Hasta La Gadget!

According to an interview in PC World, the OLPC crew are looking to adopt ARM processors for the next iteration of their feel good laptop. Its extremely low power draw and the system on chip possibilities make this move a no-brainer, until you consider the fact that plans for the XO-2 call for a dual-boot Linux / Windows machine — as of yet, Microsoft has declined to make a full-blown Windows OS for ARM. Then again, as Nicholas Negroponte states, the newest OLPC machine is still 18 months away, and “a lot can change with regard to Microsoft and ARM” in that time. We hope it does — we would hate to see the Third World’s computing needs left to those $10 laptop guys. You know what a disaster that turned out to be!

[Via OLPC News]

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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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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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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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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