The Icon Bar: News and features: A gaggle of gadgets
Posted by Jeffrey Lee on 20:00, 13/6/2009
| Google, Hardware, Linux, Microsoft, Previews, RISC OS, Shows, Technology
Last week saw this year's annual Computex Taipei computer trade show go down in Taiwan. The second largest computer trade show in the world, it's traditionally a source for many product announcements from the major manufacturers. Most of the time these announcements are of x86-based products, but this year it was ARM's turn to take center stage, delivering on last year's announcement that ARM were to make a big push into the netbook market. Although none of the products listed here are in stores at the moment, all announcements point towards a good number of them being made available before the year is out. Qualcomm SnapdragonQualcomm's Snapdragon line of Systems-on-a-chip feature single or dual ARM cores at speeds of 1GHz or greater, a 600MHz DSP for audio/video encoding/decoding, 3D graphics acceleration, 3G/wifi/bluetooth networking, and essential I/O hardware such as audio, video, USB and SD/MMC controllers. The Snapdragon SoCs will be at the heart of Qualcomm's 'smartbook' product range - a series of always-on, always-connected mobile devices including netbooks, internet tablets, and smartphones. TI OMAP3Although perhaps not as many OMAP3 products were announced as I would have liked, it does look like there are at least a couple of OMAP3 powered products on their way to market this year. 
ECS T800 netbook with 1GHz OMAP3, running Android
Via Engadget, Liliputing | 
Pandora portable gaming console inches closer to release
Via Engadget, unofficial Pandora blog | Other news
Although there hasn't been much news about it recently, it looks like Always Innovating are gearing up for the Touch Book release, with a new info page appearing on the website and promising lots of news, information and pictures over the coming weeks. |
NVIDIA TegraNVIDIA have revealed that they want a slice of the netbook/smartbook/smartphone pie, with the announcement of their Tegra platform - a hardware platform comprising an ARM11 CPU, GeForce GPU, HD video decoder, HDMI output, USB, and all the other bits you'd expect from any modern system-on-a-chip. According to their presentation at Computex at least 12 Tegra-powered devices are on their way this year. But then again, they also claimed that Qualcomm's Snapdragon fails at HD video playback and only gets 5fps in Quake, statistics that seem to have landed NVIDIA in some hot water judging by the fact that (almost) all pictoral proof of the slide in question has vanished from the internet. At the moment only Windows CE is supported by Tegra, but support for Google's Android is in the works. FreescaleAlthough Freescale's i.MX range of ARM-based SoC's don't appear to have as much grunt as some of their rivals, they still showed off a few products at Computex. OtherWhereas most of the above has focused on ARM based products announced at Computex that could one day run RISC OS, it's important to remember that there are a load of other ARM based devices out there. Such as... - OpenRD-Client - A small computer akin to the A9home, the OpenRD-Client is powered by one of Marvell's Sheeva brand of ARM-based chips, and supports clock speeds of up to 1.2GHz
- VIA are entering the ARM based smartbook space - just not much concrete information about products yet. See also here for some more details.
- Skytone's Alpha 680 netbook - It's got an ARM CPU, it runs Android, and it features a swivel screen for converting to tablet mode.
- x86/ARM netbook/tablet combo - A HP mini 1000 with the screen removed and replaced with a removable ARM powered tablet. Like a Touch Book, but with extra x86 compatability (providing you don't mind the fact VNC is being used to communicate between the two halves!)
- IAC's Prodigy e-reader - Although you probably wouldn't want to run RISC OS on an e-reader due to the typical 0.5Hz screen refresh rate, it's worth listing just to show how many devices use ARM CPUs nowadays. See also here for another ARM-based e-reader.
- Snapdragon powered smartphones - Acer F1, Toshiba TG01
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A gaggle of gadgets |
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John |
Message #110254, posted by mr-mac at 16:21, 14/6/2009 |
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Was also intresting to see how quick Nvidia's Tegra ran Firefox 3.5 on CE.
Looking forward to some of these devices to replace my venerable Smartbook G138 (SA 206Mhz powered CE netbook-like machine).
John |
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Eric Rucker |
Message #110257, posted by bhtooefr at 04:51, 15/6/2009, in reply to message #110254 |
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Of course, Tegra's approach might not be the best one for RISC OS.
A lot of stuff gets offloaded to the GPU, tying software developed for it to the Tegra line.
And, Tegra uses ARM11, not Cortex-A8, so it's already a generation too old for a new part, and Cortex-A9-based parts are already announced by TI.
Also, how's their open source support? I'm guessing there's quite a lot of closed source secret sauce that will make it an even worse decision. |
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John |
Message #110258, posted by mr-mac at 11:46, 15/6/2009, in reply to message #110257 |
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Absaloutly.. Tegra's not the best choice for Risc OS.
I am happy with CE in a portable device. The battery life looks superb on tegra (very low use - can even manage 8-10hrs doing HD).
And so far due to the offloading to GPU (which I doubt most of the others will manage so well) the performance looks better than the other devices based on Cortex. + the guy in charge at nvidia is talking about getting lots of other applications working on it.
As you say Ti OMAP will likely be best choice for RISC OS due to the fantastic work that has been done already and I will happily pick up a device based on this SOC when I can run RISC OS on it.
John |
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Eric Rucker |
Message #110262, posted by bhtooefr at 17:58, 15/6/2009, in reply to message #110258 |
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Well, not even OMAP will be best necessarily, and OMAP has some GPU secret sauce if you want to use the PowerVR chip for 3D stuff.
The Freescale chip I believe uses an ATI GPU, I don't know if the specs are open on that.
And, I'm not sure what Snapdragon has.
But, any of these will be better than Tegra for RISC OS, purely because of them having more CPU power.
[Edited by bhtooefr at 18:59, 15/6/2009] |
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John |
Message #110263, posted by mr-mac at 18:41, 15/6/2009, in reply to message #110262 |
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Snapdragon may be a no-go as qualcom will not release any details unless you are a licensee so I think anyone would have a hard time porting the os never mind optomising it.
The demo's for freescale (unless they are behind everyone else with getting OS's optomised) make them look really quite slow and sluggish compared to the other 3 cortex/instruction set rivals.
Think the TI OMAP ones are best (not because they may or may not be most powerfull or best suited) because we have a port underway and traditionally Ti have been much better at making technical documetation available.
Tegra already has things in the works for tegra II and tegra III and nvidia seems really behind it. So think cortex will be on cards in 2010 for tegra so it may quickly become a nice option (and although nvidia are not as open as ATi with tech specs it would at least be possible to see how to make things work from linux on the same hardware).
Still Intresting times  |
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Eric Rucker |
Message #110264, posted by bhtooefr at 18:45, 15/6/2009, in reply to message #110263 |
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Well, their CPU core is Cortex, so unless they screwed up the memory subsystem, it should be plenty fast for RISC OS - faster than a 500-600 MHz BeagleBoard, that's for sure.
But, yes, getting OMAP3 finished first does make sense. |
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Jeffrey Lee |
Message #110317, posted by Phlamethrower at 08:07, 25/6/2009, in reply to message #110264 |
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Whee!
http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/touchbook/info.htm |
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Peter Howkins |
Message #110319, posted by flibble at 11:34, 25/6/2009, in reply to message #110317 |
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I'm not sure ARM based netbooks are going to suddenly take the market by storm and be immensely popular ... quite a few have been around for a while, cheaper than the x86 counterparts and some MIPS based ones too. Linux and Windows CE on them, I think people just want windows maybe?
As crap as it sounds, I think ARM are about 2 years late for a big netbook push. |
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Jeffrey Lee |
Message #110320, posted by Phlamethrower at 12:30, 25/6/2009, in reply to message #110319 |
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You're probably right. The current generation of ARM netbooks all seem to have poor specs, so apart from battery life/price they've got no advantage over an x86 netbook. And when faced with a choice between x86 and non-x86, most people would probably pick the x86 machine so they can run Windows apps.
I think this is why most manufactureres are aiming for the 'smartbook' category - something halfway between a netbook and a smartphone, with always-on 3G internet access, and sold for the cheap price $100-$199 (under contract with a mobile phone company, of course). It's a market that current x86 netbooks can't really break into, considering their poor battery life and increasing focus on making bigger/more expensive netbooks rather than small cheap ones aimed at providing mobile internet access/media player functionality.
