The next version of Windows is going to run on ARM processors—the same kind of chips that’s inside a bajillion smartphones and tablets right now. Which means the future of Windows isn’t just PCs anymore. More »
You know Atheros, right? The company known for its various wireless networking products has just announced a little something called the AR6233. Billed as “the first SIP solution to support the new Bluetooth 4.0 standard,” this system-in-package (that’s what SIP stands for — but you already knew that) sports the aforementioned Bluetooth radio, as well as 802.11n “with a near-zero impact on the battery life of portable devices.” Sounds like just the thing for your handcrafted boutique cellphone startup! The architecture works with ARM or x86 processors, and is expected to be in volume production in Q2, 2011. PR after the break.
Continue reading Atheros debuts first Bluetooth 4 / 802.11n system-in-package
Atheros debuts first Bluetooth 4 / 802.11n system-in-package originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Jan 2011 11:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Power. We need more. More for streaming video, more for playing games, and more just so that we can say we have it. Freescale hears us, and it’s delivering the i.MX 6 series of mobile processors offering up to four ARM Cortex A9 cores at 1.2GHz each. That’s plenty for 3D rendering on your car infotainment system, music-making on your smartphone, maybe a little SETI action on your next smart refrigerator. Even 1080p30 video encoding is a said to be within these chips’ reach. i.MX 6 processors will be available in one, two, or four core configurations with up to 1MB of L2 cache. HDMI 1.4 support is onboard, along with gigabit Ethernet and USB 2.0, but sadly not 3.0. It seems there’s always something to look forward to in the next revision, but that could be quite a wait with i.MX 6 sampling not set to begin until “later this year.”
Continue reading Freescale announces i.MX 6 processor series, wants quad cores in your smartphone
Freescale announces i.MX 6 processor series, wants quad cores in your smartphone originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 03 Jan 2011 11:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Chances are that we’ll find out for sure next month at CES, but PC World has it on authority that BenQ will be throwing its hat into the overcrowded Android tablet ring early next year. The so-called R100 will be a 10.1-inch device, complete with a 1024 x 600 resolution touchscreen, an unspecified flavor of Android and a Samsung-built ARM CPU humming along at 833MHz. Moreover, we’re told that the battery will run for a solid 12 hours before begging for mercy (and calling it a night), and it can also be used with a stylus — you know, for handling both simplified and traditional Chinese handwriting. 8GB of internal storage, an SD slot, mini-USB port, a 3.5mm headphone jack and a mini-HDMI socket are also marked for inclusion, and of course, an 802.11b/g/n radio will be planted right alongside a Bluetooth module. There’s no mention of a price just yet, and a company representative noted that images wouldn’t be available until the device “was officially launched.” Bah! Humbug!
BenQ rumored to debut 10.1-inch R100 Android tablet in early 2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Dec 2010 05:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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You may not have heard of Ambarella factoring into the smartphone processor race alongside Qualcomm, TI, and Samsung, and there’s a good reason for that: they don’t do smartphone processors. Rather, these guys are in the business of making video and photographic processing chips, and their latest — the iOne — is a doozy. Starting with a dual-core Cortex-A9 at 1GHz, the iOne adds in an extra ARM11 core at 533MHz dedicated to handling camera functions and ensuring ready times of under one second. It’s capable of real-time encode and decode of H.264 1080p video content at 30fps and includes a GPU that can run OpenGL ES 2.0 for what we can only assume would be the wildest camera UI you’ve ever seen. What kind of beastly point-and-shoot is this, anyway? Well, Ambarella envisions cameras running Android before too long, and when you think about it, the hardware difference between a smartphone and a digital camera is getting smaller by the day — so it would make sense that this iOne sounds so much like something we’d like to have powering our handsets. We can dream, can’t we? Follow the break for the press release.
Ambarella’s Cortex A9-based iOne is the smartphone processor of your dreams… but it’s for your camera originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 23 Dec 2010 03:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Microsoft plans to introduce a special version of Windows for low-power mobile devices like tablets at next month’s Consumer Electronics Show, according to multiple reports.
The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg claim to have both heard that Microsoft will discuss a version of Windows that supports mobile ARM chips and other low-power processors. The Journal adds that the new Windows OS isn’t expected to be available for two years.
My instant reaction to these reports: WTF?
Microsoft already has a new version of Windows designed for mobile devices: Windows Phone 7. The company hired new executives, spent million of dollars on development facilities, rethought its entire mobile strategy and took an entire year to whip up a touch-friendly mobile OS from scratch.
In terms of power and features, Windows Phone 7 hasn’t caught up with Android or iOS yet, but it’s a solid start. It’s certainly more fit for tabletization than the desktop Windows. There are many reasons why a Windows 7– based tablet makes no sense.
