Posted by – January 5, 2010

And here is what you can find in all Radio Shack stores in the USA, the Archos 5 Internet Tablet (8GB) selling right there for a very affordable $249 price. If Archos markets this device the right way and provides a perfect Android firmware for it with full Google Marketplace integration, and soon announce 3G and 7″ versions and solutions for Camera and Compass, I think Archos has a huge opportunity right there to make a very big influence on the market.

You can follow my extensive HD quality video coverage from CES here on http://138.2.152.197 during the next few days.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Lenovo Skylight is a Snapdragon ARM Powered Laptop to be shown at CES

Posted by – January 5, 2010
Category: Laptops, Qualcomm, CES

Consumer Electronics Show
Image via Wikipedia

I am really looking forward to see them demonstrated at CES. Anyone would like to speculate how good the Web Browser might be at this point? Consider the rumor is that the Lenovo Skylight will ship in April, which may mean that some software optimizations are still being worked on including full Javascripts, Flash, Video playback and 3D all to hopefully be optimized by hardware acceleration. What kind of optimized Linux software do you think this device might be using?

Also what do you think the actual prices might be? The rumor is that the laptop may come with 20GB on-board memory and 2GB of cloud storage.

The rumor is that it is super thin and light and still may deliver more than 10 hours of battery life when 3G surfing on its 10.1″ high resolution screen.

Photos and details on pricing are being released on blogs: see netbookchoice.com and enjoy following pictures:

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

CES video coverage on ARMdevices.net

Posted by – January 2, 2010
Category: Opinions, CES, Google, Pixel Qi

Consumer Electronics Show
Image via Wikipedia

I will be in Las Vegas to film up to 50 HD quality videos from January 4th to 11th of the best ARM Powered® devices to be shown at the tradeshow. I will try to film behind-the-scenes Interviews with Engineers, Product Managers and other experts in the ARM Powered® Tablets, Mobile Phones and Laptops that are going to be shown at CES and launched hopefully soon thereafter at attractive prices.

The big question for me will be to notice the actual performance level reached by those latest ARM Cortex A8 or ARM Cortex A9 processors to be embedded in those devices. The certain crucial performance levels that we need to see working smoothly and fine are following:

– The web browser needs to browse on websites fast and with multiple amounts of opened tabs.

– The web browser needs to load advanced Javascripts and AJAX based websites just as fast as on an Intel-based Laptop.

– Flash 10.1 support needs to be just about as smooth and good on ARM Powered® devices as on Intel-based ones.

– I’d really like to see the first demos of fast and smooth Google Chromium OS demos running on ARM Powered® Laptops and Tablets. The full Google Chrome browser optimized to use hardware acceleration of the ARM Powered® Laptops and Tablets is crucial for the success of the platform. That is, it would be surely great to see Firefox and Opera browsers also working fast and smooth for all those advanced things.

– Some level of advanced 3D hardware acceleration for 3D game platforms such as the Unreal Engine, Quake3 demos, even N64 emulators demonstrated to work on all the latest ARM Cortex based technologies would be really great and would add a certain level of confidence in ARM Powered® devices from the bunch of 3D gamer geeks that do represent a large part of the blogosphere.

– In general, it would be extremely great to see working implementations of full hardware acceleration in Android and Chrome OS, as well as in Ubuntu 9.10 and any other Linux ARM based OS that can really be used well to optimize the use of hardware acceleration.

Then in terms of business models, ARM Powered® devices should have more opportunity to be sold to consumers at attractive prices. Subsidizing the devices with telecom contracts running up to more than $2000 over the 2-years is one way to do it. What I would really like to see are official announcements that the ARM Powered® Laptops and Tablets are not only very powerful in terms of Javascripts/Flash/3D performance, but also that they can be sold significantly cheaper to the end consumer than devices based on Intel.

The $200 ARM Powered® Laptop and the promise of $100 ones for consumers to buy totally unlocked and without contracts, that is where the biggest opportunity lies with ARM Powered® devices in my opinion. By bring the PC/Laptop industry to a lower cost level, could also mean that 1 Billion or more people around the world will be able to afford to have full access to the web. And if all those devices can add the Pixel Qi low power sunlight readable screen and even function in Tablet mode, run 20-40 hours on a low cost and light battery, then all the greatest. It would be really nice to see actual product announcements at CES in just a few days.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

OLPC XO-3 to make ARM Powered Tablets happen at $75

Posted by – December 22, 2009

OLPC designer Yves Behar is showing the XO-3 design over at http://www.forbes.com/2009/12/22/tablet-computer-negroponte-technology-cio-network-olpc.html

One Laptop Per Child XO-3 design

Imagine an ARM Powered Tablet computer with the 10.1″ Pixel Qi screen, where the screen uses plastics instead of glass to be very resistive. Imagine low enough battery usage in transflective mode to power the device for 40 hours even though the less than 1cm in thickness of the Tablet does not allow for much space for the batteries. Imagine a fully optimized use of the Pixel Qi screens reflective abilities where the screen only needs to refresh at the speed of 1hz when in e-reader mode when nothing moves on the screen, with the processor and motherboard also completely shut off and standby to save power when they are not required. But where screen refresh rate and the processor and motherboard can instantly be turned on as soon as they are needed again.

Imagine wireless data technologies based on White Spaces, for free unlimited wireless broadband on the 700mhz spectrum, WiFi Mesh networking and maybe even low power Bluetooth built-in.

OLPC XO-3 tablet concept design

Imagine a touch screen technology which would allow for very responsive touchscreen interfaces to accommodate reading, web browsing, typing and playing of games. Yet where the touch screen functions on a plastic screen that is scratch resistant.

One Laptop Per Child OLPC XO3 games

All that for $75 and to be released within two years. Those are the latest plans from the OLPC organization, the same people that invented the Netbook industry as I wrote in http://www.olpcnews.com/commentary/impact/olpc_netbook_impact_on_laptop.html

olpc xo-3

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Nvidia Tegra Powered Android Tablet uses Pixel Qi screen!

Posted by – December 18, 2009

Here is the worlds first announcement of a Tablet with the revolutionary Pixel Qi screen (that I filmed at Computex 1, 2, 3, 4), on top of that as a 10.1″ touch screen tablet, using the NVIDIA Tegra T20 chipset supporting 1080p Full HD video, with WiFi, Bluetooth, HSDPA, in a 1.5cm thickness and 771 grams. Notion Ink will show this cool looking ARM Powered tablet at CES, I will try to film hands on video there. This ARM Powered tablet form factor with Pixel Qi screen, as well as the swivel tablet Laptop form factor, is the form factor that I think will revolutionize the Laptop, Tablet and E-reader industry and I really look forward to seeing these demonstrated for the first time at CES from January 7th to 10th, look forward to my full video coverage here on http://138.2.152.197

Nvidia Tegra powered with Pixel Qi Notion Ink Tablet

Source: slashgear.com

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]