Of course this is all besides the point, which is that the upcoming ARM portables are what RISC OS die-hards have been clamouring for for years, irrespective of whether the general public will like them or not. |
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John |
Message #110321, posted by mr-mac at 19:08, 25/6/2009, in reply to message #110319 |
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The arm netbooks at the moment are terrible. They are about the same price as x86 ones and the performance is terrible and come with no added value features. Battery life isn't great, there is only wifi for most.
The cortex ones are real nice and most offer considerablly better battery and video performance than the x86 atom machines (barring ones with real GPU's). They are offering mobile data with always on like a cellphone so it can tell you when there are emails etc. when not turned on. So I do think these are going to offer somthing slightly diffrent and at a lower price point.
However x86 netbooks are getting bigger and bigger so I see the ARM ones mostly filling the same size as the original netbooks.
The always inovating touch book (the convertible tablet/netbook) is now in production. This is based on a ti omap cortex cpu.
http://www.liliputing.com/2009/06/always-innovating-touch-book-enters-production.html
[Edited by mr-mac at 20:11, 25/6/2009] |
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keith dunlop |
Message #110364, posted by epistaxsis at 19:49, 26/6/2009, in reply to message #110320 |
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Of course this is all besides the point, which is that the upcoming ARM portables are what RISC OS die-hards have been clamouring for for years, irrespective of whether the general public will like them or not. heh - good point
Mind you I find my EeePC901 disapointing for HD replay (mostly the streamed BBC stuff <-- no it isn't the www connection as my girlfriends PC is *much* better...) - OK this might be because it is now running Ubuntu 9 NBR but still...
Oh and I ordered a Beagleboard on Monday 
Which amusingly prompted an email from DigiKey just making sure I wasn't going to use it for military purposes!  |
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Jeffrey Lee |
Message #110365, posted by Phlamethrower at 20:07, 26/6/2009, in reply to message #110364 |
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Mind you I find my EeePC901 disapointing for HD replay (mostly the streamed BBC stuff <-- no it isn't the www connection as my girlfriends PC is *much* better...) - OK this might be because it is now running Ubuntu 9 NBR but still... The streamed BBC stuff would be done by flash, right? I don't think many netbooks, even ones running Windows, work well with large flash videos/animations because flash is such a horrible mess and lacks support for hardware acceleration.
Oh and I ordered a Beagleboard on Monday Hurrah! (Although I'm hoping you'll be helping out with development, because until someone writes an abort handler to fixup unaligned loads/stores it won't be that great for running most of your existing apps. Oh, and the fact there are a fair number of other nasty bugs that need fixing  )
Which amusingly prompted an email from DigiKey just making sure I wasn't going to use it for military purposes! Yep, they do like their security checks. |
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keith dunlop |
Message #110435, posted by epistaxsis at 22:43, 30/6/2009, in reply to message #110365 |
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Mind you I find my EeePC901 disapointing for HD replay (mostly the streamed BBC stuff <-- no it isn't the www connection as my girlfriends PC is *much* better...) - OK this might be because it is now running Ubuntu 9 NBR but still... The streamed BBC stuff would be done by flash, right? I don't think many netbooks, even ones running Windows, work well with large flash videos/animations because flash is such a horrible mess and lacks support for hardware acceleration.
Yup it is flash and that explains why the BBC HD content is not as good as it could be on girlfriends silly o'clock PC... 
Oh and I ordered a Beagleboard on Monday Hurrah! (Although I'm hoping you'll be helping out with development, because until someone writes an abort handler to fixup unaligned loads/stores it won't be that great for running most of your existing apps. Oh, and the fact there are a fair number of other nasty bugs that need fixing )
Well I can't code for toffee but the plan is, as I can build the sources, to be able to try out stuff and report back what I find
Which amusingly prompted an email from DigiKey just making sure I wasn't going to use it for military purposes! Yep, they do like their security checks.
Perhaps I shoud have replied in Persian? 
[Edited by epistaxsis at 23:44, 30/6/2009] |
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Jeffrey Lee |
Message #110436, posted by Phlamethrower at 23:47, 30/6/2009, in reply to message #110435 |
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Well I can't code for toffee but the plan is, as I can build the sources, to be able to try out stuff and report back what I find Sounds good!