Windows Phone 7 is also light-years ahead of Microsoft’s previous mobile OS, Windows Mobile, to say nothing of Windows CE, Microsoft’s first mobile OS, which lives on as an “embedded” OS powering hospital devices, manufacturing equipment, point-of-sale devices, and the like.
So why in the world would Microsoft throw more money and talent at a new mobile version of Windows when it’s already made great progress on a newer, better one?
I like the well-informed Mary Jo Foley’s skeptical interpretation of the news. She thinks that Microsoft will announce a new version of Windows Embedded Compact, a trimmed-down version of Windows CE made especially for enterprise devices. That OS, which is currently in beta, already runs on ARM, and might make a suitable platform for Windows-powered tablets, especially the kind attached to your UPS driver’s barcode scanner.
Among other points, Foley notes that the timing is right, and that Microsoft announced tablet partners earlier this year who are already in the business of making Windows Embedded Compact devices.
That outcome would make a lot more sense to me, and if Foley’s right, Microsoft’s “tablet” news won’t be as exciting for the average gadget geek aching for a Microsoft-powered iPad competitor (unless you have a urinary tract disorder).
See Also:
Photo: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer talks up the goods at CES 2010.
Jon Snyder/Wired.com
We know Windows CE jibes with ARM-based architecture, but full-blown Windows? Looks like everyone and their respective mothers today — to be specific, Bloomberg, AllThingsD, and the Wall Street Journal — are reporting “sources” that claim Microsoft is set to announce Windows compatibility with ARM chips, which currently rule the roost in the mobile and embedded scenes, and more importantly dominate the tablet market. So yeah, we get the need for such a merge, and it’d really put Microsoft in a smart position for lower-power devices, but here’s the catch: the products aren’t expected for some time — two years according to WSJ — as drivers need to be written for the hardware.
Then again, this may all be for nothing. Cue another well-connected Microsoft reporter, ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley, who has a decidedly tamer prediction: a new Windows CE / Embedded Contact — you’ll remember we saw it running on a Tegra 2 tablet back at Computex — and maybe ARM support for Windows 8 (or Windows 8 “Lite”). In other words, no one has a clear, 100 percent idea of what to expect in January, so as we say, just stay tuned.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Microsoft to announce ARM-based Windows at CES? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Dec 2010 22:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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You know what they say about a trip to the FCC‘s database, right? Why, it’s much like the step just prior to achieving manhood — one more leap from here, and you’ll be ripe for the pickin’. Just a few months after Hannspree teased us with a formal introduction of its (then unnamed) 10.1-inch multitouch Froyo tablet, it looks as if that very device has now found a moniker. The 1.6-pound HSG1164 will eventually bring a fairly impressive build of materials to light, offering a 1GHz Tegra 2 chip, 16GB of internal storage, 512MB of NAND Flash, a microSD slot, Android 2.2, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, mini USB / HDMI connector, an inbuilt light sensor, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR and a Li-ion battery of unspecified size. There’s obviously no direct mention of a ship date in the documentation here, but we’re putting our money on an early 2011 release. Care to wager, too?
Hannspree’s HSG1164 10.1-inch Froyo tablet drops by the FCC originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Dec 2010 10:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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This video, criminally, doesn’t actually show any high fives, but we’re sure the students at the University of Tsukuba have sustained endless LOLs over the past few months, pushing their gesture-driven robot arm system to the limits of human-robot high five interaction. The system itself is relatively simple: it uses two cameras to track a hand’s movements, including specific finger gestures, which are then processed and translated into robotic movement in real time. The end result is basically the world’s most elaborate claw machine game, as demonstrated above.
Gesture-controlled robot arm enables civilization’s most meta high five originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 15 Dec 2010 23:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
No, we can’t say we’ve ever heard of Woow Digital before either, but we’ve just received some very legit-looking imagery of the company’s forthcoming tablet, modestly titled The One. Google’s impending Android Gingerbread release is promised as the OS, while the internal equipment includes an NVIDIA Tegra 2 core, 1GB of RAM, and 16GB of flash storage. Up front you’ll find a 10-inch display spanning a 1024 x 600 resolution, while wireless connectivity is taken care of with Bluetooth, WiFi and WCDMA 3G radios built in. Woow tells us it plans to launch The One in Japan before Christmas at a price of ¥42,000 ($504), which will be followed up by availability in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Europe. Well, it had better hope that release schedule doesn’t shift, because come CES 2011, we should be up to our ears in Tegra 2 tablets and phones.
Gallery: Woow Digital’s The One tablet
Woow Digital’s The One tablet cooks up Tegra 2 with Gingerbread just in time for Christmas originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 25 Nov 2010 08:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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