Results for pixel qi

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

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.

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.

Marvell makes OLPC XO-3 Tablet, now official

Posted by Charbax – May 27, 2010
Category: Tablets, E-readers, Opinions, Marvell, Pixel Qi, OLPC, Android

I predicted it in my article on 18th March, Marvell’s Moby Tablet announcement is the beginning of the new OLPC XO-3 project.

This is great news! It means XO-3 is coming earlier than 2012 as originally planned. It’ll basically start coming as soon as the next generation Marvell Armada 61X processor is ready. Check my video of Marvell Armada 610 and my video of the Marvell Armada 618 to have an idea how impressive this processor is. This means that prototypes of XO-3 could be showcased today and I’m guessing mass manufacturing can start before the end of year.

This also means the 5000+ people at Marvell are now working towards reaching the goals of the OLPC project. Cheaper access to learning, information, web, online entertainment, e-books, worldwide communications, all this is great!

Read the press release: http://www.marvell.com/company/news/press_detail.html?releaseID=1418

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I am going to Computex

Posted by Charbax – May 16, 2010
Category: Computex, Pixel Qi

Computex in Taipei Taiwan June 1-5th is going to be awesome. Last year was my first Computex show and it was a great experience. While last year, I was lucky to be the first to see Pixel Qi in action (2, 3, 4), I saw Android on laptops and tablets, I saw Smartbooks demonstrated by Freescale, Qualcomm and Nvidia (2). I interviewed ARM about the status of Mobile Computing. Now finally, all those products are actually going to reach the market. For the past year, advances and optimizations in Chrome and Flash support is showing consumer-grade web browsing experiences for these products. Here are some of the main topics that I hope to film at this year’s Computex conference:

– Pixel Qi LCD in actual announced products “to be announced by half a dozen or more companies”, this technology is going to be the basis for the combination of E-reader, Tablet and Laptop markets.

– Chrome OS and Flash support on ARM Powered Laptops, makes Smartbook category ready to be a massive success.

– Android Tablet Edition, I trust that Google provides the full Google Marketplace on a whole range of Tablets to be shown.

– Cheaper Android Phones, I want to see cheaper phones shown by other manufacturers than just HTC, Motorola and Samsung (although those companies make nice Android phones).

– Youtube HD on cheap set-top-boxes, right after the Google TV announcements expected at Google I/O, I would like to see manufacturers showing cheap sub-$100 ARM Powered set-top-boxes that stream Youtube in HD quality directly on the HDTV, that may provide HDMI pass-through and overlay interactive features to existing TV channels as well.

– Connected E-readers, e-ink devices are great for reading, they make people read more again. But it’s important that all the worlds text contents reach those e-readers wirelessly.

Check back here on http://ARMdevices.net before, during and after the Computex trade show June 1-5th, to find me uploading 50 to 100 new awesome videos showcasing all those new ARM Powered devices that I think are going to change the world. If you are a blogger, subscribe to my RSS feed and make sure you check back here for the best Computex video coverage, you are of course welcome to embed my best videos on your blog with a link back to my blog post. If you are a fan of big technology news blogs and you like my videos, I appreciate if you submit my best videos to those sites.

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Acer to launch Chrome OS laptops at Computex

Posted by Charbax – May 13, 2010
Category: Laptops, Computex, Pixel Qi, Chrome OS

Acer Incorporated {{lang|zh-Hant|宏碁股份有限公司}}
Image via Wikipedia

Venturebeat.com reports that it has heard from several sources that Acer is going to launch Chrome OS laptops at Computex in June.

Last year’s Computex, Acer really disappointed me with their “fake” Android netbook, one that booted Android as a dual-boot with Windows on an expensive and power consuming Intel Atom based Netbook.

The big questions are:

– Will Acer’s first Chrome OS laptop use an ARM Processor or will it be based on Intel?

– What type of price point does Acer plan to reach?

The answers to those questions I think could be found by answering following two other questions:

– Does Acer want to be innovative enough and be one of the first big laptop manufacturers to use an ARM Processor in a Laptop form factor to lower the price, increase battery runtime, lower the weight and size of their new Chrome OS line of laptops?

or

– Does Acer feel it needs to stay in bed with Intel and Microsoft, and thus keep any non-Wintel projects out of their marketing radar?