Even if you can't code very well, you should at least be able to enable debugging code to help track down where things keep go wrong |
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Bryan Hogan |
Message #110437, posted by helpful at 15:05, 1/7/2009, in reply to message #110321 |
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The always inovating touch book (the convertible tablet/netbook) is now in production. This is based on a ti omap cortex cpu.
http://www.liliputing.com/2009/06/always-innovating-touch-book-enters-production.html
And it now says they will ship internationally. Ooooo, tempting |
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keith dunlop |
Message #110438, posted by epistaxsis at 16:26, 1/7/2009, in reply to message #110436 |
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Well I can't code for toffee but the plan is, as I can build the sources, to be able to try out stuff and report back what I find Sounds good!
Even if you can't code very well, you should at least be able to enable debugging code to help track down where things keep go wrong
That was my most cunning plan |
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Bryan Hogan |
Message #110580, posted by helpful at 13:05, 15/7/2009, in reply to message #110437 |
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The always inovating touch book (the convertible tablet/netbook) is now in production. This is based on a ti omap cortex cpu.
http://www.liliputing.com/2009/06/always-innovating-touch-book-enters-production.html
And it now says they will ship internationally. Ooooo, tempting
I gave in to temptation
BTW, you can see the Beagleboard running RISC OS at next Monday's (20th) ROUGOL meeting.
http://rougol.jellybaby.net/ |
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Jeffrey Lee |
Message #110585, posted by Phlamethrower at 17:06, 15/7/2009, in reply to message #110580 |
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The always inovating touch book (the convertible tablet/netbook) is now in production. This is based on a ti omap cortex cpu.
http://www.liliputing.com/2009/06/always-innovating-touch-book-enters-production.html
And it now says they will ship internationally. Ooooo, tempting
I gave in to temptation
Looks like you just volunteered yourself to be a guinea pig for when we start adding Touch Book support (I'll be trying to hold off on buying one until they announce the UK model, so depending on how well things progress we might start adding support for it before any of the developers actually have one to play with) |
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Bryan Hogan |
Message #110586, posted by helpful at 01:17, 16/7/2009, in reply to message #110585 |
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Looks like you just volunteered yourself to be a guinea pig for when we start adding Touch Book support You've got yourself a deal, providing you can get RevB Beagleboard USB working by the time ROOL arrive at ROUGOL on Monday so they can show a working desktop! No pressure
Actually I rather like the idea of being the first person in the country with a new native RISC OS laptop |
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Gary Hughes |
Message #110588, posted by gazza_fp at 08:21, 16/7/2009, in reply to message #110586 |
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I was also interested in the Touch Book but thinking in terms of an ARM implementation of Ubuntu thought it wasn't worth it. However, if RISC OS could be ported to it, I think I could be tempted. |
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Bryan Hogan |
Message #110594, posted by helpful at 12:06, 17/7/2009, in reply to message #110585 |
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... depending on how well things progress we might start adding support for it before any of the developers actually have one to play with How similar is the Touchbook hardware to a Beagleboard? Does it actually have a Beagleboard in it? If so, fingers crossed, everything you've done so far should "just work", and then it will be a case of supporting the Touchbook specific hardware (e.g. the touch screen).
This is the first time I've ordered anything from the US. What happens about VAT/import duty/tax stuff? Will the courier arrive demanding payment before handing over the package?!? |
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Jeffrey Lee |
Message #110595, posted by Phlamethrower at 12:26, 17/7/2009, in reply to message #110594 |
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How similar is the Touchbook hardware to a Beagleboard? Does it actually have a Beagleboard in it? If so, fingers crossed, everything you've done so far should "just work", and then it will be a case of supporting the Touchbook specific hardware (e.g. the touch screen). AFAIK the hardware uses almost the exact same components, but there may be a couple of implementation differences that will require us to use different initialisation code (e.g. different RAM timings, or GPIO pins being used for different things). Once we know what these differences are it should be easy to support them.
