Steppin’ out in the world, are we ARM? Shortly after hearing that OLPC was eying the brand for processors in the XO-2, Digitimes is now reporting that ARM-based platform makers including Qualcomm and Freescale are looking to unveil netbooks at this year’s Computex trade show in Taipei. Granted, none of this has been confirmed just yet, but we’re hearing that a model with Freescale’s i.MX51 CPU (the ARM Cortex A8) and a version with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon CPU (to be manufactured by Wistron) will be on hand. Not shockingly, in the same breath we’re told that NVIDIA Tegra-based systems will appear “at a later time.” So, is Computex the show where Intel finally takes a little heat in the netbook market? And no, VIA didn’t (and doesn’t) count.

Filed under: Laptops

ARM-based netbooks primed to invade Computex? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Mar 2009 10:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Laptops

OLPC eyes ARM processors for the XO-2 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Mar 2009 11:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you were looking for proof that the line between smartphones and laptops is rapidly starting to blur, look no further — Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasuvo told Reuters today that the Finnish company is “looking very actively” at making a laptop, since “what we we know as a cellphone and what we know as a PC are in many ways converging.” Sounds about right to us — but even more interestingly, we’re also getting word from the generally-reliable Mobile-Review that Espoo’s working on a MID powered by the new multicore ARM Cortex A9 Sparrow chip. If M-R is to be believed, the new device will only somewhat resemble the current N-series Internet Tablets, instead featuring a slide-out keyboard with diamond-shaped keys and a new widget-based interface. That’s a mockup from Unwired View above, and we think it looks pretty nice — although we’re hoping Nokia’s moved well beyond this hybrid N97 / Internet Tablet design language by the time this thing launches in 2011. This sort of convergence is definitely the next big trend, so we’ve got to ask: smartphone, MID, netbook or laptop — what’s in your (potentially giant) pocket?

[Via Electronic Pulp]

Read - Unwired View on ARM-powered MID
Read - Reuters on Nokia laptops

Filed under: Handhelds, Laptops

Nokia working on laptops, ARM-powered MID? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 25 Feb 2009 19:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you love superlatives, you’ll love ARM’s new Cortex-M0. Hailed as the smallest, lowest power and most energy-efficient ARM processor available, this chip reportedly enables MCU developers to “achieve 32-bit performance at an 8-bit price point.” The company asserts that this processor can consume as little as 85 microwatts/MHz (0.085 milliwatts) in an area of under 12K gates when using the ARM 180ULL cell library, and while that’s probably over most of your heads, let’s just say that this thing is ripe for use in medical devices, e-metering, lighting, smart control, gaming accessories and the like. Those looking to get this into their next widget should be thrilled to know that it’s available today for licensing, though you’ll have to phone up someone in the know to talk dollars and cents.

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

Cortex-M0: smallest, lowest power ARM processor available originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 23 Feb 2009 15:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’re not sure what sort of shenanigans ARM gets up to, but it managed to amass itself quite the interesting collection of netbooks for its MWC booth. Information was scant, but they were showing that Freescale i.MX-based Pegatron netbook and nettop we saw at CES, an ultrawide 11.1-inch Snapdragon-based netbook from Wistron, a Snapdragon-based convertible tablet netbook from Inventec Alaska, and a totally odd “tech demo” of a Qualcomm-based Wistron MID semi-running a sketch version of Windows Mobile 6.5. Most all of the systems were in some level of prototype form, and seemed unbearably slow at running whatever prototype flavor of Linux they happened to have, while the MID didn’t really seem to operate at all, at least to our touch. Still, it’s clear that Snapdragon and Freescale i.MX are allowing for some pretty wild and thin form factors while still rocking decent battery life.

Continue reading ARM’s stash of netbook oddities and a Windows Mobile 6.5 MID

Filed under: Handhelds, Laptops, Tablet PCs

ARM’s stash of netbook oddities and a Windows Mobile 6.5 MID originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Feb 2009 14:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Right around this time last year, Texas Instruments was busy showing off its OMAP 3 platform, which enabled 720p playback from a mobile phone. At this year’s MWC, we’ve got a real live handset recording 720p, and TI upping the ante once more with a chip that handles 1080p. For those still with us after being blasted with resolutions, the predictably titled OMAP 4 aims to bring 1080p support, 20 megapixel imaging and “approximately a week of audio play time” to mobiles and MIDs that house it. Granted, TI also calls this stuff “future-proof,” so don’t believe it’s totally incapable of uttering some pretty outlandish stuff. At the heart of the platform is a dual-core ARM Cortex A9 chip, a programmable multimedia engine based on TI’s C64x DSP and a POWERVR SGX540 graphics engine. We’re told that it’ll play nice with Linux variants such as Android and LiMo, Symbian and Windows Mobile, though it’ll have to be mighty impressive to outgun NVIDIA’s Tegra. Battle on, we say.