If they announce it with ARM and Pixel Qi at Computex, hear the drum rolls:

1. 50h battery runtime

2. Instant on, month of standby

3. Below 800gr, 1cm thickness

4. Below $199 retail, no contracts, they sell tens of millions?

5. Built-in 3G module (maybe not included by default) for always connected use

6. Native Code SDK and OpenGL for even advanced video-editing and 3D games

7. Maybe even a swivel screen and the device holds like an e-reader? Touch-screen not absolute necessity for cheap model. Next/previous page and enter/exit buttons on the side would be good enough.

Source: Venturebeat.com

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Google builds own Tablet-e-reader

Posted by Charbax – April 13, 2010
Category: Tablets, E-readers, Pixel Qi, Android

Google Chrome Tablet
Image by nDevilTV via Flickr

The New York Times reports:

Google hopes to make its own apps marketplace available for new slate-like devices.

But Google is going one step further, exploring the idea of building its own slate, an e-reader that would function like a computer.

Yes! Things are going to happen fast!

Obviously, it wouldn’t make sense for Google not to provide the Marketplace on Android Tablets and e-Readers to compete with the ipod touch and the ipad.

Eric E. Schmidt, chief executive of Google, told friends at a recent party in Los Angeles about the new device, which would exclusively run the Android operating system. People with direct knowledge of the project — who did not want to be named because they said they were unauthorized to speak publicly about the device — said the company had been experimenting in “stealth mode” with a few publishers to explore delivery of books, magazines and other content on a tablet.

In a second blog post by the New York Times:

Another person who has been briefed on the Google slate project, but asked not to be named, said that Google was still wrestling with several parts of the project, but that it would most likely come with the Chrome Web browser from Google.

Google’s big push to consumers and developers with the device will be to offer a completely open platform — an approach that runs counter to Apple’s closed App Store model.

In the article, HP is said to be working on a 6″ Android tablet. Nokia is also working on an e-reader.

Logically, all those e-reader and tablet combos will have to use the Pixel Qi LCD screens to provide e-reader and a color Tablet in one device.

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Archos Generation 8 Android Tablets, prices and sizes rumored

Posted by Charbax – April 12, 2010
Category: Tablets, PMPs, Texas Instruments, Archos, Android

The prices are said to be $100 to $350, the sizes 3″ to 10″, ARM Cortex processor from 800mhz to 1ghz, with multi-touch and 3D acceleration.

My guesses are, based on this slide presented by Henri Crohas in China:

2x Archos 3 Android Gen8: starting at $100, what would the second 3″ model be about?
1x Archos 5 Android Gen8: starting at $200?
2x Archos 7 Android Gen8: $200-300? Why two 7″ models?
1x Archos 10 Android Gen8: $350? Pixel Qi dual-mode screen (my huge wish, so it can be readable for e-books and run 50h on the battery)?

The slide mentions multi-touch, a big question would be, does Archos now use Capacitive touch-screens? The the case of 3″ and 7″, might it be that the second skew is to provide a cheap resistive choice as well as a $50 to $100 more expensive capacitive type? The thing about capacitive screen is this, as far as I understand, and as far as one can find by just looking at what’s available on the market, it might be capacitive screens are really much more expensive and hard to come by in sizes other than some very definite sizes decided to be mass manufactured by the smart phone industry.

OpenGL acceleration and multi-touch features are clearly stated in the slide. Which may mean that Android 2.1 support is pretty much for surely available. Another hardware feature would be interesting to know about would be how well those devices will integrate 3G connectivity. We know Archos does Bluetooth tethering well, and one can buy a Mifi for WiFi to 3G tethering, how about Archos building 3G modems directly into skews of those Android tablet devices, and how about them making sure that power is managed in a way so that Voice-over-IP and other instant messaging over IP applications can constantly be active and stand-by on 3G and WiFi connections.

Logically to reach 1ghz they will use the Texas Instruments OMAP3640 series of processors, which is a significant upgrade on OMAP3440 of the current generation. This is not only a matter of increase of mhz speed. OMAP3640 is built on a 45nm process instead of the 65nm process of the current processor, which means the processor is significantly smaller and uses a lot less power, which probably brings better battery runtime. You can watch my video comparing OMAP3630 with OMAP3430. The performance increase for 3D rendering with the new processor is more than 62% going from 92fps to 156fps on the same 3D rendering animation. I don’t know if video decoding and encoding performance has been improved. And I don’t know how much things like website rendering is improved, if it’s just 25% faster based on 800mhz vs 1ghz or if it is more than that.