The big difference though will be the integrated LCD - I suspect the display will only work if it's driven at its native resolution, so for RISC OS to be fully usable we'd have to make some significant changes to the video driver to allow it to use hardware scaling. We can do most of this work using just an ordinary monitor, but there may be a final bit of work we can't easily test if it turns out the display is connected to the OMAP via a different interface (There are about 3 or 4 different interfaces/protocols that are supported for video output)
Plus of course there's all the touch screen stuff... but since the keyboard is connected via USB you shouldn't have any problems using the machine with RISC OS until we're able to write the touch screen driver (For which we can do all kinds of funky stuff - e.g. if there's no keyboard/mouse connected we could use one of the video overlays to display an onscreen keyboard, and have it controlled fully by the touchscreen driver - i.e. it will work with 100% of existing apps, even single-tasking ones)
This is the first time I've ordered anything from the US. What happens about VAT/import duty/tax stuff? Will the courier arrive demanding payment before handing over the package?!? I believe it varies from company to company. The best way to find out is probably to email them and ask!
[Edited by Phlamethrower at 13:31, 17/7/2009] |
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Garry Taylor |
Message #110666, posted by thegman at 11:48, 26/7/2009, in reply to message #110595 |
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Hi Jeffrey,
I would be happy to buy one of these Always Innovating netbooks for you to have on loan to test with, only condition would be when it runs RISC OS nicely, I want it back!
Let me know if that sounds good to you.
Cheers
Garry |
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Jeffrey Lee |
Message #110683, posted by Phlamethrower at 19:05, 27/7/2009, in reply to message #110666 |
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Let me know if that sounds good to you. I'll keep it in mind for when I'm ready to start working on Touch Book support!
Also, Samsung have just announced a 1GHz Cortex A8 core: http://www.engadget.com/2009/07/27/samsung-announces-worlds-fastest-cortex-a8-core-iphone-3gs-fro/
It'll be interesting to see what devices that shows up in (especially since there's meant to be that 1GHz OMAP3 netbook as well). |
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Garry Taylor |
Message #110685, posted by thegman at 10:16, 28/7/2009, in reply to message #110683 |
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OK, just let me know. |
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keith dunlop |
Message #110688, posted by epistaxsis at 19:42, 28/7/2009, in reply to message #110438 |
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OK kidz
I now have a rev C beagleboard
Amusingly after all the declarations I had to make to digi key about how I wasn't going to use it for military use it got delivered whilst I was away to a local halal grocers...
Can't do anything until next monday though |
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John |
Message #110785, posted by mr-mac at 20:51, 2/8/2009, in reply to message #110688 |
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http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/02/always-innovatings-touch-book-now-shipping/
Well the touchbook is now shipping
John |
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Bryan Hogan |
Message #110788, posted by helpful at 11:09, 3/8/2009, in reply to message #110785 |
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Yeah!
And there's a form on their website where you can put details of why you've ordered one to try to get moved up the queue.
Do you think that if I tell them I'm trying to help get RISC OS running on it that will help, or drop me to the bottom of the list! |
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Jeffrey Lee |
Message #110789, posted by Phlamethrower at 12:48, 3/8/2009, in reply to message #110788 |
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Do you think that if I tell them I'm trying to help get RISC OS running on it that will help, or drop me to the bottom of the list! They do say that they're hoping to get other operating systems running on it, so I suppose there's only one way to find out!
Although if your Touch Book arrives in the next few weeks then you'll have to put up with my stubborn refusal to work on Touch Book support until I at least finish the USB OTG driver |
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Bryan Hogan |
Message #110817, posted by helpful at 17:18, 4/8/2009, in reply to message #110789 |
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Do you think that if I tell them I'm trying to help get RISC OS running on it that will help, or drop me to the bottom of the list! They do say that they're hoping to get other operating systems running on it, so I suppose there's only one way to find out!
I've had a cunning plan - I'm going to go with the "I'm organising a computer exhibition in London on 3rd October and want to be able to demo it there" gambit! That should get their attention.
Although if your Touch Book arrives in the next few weeks then you'll have to put up with my stubborn refusal to work on Touch Book support until I at least finish the USB OTG driver
I think bribery and/or extreme violence will then come into play |
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The Icon Bar: News and features: A gaggle of gadgets |
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