[Via Linux Devices]

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

TI’s OMAP 4 bringing 1080p support to smartphones and MIDs originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Feb 2009 13:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve had our eyes peeled for ARM Cortex-based netbook news, and now among the action this week at MWC ‘09 we’re getting our first look at Sparrow, a Cortex A9 processor aimed squarely at netbook manufacturers. This is a multi-core update to the Cortex A8 (processor of choice for the Palm Pre and Pandora), and it’s been speculated that this could be the processor for the next generation iPhone, with “at least triple the computing power of the ARM11 processors found in the [current] iPhone and T-Mobile G1.” Toshiba, Pegatron and Wistron are all said to be showing demos of their ARM-powered netbooks at the conference this year, with a company spokesman saying that Ubuntu for ARM will go public in April, with Sparrow phones coming to market sometime in 2010. Additionally, companies like Adobe, On2, and Symbian are said to be “tuning their apps to run on the latest cores from ARM” as we speak.

[Via Gadget Mix, Mac Rumors]

Filed under: Cellphones, Laptops

ARM debuts Sparrow multicore netbook processor originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 Feb 2009 15:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading Immaculate prosthetic limb concept makes combines fun again

Filed under: Wearables

Immaculate prosthetic limb concept makes combines fun again originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 10 Feb 2009 06:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Pegatron has been pretty quiet ever since it split off from ASUS to do ODM stuff all by its lonesome — which is sort of the idea, since Pegatron’s mainly doing the behind-the-scenes manufacturing. We’re glad, however, that the company peeked out of its shell to show off these new Freescale-based netbooks. The Linux-running laptops boast 8.9-inch screens, 8 hour battery life, 8GB of storage and projected retail prices around $199, while the nettop holds similar power in a pico-style form factor. Under the hood is Freescale’s brand new ARM i.MX515 processor, which is a 1GHz chip that’s described as basically being three times faster than the iPhone. The win here is that the chip draws very little power and generates very little heat, allowing Pegatron to squeeze impressive battery life out of a very thin form factor. Freescale is working with Ubuntu to prep an ARM-Linux distro, which will hit in May, and Adobe will have an ARM happy version of Flash 10 sometime this year. Supplementing the processor are chips for DSP, 2D, 3D and 720p acceleration, which switch on and off as needed — we saw the computer in action playing 720p video smoothly while drawing a mere 0.5 watts and not even feeling warm to the touch. The limitation here is obviously straight-up processing power — it’s not very impressive, and certainly slower than Intel’s Atom — but for running an optimized Linux build and surfing the web or watching a vid, Pegatron and Freescale might’ve just found a new portability sweetspot. They’re hoping to have an OEM pick these up around May or June sometime.

Filed under: Laptops

Pegatron and Freescale team for low-power, ultra-cheap netbooks and nettops originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 09 Jan 2009 20:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Cellphones

When low-level Intel execs throw down a verbal assault on Silicon Valley-buds Apple, guess what the result is? Fake fight! Fortunately, Intel’s Anand Chandrasekher just stepped in, referee-style, and dropped the retraction hammer on his loose-lipped, ARM-bashing underlings with the following correction:

“Intel’s low-power Atom processor does not yet match the battery life characteristics of the ARM processor in a phone form factor; and, that while Intel does have plans on the books to get us to be competitive in the ultra low power domain - we are not there as yet. Secondly, Apple’s iPhone offering is an extremely innovative product that enables new and exciting market opportunities. The statements made in Taiwan were inappropriate, and Intel representatives should not have been commenting on specific customer designs.”

So… friends or are we doomed to repeat the whole toasted bunny thing again?

[Via cnet news]

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Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Okay, look, whether you adore or despise the iPhone, it’s pretty hard to make a cohesive argument that it’s slow or lags its competitors in offering the “full Internet.” Somehow, though, a pair of Intel execs at the Intel Developer Forum in Taipei this week have whipped up a whole spiel based on the shaky claim that the iPhone’s a dog for processing power and isn’t capable of offering a rich Internet experience, going on to suggest that ARM architecture is to blame for the nasty pickle Apple’s gotten itself into. Here’s the best part, though: until only very recently, Intel itself was a huge player in the ARM game with its XScale line, now owned by Marvell. Isn’t it too soon to harsh on a technology you so heavily bought into, guys? Of course, the moral of the story — if you’re buying the execs’ line, anyway — is that the iPhone wouldn’t suck if they’d gone with an Intel stack, which they claim is a good two years ahead of the best that ARM has to offer. Said Intel’s Pankaj Kedia, pressing on with the smack talk: “I know what their roadmap is, I know where they’re going and I’m not worried.” Of course, knowing the roadmap inside and out gets a little easier when you’re a ginormous ARM licensee.

[Thanks, Renai L.]

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Filed under: Gaming, Handhelds

Be still our hearts! After months upon months (upon months) of waiting, the tight-knit team behind the ultra-potent Pandora gaming handheld has finally divulged the information we’ve been clamoring for: the ARM Cortex A8-powered device will begin shipping before Christmas 2008 for £199.99 in the UK. The first batch will consist of 3,000 units, and the team is hoping that all of those will be sold out before the first one leaves the dock. There’s no word on how costly it’ll be for Americans, though we’re crossing our fingers that it’ll sell for a few bucks less than the $360 we find when simply converting pounds to dollars.

[Thanks, Andri]

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Filed under: Cellphones

Hardware video acceleration is a sore subject for quite a few cellphone fans these days, but it looks like Samsung’s next generation of mobile processor will speed up graphics directly by integrating a hardware video accelerator. The 65nm S3C6410 processor is based on a 667MHz ARM core but adds in 3D graphics acceleration and hardware support for H.264 and MPEG4, as well as other codecs. The chip is powerful enough to record and play VGA-res video at the same time, which Samsung says will enable higher-quality video conferencing while saving battery life — that’s what we like to hear. There’s no word on when or where we might see this bad boy pop up, but with support for Linux, WinMo, and Symbian, as well as architecture support for various types of DRAM and flash memory, we’d guess there might be a few interested suitors.

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Filed under: Cellphones

According to Reuters, chipmaker ARM has plans to show off an Android-based “Google Phone” prototype at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The news agency is citing a “source” for this information, and both Google and ARM declined to comment, as if reading from some sort of industry script, though we’re seeing and hearing a lot of buzz from MWC on new tech, so this would come as no surprise. Come on guys, we don’t mind if the OS is still a little buggy… show us some hardware.

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Filed under: Robots, Wearables

Apparently somewhere along the way Dean Kamen’s robo-prosthestesis came to be called the Luke arm (care to guess why?), and according to the IEEE Spectrum blog, it’s gearing up to undergo Food and Drug Administration trials pending DARPA’s final thumbs-up, which would put the project in motion. Be sure to check out the rest of the profile of the arm’s development, which is well worth the read.

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Filed under: Robots

Boston Globe reporter Scott Kirsner got a chance to go behind the scenes with DARPA’s much publicized robotic arm, designed by a team led by Dean Kamen. The video includes an interview with Dean, along with some footage of the arm itself, including a symbolic handshake between the reporter and humanity’s future destroyer (or if not, the ancestor of humanity’s future destroyer.) Anyway, the video offers some interesting insight into the development of what could eventually be a truly bionic arm: check it out after the break.

Continue reading DARPA’s robotic arm demoed

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Cellphones

As ARM continues its quest to become the record holder for partnerships created in one month, now we’re seeing that the firm is getting cozy with Intel. Apparently, the duo is looking to instill ARM’s TrustZone technology into mobiles, PDAs, set-top-boxes or other devices running “open operating systems such as Symbian OS, Linux and Windows CE.” Essentially, the process involves wedding ARM’s security solutions with Intel’s Authenticated Memory, which purportedly “provides a solution that is stronger than either technology working independently,” and moreover, the combination of technologies “can help reduce SoC cost.” For the geeks who dig this stuff, feel free to hit the read link for a way-too-detailed eight page PDF. [Warning: PDF read link]

[Via TheInquirer]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Handhelds

Just after Symbian announced that its future operating systems would support ARM SMP multicore technology, ARM has teamed up with six others to collaborate on a Linux Mobile Computing platform. More specifically, the firm has joined with Marvell, MontaVista, Movial, Mozilla, Samsung and Texas Instruments in order to develop a “Linux-based open source platform for next-generation mobile applications.” Reportedly, the platform will eventually be released into the open source community, and it hopes to move swiftly in getting the goods into “Connected Mobile Computing (CMC) devices.” And if you’re wondering when you can get your hands dirty with it, ARM is hoping to release a full platform early next year and have equipped devices on shelves by early 2009.

[Via jkkmobile]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Cellphones

Ever so shortly after hearing that next-generation cellphones could boast some pretty powerful onboard graphics processing, Symbian has just announced that these same phones could support the ARM Symmetric Multi-processor (SMP) architecture. The firm has inked a deal with ARM that will enable future versions of the Symbian OS to support ARM SMP multicore technology, which is said to offer “exceptional multicore performance for media-rich applications along with the power efficiency required to continue to deliver industry leading battery life.” Apparently, the two are looking to stuff the newly unveiled ARM Cortex A9 multicore processor into Symbian-based smartphones by 2010, so unfortunately, we’ve got a few years left to wait before this goes commercial.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!