I do not know if OMAP3640 can do 1080p decoding and much higher HD video decoding bitrates. I don’t know if OMAP3640 simplifies the integration of mini-HDMI output directly into the device. If Archos includes a camera, it could probably record 720p video which would be really awesome, if a wireless microphone using Bluetooth or mini-jack input also can be used for good sound recording.

You can discuss this news in the forum: http://forum.archosfans.com/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=32392

Source: p5w.net
Found via: archoslounge.net

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The iPad promotes the ARM Powered Tablet market segment

Posted by Charbax – April 6, 2010
Category: Opinions, Archos, Google

Tablet PC Icon
Image by ichibod via Flickr

The swarms of Apple fans buying and talking about the Apple iPad during these next days and months, are rapidly popularizing the demand for ARM Powered tablets in the worldwide market. This should be a great opportunity for the many companies working on releasing Android Powered Tablets during these next few weeks and months.

1. Will consumers prefer cheaper and more powerful Android powered tablets?

– Archos is already selling an $249 Android Tablet with a pocketable 4.8″ screen, they have been selling it since September 2009, check out some of my videos of it: 1, 2, 3, 4

– As you can see in my Tablets category http://138.2.152.197/category/tablets/, there are more than 50 Android Powered tablets coming to the market from all major manufacturers during these next few months.

2. All the best tablets should have sunlight readable, reflective Pixel Qi LCD screens. Watch some of my Pixel Qi videos: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

3. This can accelerate the release of many ARM Powered laptops. As consumers see that ARM Powered embedded platforms load the full screen full resolution websites fast, consumers will demand there be regular laptop form factors available as well using the same technology.

This video was released at: laughingsquid.com
Found via: techmeme.com

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Nintendo 3DS and my feature Wish-List

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

Image representing Nintendo as depicted in Cru...
Image via CrunchBase

The Nintendo 3DS has now been announced by Nintendo in this official press release:

March 23, 2010
To Whom It May Concern:
Re: Launch of New Portable Game Machine
Nintendo Co., Ltd.(Minami-ward of Kyoto-city, President Satoru Iwata) will launch “Nintendo 3DS”(temp) during the fiscal year ending March 2011, on which games can be enjoyed with 3D effects without the need for any special glasses.
“Nintendo 3DS”(temp) is going to be the new portable game machine to succeed “Nintendo DS series”, whose cumulative consolidated sales from Nintendo amounted to 125 million units as of the end of December 2009, and will include backward compatibility so that the software for Nintendo DS series, including the ones for Nintendo DSi, can also be enjoyed.
We are planning to announce additional details at E3 show, which is scheduled to be held from June 15, 2010 at Los Angeles in the U.S.

I’m a big fan of Nintendo, while I would be very impressed if this 3D screen technology (rumored to be Sharp/Hitachi’s parallax barrier) actually doesn’t look like some blurry crap, which is my opinion of all the 3D screens that I have seen at consumer electronic shows so far these past few years, with and without glasses. Here are my feature wish-list for Nintendo’s next portable game console:

– It should be possible to deactivate the 3D screen effect and the screen must be just as clear as the market’s best LCD screens

– Game downloads, Nintendo needs to be bold and provide $1 Game downloads, for all games, including affordable $15/month game subscription plans that gives access to all the games. Online games means they get updated often and new games could even be streamed when they are based on pre-installed game engines.

– 3G module for extra $50, there should be a module slot in the back of the device where users should be able to add such things as a modem for 3G and its SIM card. The 3G module shoulds be unlocked so anny SIM card on any carrier can be used.

– Android OS, Nintendo surely has enough money and power to do their own OS if they want. I would find it much more interesting if Nintendo was so courageous and simply base their next portable on Android. At the same time announce that games will work on other Android phones that have graphics hardware acceleration. This would instantly add thousands of apps to the platform and make all UI and feature design work compatible with the rest of the industry.

– SD card slot but perhaps even a built-in hard drive compartment. Adding a 1.8″ or 2.5″ hard drive in the back of the device could be really cool to thus have enough storage for hundreds of big games, videos and music.

– HDMI output, this should basically be even more powerful than the Wii in terms of graphics outputting full 720p and 1080p games to HDTVs.

– At least dual 4″ screens, perhaps a larger version with dual 4.8″ screens. The screens should be close enough to each other so when the device is opened or put on a table, it would look like one big screen.

– Keyboard add-on should cover one screen and thus turn the device into a pocketable laptop form factor. The keyboard should be foldable, thus providing a full sized keyboard typing speed.

– Nintendo should do the marketing for using it for VOIP and IM, it should be compatible with SIP, Skype, Google Voice, video-conferencing and more. Over WiFi and 3G and even other networks as the modem module shall be replacable with other networking technologies. Thus Nintendo should market this as a replacement for smartphones.

– Full video codecs playback at up to 1080p and full bitrates also for high profile. Somehow video playback battery runtime should be at least 10 hours. Youtube HD support should be included.

– Pixel Qi screens so the Nintendo portable can be used for reading, with 50 or more hours of battery runtime. Comon Nintendo, when you order 100 million screens, you can make any screen technology you want. Be the first to announce 4.8″ Pixel Qi LCD screens. Including even that 3D layer on top if you want.

– Usable for education. Instead of teachers and schools banning the Nintendo DS from the classrooms (I’ve seen this happen for some of my young cousins), Nintendo should work to include the hardware in class rooms. Thus it needs educational contents, it needs to provide productivity such as the web browsing and text input needs to provide a full speed experience.

– Pricing should be below $200, preferably $150 without the 3G module.

What do you think?

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Marvell announces $99 Moby Tablet to Revolutionize Education

Posted by Charbax – March 18, 2010
Category: Tablets, E-readers, Marvell, Pixel Qi, OLPC, Android, Windows

According to this press release, Marvell is announcing the $99 Moby Tablet for Education. You’ve seen my video of Marvell’s 4.3″ Tablet prototype shown at CES based on the Marvell Armada 600 processor. The Moby tablet is based on the same Armada 600 platform but comes with a larger screen (probably 10″).


This is an image of a 10″ Marvell powered tablet recently shown at the Future of Publishing Summit in New York City as published by Harry McCracken of Technologizer.com, which may be the first $99 Moby Tablet prototype. Consider, this prototype design is most likely of a reference design, Moby won’t look like this when shipped.

Marvell’s Moby Tablet may be the first prototype of the OLPC XO 3.0:


The OLPC XO 3.0 for $75 wasn’t supposed to happen before 2012, but Marvell may now be speeding up its release for a $99 Tablet for Education within months.

Marvell’s first version of the $99 Tablet might not initially achieve all the design goals of the One Laptop Per Child XO-3, such as making it as waterproof, sturdy and with plastic unbreakable touch screen.

Will Marvell sell it directly to Governments and Schools to keep the costs low? Or does Marvell plan to have many vendors use their Tablet platform to release several versions of this Tablet platform for around $99 using many brands?

Most importantly, will the first Moby tablets come with a 10″ Pixel Qi capacitive touch screen display? Their press release does not yet mention Pixel Qi for the screen technology. But as this is targetted for replacing school textbooks, as it’s intended for reading, as Marvell is the largest sponsor of the One Laptop Per Child program of which Pixel Qi is a spin-off company and that the press release clearly says that “The ultra low power Moby tablet is designed for long-battery life“, my expectation is that it has to come with a Pixel Qi LCD touch screen display to be readable nearly as clearly as with e-ink and to be able to provide 20-30h battery runtime or more.

Powered by high-performance, highly scalable, and low-power Marvell® ARMADA™ 600 series of application processors, the Moby tablet features gigahertz-class processor speed, 1080p full-HD encode and decode, intelligent power management, power-efficient Wi-Fi/Bluetooth/FM/GPS connectivity, high performance 3D graphics capability and support for multiple software standards including full Adobe Flash, Android™ and Windows Mobile.

This seems to be happening now, for release soon, yet not with a confirmed release date yet:

Announcing the initiative this week during her keynote speech to the country’s leading publishers at the Future of Publishing conference in New York City, Marvell Co-founder Weili Dai said that the Moby tablet is a technology whose time had come.

Marvell will soon announce a pilot program in partnership with the District of Columbia Public School system (DCPS) where the Company will donate a Moby tablet to every child in an at-risk school as part of a multi-year program in new media and learning.

And this is definitely related to the One Laptop Per Child OLPC project:

Marvell has made a long-term commitment to supporting education at all levels and is the largest sponsor of the One Laptop per Child program which is bringing much-needed netbook computers to the developing world.

It would be really great of Marvell to speed up the release of the thin, light and cheap tablet/e-reader for education. Weili Dai, Marvell’s Co-founder and Vice President and General Manager of Marvell Semiconductor’s Consumer and Computing Business Unit said following at her keynote speech to the country’s leading publishers at the Future of Publishing conference:

Education is the most pressing social and economic issue facing our country and our times. (…) Marvell can help propel education into the 21st century with an all-in-one device that gives students access to the best live content, information and resources the world has to offer — from books and online sources, in text, video, news, music, data expression or any medium. With Moby tablet, students can conduct primary research, reach out directly to the world’s leading subject experts and even collaborate with one another around the globe. Best of all, the device is highly affordable. I envision Marvell’s Moby tablets to benefit all students around the world.

I am definitely eager to see and hear more on Marvell’s Moby $99 Tablet project. Look forward to more coverage on this Tablet/e-Reader for Education here at http://ARMdevices.net as I try to get more informations and perhaps even bring you videos of more prototypes soon.

Source: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/marvell-drives-education-revolution-with-99-all-in-one-moby-tablet-designed-for-the-worlds-students-88376967.html

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Eric Schmidt confirms Android (Marketplace?) for Tablets

Posted by Charbax – March 17, 2010
Category: Tablets, Smartphones, Archos, Android

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, recently spoke about large screen Android Tablets at the Abu Dhabi Media Summit keynote (at timecode 10 minutes and 39 seconds). It’s a nice way of Eric Schmidt to indirectly confirm that Google is definitely going to support the development of Android based Tablets as alternatives on the market to the upcoming iPad.

When I say “phone”, you might have a really big phone, like a phone about “this” big (he shows a size of about 10″ diagonal for a tablet with his hands), also known as a Tablet, makes sense [to have] big screens (…) you are going to have them from many vendors including using Google’s Android Operating System.

How soon until Google announces official Marketplace support for all Android Tablets?

Of all the Android Tablets which I have filmed so many of at the last couple months at CES, Mobile World Congress and CeBIT consumer electronics shows, none of the companies presenting those tablets were able to confirm if and when they might be allowed to include the Google Marketplace on those tablets officially supported by Google. As you may know, the Archos 5 Internet Tablet and any other currently shipping Android tablets around the world, none are yet officially certified by Google to include the Google Marketplace.

As you can see from my videos of the Archos 7 Home Tablet, the Hott MD500, the $199 Freescale powered tablets, Creative Zii Egg, Altina’s 4.8″ Android GPS Tablet, the Camangi Webstation, Forsa 7″ Android Tablet, 1Cross Tech MIDhybrid, Hard Kernel ODroid and many many more which you can find at http://138.2.152.197/category/tablets/, Android Tablets can be sold for cheaper, they can come with or without 3G, they may not come with capacitive but only resistive screens to save costs, they may not include cameras or even accelerometers. They instead bring higher resolutions, larger screens, more connectors and ports (such as built-in USB host, HDMI outputs..) and most importantly, Android Tablets can be sold at more affordable prices and be sold at retail stores without the need to signup for 2-year subscription plans with telecom carriers. Basically, the Android Tablets can occupy the market segments that go from the iPod Touch to the iPad.

Will Apple have a hard time selling as many devices and making as much revenues and profits in a market when dozens or hundreds of Android based competitors are going to be available for a lot cheaper prices and offer if not at least the same, then likely more features because of differentiation through free market competition? Android Tablets are likely to come with Flash support, HDMI outputs, USB host ports, hard drive storage options, storage expantion, Pixel Qi screens, removable batteries, video-conferencing, full video and audio codecs support, mass storage device modes not requiring iTunes to synchronize media files, open source and even open firmware software updates for the installation of alternative Android firmwares and even alternative Linux OSes including Ubuntu, Maemo, Angstrom. Can Apple compete with that?

Also check my (off camera) interview with Andy Rubin and Eric Schmidt about Android Marketplace on Tablets and Laptops from Mobile World Congress last month: http://138.2.152.197/2010/02/22/i-interviewed-eric-schmidt-and-andy-rubin-at-mwc-off-camera-for-now-watch-eric-schmidts-keynote-video/

This following video starts at the correct 10m39s timecode when you click the play button, where you can see Eric Schmidt’s above statement regarding Google’s official support for Android Tablets:

You may copy and paste this embed code to your blog if you want the embedded video to start at that same timecode:

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Chromium OS on a $199 Tablet powered by Freescale

Posted by Charbax – March 8, 2010
Category: Tablets, Laptops, Exclusive videos, Freescale, MWC, Android, Chrome OS, Ubuntu

Freescale is showing their reference design for sub-$200 tablets. The target is that tablets can soon be sold below $200 to end consumers that are able to run any Linux-based OS, including Android or Chromium OS – based on the open-source code available at http://chromium.org

In this video, Freescale’s product manager of Software Development demonstrates the status of their optimizations of running Chromium OS on their i.MX51 based devices, among other form factors is the recently announced $199 tablet form factor. It even supports hardware acceleration of HTML5 based video playback.

This means, full power Chromium OS could be made available in the next few months in Laptop and Tablet form factors to be sold well below $200 unlocked without contracts. The main question is how fast and how smooth will the Chromium Browser feel on ARM Powered devices? This is to be seen and tested very soon! Follow my video-blog for hands-on reports showing performance of Chromium OS running on all the ARM Powered devices very soon. Check also for Chrome browser running within Android, or for Chromium OS modified to add Android apps support, thus merging the two.

I also wonder, how much more does a $65 ARM Powered laptop cost if it uses an ARM Cortex A8 processor like the ones from Freescale instead of the ARM9 or ARM11 based ones from rockchip, VIA, Samsung and others. If the price increase is within $35, then welcome will be all the sub-$100 full power smooth ARM Powered Chromium OS laptops and tablets! Without actually knowing the real price difference between the ARM9, ARM11 and ARM Cortex based cheap laptops, my guess is that the availability of sub-$200 and sub-$100 Chromium/Android Laptops/Tablets is a possibility.

How soon will we see Google sell unlocked Chromium/Android on ARM powered laptop/tablet/e-reader convertibles with 50-hour battery life on Pixel Qi screens at http://google.com/laptop?

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Liquavista sunlight readable color e-reader displays

Posted by Charbax – March 5, 2010
Category: Displays, Exclusive videos, Texas Instruments, MWC

Liquavista is demonstrating a new type of screen technology which could provide very low power black and white and color screens based on the LCD manufacturing process, though where the screen refresh rates can be automatically turned down below 1hz. Together with Pixel Qi http://138.2.152.197/2010/01/08/charbax-tests-pixel-qi-at-ces-2010/ or as an alternative, this type of LCD screen technology will enable all Tablets and Laptops to also become full e-readers and could in theory have 50-100 hours battery runtime or longer.

I am going to film 50 videos at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona

Posted by Charbax – February 10, 2010
Category: Tablets, Laptops, Smartphones, MWC, Pixel Qi

Mobile World Congress 2008
Image by Mark Wiewel via Flickr

Olé! I am going to Barcelona for the worlds biggest and most influential conference on Mobile phones, mobile Internet devices and future technology in the mobile world. This is going to be my first Mobile World Congress, so I am really looking forward to it.

Please do subscribe to my RSS feed or follow be on http://buzz.google.com/charbax to keep updated with my latest video posts in real-time just as I upload them in HD quality to Youtube and post them here to this blog.

You can follow me through Buzz on my Google profile http://www.google.com/profiles/charbax

If you enjoy any of my videos, please do “Like” them in Google Buzz, please do submit them to influential blogs and other sites so more people watch my best videos.

I am looking forward among other things to film videos of amazing new products and technologies among these:

– ARM Cortex A9 powered stuff, I expect Texas Instruments will have awesome demonstrations of this, and for sure more Nvidia and I wonder who else will show this technology.

– Nexus Two, Three and Four. What I mean by that are alternatives to HTC in making at least 3.7″ WVGA AMOLED, Android 2.1 and 1ghz ARM Cortex A8 or faster smart phones. Those are likely to be on display by manufactures among others that are Samsung, Motorola, Acer.

– ARM Powered laptops are getting even closer to worldwide release. I would like to film more demonstrations of awesome looking Android laptops like the HP Airlife 100, Quanta manufactured prototypes, Marvell reference design prototypes and many more. It would be nice to see some of them run smooth Google Chromium OS and fast and smooth web browsers.

– May this be a perfect opportunity for big manufacturers to officially announce and launch Pixel Qi screens in new Laptop and Tablet form factors at affordable prices and with amazingly long batterz runtimes.

– I expect to see huge things from Google and from all the Open Handset Alliance and ARM Solutions Center for Andriod providing new amazing hardware acceleration solution in new software updates, demonstrating next generation Android solutions, showing more high resolution large screened Android solutions.

– Chrome OS demos, show those. Anything that is ARM Powered and that runs Chrome OS smoothly will be very interesting to see and interview software engineers about the status of running a full speed Chrome browser on ARM devices, what they plan to do and how soon it will be released and for how much. Can they run unlimited amounts of tabs on a $150 ARM Powered laptop with only 128MB RAM inside?

– How cheap can the cheapest Android phones be at this point? Will we see huge amounts of new manufacturers from around the world demonstrate cheaper Android phones and that still perform pretty well? Can we see $100 unlocked Android phones already, or at least below pointing at well below $200?

Please do contact me or post comments here if you hear about any specific awesome ARM Powered devices that I should film at the Mobile World Congress, I will try to film all the requests that I get in comments, by email and to my Google Buzz threads.

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ARM Powered Linux laptops to dominate the world

Posted by Charbax – February 8, 2010
Category: Laptops, Opinions, Pixel Qi

ARM Holdings
Image via Wikipedia

According to ARM CEO Warren East, the Netbook category is expected to explode to cover 90% of the laptop market over the next several years.

And that if Microsoft doesn’t want to provide a version of Windows 7 or Windows 8 for ARM Powered laptops, then that Linux based OSes will do just fine.

I’m hoping to see following specs in mass market ARM Powered laptops soon:

– ARM Cortex A8/A9
– All screen sizes from 4″ to 15″
– Android and Chrome OS combination, provide optimized Chrome browser yet still support Android notifications and applications
– HDMI output
– Pixel Qi 3Qi screen for outdoors readability and 50 hour battery runtime
– Capacitative touch-screen Tablet swivel form factor
– Less than 1kg weight
– Pricing: less than $200 unlocked without any contracts needed

I’m really looking forward to see more of these hopefully as soon as during the Mobile World Congress from February 15-18th in Barcelona, where I plan to go an film 50 videos to be posted here on http://ARMdevices.net, so please do subscribe to my RSS feed to keep up to date.

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ARM Powered OLPC XO laptops coming within a year

Posted by Charbax – February 8, 2010
Category: Laptops, Opinions, Marvell, Google, Pixel Qi, OLPC

When the OLPC project’s XO laptops are used in schools, the results are transforming education around the world. It’s getting children excited about school. It’s getting attendance to increase by 100 percent, which it does in most places where OLPC has deployed laptops, where more girls go to school, where the truancy drops to zero, where children take laptops home and teach their parents how to use them.

The One Laptop Per Child engineers are working on an ARM Powered XO 1.75 laptop which is going to be released within a year from now. My guess is that they might be optimizing it for using the Marvell Armada 610 or 510 processor.

The OLPC’s official power consumption target is 2W of power consumption. Though I wonder, is 2W of power consumption really the goal? Not even lower?

For example, the Pixel Qi screen is supposed to consume only 0.1W when backlight is turned off, once Pixel Qi has optimized refresh rates and other details which they have said they will be able to do over the next few months. The whole ARM Processor System on Chip should not consume nearly any power at all when nothing is moving on the screen, when the student for example is just reading an e-book. Then how low really can the power consumption go? Shouldn’t 0.2W power consumption in offline e-reader mode be a realistic goal? Thus shouldn’t the child get 100 minutes of use for 1 minute of cranking?

Since most of the children served by laptops from the OLPC project live off the grid, and may not get electricity for many years, getting the power consumption down on the laptops is one of OLPC’s main engineering goals. This and lowering the cost of the laptops to below $100 per laptop are the main goals of the OLPC project.

I’d like to see all the major ARM Processor makers announce that they will support OLPC in that goal, so that the XO 1.75 may not only be based on the Marvell processor, but that other processors will be optimized for it as well. All ARM Powered laptops shall point towards the same goals in my opinion, also in terms of software optimizations. We need fast and smooth web browsers, have Google and everyone else focus on optimizing the web browsing speed using the Chrome browser. While having everyone focus on one OS for all ARM Powered laptops may be a good idea eventually, until we figure out which OS are the best for which use, having easy multi-boot menus work and utilizing a minimal of extra storage space to ship laptops with multiple choices of Linux OS such as shipping ARM Powered XO laptops with Fedora based Sugar OS, with a Gnome desktop alternative, and with eventually an alternative based on a combination of Android and Chrome OS may be the best solution.

Free wireless broadband is also a priority. Sure a combination of existing cellular, ADSL, Fiber and WiFi Mesh networks of the OLPC project can already achieve a lot. But perhaps the generalization of use of 700mhz spectrum for wireless broadband all around the world will help lower the cost of deploying ubiquituous wireless broadband, especially in countries that deploy the OLPC project without having pre-existing broadband infrastructures in place. The TV spectrum needs to be used for free wireless broadband for all.

Rich countries need to prioritize the OLPC project in deploying revolutionary education using computers and Internet technology all over the world.

Source: smartplanet.com

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Slashgear.com: hands-on with Texas Instruments OMAP4 development hardware

Posted by Charbax – February 3, 2010
Category: Texas Instruments, Android

Slashgear.com went to Texas Instrument’s Dallas Texas headquarters to write an article about the OMAP4 dual-core ARM Cortex A9 1ghz development platforms which can decode 3 videos at the same time, with 1080p HDMI video output, a built-in pico-projector, significantly higher resolution support than WVGA 800×480 for the on board screen (1024×600? 1280×720?), 1080p 24/30fps video encoding, “universal decode” which they say means it will support playback of all video codecs (High Profile h264 MKV 1080p at up to 50mbit/s?).

Texas Instruments OMAP4 development platform

The chipset can simultaneously record 1080p and D1 (e.g. regular TV resolution) footage, as well as still images, giving you an HD copy for local playback and a smaller version for uploading. Meanwhile there’s enough processor grunt to spare for digital video stabilisation, both for recording and, potentially, for stabilising the pico-projector when you’re operating it handheld.

Wow, it will be nice to encode full quality 1080p at high bitrate for archiving and at the same time record D1 for uploading to the web. Although my favorite combination would be something like a combined 20mbit/s 1080p and a 720p 4mbit/s encoded with high encoding complexity to provide a good baseline 720p version to be uploaded to the web. Though it would also be nice to record decent 1080p which Youtube supports, and at the same time encode D1 at low bitrates to stream on 3G networks or to stream over WiFi to live video services like Qik or Ustream.

And in terms of how Texas Instrument OMAP4 compares with Nvidia Tegra2:

While production devices based on the Tegra 2 aren’t available yet, TI reckon there are several points at which they eclipse their rival. According to Marcelo O Vieria, general manager of the OMAP business group, the OMAP4 1080p video codec is stronger than that of the Tegra 2, in fact he reckons TI “have a better video engine than [NVIDIA] do”. OMAP4 also supports 20-megapixel or higher image processing, as well as three simultaneous displays, and it has significantly more memory bandwidth than Tegra 2 which means it’s better at multitasking. Worth remembering, too, is that OMAP4 is suited to smartphones, which is an area Tegra is yet to extend into.

This all just sounds very awesome, I look forward to see Texas Instruments demonstrate their new OMAP4 platform in Mobile Computing products and reference designs, hopefully as soon as Mobile World Congress in Barcelona between the 15-18th February, where I plan to film 50 new videos of the latest most awesome ARM Powered devices.

Be sure to check out the full article with pictures and video at Slashgear.com: http://www.slashgear.com/texas-instruments-omap4-hands-on-0172231/

Slashgear.com also filmed this video of Texas Instrument’s e-ink development platform which the Texas Instruments representative clearly says could also run a Pixel Qi screen:

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Chromium Demo Video temporarily offline, check my other CES videos for now

Posted by Charbax – January 9, 2010
Category: Tablets, Exclusive videos, Freescale, CES, Android, Chrome OS, Ubuntu

This video about the cheap Chromium OS Tablet revolution was a bit too good (smooth Chromium on ARM Powered device!!), so I have been asked to remove it for now and edit some parts out and upload a new video.

I hope to get an edited version of it back online at some point. Or perhaps they will agree to let me film new video about it soon.

This page got some coverage at:
http://slashdot.org/story/10/01/10/1649202/199-Freescale-Tablet-Design-Runs-Chromium-OS
http://www.liliputing.com/2010/01/freescale-tablet-running-chromium-os-video.html

Please, while waiting for the video to come back online, do check a selection of my other cool CES coverage videos:

Marvell Armada 610 powers Android Tablet reference design

Quanta ARM Powered Android laptop

Freescale at CES 2010

First Look at the iRex 800SG e-ink e-reader

Freescale powered e-ink e-readers

MSI Tegra2 10.1″ Android Tablet

HP Android Laptop

Boxee Box at CES 2010

Charbax tests Pixel Qi at CES 2010

Notion Ink Pixel Qi tablet with Nvidia Tegra2 processor

Nvidia Tegra2 ARM Cortex A9 at CES 2010

Chumby powers the Sony Dash (interview with Chumby)

Please also do check out all those other videos and blog about those if you like them thanks.

Subscribe to my RSS feed thanks, I still have 15-20 CES videos that I am trying to upload (Luxor Las Vegas Hotel Ethernet upload speed is slow and capped at 512kbit/s)

CES video coverage on ARMdevices.net

Posted by Charbax – 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.

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