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Kindle Fire with its $200 price pushing everybody up, down or out of the Android tablet market
Suggested preliminary reading: $199 Kindle Fire: Android 2.3 with specific UI layer and cloud services [Sept 29 – Nov 13, 2011]
Update (when neither up or down the market is an option for the company):
Acer Likely to Withdraw From Tablet PC Market [Dec 28, 2011]
Routed by Apple Inc. in the tablet PC competition, the Taiwan-based Acer Inc., one of the world’s top five PC suppliers by market shares, has intended to disband its touch business group in January, 2012, indicating its withdrawal from the competitive landscape to follow the footsteps of HP and Research In Motion.
Headed by Acer’s corporate president Jim Wong, the touch business group was set up in April 2011 to develop and promote tablet PCs and smartphones, regarded as the company’s best promising business unit then.
However, the momentary impression has proven unable to secure the business unit an expected success, as the company, after struggling with the sluggishness of tablet PC sales in the past months, is determined to dissolve the unit starting in January, 2012. Of over 300 workers of the touch business unit, 150, mostly R&D engineers, will be transferred to other business divisions, and only 100 will be retained, with the remainder likely to be laid off, according to industry insiders.
Although the disbandment has yet to be publicized, Acer directors have confirmed that the company has recently merged its Android tablet business, which originally belonged to the touch business group, into its global logistics center management, saying that the once-promising division now exists in name only.
With the touch division to be streamlined, market observers believe that Acer, which just halved its tablet PC sales projection to the range of only 2.5 million to 3 million units from 5 million units optimistically set right after the division was established, is likely to leave the challenging market that has been dominated by Apple with its iPad.
Although global PC makers have eagerly ventured into tablet PC business in the wake of iPad’s success over the past year, many of them, however, have proven unmatchable with Apple in the competition, with HP and RIM already out of the market. Taiwanese contract manufacturers, such as Quanta Computer Inc. and Inventect Corp., have also been jeopardized by customer’s withdrawal from the segment, forced to cut their employees as a result.
The Kindle Fire Is On Fire: Amazon Expected To Ship 3.9 Million This Quarter [Seeking Alpha, Dec 2, 2011]
The Kindle Fire looks like a bona fide hit right out of the gate. New estimates from IHS iSuppli have Amazon.com (AMZN) shipping 3.9 million Kindle Fires this quarter, which would make it the No. 2 tablet after the iPad 2 (with an estimated 18.6 million shipments). The Kindle Fire will become the No. 1 Android tablet by a wide margin (the Samsung (SSNLF.PK) Galaxy Tab is the next biggest, with an estimated 1.4 million shipments).
To put this 3.9 million number in context, just remember that the very first quarter Apple sold the iPad back in the September quarter of 2010, it sold 3.3 million. So the Kindle Fire sold more in its first quarter than the iPad did in its first quarter on the market. Of course, Apple sold 7.3 million iPads the second quarter it was on the market, which was the 2010 holiday quarter.
Quanta shipments of Kindle Fire reach 3-4 million units [Dec 2, 2011]
Shipments of 7-inch Kindle Fire tablet PCs from Quanta Computer to Amazon have reached 3-4 million units, according to industry watchers. However, Quanta declined to comment.
The sources said Amazon has continued to increase its orders for Kindle Fire and aims to see total OEM Kindle Fire shipments reach five million units by the end of December or early January.
Wintek, a major supplier of touch panels for Kindle Fire, has recently raised its internal forecast of shipments to Amazon. Industry sources have estimated that Wintek will ship about 3-3.5 million touch panels for Kindle Fire before January.
However, some makers in the supply chain have built up inventory of needed parts and components steadily, and OEM Quanta has also kept its shipments regular, for the sake of avoiding over stockpiling inventory in case there is a reverse in order visibility, the sources pointed out.
The out-of-the-market case #1: White-box players in China quitting tablet PC market [Dec 8, 2011]
As non-Apple tablet PC players are dropping their tablet PC prices to compete against Kindle Fire, white-box players in China are starting to quit the tablet PC market and can only wait for the rise of the next innovative device to appear in the market.
Since China-based Lenovo is offering its tablet PCs at a price of CNY1,000 (US$158), several large white-box players have quickly dropped their tablet PC prices to help clear their inventory, while several white-box players that offer tablet PCs at below CNY800 are even preparing to sell their devices at cost and then quit the market.
With the launch of Android 4.0 and Nvidia Tegra 3, first-tier brand vendors have been dropping their tablet PC prices to compete for market share, especially Lenovo, which has recently dropped its 7-inch 16GB LaPad A1 from CNY2,500 [$US393] originally to less than CNY1,400 [$US220] and its entry-level 2GB model is offered at CNY1,000 [$US157], cheaper than most of the large white-box players’ models.
Since Lenovo is stronger in the retail channel, while offering warranty and its products have basic quality, these advantages are all piling strong pressure upon white-box players.
Some China-based ODMs pointed out that their orders from white-box players have dropped sharply by about 30-50% with several clients clearing their inventory by dropping prices; however, since they still cannot outmatch first-tier players, some of them have already decided to temporary quit the tablet PC market.
As the situation may become worse, the ODMs expect that more than 70% of the existing white-box players could quit the market by the first quarter of 2012.
Note: White-box is a term often used to describe computer makers who are not the well-known name brands, but rather B- or C-tier players.
The down-the-market case #1: Players drop tablet PC prices to compete against Kindle Fire [Nov 24, 2011]
Several tablet PC players including RIM, High Tech Computer (HTC), Lenovo, and ViewSonic, have dropped their 7-inch tablet PC prices to compete against Amazon’s Kindle Fire, priced at US$199, according to sources from channel retailers.
The sources pointed out that RIM has recently cooperated with Best Buy to offer its 7-inch 16GB PlayBook at a price of US$199, down from US$499 originally. Meanwhile, the price of HTC’s 7-inch Android 2.3-based Flyer tablet PC has dropped to US$299, Lenovo’s 7-inch A1 tablet PC to US$199, and ViewSonic’s 7-inch Viewbook 730 to US$169.
Meanwhile, several China-based white-box players are also offering their 7-inch tablet at prices as low as US$75.
In addition to the 16GB model, RIM also dropped its 32GB model from US$599 to US$299.
Since part of the reason consumers buy Kindle Fire is because of its strong content support, even though other brand vendors are trying to attract consumers by lowering their prices, they may not be able to achieve the same sales results as Amazon.
The sources also revealed that several vendors are already in talking with upstream suppliers hoping to develop a tablet PC that costs less than US$199, but since there is still not yet a suitable solution to accomplish such a goal, most of the brand vendors are halting their 7-inch tablet PC projects.
The out-of-the-market case #2: Dell kills off its last Android tablet in the US [Dec 6, 2011]
Dell has taken its 7-inch Streak Android tablet out of commission, according to its website. While some retail sites still have stock, the company no longer offers the Streak for sale from its own website and will no longer produce it. The Dell Android tablet species is officially extinct in the US.
The fadeout of the 7-inch Streak follows the disappearance of the 5-inch Streak in August, when it failed to corner (read: create) the 5-inch tablet market. The 7-inch Streak went on sale in January and was priced at $200 with a T-Mobile contract, but has failed to generate any significant interest in the last year. The only Dell tablet still in production is the 10-inch Streak, sold in China.
From here, Dell will move on to making Windows 8 tablets when the operating system launches next year. Speaking at the Dell World 2011 conference, Michael Dell, the company’s CEO, said that “the Android market has not developed the expectations [Dell] would have had.”
Lenovo Reaffirms Android Commitment In Wake Of Dell Streak 7 Demise [Dec 7, 2011]
Lenovo is reaffirming its commitment to its Android-based tablets – at least for now – in the wake of the demise of Dell (NSDQ:Dell)’s Streak 7 Android tablet. Dell nixed the 7-inch tablet on Tuesday, posting a note on the Streak 7’s landing page saying that the product, unfortunately, is “no longer available for sale.”
Dell declined to comment on exactly why it discontinued the tablet, which was its last Android-based device on the U.S. market.
Many reports, however, are suggesting that Dell pulled the reins on the Streak 7 to start transitioning from Android-based tablets to Windows 8-based tablets, upon the new OS’ release next year. Dell declined to confirm the move, but other PC makers, such as Lenovo, have expressed their commitment to Google’s OS – even if just for now.
“Our tablet strategy today is an Android operating system,” said Chris Frey, vice president of North America Commercial Channels at Lenovo in an interview with CRN. “As operating systems evolve next year and new operating systems become available, we’ll make decisions on the hardware and the operating system that will go on that hardware as we get closer. Right now [Android] is the operating system we have and are driving in the market.”
Lenovo’s ThinkPad Tablet: An Android Business Slate [Review] [Dec 7, 2011]
Conclusion
Lenovo designed the ThinkPad Tablet with business users in mind. The optional pen accessory and the preloaded software are options business users may appreciate. During our tests, we felt the ThinkPad tablet was great for taking notes, surfing the web, checking email, and many other daily tasks that are typical of a business user.
Battery life with the ThinkPad Tablet is a bit of a mixed bag. Although the tablet is rated at up to five days of use, this longevity is dependent upon the user putting the tablet into suspend mode each time he or she is finished using the tablet. Even then, battery life is sure to vary greatly depending on how much you use the tablet. We would expect that many users may place the tablet on their desk to take a phone call or deal with another interruption and forget to press the power button. In doing so, you’ll suffer a considerable hit in terms of battery life.
In terms of connectivity, the ThinkPad Tablet has a lot going for it. Not only does the ThinkPad Tablet have a full-size USB port, but it also offers a card reader, microUSB port, mini HDMI port, a ThinkPad Tablet dock connector, and headphone jack. Most tablets on the market today offer considerably fewer ports, so this is an area where the ThinkPad Tablet really shines.
IT departments will also appreciate the encryption and remote wipe capabilities of the ThinkPad Tablet. The optional pen accessory is definitely a nice add on that gives the tablet some additional functionality, and we found ourselves using it often during our evaluation process. The biggest drawback to this tablet is its battery managment. Assuming you’re religious about pressing the power button each time you’re finished using the tablet, it won’t be a problem. If you’re like us and tend to forget however, you’ll want to keep a charging cord nearby at all times. Regardless, we feel the ThinkPad Tablet is a great tablet for business users who want some of the added capabilities and software that Lenovo includes. It’s a full-featured device that offers a tablet experience not found in many others on the market right now.
Hot
- NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core 1GHz ARM SoC w/ NVIDIA graphics
- 1GB of RAM, 16 – 64GB Storage
- Lots of ports: mini HDMI, USB 2.0, micro USB, dock connector
- Full size media card reader
Not
- Relatively short battery life in idle mode
- Pen is not included (costs $30)
[Price: 16GB: $499, 32GB: $569, 64GB: $669]
Apple iPad Sales Slowing as Amazon Lights Kindle Fire [Dec 7, 2011]
Since launching in 2010, Apple’s iPad has been the global leader in tablets. But since Amazon’s first table, the all-new low-priced Kindle Fire came out in November Apple’s dominance may be sagging. In a new analyst note, Shaw Wu of the brokerage firm Stern Ageesees iPad sales as a “little light” in the current quarter.
Wu assigns the blame for light iPad sales to stiff competition, namely from Amazon’s Kindle Fire, priced at $199 while the starting price for the Apple iPad is $499. He also notes that some Apple customers are buying the MacBook Air instead of an iPad, but in lowering his estimate for iPad sales in the quarter from to 13.5 million units from 15 million units, it’s clear the Kindle Fire is the leading culprit.
[from: Apple’s iPad sales look light amid Kindle Fire, MacBook Air popularity [Dec 7, 2011]
Wu wrote in a research note:
In the Mac business, we are seeing particular strength in the MacBook Air, arguably the best ultra-mobile PC on the market. Last but not least, iPads appear a little light of expectations due in part to competition from Amazon’s Kindle Fire but also as some users opt for a more full-featured MacBook Air.]
IHS iSuppli estimates Amazon will sell nearly four million Kindle Fire tablets by the end of the year— not bad for a product that didn’t ship until mid-November. Reviewers note that the Kindle Fire isn’t the Apple iPad — it is short on apps and isn’t known for content creation abilities. Yet it seems to serve at a low price what most tablet buyers want — a handy device good for watching videos and Web browsing and content reading on the go.
It’s not like Apple’s iPad dominance is going away, either. If the company sells 13.5 million tablets in the quarter as Wu estimates, the Cupertino, Ca.-based company still has a global leader on its hands. But the Kindle Fire has shown out of the gate that a device can ably compete with the iPad after others like the HP TouchPad and the BlackBerryPlayBook failed.
Wu isn’t the only analyst who thinks the Amazon Kindle Fire is dipping into Apple iPad dominance, either. Another new report from Michael Walkley of Canaccord Genuitysees the same trend.
“With our expectations for a new iPad launch during the March quarter leading to potentially lower inventory levels combined with increased competition from the $200 Kindle Fire,” Walkley said in a note, “we have slightly lowered our December quarter iPad estimates from 14M to 13M units.”
But it’s interesting to note that some analysts don’t think Apple is overly concerned with the low-priced Kindle.
“If anything, we believe that Apple is not too concerned about the low-priced entrants,” wrote Mark Moskowitz, an analyst with J.P. Morgan, in a Dec. 2 research note. “Recall, it has been our view that low-priced, reduced feature-set entrants, such as the Kindle Fire, are soap box derby devices stuck between a tablet and an e-reader.”
iPad feeling some heat from Amazon’s Kindle Fire [Dec 1, 2011]
Apple’s iPad seems to have run into the one Android tabletthat could knock it down a peg or two.
After hitting retailers on November 15 at $199, Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet is already outselling the iPad at Best Buy. Sorting tablets by the top sellers at the Best Buy Web Siteshows the Fire in first place followed by the 16GB Wi-Fi-only iPad 2 at $499 coming in second. A range of other iPad flavors from different carriers are scattered throughout the top 40 tablets.
Amazon itself shows the Kindle Fire as the top-selling tableton its site, with the 16GB iPad further down the list. But that seems a less accurate gauge of popularity since Fire buyers may be more likely to pick up the tablet directly from Amazon.
Even before the Fire launched a little more than two weeks ago, the tablet was proving to be a big seller, racking up a huge number of preorders. Pegging the Fire as one of the hottest consumer devices among holiday buyers, research firm DisplaySearch recently increased its shipment projectionsfor the current quarter.
DisplaySearch analyst Richard Shim now expects Amazon to ship up to 6 million Fire tablets this season, up from 4 million previously.
Another analyst also sees the Fire giving the iPad some competition, but to a lesser degree.
In an investor note out today, J.P. Morgan analyst Mark Moskowitz said he’d trimmed his fourth-quarter sales estimates for Apple’s tablet to 13 million from 13.3 million previously. Moskowitz attributed the lower forecast mostly to more limited growth in production but also pointed to the Fire.
“To a lesser extent, the Amazon Kindle Fire’s better-than-expected momentum with more price sensitive consumers is a factor, too,” the analyst wrote.
Of course, Apple is certainly in no danger of losing its current dominance in the tablet market. Moskowitz believes that over time the iPad will actually gain more traction in the business and educational markets. And despite the hot holiday demand for the Fire, the analyst doesn’t see Amazon’s current version of its tablet as a strong enough competitor over the long haul.
“We think that for any vendor to wrestle momentum longer-term from Apple, a fully loaded offering is a must, and here, the current revision of the Kindle Fire falls short,” Moskowitz wrote. “We think that, over time, consumers may come away disappointed with the Kindle Fire’s lack of functionality and smaller screen size. In our view, the Kindle Fire is the current Netbook of the media tablet market. The bigger question is whether the Fire evolves into a bona fide tablet in its next-generation release.”
As a consequence of the above two articles one observer dares to note that:
Not even Apple understands the tablet market [Dec 7, 2011]
Just last quarter, iPhone sales took a big dip. Apple (AAPL) was fine as iPads saved the day. This quarter could turn out to be the complete opposite.
If Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu is right, iPad sales will be lower than expected because of the popularity of both Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle Fire table and Apple’s own MacBook Air, as ZDNet’s Larry Dignon notes. It’s a competition sandwich that underscores how little, still, anyone in the tablet market, including Apple, thoroughly understands the dynamics and what people ultimately want to do with the devices.
…
Initial trials are over
Not that the iPad — or other tablets — will whimper and crawl to a corner. Far from it. But given what products that Wu thinks are drawing attention, Kindle Fire and MacBook Air, you have to question whether anyone knows, yet, what consumers want from tablets, particularly as we’ve yet to see any solid numbers (and are unlikely to) for Kindle sales.
The presumption is that Kindle Fire snags the price-sensitive and Amazon fans. The MacBook Air switch is by people who need a lot more than what the iPad can deliver. That throws open a lot of assumptions. What percentage of buyers expected a tablet to be a media access device only? How many realized that they needed more than an on-screen keyboard? What price points will maximize sales?
For most of the Android tablet vendors, the answer to “What do consumers want?” has been, “Something other than what you sell.” Maybe Apple has all the answers, but even that seems pretty unlikely. Last quarter, unit sales were up. This month, maybe down. Steve Jobs was certain that a 7-inch tablet couldn’t see any success, but Amazon seems to be disproving that.
It’s time for everyone to take a step back and reconsider the basic questions. Maybe talk to a lot of customers, do some usability studies, and follow individuals around (with their permission) to better understand how they use the devices. Only some determined research is going to get beyond the seat-of-the-pants navigation that the tech industry seems to heartily embrace so often.
Evercore: Amazon will own 50% of Android tablet market in ’12 [Dec 5, 2011]
The Kindle Fire may “vaporize” the market for every for-profit tablet maker except Apple
In a note to clients Monday about Apple (AAPL), Evercore Partners’ Robert Cihra summarizes the impact of Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle Fire on the tablet market in stark terms:
While Amazon’s Kindle Fire has come out of the gates strong, as expected, we see Apple maintaining its competitive lead, if anything accentuated by what now looks like the only tablet to so far mount any credible iPad challenge apparently needing to do so by selling at cost; not to mention Amazon’s success may just vaporize other “for profit” Android tablet OEM roadmaps (e.g., we est Amazon 50% of all Android tablets in CY12). Meanwhile Apple goes on as the only vendor able to cream off the most profitable segment of each market it targets, whether tablet, smartphone or PC. (emphasis ours)
The up-the-market case #1: Asustek sets shipment goal for 2012 [Dec 6]
Asustek Computer, at its global sales meeting on December 5, has set the shipment goals for its four major product lines for 2012 with notebooks and netbooks together to surpass 22 million units and the company internally expecting shipments to reach 23.8 million units, while tablet PCs will reach at least three million units with the company internally expecting the volume to reach six million units, surpassing Samsung Electronics.
…for tablet PCs, Asustek expects its shipments will reach about 1.8 million units in 2011.
…
As for the recent report that Asustek was not invited into the Windows on ARM (WOA) development project, Asustek noted that it has the strongest R&D ability among notebook vendors and is the largest client of Nvidia; therefore, the company will continue to have tight partnership with ARM-based processor makers over development of the WOA platform.
See also: NVIDIA Tegra 3 and ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime [Nov 10 – Dec 2, 2011]
for all related information + Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime: The Rolls-Royce of Android tablets [Dec 2, 2011] as one of the first reviews
Note: Wistron Enters Asustek’s Tablet PC Supply Chain [Dec 8, 2011]
Aimed at becoming the largest brand for the Android- and Windows8-enabled tablet PCs, Asustek has aimed to challenge a goal of six million tablet PCs in 2012, three times that of this year’s 1.8 million units.
Asustek Unveils Transformer Prime Amid Aggressive Goal for Tablet Market [Dec 5, 2011]
Asustek Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Jerry Shen … vowed that his company will become one of the top tablet brands, next only to Apple (iPad) and Amazon (Kindle Fire). His pledge is considered by some industry executives as a challenge against Samsung, which is now the most popular brand name supplier of tablets only trailing Apple and Amazon.
Demo: Ice Cream Sandwich on Asus Transformer Prime [nvidia, Nov 17, 2011]
The up-the-market case #2: Acer, Lenovo to launch quad-core tablet PCs [Nov 29, 2011]
Acer and Lenovo are set to launch quad-core tablet PCs featuring Google’s Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and Nvidia’s Tegra 3 in the first quarterto compete against Asustek Computer, which has already launched its latest Eee Pad Transformer Prime with Tegra 3 and Samsung Electronics, according to sources from notebook players.
The sources pointed out that the competition over the quad-core tablet PCs will be difficult as these quad-core devices will only see improvements over their performance and design, but will still feature the same concept as their dual-core predecessors.
Therefore, these players may need to battle it out before being able to enter competition against players such as Amazon or Apple, the sources noted.
The sources noted that although these players’ performance in the dual-core tablet PC competition were not as good as expected, they will continue to advance and launch new quad-core devices to defend their brands.
The new quad-core tablet PCs from Acer and Lenovo are expected to be priced between US$459-599.
Since non-Apple players’ machines have no advantage to compete against Amazon or Apple’s tablet PC devices, the sources believe non-Apple players will together account for only 10-15% of the total tablet PC market.
The real up-the-market case: Amazing Screen Technology: Samsung Flexible AMOLED [Dec 4, 2012]
Some time earlier this year there were concept drawings of a Samsung phone with a flexible OLED display. This was a rather intriguing concept that we didn’t think would be happening anytime soon, but we were then proved wrong as Samsung stepped forward and said that flexible display smartphones were in the works and would be introduced some time in 2012.
Now Samsung’s Mobile Display Division has released a new concept video of what a transparent and flexible tablet of the future could look like and what it could accomplish. We’re guessing that Samsung’s flexible smartphone for 2012 won’t be anything like the concept video, but we definitely like where Samsung’s ideas are headed.
It showcases a tablet that can be shrunk and expanded according to our needs, augmented reality translation, and what appears to be 3D imagery as well that seems to literally leap off your screen.
From: Samsung shows off flexible display concept tablet in video [Dec 5, 2011]
In its quarterly earnings call, Samsung’s vice president of investor relations, Robert Yi, told investors, analysts and press, “The flexible display we are looking to introduce sometime in 2012, hopefully the earlier part. The application probably will start from the handset side.”
After flexible-screen mobile phones roll out, the company plans to introduce the same technology for tabletsand other devices.
In January 2011, Samsung purchased Liquivista, a strategic acquisition that will allow it to produce the kinds of displays that were announced today. Liquivista made electrowetting display technology, which is used to create mobile and other consumer electronic displays that are bright, low-power, flexible and transparent.
Flexible screen technology was also a focus of Samsung’s in March, when Yongsuk Choi, director of Samsung Mobile Display, gave an overview of the company’s future mobile device plans. At that time, Choi said most of the flexible-display technology Samsung was working on was still in very early stages.
From: Samsung’s new phones will have flexible screens [Oct 28, 2011]
See also on Samsung Mobile Display site:
– Future Display Used : Flexible Display – Foldable Display – Dual Display – 3D Display – Paper Thin Display: “Flexible Display: AMOLED products that are still fully functional when they are folded or rolled can be expanded and applied to full-color and mobile market as digital signage and e-book markets and technologies are developed.” …
– SMD History: … “Nov 2010: Developed WVGA [Wide VGA 800×480 resolution] Flexible AMOLED for the first time in the world” … “May 2009: Developed the world’s biggest 6.5” of Flexible AMOLED” …
HP, Dell, Acer to expand R&D investments [Nov 24, 2011]
Seeing that the PC industry is going through a slowdown, PC players Hewlett-Packard (HP), Dell and Acer have all expanded their investments in R&D and as the PC industry will enter an atmosphere that is filled with multiple platformsin 2012, each vendor’s R&D, branding and marketing abilities will become important drivers to increase their competitiveness in the future, according to sources from PC players.
HP is set to increase its investment in R&D and to strengthen the related resources. The company also changed its policy to have senior vice president of research, and director of HP Labs Prith Banerjee directly report to company CEO Meg Whitman.
Meanwhile, Dell is set to expand its R&D funding to US$1 billion each year, up 51.28% from US$661 million, that was reported a year ago. Dell also noted that the company will continue to acquire companies in the future and will need more funding to integrate the acquired firms.
Furthermore, Acer’s first R&D center is also expected to increase its total engineers from 600 in the middle of the year to 1,000 by year-end with executives of brand vendors and ODMs all major targets for headhunting.
An Acer executive also pointed out that the PC industry is experiencing a significant change, transitioning from Wintel system dominated to competition between several different platforms. Therefore, to the ability to develop devices based on Google’s Android system or ARM will become important.
AMD helping Android fans port to x86 [Dec 6, 2011]
A team of developers working privately to port the next version of Android to the x86 platform has been receiving a lot of support from AMD, but less from other key players.
The project is seeking to port the Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) android-4.0.1_r1 release build to the x86 platform, and Chih-Wei Huang, one of the enthusiasts involved, told The Register that AMD had not only donated two tablets to the cause, but also has a couple of engineers helping out. As a result, the porting to AMD’s Brazos platform is now largely complete and the source code has been made available.
The first porting of Android to the x86 platform was actually done by Google engineers, but he explained that the Google team had not been continuing with the project since Android version 1.5, aka Cupcake. While the developers submit patches to Google, they seldom hear back, although some Google engineers are helping out privately with the project. Intel, too, hasn’t been keen.
“Generally speaking, Google didn’t care for the x86, at least before ICS,” he told The Registerin an email conversation. “Intel doesn’t care, either. They don’t want to help us. I’ve tried to contact Intel in different ways, but the replies were negative.”
Intel’s position has caused the team considerable problems, not least in getting Android to work with the video chipsets, and particularly the hardware acceleration added to Chipzilla’s kit. Work is still continuing, but since this is a voluntary project by people who have day jobs, then Android users might have a while before they can plaster an Intel Inside sticker on their systems.
Chih-Wei Huang, an open source advocate based in Taiwan, started the project with a former colleague in June 2009, and it has morphed to the point where the scheme has 2,600 subscribers to the project forum. He said that while he tried to keep the porting process up to date, it was a lot of work and some people weren’t sharing data.
“Now ICS is more mature for x86 tablet or netbook, so there are more practical reasons to do that,” he said. “Actually, I know some vendors like Bluestack, Viewsonic, and Insyde have already shipped Android-x86.org based products. However, they never contribute back. That usually makes us feel bad and angry.”
Supplementary information: Android: A visual history [Dec 7, 2011]
The future of TV via a new Metro-styled Xbox 360 dashboard plus a plethora of new content partners
Amazing New Entertainment from Xbox LIVE Partners [XboxViewTV, Dec 5, 2011]
XBOX LIVE
****************
GENRE: n/a
RELEASE DATE(S):
+ US: December 6, 2011
+ EU: December 6, 2011
PLATFORM: Xbox LIVE
EXCLUSIVELY ON: Xbox LIVE
WEBSITE: http://www.Xbox.com
AVAILABLE @ AMAZON: n/aPUBLISHER: Microsoft Xbox 360
DEVELOPER: Microsoft Xbox 360
ESRB: RP for Rating PendingXboxViewTV on FACEBOOK
***********************************
http://www.facebook.com/XboxViewTVXboxViewTV ON TWITTER
*******************************
http://www.twitter.com/XboxViewTV
This is just a first, relatively small segment of “The future of TV” strategy by Microsoft which is described on Microsoft Mediaroom for you site as:
… get the best live, recorded, and on demand programming wherever you are—whether you’re on your PC, on the go with a mobile phone, or in front of the big screen TV in your living room. Let Mediaroom amplify your passion for TV by offering more innovative options for watching, discovering and sharing what you like most.
Xbox and TV — together
…
Get TV on your phone!
…
My PC is my TV
…
Anywhere, Everywhere
Here’s a familiar situation: you’ve recorded your favorite show in the living room, but you want to watch it in the bedroom. What to do? When you subscribe to a Mediaroom-powered TV service, you’ll get features like DVR Anywhere which lets you watch and share your DVR recordings on any TV in your home. These same recordings are also available to download, watch and share across your PC and mobile phone so you not only get to watch what you want, you can watch it where you want.
- Record up to four shows in HD at once
- Start or restart programs from any room in the house
- Browse channel listings quickly
- Discover new content easily
There is no information yet, however, about the platform on which these content partner applications are developed. The latest hint is in Mediaroom_for_Xbox_VPAT.docx [July 18, 2011 – made downloadable on the Microsoft site on Sept 9, 2011] which says:
The Mediaroom for Xbox is based on Microsoft Mediaroom Client 2.0. Much of the existing Mediaroom Client 2.0 functionality is unchanged in Mediaroom for Xbox.
A same time, pure rumor based information about Mediaroom says:
Microsoft is believed to be merging its Mediaroom IPTV platform with Xbox Live via a project that is codenamed Orapa. Orapa was supposed to be released to manufacturing this summer in time for Mediaroom operators to roll it out to customers by holiday 2011. I had heard the following components figured into this new platform:
Rome = Mediaroom for Windows Phone
Taos = Silverlight for Mediaroom
Monaco = Mediaroom for Media Center
Santa Fe = Settop box using Silverlight/running Mediaroom
Ventura= Music and video discovery/consumption services (related to Zune)In a September 4 blog post on Mediaroom 2.0’s single-sign-on functionality, Microsoft employee William Zhang publicly acknowledged the Taos, Monaco and Rome codenames. He described Rome as a “Windows Mobile Client,”, Taos as a “PC browser client” and Monaco as a “Windows Media Center Client.” He mentioned the existence of the Mediaroom 2.0 set-top-box (STB), but didn’t mention its codename. He didn’t reference Ventura at all in his post.
Interestingly, Zhang also doesn’t mention the word “Silverlight” at all in the body text of his post. making me wonder if the Taos “PC browser client” is an HTML5 client or if it is still somehow related to Silverlight — as in a Silverlight plug-in for an Internet Explorer-based client. Last year, Microsoft execs said that the company was planning to bring Silverlight to the Xbox 360 platform, though they’ve said nothing for months about this. (Update: As reader “bowmanir” commented, there is, indeed a mention of the Monaco Silverlight client in the caption of one of Zhang’s screen shots.)
The latest, unofficial information is Microsoft readies Silverlight for Xbox Live update [GigaOM, Oct 7, 2011]
Microsoft is about a month and a half away from releasing an update to its Xbox Live experience, which will add a bunch of new partner apps from the likes of Comcast, Verizon and HBO, among others. But the code that those apps will run on, which is based on a modified version of its Silverlight development framework, is still being modified in the run-up to release.
We’ve confirmed that the apps expected to be added with the next major update to Xbox Live will be based on Silverlight — at least to a point. The framework they’re being built on is code-named Lakeview, which is essentially a prettied up version of Silverlight with new features like Xbox Kinect’s voice recognition and gesture control. Surprisingly enough, partners are not using Microsoft’s Smooth Streaming for video delivery but have chosen to use H.264-encoded video with Apple’s HTTP Live Streaming (HLS)instead.
Microsoft is targeting a Black Friday release of the Xbox Live update, according to sources, which would add the new video apps and features like Bing universal search. That could help build demand for Xbox sales over the holidays and will give existing Xbox Live members cool new toys to play with on their day off after Thanksgiving. The Lakeview code is still being modified, however, as Microsoft is still issuing weekly updates to the application framework.
It’s not just little things that are changing in the code, either. Sources say Microsoft has made fundamental additions and subtractions to Lakeview’s capabilities over the past several weeks, causing partners to update and retest their apps with each new release. The goal is to quickly mature the platform, with the potential of enabling other third-party developers to eventually use the Lakeview framework to build their own apps for the Xbox 360 console.
That could be one reason that Microsoft has remained mum on its implementation of Silverlight on the Xbox.
A New Way to Enjoy TV Entertainment [Marc Whitten, Corporate Vice President, Xbox LIVE, Dec 4, 2011]
On Dec. 6th, we will release a free update to Xbox LIVE that can transform every Xbox 360 into an all-in-one deviceto enjoy your entertainment.
The update is another huge step toward realizing our vision of bringing you all your entertainment, shared with the people you care about, in an easy way. That journey started with games, and quickly included movies and TV on Xbox LIVE through our own video service and through partners. We were the first console to bring Netflix into the living room, and we’ve continued to add top TV and entertainment partners on a global scale such as AT&T, ESPN, Hulu Plus and Last.fm in the U.S.; TELUS in Canada, BSkyB in the United Kingdom; CANAL+ in France and FOXTEL in Australia. Also, we recently announced another 40 global entertainment partners coming to Xbox LIVE.
Instantly watch thousands of HD movies and TV shows from Netflix. Easily search for new movies by title or genre. Use Kinect for Xbox 360 to play, pause and rewind with the wave of a hand or the sound of your voice.Today, we have more than 57 million Xbox 360 consoles in homes across the world, and more than 35 million of those are connected to Xbox LIVE, a service which sees its members log cumulatively 2.1 billion hours a month. We have something very special in the living room, and with our latest update to Xbox LIVE, it only gets better.
Now, all of your entertainment is in one place. Games, music, movies, sports and live and on-demand TV together in one box connected to the best display in your house. With our latest update, we are launching the first wave of new entertainment experiencesand we will continue to add customized entertainment apps over time.
We’re also making it easier to find the entertainment you want. The entertainment offerings on Xbox LIVE have grown from hundreds to millions, but finding what you want has never been easier. With Kinect for Xbox 360 and the power of Bing, “You say it, Xbox finds it”.
And we’re making the entertainment experience more personal and social. Whether you are voting on who is going to win the weekend’s biggest college football showdown on ESPN or activating a beacon to notify your friends of your favorite multiplayer games, entertainment is more personal and social on Xbox LIVE.
It’s a great time to be on Xbox LIVE. We have a powerful platform with voice and gesture control, a great collection of top-tier entertainment partners from across the globe, and powerful social tools. The experiences are real, and we are excited to share them with you starting this week.
I will see you on Xbox LIVE!
Posted by Marc Whitten
Corporate Vice President, Xbox LIVE
The Future of Living Room Entertainment [Broll, Dec 4, 2011]
The Future of TV Begins Now on Xbox 360 [press release, Dec 4, 2011]
Kinect for Xbox 360 brings voice control to living room entertainment with update that launches Dec. 6.
A revolution is happening in the living room. Xbox 360 is transforming how you enjoy TV entertainment and is giving you the power to control it with your voice. The next generation of TV entertainment begins with the announcement by Microsoft Corp. of the launch of an all-new Xbox 360 experience including the first group of new, custom applications from world leading TV and entertainment content providerson Xbox LIVE.
“A new era in entertainment begins where all your entertainment is together in one place — your games, movies, TV shows, music and sports,” said Don Mattrick, president of the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft. “With this update, Xbox 360 system owners will experience Kinect voice control integrated with Bing search, making your TV and entertainment experiences more social and personal than ever.”
“Microsoft has just built and delivered it: A single box that ties together all the content you want, made easily accessible through a universal, natural, voice-directed search. This is now the benchmark against which all other living room initiatives should be compared,” said James McQuivey of Forrester Research in “Engaged TV: Xbox 360 Leads The Way To A New Video Product Experience,”*Sunday, Dec. 4. “…with more than 57 million people worldwide already sitting on a box that’s about to be upgraded for free, Microsoft has not only built the right experience, it has ensured that it will spread quickly and with devastating effect.”
You Say It, Xbox Finds It
How long does it take you to search and find your favorite movie or TV show? Do you find yourself searching hundreds of channels and multiple services and TV inputs? What if the entertainment you craved was simple, discoverable and exactly what you wanted at that particular moment?
Now, finding your favorite entertainment is easier than ever. Last year, Kinect for Xbox 360 revolutionized controller-free entertainment by letting you use your body and voice to play your favorite games and entertainment, turning you into the controller. The power of Kinect combined with the intelligence of Bing search is turning your voice into the ultimate remote control. With Bing on Xbox, you can use your voice to effortlessly find the games, movies, TV shows and music you want and discover the best offerings on Xbox LIVE, by simply saying what you’re searching for. You say it, Xbox finds it. Beginning tomorrow and over the coming weeks, Bing on Xbox voice search will initially be available in English in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. for Zune video, Xbox LIVE Marketplace and select content partners. For those who do not have a Kinect for Xbox 360, text search will be available in Xbox LIVE markets.
Use your voice to pause and rewind movies and TV shows. Plus, say what you want to watch and Xbox finds it with voice search powered by Bing.All Your Entertainment, All in One Box
This holiday, in addition to offering the best blockbuster and Kinect games, Xbox 360 consoles are set to deliver live and on-demand TV shows, movies, videos, sports, music and news, becoming the best device to experience all your entertainment. TV and movie fans can instantly stream their favorite episodes of current television shows all season long, as well as past favorites and new-release movies.
Xbox 360 is building on its expansive catalog of movies, sports, television and music available through Hulu Plus, Last.fm, Netflix, Zune music and video and ESPN®, as well as on its existing lineup of great TV providers, such as AT&T U-verse® TV in the U.S., TELUS in Canada, BSkyB in the U.K., CANAL+ in France, Vodafone Portugal, VimpelCom in Russia and FOXTEL in Australia, by also now rolling out the following new entertainment partners and apps**:
Dec. 6:
- EPIX. United States
- ESPN on Xbox LIVE (ESPN).United States
- Hulu.Japan
- Hulu Plus.United States
- LOVEFiLM.United Kingdom
- Netflix.Canada, United States
- Premium Play by (MediaSet).Italy
- Sky Go (SkyDE). Germany
- Telefónica España – Movistar Imagenio.Spain
- TODAY (MSNBC). United States
Later in December:
- 4 on Demand (C4).United Kingdom
- ABC iView (Australian Broadcasting Corp.).Australia
- AlloCiné. France (AlloCiné), Germany (Filmstarts), Spain (Sensacine), United Kingdom (Screenrush)
- Astral Media’s Disney XD (Astral Media).Canada
- blinkbox (Blinkbox).United Kingdom
- Crackle (Sony Pictures).Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, United States
- Dailymotion. Available in 32 countries globally
- Demand 5 (Five).United Kingdom
- DIGI+ (CANAL+).Spain
- GolTV (Mediapro).Spain
- iHeartRadio (Clear Channel).United States
- Mediathek/ZDF (ZDF).Germany
- MSN. Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, United Kingdom
- MSNBC.com.United States
- MUZU.TV. Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom
- ninemsn.Australia
- Real Sports (Maple Leaf Sports).Canada
- Rogers On Demand Online (Rogers Media).Canada
- SBS ON DEMAND.Australia
- Sky Go (SkyDE). Austria
- TMZ (Warner Bros.).Canada, United States
- TVE (RTVE.es).Spain
- UFC on Xbox LIVE (UFC).Canada, United States
- Verizon FiOS TV.United States
- VEVO. Canada, Ireland, United Kingdom, United States
- Vudu (Wal-Mart).United States
- YouTube. Available in 24 countries globally
Early 2012:
- Antena 3 (Antena 3 de Televisión).Spain
- BBC (BBC).United Kingdom
- CinemaNow (Best Buy).United States
- HBO GO (HBO).United States
- MLB.TV (MLB Advanced Media).Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Columbia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, United Kingdom, United States
- Telenovelas/Sports (Televisa).Brazil, Chile, Colombia, France, Italy, Mexico, Spain, United Kingdom
- Xfinity On Demand (Comcast). United States
In October, nearly 40 leading TV and entertainment providers around the world announced they would bring customized, voice-controlled experiences to Xbox 360 systems. Today, MLB Advanced Media (MLBAM), the interactive media and Internet company of Major League Baseball, and VUDU became the latest leading entertainment providers to announce they are bringing their experiences to Xbox 360 consoles. MLB.TV subscribers will be able to access every regular season game, live and on-demand, in HD picture quality with an array of interactive functionalities. VUDU offers more than 45,000 blockbusters, Hollywood classics, independent films and TV shows, including the largest library of HD content available anywhere, with the highest quality streaming and Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 and 7.1 surround sound. With VUDU, movies are available the same day they are released on DVD and Blu-ray. More information is available at http://www.VUDU.com.
The Best Entertainment Platform Offers Choice
Whether choosing the movie you want to watch or the service you want to watch it from, the best entertainment platform gives you a variety of options. Not only is Microsoft bringing all your entertainment and entertainment services to Xbox 360 consoles, it is giving you multiple choices in how you interact with that content, including your voice, your controller and now your Windows Phone. Starting Dec. 6, the free Xbox Companion app for Windows Phonewill let you find, learn more about and control content from popular entertainment services on Xbox LIVE.
About Xbox 360
Xbox 360 is a premier home entertainment and video game system. Thanks to the addition of Kinect, Xbox 360 has transformed social gaming and entertainment with a whole new way to play — no controller required. Xbox 360 is also home to the best and broadest games as well as one of the world’s largest on-demand libraries of music, standard- and high-definition movies, TV shows and digital games, all in one place. The entertainment center of the living room, Xbox 360 blends unbeatable content with a leading social entertainment network of more than 35 million Xbox LIVE members to create a limitless entertainment experience that can be shared at home or across the globe. More information about Xbox 360 can be found online at http://www.xbox.com.
About Xbox LIVE
Xbox LIVE is the online entertainment service for your Xbox 360, connecting you to an ever-expanding world of games, movies, TV, music, sports and social entertainment. Xbox LIVE lets you play the best games, enjoy one of the world’s largest on-demand libraries on any console, listen to millions of songs and share the fun with friends around the world. Xbox LIVE is also the exclusive home of controller-free online entertainment through Kinect, making your Xbox 360 more intuitive and interactive than ever before. With an active community of more than 35 million people across 35 countries, Xbox LIVE, together with Xbox 360, provides you with instant access to the entertainment you want, shared with the people you care about, wherever you are. More information about Xbox LIVE can be found online at http://www.xbox.com/live.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.
* “Engaged TV: Xbox 360 Leads The Way To A New Video Product Experience,” Sunday, Dec. 4, Forrester Research, http://blogs.forrester.com/james_mcquivey/11-12-04-introducing_engaged_tv_xbox_360_leads_the_way_to_a_new_video_product_experience
** Schedule subject to change. Available features and content subject to change. Xbox LIVE Gold membership and/or additional subscriptions/fees may be required. Kinect functionality available with select Xbox LIVE content and varies by feature and country. For additional details and availability, see http://www.xbox.com/live.
For assets, please visit http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/xbox.
Xbox Companion for Windows Phone coming December 6th [Larry Hryb, Xbox LIVE’s Major Nelson, Dec 4, 2011]
If you read the press release put out earlier today, you probably saw the huge list of partners coming soon to Xbox 360 and may have missed the paragraph about the Xbox Companion app coming this week, so I wanted to share a few more details about it.
Starting this Tuesday, Dec. 6, the free Xbox Companion app for Windows Phone will let you find, learn more about and control content from popular entertainment services on Xbox LIVE.
This Xbox Companion app will have some cool new features to use with your Xbox 360including:
Xbox Companion search powered by Bing. Search the unified Xbox catalogfor movies, TV shows, music, games and apps using the Windows phone. View a detailed unified results page across all content providers. You can see recently played games and apps and browse the Zune video catalog
Using the Xbox Companion app you can learn more details about the movie, TV show, music or game that is playing on your console. You can also get friend activity (friends online, friends with beacons, friends who have recently played), achievements and related items. You’ll also be able to select a search result, and launcha movie, TV show, game or app on the connected console as well as play, pause, fw, rw the playing video or music on the connected Xbox,initiate media purchase and navigate your Xbox console with Windows Phone using the Xbox Companion.
The Xbox Companion is a free app that launches on Tuesday, December 6th exclusively on Windows Phone. See the screen shots here.
Kinect Effect B-Roll [Oct 31, 2011]
Say Hello to a ‘Game Changing’ Xbox Experience [press release, Dec 6, 2011]
After a long day at work, you plop down on the couch with your favorite beverage and put your feet up to unwind with the evening news, or maybe last night’s episode of your favorite show.
Not bothering to search the couch cushions for the remote, you give your Kinect sensor a little wave, bringing your Xbox to life.
“Xbox, Bing: The Office,” you say, and by the time you take a sip, the episode is ready to watch. You tell Xbox to play, and it does. Then you tell Xbox to pause while you walk to the kitchen to check on dinner, and it does.
This is not a scene from an episode of “Star Trek” – it’s the all-new Xbox LIVE.
This morning, Microsoft launched a free update that “revolutionizes” digital entertainment, putting all your movies, TV shows, music, sports and other types of entertainment in one box. The update also brings voice control to your Xbox experience, and with the simplicity of Kinect and the intelligence of Bing voice search. That’s just the beginning – the update also includes a complete dashboard redesign, a bevy of new content from partners around the world, and a variety of new social features and parental controls.
The Xbox LIVE update also features cloud-powered saves so users can roam across consoles and take their content with them, new family content controls for parents, and “beacons” that alert users when a friend would like to play a game. Now when your son tells you he can’t come home from his friend’s house because he needs to finish his “Forza Motorsport 4” race, you can tell him to save it, come home, and finish playing after dinner.
With Beacons, no matter what you’re currently doing on Xbox LIVE, your friends know that it’s OK to ask you to play games with which you set a Beacon.“It’s a major evolutionary step forward – people are going to feel like they’re getting a whole new Xbox 360,” said Emma Williams, general manager of Xbox Experiences for Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business.
The update – the first in a series of enhancements coming to Microsoft’s entertainment service – makes it easier and more natural than ever for people to interact with Xbox, Williams said. The update also substantially expands Xbox’s entertainment experiences for the living room. While Xbox LIVE is fundamentally the same entertainment service that 35 million subscribers and counting have come to know and love, the service has changed from top to bottom.
The Xbox “dashboard” has been completely redesigned (in the Metro style made popular by Windows Phone), Williams said. Using Kinect, Xbox users will be able to use gestures and their voice to navigate through their entertainment. Add to that the ability to use Bing’s voice search capabilities, and finding content in Xbox LIVE’s burgeoning library of entertainment is as easy as saying “Xbox, Bing: Grey’s Anatomy.”
Say Hello to TV
Xbox LIVE is also giving its entertainment offerings a major enhancement by expanding current partnerships as well as building new partnerships with more than 40 leading TV, movie, sports and entertainment providers worldwide.
What that means is many TV subscribers will enjoy being able to watch their favorite channels live on Xbox, including customers of Verizon’s FiOS digital television service in the United States.
“We think there’s going to be a lot of interest around this,” said Pete Castleton, executive director of corporate marketing at Verizon. “It’s a new way to interact with live television, and Xbox LIVE is an ideal platform to manage gesture and voice interaction. We have a compelling content lineup that aligns with the Xbox LIVE community.”
Verizon will offer a selection of popular live television channels to its customers via Xbox LIVE, including MTV, Nickelodeon, CNN, Cartoon Network and Cinemax.
Integrating Verizon’s traditional digital television service with Xbox LIVE’s innovative capabilities takes the power of both and creates something new and exciting that reaches beyond what either offers on its own, he said.
“I think it’s exactly what customers are looking for,” Castleton said.
AT&T U-verse TV is a leading TV provider that is already delivering live TV, Total Home DVR recordings, interactive apps and more to the Xbox. As the first TV provider in the U.S. to launch live TV on Xbox 360, AT&T also plans to use Kinect to transform how its customers can interact with its TV service.
“Enabling U-verse TV customers to use voice and gesture controls to manage their TV experience will unleash a new wave of interaction with our service,” said Jeff Weber, vice president of video services, AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets. “Xbox is a key part of AT&T’s multi-screen strategy for TV entertainment, and our work with Microsoft to take full advantage of Kinect in the living room will bring more personalization, more control, and an even better TV experience to homes across the country.”
Marcien Jenckes, senior vice president and general manager of video and entertainment services for Comcast, called the Xbox LIVE update “compelling.”
“Comcast is thrilled to be bringing its on-demand television and movie offerings (the largest selection in the industry) to Xbox LIVE,” he said. “We’ve made huge strides over the last five years to realize our vision of making every movie and TV show available to our customers when and where they want it. The great thing about this initiative is that we’re delivering a great combination of the video entertainment our customers love, with the Xbox LIVE experience they enjoy.”
Williams said the update will make Xbox LIVE better equipped than ever to deliver what users want, whether it’s live television, movies, music, sports, social connections, or the platform’s growing diversity of video games (from hardcore gaming to casual, family-friendly Kinect games).
All the new content and the new natural user interface capabilities combined will set Xbox LIVE apart from all other entertainment services in the field, according to Williams.
“It’s radically different from what people are used to today, and from anything else in the industry,” Williams said. “No single device has put all the entertainment people want in the living room in one place like this, or delivered it in such a fun way where people can connect in a relaxed way with a gesture or the power of their own voice.”
‘A Game Changer’
Gesturing and talking to a device. Having a broad universe of content available at your fingertips, or called up at the sound of your voice – these experiences were once science fiction, available only to the likes of James T. Kirk on the deck of the Starship Enterprise. The Xbox LIVE update makes experiences once considered “futuristic” available in every living room to anyone with an Xbox and a Kinect.
“Science fiction has become science fact,” Williams said.
Xbox LIVE users without the Kinect device will still be able to enjoy the updated user interface, but the controller-free device adds to the experience, she said.
Pete Distad, vice president of marketing and distribution at Hulu, said Hulu Plus has updated its interface to “synchronize and optimize” with the new Xbox dashboard.
“Thanks to the magic of Kinect, you become the controller and can play, pause, fast forward, rewind and search for TV shows and movies with the sound of your voice or the wave of your hand,” Distad said. “You can also use your voice to find and discover Hulu Plus content on Bing.”
Hulu Plus now has more than 1 million paid subscribers who stream current episodes of popular television shows such as “Glee” and “Family Guy” and full back seasons of TV series such as “Lost” and “Battlestar Galactica” as well as hundreds of movies.
“Our goal is to be everywhere, on every device where people want to watch TV,” Distad said. “We see a lot of consumption of content in the living room on TVs through Internet-connected gaming consoles, so it makes perfect sense to partner with the talented teams at Microsoft and Xbox to reach a broader audience and innovate ways to watch TV when, where and how our customers want.”
Choose from thousands of Hollywood hit movies like “Iron Man 2,” “True Grit” and “The Lincoln Lawyer” to stream instantly on Xbox LIVE.Mark Greenberg agrees. He is the CEO of EPIX, a premium U.S. television channel owned by Viacom and its Paramont Pictures unit, MGM, and Lionsgate. EPIX, soon to be available on Xbox LIVE, has more than 3,000 movies, concerts, comedy shows, boxing and mixed-martial arts offerings available on-demand to its subscribers. They’ll be able to watch popular movies like “Rango,” “Star Trek,” “Iron Man,” “Thor” and many more, all in high definition on the Xbox LIVE service.
“I think it’s extraordinarily cool what Microsoft has created,” Greenberg said. “And the cool factor is just as strong as the functionality.”
Greenberg said gesture and voice-controlled entertainment in the living room could be a “game changer” akin to TiVo, which revolutionized the television viewing experience almost a decade ago with its ability to record and pause programs without having to pop in a VCR tape.
“I think this is an opportunity for all of us,” he said. “It’s definitely a sea change.”
Building an Entertainment Hub
The notion of adding the major updates that became available on Xbox LIVE today grew out of the launch of Kinect last year – when Microsoft was looking to take Xbox’s strong gaming heritage, the exponential growth of Xbox consoles and Xbox LIVE subscribers, and the power of Kinect’s natural user interface to make Xbox a better entertainment hub for the living room, Williams said.
After the new Xbox LIVE was tested internally by about 4,000 employees worldwide, Microsoft had a public preview. The update was released to more than 65,000 customers, who updated their Xbox LIVE with changes each Friday for them to use over the weekend. The feedback provided by those employees and customers, as well as in Microsoft’s usability labs, helped make the final product what it is, Williams said.
The new Xbox LIVE connects people to each other – whether they’re in the same room or across the world from each other – and also connects them to the entertainment they love. Every Saturday, Williams wakes up and logs on to see what her nephews in London are up to, and using Xbox LIVE she’s able to chat with them, see what games they’re playing, and watch what shows they’re watching.
“It’s personal, and it’s magic, whether you’re five or 85 years old,” Williams said. “I am excited that we live in a world where there’s no need to learn a controller or to use a remote to change channels. People can feel passively relaxed, immersive entertained, and actively engaged, and it’s super simple and fun.”
OPhone 2.5 and beyond from Borqs for China Mobile
Recommended preliminary reading: OPhone OS (OMS) 2.0 based on Android 2.1 [July 5 – Dec 13, 2010]
China Mobile trailer video [Jan 8, 2011]
Borqs: The Early Bird Catches More Worms [Borqs article, Nov 23, 2011]
The lower versions of Android were found to be instable, and so was TD-SCDMA system. All these brought unexpected troubles to Borqs.
At the Mobile World Congress (MWC) held in Barcelona on Feb. 14th this year, Intel Capital, Intel’s global investment organization, announced that it would invest USD 26 million in six mobile startups to help drive innovation and development of mobile hardware, software and application ecosystems. Borqs, as a software solution provider from China, was one of them. Arvind Sodhani, Executive Vice President of Intel, commented on the investment as an important commitment to the key growth fields in mobile ecosystems.
Although officially introduced as a China-headquartered Android software integrator for mobile devices at MWC, Borqs has already been known as the strategic developer of China Mobile for OPhone OS. It has succeccfully ugraded OPhone from version 1.0 to 2.5 through constantly opitimizing TD chips and network, increasing its OEM partnerships from 8 to 20. Currently, Borqs’ Android solutions have been widely used in more than 30 W-CDMA and TD-SCDMA based Android mobile devices with a total shipment of 2 million plus.
“I saw the great potential of Android, and then I thought it’s time for me to start Borqs.” Pat Chan, CEO and President of Borqs, said during an interview by CBN Weekly. According to him, Borqs was one of the only four or five companies that had access to non-complete open-source codes before the launch of Android by Google. This enabled Borqs to initiate system development one year earilier than its competitors.
The technical strength of its team also gave the company more opportunities. Pat Chan was the former Vice President and CTO of UT Starcom Incorporated, taking charge of operations of communication infrastructures (wireless, broadband and IPTV, etc.). Bob Li, Senior Vice President of Borqs as well as the partner of venture fund, Yellowstone Capital, once held a position of senior developer at Philips Semiconductor. Rao Hong, another Vice President of Borqs, known as one of the excellent local employees trained by Motorola, was the founder of Linux-based Motorola EZX phone platform, which afterwards evolved into a famous operating system of Motorola – Linux-Java(LJ) .
At that time, China Mobile was investing heavily into mobile value-added services and developed a series of new services such as Mobile Newspaper, Fetion, Mobile Stock, Mobile E-mail Box, Mobile SNS, etc. In the Mobile Internet era, however, the trump to dominate the terminal market is to launch an independently developed operating system and pre-build customized value-added services into terminals; at least that was how China Mobile defined its marketing strategies at that moment.
As once expected by China Mobile, interface and services of Android may be replaced with China Mobile owned services – OMS and OPhone may be built onto OMS in cooperation with OEMs. So that China Mobile would launch services and advertising on its own handsets. To this end, Borqs, which has been always dedicated to Android, became the partner of China Mobile for the development of mobile operating system.
Voices of doubt about OMS system development were often heard at the beginning. “It was quite difficult. There were so many problems about campatibility and configuration. Nobody believed that we could make it“, Phat Chan said. Since mid-2007, the team had been researching and developing the operating system, and then finally succeded after two years.
However, OPhone failed to become a hit on the maket at the very start. Lenovo’s first OPhone-based product, also the first OMS handset, was initally launched at the price of RMB 5,999 yuan, expected as a powerful weapon to beat iPhone. However, its price declined to RMB 1,500 yuan as of the end of 2010.
In fact, Borqs made a number of modifications to the bottom layers of Android catering to customer demand in the process of developing OMS platform. These efforts have successfully made OPhone quite different from Android, such as appearance and kernals. But, nearly all the Androids before version 1.5 was instable, resulting in its frequent upgrates by Google. In addition, compatibility issues still exist between Android 1.0 and 1.5. All these had posed big challenges to Borqs.
What’s more, immature TD technology impacted on customer experience to some extent. At the beginning of TD’s commercialization, terminals were in severe shortage. Most OEMs only launched one or two types of handsets with lower performance in the apsects of apperance, application, interface compared with the mature 2G phones. Simultaneous work of about 7 chips were required for a TD terminal. This, plus deficiency in power consumption and adaption as well as high terminal price, led to low shipment and OEMs’ failure of making profits.
“Any tiny trouble may influence the use of handsets. Before launching Ophone 2.0, we have solved 159 TD chip related problems, and modified over 1,000 items of OPhone OS 2.5,” Pat Chan pointed out. According to him, MTBF test requiring a 200h or above of predicted elapsed time between inherent failures during operation was made to improve the stability in the course of development. This indicated that the design level of OPhone based terminals must be close to or even aligned with that of TCDMA terminals.
“The criteria of 200h was just enlightened from our partner. The MTBF value was once required to hit 800 hours when we dealt with a US company,“ Pat Chan stated. From the first-round to the fourth-round debugging, the stability of OPhone has increased from 24 hours to 255 hours. “We used to define Failure to Pass as system crash, but now even a failure to execute a single command will count”, he added.
According to him, among OPhone 2.5 based handsets launched this year, Motorola MT 620 boasts a MTBF value of over 200 hours, far surpassing other common terminals with a value of 60-70 hours. “stability is the essential premise for good consumer experience,” he said.
At the time being, chip development saw some progress too.
Marvell’s single chip solution provides the first access for TD smart terminals to stand on the same starting line with WCDMA terminals.Marvell TD-SCDMA single chips solution, PXA320, is sponsored by the Research Institution of China Mobile. It not only help realize great improvements of chip performance, but also enables easy resolution to the soft spot in apperance design and power consumption.
In overseas markets, cooperation with Qualcomm and Infineon Technologies helps Borqs accumulate lots of experience in W-CDMA chips. Also, the company has established partnerships with some handset manufacturers in Japan and India, as well as Singtel from Singapore. One of them has used Borqs’ chip solutions on its gobal Andriod terminals.
“From 2007 to 2010, OPhone accounted for 60% of our business, but now this figure has dropped to 30%,” Pat Chan said. As he stated, what make him proud most is to carve out Borqs, not that fast, but eventually recognized. He plans to further invest into technology. “Our next focus will be still on operating system, and we will also make continuous investment in cloud computing,” he further stated. For now, it is said that the research and development expenses account for 80% of the total payout at Borqs.
About Borqs
Average growth rate for three years:1054%
Founder: Pat Chan
Headquarters: Hong Kong
Core technology : End-to-end integrated software solutions for mobile Internet
Leading-edge technology: Seamless connection of mobile operators, terminals, chips and mobile Internet.
Technology revenue :R&D expenses account for 80% of the total
Financing amount: USD 35 million
Business model: Borqs is committed to providing end-to-end software solutions for mobile Internet industy, thereby helping partners map out their own solutions.
Borqs: Dedicated to End-to-end Integrated Software Solutions [China Computerworld via Borqs, Nov 4, 2011]
Ms. Wang Tun, Vice President, Business Development at Borqs International Holding Corp (Borqs) said: “We have received much attention for OMS (Open Mobile System) represented by OPhone that we developed for China Mobile. However, OMS is just part of our core business.” As far as what she said goes, China’s independently developed OMS has aroused widespread concern in recent years, bringing its developer, Borqs, under the spotlight. However, Borqs is not well known to the public yet. The technical competitiveness of this emerging tech company established in 2007 and its other operations except for OMS are still behind the curtain. Now a recent field interview may help you know more about this somewhat still mysterious company.
Dedicated to end-to-end integrated software solutions
Borqs operates in an independent six-storey white building in Wangjing Plaza, Beijing. According to an employee with Borqs, considering its robust growth in recent years, the company rented this office building in whole, but it is just one of its office locations in Beijing. During the interview in a meeting room, it was easy to be impressed by a variety of patent certificates on the wall and, somewhat surprisingly, the straightforward talk by Ms. Wang Tun, Vice President, Business Development at Borqs.
“Our business is composed of three lineups since the establishment. Borqs is not just about OS,” Ms. Wang said. Incorporated in 2007, the company is a high-tech enterprise dedicated to providing end-to-end integrated software solutions for the whole industrial chain of mobile communications. “Cloud, management and terminal”, referring to, respectively, Mobile Cloud Computing Platform, Mobile Information Management System Platform (Mobee, Mobile Widget) and OMS, were positioned as three main lineups underpinning Borqs for making its corporate objective real.
Borqs’ OMS is mainly represented by Android-based OPhone running on the Linux kernel. It is an independently developed operating system essentially different from those operating systems modified from Android in China’s market. Ms. Wang Tun said: “OMS is an open mobile intelligent software platform. It includes a Linux Kernel, middleware, Java virtual machine, application software and other applications such as FOTA [Firmware Over-the-Air], RIL [Radio Interface Layer] and WebKit. It also features high compatibility same as that of Android and Bada.”
OMS is the trailblazer of China-owned mobile operating system, but facing a fierce competition against several powerful rivals in local Chinese market, such as Cloud OS launched by Alibaba. It has been affirmed that Baidu will roll out its mobile operating system supportable to China Telecom’s CDMA 2000 standard at the end of this year. Nevertheless, Ms. Wang Tun said for sure that there was no need to worry about that.
She explained her confidence quite directly: OMS is a continued evolution of advanced technology, also an integrated solution. According to her, many new features, such as Html5 and cloud application, are hyped up by the industry, but they are immature with many defects, including slow traffic caused by real-time networking and compromised user experience by unstable network. Reversely, Borqs, rather than talking big, is always committed to improving the performances of OMS for constantly enhanced user experience. Its next-generation OMS will focus on voice intelligence, multi-screen play, LTE, IPv6, security and more powerful chips. To that end, the company has established a wide range of partnership programs with some global players, such as NEC and Singtel.
Focusing on Mobile Internet Market
The success of mobile Internet on the consumer market is just a starting point of its future rise. Together with the increasing popularity of mobile Internet and smart terminals, more applications for mobile business purpose will be created and provided for a wide spectrum of industries. Simple, efficient and safe corporate-level solutions will be bringing more benefits. With this in mind, Borqs has been striving to deliver end-to-end integrated software solutions just for business customers, with some remarkable achievements already made.
According to Ms. Wang Tun, Borqs has had some success cases in the fields of information system construction and e-government, the major part of which is mobile Internet-enabled industry application systems built upon mobile clients and mobile cloud computing on the back end. Its information management system is customized based on [its] Mobee management platform, integrating an audio/video information system for content distribution.
Also, Mr. Wang Tun disclosed that [its] Big Cloud, developed by Borqs with advanced open source technology, is designed to provide a complete, innovative solution for massive data processing and user management catering to mobile Internet. Big Cloud is a system platform innovated and developed with IRP [?Internet Resource Planning?] on mobile Internet, IT support system solution and the low-cost PC-Grid computing technology. It is a platform with high performance of reliability, availability and scalability. She even revealed that the company has been dedicated to the research of Big Cloud-related technologies since its establishment.
At present, Mobee is far from public knowledge. It is reported that Mobee is a mobile Internet application platform based on mobile information management technology, covering application management, news, e-books and audios & videos. Borqs has made a special strategy for Mobee: As the core of information management systems, it is made available for customers on a customized basis; meanwhile, generous efforts are made in brand incubation to promote its offerings such as Mobee Apps, Mobee News, Mobee Readings, Mobee Weather, Mobee Stock, etc.
Mentioning the future industry applications, Ms. Wang Tun said that Borqs, with strong technical power, is willing to create a win-win industry chain by partnering with system integrators and developers from various industries.
Now, many new features of mobile operating systems, such as Html5 and cloud application, are just hypes, rather immature with many defects, including slow traffic caused by real-time networking and compromised user experience by unstable network.
Asus T20 introduced smart phones, using OPhone 2.5 platform [Oct 25, 2011]
Asus in Beijing released T20 smart phones. According to information, released the T20 smart phones, mobile launch, working with the second paragraph TD mobile phones.
T20 in mobile leading harsh OPhone2.5 mobile terminal product special test, with minimal number, the total score of the excellent result ranked first in the first through the test, and become the first OPhone2.5 China mobile platform 3 G smartphones.
Computer China headquarters handheld division TangShiLin general manager, said on the 3 G information age, asus has issued the Windows platform of mobile phones, the M A of the Android platform of mobile phones, and began in 2009 and China mobile cooperation development TD mobile phone, support our country with independent intellectual property rights td-scdma technology standards, released Ophone system of mobile phone T, to the mobile phone released today T20, asus always insist the complete set up from the personal computing end to the clouds of the bridge operation mission, smart phones can let users instant, namely, to get more human nature on the content and all kinds of clouds service, is to the clouds of calculation an important terminal.
China Mobile Research Institute: Ophone basic catch up iPhone [Beijing Morning Post, via Google Translate, June 10, 2011]
Morning News (Reporter Jiao Likun) held yesterday TD intelligent terminal technology development seminar, China Mobile Research Institute Bill Huang said that China Mobile Ophone has basically caught up with the iPhone’s level, in addition to a technology – Multi-Touch screen.
Bill Huang pointed out that after five years of development, the Ophone has the best multi-tasking, open, API, etc. to catch up with iPhone, but still in the multi-touch in Apple’s lead.
iPhone touch screen mobile phone caused a global boom. China Mobile Ophone is the leading smartphone platform. Borqs Tun Wang, vice president of Commerce, said that so far, OPhone phone has been developed 29. To the end of last year, Ophone in TD smart device market share up to 38%.
Wang Tun said that this year will introduce OPhone 2.6 platform to support high-definition video transmission and interactive television, Ophone will use the Tablet PC Edition operating system.
Borqs to Launch OPhone 3.0 in Q1 2012 [Marbridge Daily, Netease Tech, June 8, 2011]
Wang Tun, VP of Beijing-based mobile software solutions provider Borqs, recently revealed that version 3.0 of China Mobile’s (NYSE: CHL; 0941.HK) OPhone mobile OS will be released in Q1 2012, featuring improved security, IPv6 support, and new cloud-based services.
The OPhone or Open Mobile System (OMS) is an Android-based platform that supports a number of China Mobile data services, such as mobile IM client Fetion, the Mobile Market app store, and 139 mobile e-mail. Wang said Borqs is cooperating with over 20 handset manufacturers to produce OPhone smartphones, with R&D completed on 29 handsets, more than 20 of which have already been released. As of the end of last year, OPhone accounted for 38% of the TD-SCDMA smartphone market. A number of handset manufacturers, including Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Huawei, ZTE (0763.HK; 000063.SZ), and Sharp, will continue to release products this year featuring the recently released OPhone 2.5 mobile OS, at prices significantly lower than those in the past two years.
Borqs OPhone years of “stealth” to cloud the future [Communications World Network via Google translation, Aug 15, 2011]
Communications World Network ( CWW ) 8 (Reuters) broadcast communications, an industry that is familiar and unfamiliar company, familiar because of their many years of time to focus on OPhone OS operating system platform development, and OPhone products have also been seen as a TD terminal symbol of product development; and it is because they are unfamiliar with China Mobile in the market between the origin of long-term low-key publicity.
Along the way, OPhone ups and downs
August 31, 2009 China Mobile jointly released the first batch of more than OPhone mobile terminal manufacturers, and OPhone OS 1.0 version of the operating system is also to meet with the user. Borqs Tun Wang, vice president of business media conference admitted in, OPhone end product from scratch, is a gradually mature, and gradually perfect the process. OPhone launch five platform version of the two years, more than 30 terminals, OPhone more mature; simultaneously fit all of the TD Modem and mainstream chip, driven by the industrial partners, industry, environment, maturity and development.
Initially released in 2009 to Lenovo O1 OPhone most typical mobile phone, from the terminal point of view, TD industry in terms of the chip industry is a new challenge, because chip solution immature, then a TD mobile phone chip requires about seven simultaneously, the power consumption and adapter for mobile phones and other issues, it faces enormous challenges. TD mobile phone form factor is also a single, larger one important reason. And, TD network instability also affects the user experience.
Insiders pointed out, it is undeniable that when criticized by the parties OPhone terminal operating system is not all over, in the TD network, terminal hardware support are varying degrees of problems, integrated all the factors causing the user for the OPhone misunderstandings, but also caused difficulties in the latter part of OPhone terminal advance.
OPhone early stages of development, the terminal price is a major cause of limited advance, while the single-section shipments are not ideal terminal into a terminal manufacturers are not profitable, the hardware chip count not a big bang, end the vicious cycle of high prices.
Wang Tun, concedes, Marvell single-chip solution can be said that the launch of TD industry chain of development, making TD the first opportunity to intelligent terminals and WCDMA terminals stood quite the starting line.
It is understood, Marvell’s TD-SCDMA PXA920 single-chip solution is strongly supported by the Research Institute of China Mobile TD-chip R & D projects, and the introduction of single-chip solution not only in chip performance has been greatly improved, while the terminal design and energy problems are solved.
Currently, OPhone OS version 2.5 has been reached, after the first two years of pain, the current OPhone either hardware support or software systems, are the best period of development ushered in history. Gradually introduced in the first half of this year, a variety of OPhone phone prices were 2,000 yuan, while Huawei T8300 has achieved a thousand OPhone goal, which broadcast communications, said Ray Wang, senior director of product management, the current OPhone the price of smart phones has basically become more reasonable, cost-effective but also more acceptable to users, will usher in the next outbreak.
Stability is the key OPhone
In April, Borqs released its latest 2.5 version of the OMS, based on kernel development Android 2.2 made, it is reported, OPhone OS 2.5 version compared to the previous version has more than 1000 improved, more focus on user experience. Wang Lei said, OMS2.5 whether or Widget UI design experience more in line with the Chinese people for the smart phone experience, while the Internet anytime, anywhere “with e-line” client, 2G / 3G network access to the “VPN enterprise network,” The new “mobile reading” experience, support Wi-Fi to download the “game room”, etc. are OPhone2.5 improvement highlights.
OPhone OS operating system from the emergence of the software compatibility has been criticized by the industry’s biggest problem, now the new 2.5 version of this problem has been completely resolved. Borqs Commercial Director Zou Junfeng said, “first-line OPhone phone manufacturers need Google 100% compatibility testing, while doing OPhone the outset, we and Google are the anti-secession agreement, and now in the Android market, all the software in OPhone 2.5 can be run on the phone. ”
Wang Lei said that in the year listed OPhone 2.5 phone, Motorola MT620 mobile phone has been tested time and stable operation of its independence in 200 hours or more, and now the vast majority of end-user experience of failure-free run-time is generally 60-70 hours, and stability to the user experience is an important prerequisite for good.
According to reports, Motorola MT620 terminal shipments more than 30 million, and this year with Huawei T8300 phone shipments will exceed 50 million, which will refresh OPhone new record mobile phone shipments.
OPhone from the terminal to the cloud
While the current “mobile cloud” concept continually referred to by the terminal manufacturers, mobile phone from the terminal has become an inevitable trend toward the clouds, which Wang Tun introduced to, OPhone OS 3.0 is developing next-generation version, but in this version, the “cloud “OPhone will be implanted into the phone, while the cloud service system will be realized in the end.
Wang Tun said, including cloud services such as Apple’s iCloud launch, users also enjoy the convenience of personal privacy is under threat, due to personal information are all on the cloud, personal security, and national security is bound to be under threat.
Currently Borqs ongoing services in the cloud-end R & D program, but also China Mobile “big cloud” 1.0 plan providers, I believe that with the clouds and end-system continues to mature, I believe that will provide stable and secure cloud the overall service .
http://pdadb.net/index.php?m=pdamaster&posted=1&os=a250o
Motorola MOTO MT620
Release Date: June, 2011
OS: Borqs OPhone OS 2.5 Chinese
CPU: 32bit Marvell PXA920, 806MHz
Memory: 512MiB RAM, 512MiB ROM
Display: 3.1″ 320×480 pixel color transflective TFT
Cellular Phone: GSM900, GSM1800, GSM1900,..Physical Attributes:60 x 122 x 12.4 mm, 123 g
Sony Ericsson WT18 / WT18i
Release Date: June, 2011
OS: Borqs OPhone OS 2.5
CPU: 32bit Marvell PXA920, 806MHz
Memory: 512MiB ROM
Display: 3.2″ 320×480 pixel color transflective TFT
Cellular Phone: GSM850, GSM900, GSM1800,..
Physical Attributes: 56.5 x 106 x 14.3 mm, 110 g
Sony Ericsson WT18i also started to launch similar mobile phones [Nov 24, 2011]
There was an increase in demand for mobile music after the launch of the Walkman series phones from Sony Ericsson. To take on phones Sony Ericsson music, other companies also started to launch similar mobile phones. Whatever the level of competition from SE Walkman phones definitely belong to a class way beyond the reach of its rivals. This time he came with the new Sony Ericsson WT18iphone Android to charm the masses.
After the announcement of the new W8, WT18iis the final Walkman phone from Sony Ericsson that was introduced in China. This is a phone that works with TD-SCDMA/GSMA Chinese version of the operating system Android 2.2 (Froyo) called OPhone 2.5 which is fully compatible with all Android applications. It is available on China Mobile and uses Marvell PXA920 806MHz CPU processor power. The WT18i has a 3.2-inch HVGA capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 320 × 480 pixels.
Other features include the WT18i 3Mega pixel camera, 150GB of internal memory, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, GPS, Wi-Fi b / g / n, an FM tuner, Sony Walkman basic audio, and a micro card slot SDHC. It is also able to shoot videos 480/24p. Coming soon in China, the Sony Ericsson WT18i uses a battery 1200mAh, 56.5 × 106 × 14.3mm and weighs in a position only 110 grams.
WT18i indicated is similar to a Walkman phone Sony Ericsson W8, Sony Ericsson WT18i specifications indicate that this phone is designed for low-end marketsand cheap, young people who consider price. Sony Ericsson uses Marvell PXA 920 processor WT18i, 806 MHz clock speed and a screen 3.2 “HVGA. Device is equipped with a 150 MB the internal memory and microSD card slot (up to 32GB)
Sony Ericsson WT18i Specification and features :
- Display: 3.2 inch HVGA capacitive touchscreen display with 320 × 480 pixels, 16M colors
- Single-Touch and ease of handwriting recognition
- 3GP and MP4 video
- Camera: 3 MP camera with video recorder 480p
- Virtual QWERTY Keyboard
- Expandable memory: up to 32 GB MicroSD Card
- Operating System: Android OS 2.2 Froyo
- Connectivity: Bluetooth and Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n options
- Dimension: 106 x 56.5 x 14.3 mm
- Weight: 110 grams
- Battery: Li-ion 1200 mAh
With the Walkman W8 WT18i and advertising, things are going well for Sony Ericsson. However, these are mid-range. Hopefully they have something in reserve for high-end consumers. On the other hand, many people do not see the point of most Walkman phones. Is Sony taking a gamble with their latest offers? We think so. The most important question is: the bet will pay off eventually? Stay Connected for more news about it!
Price :
- PKR: Rs.27, 500
- USD: $ 299.99
The current (Nov 29, 2011) low-end offerings are the following ones:
| Brand: | Huawei | Coolpad |
| Model: | T83003.2″ Capacitive Screen Ophone 2.5 TD-SCDMA 3G Smart Phone w/ WiFi+GPS – Black | 88093.2″ Touch Screen 3G TD-SCDMA OPhone 2.5 Android Smartphone w/ Wi-Fi + TV – Black |
| Price: | $138.90 [elsewhere is the same street price of ¥ 888.00 = $139.21] EUR 114.33 | $141.60EUR 116.55 |
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 |
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| Color: | Black | Black |
| Special Features: | Slim body,quick react screen, 3.2″ capacitive screen display, Customized App can be removed by root. | TV and Wi-Fi function available, Ophone 2.5 system, fully compatible with the Android 2.2 OS applications |
| IMEI: | Unique | Unique |
| Format: | Touch Smart Phone | Touch bar smartphone |
| Cell Phone Weight (w/Battery) | 104.0 grams | 127g |
| Operating System: | Android based, Ophone 2.5 | Ophone 2.5, fully compatible with the Android 2.2 OS applications |
| Processor: | Marvell [PXA918], 600MHZ | Marvell PXA918, 624MHz |
| LCD Screen: | 3.2-inch capacitive touchscreen | 3.2-inch screen |
| Screen Resolution: | 480 x 320 pixels | 480 x 320 pixels |
| Touch Sensitive: | Yes | Yes |
| Network Bands: | GSM/TD-SCDMA, 2G:GSM850/900/1800/1900,3G:TD-SCDMA1880-1920/2010-2025MHZ | GSM/TD-SCDMAGSM:900MHz/1800MHz/1900MHzTDSCDMA:1880/2010MHz |
| SIM Slots: | Single SIM slot | Single SIM slot |
| Data Connections: | WiFi/WAP/GPRS/EDGE/HSPA | GSM/GPRS/EDGE/TD-SCDMA |
| Bluetooth: | V2.1+A2DP | V3.0 |
| Wifi/Wireless LAN/WLAN: | Yes. 802.11b/g | Yes, 802.11b/g/n |
| Speakers: | 1 Speaker | Single speaker |
| Memory Slot Type: | MicroSD/TF card up to 32GB in size (2GB memory card included) | MicroSD/TF card up to 32 GB in size (2GB memory card included) |
| Built-in/Included Memory: | 512MB ROM, 512MB RAM | 512MB ROM, 256MB RAM |
| Digital Camera(s): | 3.2MP, Picture Max Resolution: 2048×1536 pixels | 300 KP front camera plus 3.0 MP back camera with 1536 x 2048 pixels resolution |
| GPS: | Built-in GPS | |
| G-sensor: | Yes | |
| JAVA: | Yes | |
| Playback Formats: | MP3/3GP/MP4/JPG/TXT (with certain App almost all the formats are supported) | MP4/3GP/MP3/AAC/MIDI |
| TV Tuner: | No | Yes, PAL/NTSC/AUTO |
| FM Radio Tuner: | Built-in FM Radio Tuner | No |
| Voice Recording: | Voice Recording Supported | Yes |
| Batteries: | 1 x 1200 mAh lithium ion rechargeable batteries included | 1 x 1450mAh lithium battery |
| AC Charger: | 100~240V AC Battery Charger included (2-Flat-Pin Plug) | AC 100~240V Power Adapter (EU plug) |
| Recharge via USB Port: | Yes | Yes |
| Phone Language(s): | Chinese/English | Chinese / English |
| User’s Guide: | English user’s guide included | English/Chinese user manual |
| Accessories Included: | 1 x 3.5mm earphone1 x 1200mAh battery1 x USB Charging/Data Cable | 1 x 3.5mm earphone1 x 1450mAh lithium battery1 x USB cable with AC adapter1 x 2GB TF card |
| Manufacturer’s Warranty: | 12 Months excluding physical damages (see specifications for terms and details) | 15 Months excluding physical damages (see specifications for terms and details) |
Note that the Huawei T8300 is the TD-SCDMA specific redesign of the IDEOS X3 smartphone announced at MWC’11 (but only delivered since June’11, for around US$240 in Singapore and for around US$200 in Malaysia). The Qualcomm MSM7227 SoC (announced in Feb’09 for sub-$150 smartphones) used in X3 was not able to support TD-SCDMA so the only available SoC was Marvell’s PXA920/918 SoCs family available since Sep’09 (although capable of passing the rigorous TD-SCDMA tests only almost 2 years).
Coolpad Will Dump Chinese Mobile Phone Manufacturing Next Year [Nov 30, 2011]
Li Wang, executive vice president of the Chinese mobile phone brand Coolpad, revealed that the company plans to completely stop manufacturing mobile phones and non-smartphone devices in 2012.
Instead, the company will try to focus only on smartphone manufacturing. Li told local media that Coolpad’s mobile device shipments in the entire year of 2011 is expected to reach over 12 million units, of which over 60% are smartphones.
…
Coolpad’s current business focus in reportedly on the domestic Chinese market and the first- and second-tier cities are its key markets. With its gradual penetration into the third- and fourth-tier cities, Coolpad will adjust its sales and marketing strategy accordingly, said Li. Apart from the domestic market, the company will continue to expand into overseas markets. Following its entry into India and Indonesia, the company has started developing the North American and European markets.
Borqs Unveils Latest OPhone Handsets at 14th China Beijing International High-tech Expo [Borqs article, May 20, 2011]
With the coming of the World Telecommunications Day, the 14th China Beijing International High-tech Expo (the Expo) opened at China International Exhibition Center from May 18th to 22nd, 2011. This Expo was co-organized by several state departments of China, including the Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Education, and Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Many innovative enterprises participated into the Expo with their innovation achievements. Borqs, one of the members of China’s National Special Key Projects, were also invited and exhibited the new serial of TD smartphones running on OPhone OS 2.0 or higher.
From “Made in China” to “Created in China”, and then to “China Standards”, enterprises based in Zhongguancun have always been committed to innovation and development since their establishment. As technology advancement and industry transfer are seen everywhere around the world, China Mobile developed and launched the first 3G standard in China, TD-SCDMA, a decade plus ago. As of today, China Mobile has maintained 61.9 million 3G mobile users as well as 26.99 million TD-SCDMA users. Recently, Mr. Jianzhou Wang, the Chairman of China Mobile, pointed out that TD system was no longer a test network but a commercial one covering 656 cities around China with the joint efforts of China Mobile and its industry partners from within and outside the country. Especially, the TD-SCDMA industry chain has emerged in recent years,, consisting of near 50 telecommunication enterprises, including many manufacturers and providers of network, terminals and chips, in and outside China.
OPhone OS is closely related to TD. Up to now, OPhone smartphones account for 50% of TD smartphones. At the Expo, a wide range of TD terminals are exhibited, including many new OPhone-based models. Following its receiving recognition from the state officials at the prior 11th Five-year Plan Major Science & Technology Achievements Exhibition, OPhone OS continued to be all the rage and attracted many visitors at the Expo.
Mr. Huang Xiaoqing: China Mobile Started Research of OPhone 3.0 [Borqs article, Oct 13, 2010]
NetEase Tech, October 12th – Mr. Huang Xiaoqing, President of the Research Institution of China Mobile, told NetEase Tech during an interview at the ICT China High Level Forum 2010 that China Mobile had initiated the research plan for OPhone 2.5 and OPhone 3.0.
As of today, China Mobile has introduced a number of OPhone-based smartphones by partnering with some mobile manufacturers, but without any flagship products at various prices that could deliver outstanding user experience. Mr. Huang Xiaoqing says, “It is a big challenge for both the Research Institution of China Mobile and even the entire telecommunication industry in China. It’s about how the nationwide industry could evolve and catch up with the world’s leading technology in an open-source environment.”
According to Mr. Huang, terminal testing results proved that OPhone 2.0, following OPhone 1.0 and 1.5, had been built with an industry-leading performance enabling a wide range of mobile phone functionalities. China Mobile has now been working on the development of OPhone 2.5 and 3.0. He expressed his ambition that the new versions could “be in the world’s leading position”.
While developing upgraded versions of OPhone OS, China Mobile has incorporated the target to develop low-price terminals into its OPhone roadmap. Mr. Huang explained, “There are quite many OPhone mobile phones on the market, but most of them are too much expensive. It has been one of our goals to cut down the price of OPhone mobile phones to 1,000 Yuan or below, equivalent to that of ordinary mobile terminals, but without sacrificing user experience.”
Leadcore, a China-based chip manufacturer, is reported to have launched the first OPhone-based TD-SCDMA single-chip smartphone solution for OPhone smartphones priced at RMB 1,000 Yuan. Industry experts estimate that China Mobile might be able to launch some OPhone-based smart phones priced at RMB 1,000 Yuan or even below at year-end of 2010 and beginning of 2011 in a joint effort with some partners from its industry chain.
OPhone is a smartphone operating system based on Google Android. At the end of August 2009, China Mobile launched OPhone platform in three versions successively, including OPhone 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0. As of now, more than 20 mobile manufacturers in/outside China has joined the camp of OPhone and launched many popular OPhone-based mobile phones.
Web apps for the open web from Mozilla
Mozilla releasing new version of Firefox for Android [Nov 22, 2011]
The new version is strategically important for Mozilla for multiple reasons. First, smartphones and tablets are at the center of a mobile-first transformation of the computing industry, and Firefox isn’t preinstalled anywhere right now. Second, with Firefox shut out on Apple’s iOS and Microsoft’s Windows Phone, Android is effectively the only route for Mozilla to bring its browser to the mobile market.
Last, Mozilla’s objective–to ensure an open Web–relies on Firefox. Right now, Apple and Google browsers based on the open-source WebKit project dominate mobile browsing.
Release manager Christian Legnitto announced the move Friday. Initially the new version was geared just for phones, but Mozilla expanded it to tablets, too, after concluding it couldn’t offer separate versions.
Firefox for personal computers, and many of the add-ons that helped make the browser popular by making it more customizable, use an interface called XUL (XML User Interface Language). But because the XUL-based version of Firefox took so long to start up on Android and isn’t as responsive, Mozilla instead embraced Andoid’s built-in technology.
Mozilla releases roadmap for Boot to Gecko project [thinq, Nov 7, 2011]
Mozilla is continuing its assault on the operating system, releasing an updated roadmap for its Boot to Gecko (B2G) project that sees its developers using the mobile platform as their primary phone device by the end of the year.
Mozilla’s Boot to Gecko project first appeared back in July, when researcher Andreas Gal posted a message to the mozilla.dev.platform Usenet group asking for volunteers to help develop a new mobile platformthat brings the concept of the open web to smartphones as well as the desktop.
“We propose a project we’re calling ‘Boot to Gecko’ (B2G) to pursue the goal of building a complete, standalone operating system for the open web. We will do this work in the open, we will release the source in real-time, we will take all successful additions to an appropriate standards group, and we will track changes that come out of that process. We aren’t trying to have these native-grade apps just run on Firefox,” Gal claimed at the time, “we’re trying to have them run on the web.”
As well as a standalone platform, Gal explained that initial versions of the software would operate as a “low-level substrate for an Android-compatible device,” allowing tablets and smartphones based on Google’s popular mobile platform to boot into B2G as well.
The B2G project stands as an apparent answer to the success of Google’s Android and the work the advertising giant has done on the Chrome OS project for so-called ‘Chromebook’ devices. A combination of the two – a smartphone platform and a web app platform – B2G promises to appeal to those looking to offload their processing from a mobile device to the cloud.
In the latest version of the B2G roadmap, Mozilla claims that the first milestone is to get developers using a B2G device as their day-to-day smartphone – a goal it aims to achieve by the end of the year.
The project has a way to go, however: while B2G currently has access to smartphone features including the camera and the ability to make outgoing calls via Android, work has yet to be completed on messaging and full telephony functionality, along with power management, Android contacts integration and screen management.
Once complete, the team is planning to turn its attention to the nicer aspects: support for Bluetooth, USB and Near-Field Communications hardware is planned – although not yet scheduled – while plans to release an open web apps store= much like Google’s own Chrome Store, which lists web apps solely for use with its own browser – and add full Firefox-like functionality to the web browser are scheduled.
Once complete, that work will result in a public demonstration of the project as early as Q1 2012, the team claims, followed by “productisation” in Q2 – at which point the public at large will be given their chance to play with Mozilla’s creation.
The company has a long road ahead, however: Google’s Android is a popular platform, and while B2G promises to maintain compatibility with the system – likely by integrating a dual-boot functionality or using B2G as an overlay on top of the still-running Android OS where possible – it’s likely to struggle to convince non-technical types that it’s worth the effort.
Should the company secure a deal with a major handset manufacturer to ship B2G as standard with a smartphone, however, that could rapidly change.
Full details of the B2G project are available on the official wiki.
B2G/Roadmap [Nov 4, 2011]
This page is edited by brendan, cjones. Please don’t change without permission. DRAFT
[Brendan Eich co-founded mozilla.org and is currently the CTO of Mozilla. He is widely known for his contributions to the evolution of the Web, including inventing JavaScript and spearheading its ongoing standardization and evolution. See also: Mozilla’s Brendan Eich on the Birth of Firefox [Nov 9, 2011].]Milestone 1: Developer Phone Q4 2011
Developers will use B2G as their day-to-day phone.
Gecko
Gecko implements standard and proposed Web APIs.
- Accelerometer
- Geolocation
- Camera
- Visibility
- Messaging: (filed 7/27)
- android backend (ON TRACK, first patch 8/11)
- RIL backend (ON TRACK)
- SMS IndexedDB database (ASSIGNED)
- Telephony: (filed 7/27)
- outgoing calls on android
- RIL backend (ON TRACK)
- mute and speakerphone-toggle through libaudio (ON TRACK, landing estimated 11/15)
- Battery: (filed 8/12)
- android backend (ON TRACK)
- Linux upower backend (ON TRACK)
- sysfs backend (ON TRACK)
- Contacts: (ON TRACK)
- android backend (ON TRACK)
- native IndexedDB backend (ON TRACK)
- Screen/power management: (SCHEDULED)
- Settings: (SCHEDULED)
- Intents/Actions interface (SCHEDULED)
System (Gonk)
Gonk provides the OS kernel and lower-level native-code libraries that Gecko depends on.
- Boot into Gecko-based runtime
- Basic developer tools
- debugger (gdb)
- profiler
User Interface (Gaia)
Gaia is Mozilla’s phone user experience.
- Home screen
- Lock screen
- Dialer
- SMS application
- Basic web browser
- Contacts manager
Integration and testing
Infrastructure to collaborate with partners on source using established tools from Android ecosystem. Test correctness and performance.
- Project Eideticker(performance testing): (ON TRACK, prototype finished)
- Control B2G devices: (ON TRACK)
- git.mozilla.org and gerrit server: (ASSIGNED)
Milestone 2: Product Demo Q1 2012
Gecko
- Open Web Apps and Store (ON TRACK)
- Network status
- Network management
- Vibrator(ON TRACK)
- android backend (ON TRACK)
- sysfs backend (ASSIGNED)
- Lights
- Sensors(ON TRACK)
- proximity and ambient-light sensors (ON TRACK)
- android backend (ON TRACK)
- gonk backend (ASSIGNED)
- Bluetooth(STRETCH)
- USB(STRETCH)
- NFC(STRETCH)
- Completed port to Gonk
- widget backend built on GL context for screen (ON TRACK)
- user-input processing (ON TRACK)
- gonk backend for all device APIs
- audio and video playback
- Developer tools: remote debuggers
- JS
- DOM (STRETCH)
- CSS (STRETCH)
System (Gonk)
- Dalvik removal
- Developer tools
- valgrind
- OpenGL debugger
- OpenGL profiler
profilers
User Interface (Gaia)
- Full-featured web browser
- Settings manager
- Apps store
- eBook reader
- Camera
- Gallery
- Media player
- Distinct look-and-feel
Integration and testing
- Automated correctness testing
Milestone 3: Productization Q2 2012
Gecko
- Update mechanism
- WebRTC
Boot To Gecko (B2G) [A Minute With Brendan, Oct 19, 2011]
Back from JSConf EU and other travels, the minute with team is happy to return with a special episode from Brendan about the new Boot To Gecko (B2G)system. This is targeted to allow users of mobile devices to boot directly to a Gecko based browsing interface and to run web applications. It is really doing some stunning work around the new web APIs and privilege model that all developers should be aware of. Enjoy!
- Mobile discussions (more about Mozilla’s mission)
- Boot to Gecko wiki
- JS APIs for cameras, USB, and possibly Near Field Communication (NFC)
- HP WebOS
- ChromeOS
- Brendan discusses the benefit of coop-atition between webkit and gecko, working together and keeping separate is a good thing.
- Nitobi
Crowd Sourced Full Transcript: http://piratepad.net/amwb-20111019 [Brendan Eich, Oct 19, 2011]
When I last spoke about the whole area of the rise of mobile smartphones and tablets really, and how Mozilla needs to climb the stack, use the Firefox desktop-heavy user-base to grow and make new product offerings, new projects, I did not talk about Boot To Gecko, but it’s, it was latent in what I, I did talk about, because we, we look around the world of mobile devices, and we see different operating systems that are increasingly locked in, vertically in terms of browsers or app models, or, even down to the OS and hardware, and that goes against Mozilla’s mission.
So what we really want is an offering that allows you to use the web to access all those great device APIs, with security, with user, user’s permission, with the principle of least-authority, so that there’s not a big security nightmare. But we do expect that the web languages, JavaScript especially, are capable of doing the high level sequencing and operations that you want, for things like your camera, USB connectivity, even futuristic stuff like Near Field Communication. That can all be just APIs exposed to JavaScript. You shouldn’t have to write native code that’s like Java interfaced on Android, or Objective-C, on, on, or C or C++ on another platform.
And so Boot To Gecko really is trying to make a thin OS layer, using open-source stacks like the linux kernel that’s in Android, or some similar linux kernel, and lib-c, and, you know, the Bluetooth open stack, and other things, to have a completely unencumbered operating system that gets you straight into the web languages as fast as possible. The, the launchers, home-screen, or the front-end of the user experience of the OS will really be realized with web technologies.
And, you know you might think this is similar to webOS, from Palm originally, now HP, and ChromeOS, there’s a lot similar in spirit. I would, I would say there’s some differences strategic for Mozilla and in what users will see there. What we’re trying to provide is not a new big fat JavaScript library or stack, but the web libraries that you find on Github, the ones you’re already using in your front-end development. We want web developers to be right at home, we don’t want to give them yet another, sorta framework. And I think that the webOS has some of that going on, which you know, may or may not be a strike against it, but it’s different from what we intend. We intend to be totally aligned with the grain of the web.
ChromeOS is fully open source, as fully as it can be, I think, more so than Android, at least Android Honeycomb, and that’s, that’s a good thing about it. It’s currently targeting you know notebooks, machines with keyboards, I think it’s, it’s also being brought up on some tablets, I’m not sure where that stands. And maybe even some phones, so the telephony, you know the dialer and the signaling stuff will be there. And not sure how that’ll play out. But ChromeOS is kind of Chrome, and therefore Chromium Webkit, and sort of Google dominated, to be fair. And I, so inspite of the philosophical alignment I feel with ChromeOS, it needs to be something like Android, which is really linux plus some Java stuff, I think Mozilla has to take a shot at something like Boot To Gecko.
We want to keep the Gecko code base relevant, even as it sort of dissolves into the operating system, becomes part of the ambient functionality you find on devices. So we’re looking for interoperation between Webkit and Gecko. We’re not just saying: “one open-source widely-used renderer is enough”. And, of course, as, as I mentioned last time, there’s a lot of, sort of, implicit version forking or vendor specific, you know, bug injection going on with Webkit. This is inevitable with any widely used codebase, it’s not something peculiar to Webkit.
But it, I think it even more raises the temperature on having another rendering engine, ideally open-source, like Gecko, out there, with a lot of users, even in the future where tablets and smartphones dominate the desktop population of devices, of PC’s and Macs.
So, Boot To Gecko is trying to differentiate by bringing web developers all those APIs that are going to take awhile to standardize. The stuff that Phonegap, from Nitobi, does well, we want to bring it as quickly as possible and feed it into the standards body, and, bodies, and iterate on it, and we want to run well on certain, certain devices. Now, this also requires making choices, because you can’t just say this is gonna be something users can download for any old phone. It, it, all the phones are different, you really have to flash into ROM, and you know, to burn, burn a ROM with this code. That’s part of the challenge, because for tablets, you might need some, some extra support that isn’t yet open-source. I mentioned Android Honeycomb.
We’re gonna persevere, and try to get this to be completely open-source, and running on relevant devices. There’s some really sweet hardware out there that we like a lot. We like the Samsung devices, the Galaxy II-S, we went with the Galaxy Tab 10 inch. Getting up on those right now with fully open-source stacks is a little hard. So part of our mission is to overcome that obstacle, and then interface the device APIs in the OS and down in the linux layer directly to the web.
And, so we won’t run equally well on every device, but we will pick devices that we think are likely to be popular, that are well executed hardware, that, you know, can actually give Apple a bit of a run for its money, and try to get something up and demonstratable in a few months.
So, I will be talking about this at least in, in October at a couple of conferences, probably Web 2.0 Expo in New York, and another one. And that, that puts a short fuse on the initial prototyping work for Boot To Gecko, so it’s paramount that we leverage what’s out there as open-source already, and then build on it with the Gecko technology that allows web developers to get at the device APIs. And I’ll have more to say about this as it progresses, but it’ll be exciting, and I, it’ll, I hope be really awesome on certain well designed hardware.
Booting to the Web [Andreas Gal, Director of Research at Mozilla Corporation, Jul 25, 2011]
Mozilla believes that the web can displace proprietary, single-vendor stacks for application development. To make open web technologies a better basis for future applications on mobile and desktop alike, we need to keep pushing the envelope of the web to include — and in places exceed — the capabilities of the competing stacks in question.
We also need a hill to take, in order to scope and focus our efforts. Recently we saw the pdf.js [http://github.com/andreasgal/pdf.js/] project expose small gaps that needed filling in order for “HTML5” to be a superset of PDF. We want to take a bigger step now, and find the gaps that keep web developers from being able to build apps that are — in every way — the equals of native apps built for the iPhone, Android, and WP7.
To that end, we propose a project we’re calling “Boot to Gecko” [http://wiki.mozilla.org/B2G] (B2G) to pursue the goal of building a complete, standalone operating system for the open web. It’s going to require work in a number of areas.
* New web APIs: build prototype APIs for exposing device and OS capabilities to content (Telephony, SMS, Camera, USB, Bluetooth, NFC, etc.)
* Privilege model: making sure that these new capabilities are safely exposed to pages and applications
* Booting: prototype a low-level substrate for an Android-compatible device;
* Applications: choose and port or build apps to prove out and prioritize the power of the system.We will do this work in the open, we will release the source [http://github.com/andreasgal/B2G] in real-time, we will take all successful additions to an appropriate standards group, and we will track changes that come out of that process. We aren’t trying to have these native-grade apps just run on Firefox, we’re trying to have them run on the web.
This project is in its infancy; some pieces of it are only captured in our heads today, others aren’t fully explored. We’re talking about it now because we want expertise from all over Mozilla — and from people who aren’t yet part of Mozilla — to inform and build the project we’re outlining here.
brendan, cjones, gal, shaver
Boot To Gecko misconceptions [Luke Wagner, Sept 16, 2011]
I’m all jazz hands about Boot To Gecko (B2G). I think B2G is really important to the Mozilla mission. Perhaps stemming from the early-and-open nature of B2G, there are some misconceptions about B2G that I’ve seen in articles and forums. I am not closely involved in the project, but I do know enough to identify and correct a few of these misconceptions with the following three B2G facts:
- B2G will not run in kernel mode. To be clear, B2G will run on top of the Linux kernel; Gecko will run as user-mode processes. Furthermore, a crash in Gecko will not take down the entire phone: with Electrolysis (already being used in Firefox Mobile), different apps/sites will run in different processes.
- B2G will (ultimately) not run on top of Android. To bootstrap the project, work is currently being done on top of Android. However, the goal is to incrementally remove each dependency on Android, leaving only drivers and low-level libraries. In particular, this means B2G would not contain the Dalvik Java VM which should significantly improve the patent–encumbered Java situationas well as reduce the number of VMs needed to browse the web from 2 to 1.
- B2G will use Gecko, but it’s not just about Gecko. A clearer name might have been “Boot to Web platform”. Gecko will, of course, be the engine used to prototype new Web APIs but since these are targeted at open standards developed in the open (as opposed to dumped in the open) [referring to a Dart presentation], a possible/desirable outcome is a separate “Boot To Webkit” implementation able to run the same home screen and apps as B2G.
If you are excited, feel free to contribute to the project; it’s just starting and there are many important problems to be solved.
1st search: HTML5 CSS3 Javascript “Windows 8” Chrome Firefox Apple Opera “web apps”
2nd search: “web apps” Mozilla
The State of Mozilla Annual Report – Opportunities [Oct 10, 2011]
…
Improving Web Capabilities
Mozilla has long been at the forefront of making the Web a more capable, rich and compelling platform. We continue this leadership today.
Identity
…
Apps
Apps represent a new, convenient way of interacting with the Internet, but they lack a number of the features that are great about the Web. The Mozilla open app ecosystemwill let users take their apps with them across platforms and devices. It will bridge contact lists and social graphs from different providers across the Web. It will allow users to discover apps in open and flexible ways, just as we discover other content on the Web.
Education
…
Media
…
WebFWD
…
Boot to Gecko
…
The State of Mozilla Annual Report – FAQ [Oct 10, 2011]
FAQ
What are the key projects for Mozilla in the next year? How do you plan to influence the market going forward?
Firefox continues to be a fundamental lever in driving the Web forward and advancing the Mozilla mission. At the same time, the Web is evolving and moving into new areas and so is Mozilla. In addition to delivering Firefox on mobile phones and tablets, we will focus on new projects in the important areas of Apps, Identity, Education, and more.
Do you see a continued need for an independent player like Mozilla, now that competition in the browser market has accelerated?
Absolutely, Mozilla’s public benefit mission and nonprofit nature enables us to advocate for the user and remain committed to keeping the Web open and participatory, rather than focusing on market share or profits. The desktop browser market is innovative and competitive, but no one other than Mozilla is organized solely for the good of the Web as a whole, and we believe that as people become increasingly aware and informed online citizens that more and more people will look for a Web browser, like Firefox, that answers only to them.
What was Mozilla’s total revenue for 2010?
Mozilla’s consolidated reported revenue (Mozilla Foundation and all subsidiaries) for 2010 was $123 million, up approximately 18 percent from 2009.
How does Mozilla generate revenue?
The majority of Mozilla’s revenue is generated from search functionality included in our Firefox product through all major search partners including Google, Bing, Yahoo, Yandex, Amazon, Ebay and others. Mozilla’s reported revenues also include very important individual and corporate donations and grants as well as other forms of income from our investable assets.
What is the status of the organization’s search partnerships?
We currently have partnerships with a number of search providers that differ by market. Our largest contract, with Google, comes up for renewal in November. We have every confidence that search partnerships will remain a solid generator of revenue for Mozilla for the foreseeable future.
Do Mozilla’s partnerships affect its independence?
Our mission and development process are completely unrelated to revenue or revenue generating relationships. Our open development process is governed by Mozilla’s mission and our commitment to improving the Web.
Are you exploring partnership opportunities to diversify your revenue stream?
We currently have several key business partnerships and are actively exploring search partnership opportunities and other potential revenue opportunities. We’ll continue to build great products that help people enjoy the richness of the Internet, and we’re confident that this allows us to identify appropriate sources of revenue.
Prototype of an Open Web App Ecosystem [Mozilla Labs, Oct 19, 2010]
The open Web is a great platform for rich applications. It would be even better if it had additional capabilities to ease discovery, acquisition, installation and use of apps, while also enabling monetization for developers. We designed and built a prototype of a system for open Web apps: Apps built using HTML/CSS/JavaScript that work both on computers and mobile phones, have many of the characteristics that users find compelling about native apps and provide developers with open and flexible distribution options.
Today, we are releasing technical documentationof the proposed system and a developer preview prototype that allows you to install, manage and launch Web apps in any modern desktop or mobile browser (Firefox 3.6 and later, Firefox for mobile, Internet Explorer 8, Chrome 6, Safari 5, Opera 10 and WebKit mobile). This prototype provides a simple mechanism to support paid apps and authentication features to allow apps to log users in upon launch.
The design proposed here provides the following capabilities and enables a new category of what we call “Open Web Apps” — apps that are truly of the Web.
Open Web Apps:
- Are built using HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
- Can be “installed” to a dashboard within your mobile or desktop Web browser, or to your native OS desktop or mobile home screen.
- Work in all modern Web browsers, while enabling each browser to compete on app presentation, organization and management user interfaces.
- Support paid apps by means of an authorization model that uses existing identity systems like OpenID.
- Support portable purchases: An app purchased for one browser works in other browsers, and across multiple desktop and mobile platforms without repurchase.
- Can request access to one or more advanced and/or privacy-sensitive capabilities that they would like access to (like geolocation) which the system will mediate, giving the user the ability to opt-in to them if desired.
- Can be distributed by developers directly to users without any gatekeeper, and distributed through multiple stores, allowing stores to compete on customer service, price, policies, app discoverability, ratings, reviews and other attributes.
- