ARM and Co. form new software gang
ARM, Freescale, IBM, Samsung, ST-Ericsson and Texas Instruments announced today that they had all come together to form an independent not-for-profit Linux company called Linaro.
The new firm will apparently put its efforts behind various Linux projects which can be used by a plethora of partners if they are that way inclined.
Since non x86 platforms don’t run Microsoft Windows, Linux has become the port of choice for ARM licensees, although ARM claims to be “agnostic” about software that runs on its systems.
Although he was reluctant to give out too many details about the new company, ARM CEO Tudor Brown told RCR Unplugged that an R&D center in Taipei would serve as Linaro’s base.
Oddly enough, other ARM partners like Qualcomm, NVIDIA and Marvell did not join the new software alliance, which also directly competes with Apple’s OS.
ARM has relationships with over 670 companies worldwide, even including rival Intel. Intel, incidentally, bought its own software company specializing in embedded systems – Wind River – last year.
The first products based on Linaro are apparently due out in November of 2010, with a focus on ARM Cortex A8 and A9 offerings present in many high-end smartphones.
Linaro will also purportedly be releasing new software every six months.
Freescale targets youth with tablets and MIDs
Freescale’s marketing director for the consumer segment Glen Burchers told RCR at a recent Computex meeting that tablets and e-readers were growing segments which Freescale planned to focus strongly on over the next few years.
Referring to recent statistical data, Burchers said he saw tablets starting to replace small computers and that small, portable, wireless devices were becoming very compelling to the 8-30 year old category.
Freescale sees a huge market in content consumption devices, and has reference designs for gadgets at various price points for varying age groups with differing emphases.
Gaming, for instance said Bucher, was extremely important to younger children, while texting was more significant to teens.
In terms of e-readers, Burchers said price elasticity would play an important role and that if the industry could come up with devices for less than $100, over 75% of potential buyers would actually buy one. He also maintained that the trend in e-readers was going towards lower cost and not towards color as other vendors have posited.
Burchers also told RCR that Freescale not only had dual core processors in the pipeline, but also “more than dual core on our road map.”
A more colorful reading experience
While Freescale argued that color would not be a priority for e-reader buyers, local Taiwanese firm Delta begged to differ, showing off its first large screen color display offerings at its Computex booth.
Showing off reference designs for both an 8 inch and 13 inch color e-reader, Hui Lee, director of Delta’s e-paper business told RCR the products could even be available by October.
Delta’s e-readers, which use Quick Response Liquid Power Display technology instead of e-ink’s platform are apparently “very green products” and are targeted at schools and hospitals.
RCR was told that the material used for the e-reader screen “has a memory,” which means it displays the page even when the power is switched off. It also enables pen input.
“E-readers will kill the tablet” proclaimed another Delta product manager to RCR.
Well, at least that would be Delta’s preferred happy ending.
Huawei chooses new chips for WiMAX devices
Chinese communication and networking giant Huawei has chosen WiMAX chipmaker Sequans Communications as a partner in developing chips for upcoming mobile WiMAX devices like USB dongles, modems and CPE in multiple frequency bands.
Apparently Huawei made its choice based on its view that Sequans’ new 65nm SQN1200 series chips have some rather special performance capabilities at a high level of integration.
Claims of the super chips’ abilities, including the oft touted “reduced cost, reduced power consumption, reduced size” combo are being bandied about as other reasons Huawei chose the technology.
The chips are said to use dual transmit uplink technology too, something RCR is assured “greatly improves coverage and throughput.” Indeed, throughput is reported to be over 40 Mbps, whilst power consumption is said to be less than 350mW in active mode.
The integrated RF covers all three global WiMAX bands, 2.3, 2.5 and 3.5 GHz.
Amigo touts its routers
Friendly Taiwanese network device maker Amigo is using Computex to show off not only a variety of routers, adapters, switches and modems, but also media players, in an eclectic yet extensive product mix.
Talking up its “Always On” 802.11n Multifunction Pocket Router internet device, Amigo says it has managed to merge 3G/4G WiMAX broadband and WiFi into one unit, which the firm says can also connect to traditional networks as a dial-up replacement option.
“What the gadget mainly does is that it allows users to create an Ethernet or Wireless office home network so that they can share wireless internet connections. By the same token, users can also share files on individual mobile devices, such as notebooks and WiFi phones, as well as plugged in peripherals, such as printers and webcams,” said Amigo president Thomas Chou.
The device also supports portable and car batteries.
As for the firm’s media player, Amigo says it does what the name proclaims, playing online videos and enabling content output to TVs.
Lean, green GPS machine shown off by Holux
A firm by the name of Holux has been showing off its phone sized FunTrek 130 GPS device, which it reckons is the latest and greatest for those favoring a bit of outdoor recreation of the biking, hiking, cycling, cliff climbing variety.
The diminutive device weighing in at just 124g including battery sports a variety of fancy features including track logging, calorie counting, speed/time/distance recording, a 3D electronic compass and a barometer.
For the tree-hugging sports enthusiasts out there, the FunTrek also boasts a carbon reduction function which purports to calculate the amount of carbon emissions one has saved while hanging off cliff edges and convert that number into an equivalent in “trees planted.”
For those who can’t see the forest for all those saved trees, however, FunTrek also provides turn-by-turn navigation on its touch control three inch color interface, which automatically regulates its own backlighting to keep the screen easy to read even in strong sunlight.
Being a rugged little thing, the device is also shock and water resistant, comes with 2GB of internal memory and supports MicroSD memory cards for up to 8GBs of expanded storage.
