Hasta La Gadget!

Putting Pathpartner and Ittiam right beside one another may not have been the best idea if these two were hot-headed, but shockingly, they were treating each other with a great deal of respect within Texas Instruments’ MWC booth. All jesting aside, the former’s 720p HD videocalling solution is aimed at an entirely different market than that of the latter. Rather than arranging for a four-way video conference, Pathpartner has concocted an Android app that enables 720p video calling over Skype — you know, that VoIP application that you’re already obsessed with. Currently, the company’s working with Skype in hopes of getting it ‘Skype-certified,’ and like Ittiam, it’s also chatting with a number of handset makers in hopes of getting it embedded on the phone’s software stack from the get-go.

Alexy Mathew Joseph, the company’s senior technical lead, was on hand to showcase a demo running on a pair of OMAP 4-based development boxes, and the low-bitrate technology that he has helped create enabled smooth, high-def streaming of the call. We should mention that this particular demo was done over an Ethernet network, but he affirmed that it would operate on 3G and 4G networks as well. Also of note, the new software is capable on running on more than just TI equipment, though he wouldn’t elaborate other than saying that NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 was a platform he hasn’t tested on just yet. Just think — 720p Skype videocalls could be hitting your phone prior to the dawn of 2012, and the carrier’s have to be weeping at the mere mention. Vid’s past the break, per usual.

Continue reading Pathpartner demos 720p HD Skype videocalling using Android and OMAP 4 (video)

Pathpartner demos 720p HD Skype videocalling using Android and OMAP 4 (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Feb 2011 23:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Being Mobile World Congress, quite a few software vendors found themselves tucked into corners of bigger booths, eager and willing to showcase their latest work. Ittiam is one of those companies, relying on Texas Instruments’ OMAP 4 platform to power its new HD video conferencing system. The demo shown here at MWC involved a foursome of TI development boxes, but the underlying platform was most certainly Android 2.2. Anil Kumar, the manager of Ittiam’s video communications division, noted that the system would work just fine on Gingerbread and Honeycomb, enabling up to four devices (smartphones, tablets, whatever) to link up and enjoy a multi-faced call over a standard 3G network.

Of course, the demonstration that we were shown used an Ethernet network for maximum stability, but the low-bitrate technology would allow bearable results on 3G networks (and better-than-average results on a 4G network). We were told that the company is in talks with “numerous” phone makers, in hopes of getting their VCS software integrated onto Android devices by the year’s end — think Qik, but for video conferencing — but he couldn’t hand out any specifics. Head on past the jump if you’d like to see a demo (and hear an awful lot more).

Continue reading Ittiam shows off four-way 720p HD video conferencing using Android, OMAP 4 (video)

Ittiam shows off four-way 720p HD video conferencing using Android, OMAP 4 (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Feb 2011 20:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading CUPP crams ARM inside of a MacBook Pro, makes it run Android with a button press (video)

CUPP crams ARM inside of a MacBook Pro, makes it run Android with a button press (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 Feb 2011 20:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’re still waiting for the first OMAP 4 devices to hit the market, but TI’s planning ahead — way ahead — with its announcement today of the OMAP 5 platform that really kicks things into high gear. The headline feature would be the inclusion of two Cortex-A15 cores, each running at up to 2GHz; Cortex-A15 is the fastest architecture ARM has announced to date, featuring performance roughly 50 percent better than Cortex-A9 at the same clock speed. What’s more, there are another two Cortex-M4 processors along for the ride, ready to take over less intensive tasks at much lower power consumption to improve device responsiveness. The platform can support up to four cameras operating at the same time, offer 3D playback, recording, and 2D upsampling to 3D at 1080p resolution, and control up to 8GB of RAM. The chips start sampling to device manufacturers in the second half of this year with retail devices expected in the second half of 2012. Follow the break for the full press release.

Continue reading TI announces OMAP 5: two high-performance and two low-power cores, devices next year

TI announces OMAP 5: two high-performance and two low-power cores, devices next year originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 Feb 2011 12:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nokia has to do something big if it wants to crack the US smartphone market. We can agree on that, right? And believe us, Nokia wants this — nothing will make the mighty Finns (and the company’s global investors) prouder than to gain some traction in the home of Apple pie and Google desserts. So how will the company do it? With
Symbian? Oh, hell no.
By introducing another MeToo handset? Nope, with MeeGo on a rockin’ platform like the rumored N9 slider pictured above.

Nokia announced its hardware plans for Maemo 6 a long time ago. At that time, the company was clear that it would continue using TI OMAP processors. Much has changed since then, however. In addition to several key leadership changes including a new Canadian-born CEO who spent much of his time working in the US, Nokia has joined Intel to roll up Maemo 6 and Moblin into MeeGo with Nokia’s first Maemo 6 MeeGo/Harmattan handset pushed into 2011. Simultaneously, Intel has also been doing its best to show its new Moorestown platform as a powerful ARM alternative, even showing off MeeGo handsets exploiting a Lincroft SoC and Atom processor core.
And Intel has said that Medfield-based smartphones (Moorestown’s
successor) would arrive in the middle of 2011.

So why the build-up? Well, we’ve just been tipped to a claim by
Prosessori, a respected Finnish technology magazine, that the Nokia N9 will launch with a 1.2GHz Atom processor. Better yet, it could be unveiled as soon as Mobile World Congress in February, presumably during Stephen Elop’s keynote. Do we believe it? Not entirely, but it is possible given the chain of events that have taken place. And you can bet that the first commercially available Intel smartphone with a brand new Nokia user experience would certainly grab headlines in the US and around the world. Something that should translate into high-end market share (and profits) if it’s as “exciting” as Elop claims.

[Thanks, Janne]

Nokia N9 to bust loose with MeeGo on Intel Atom power? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 20 Jan 2011 07:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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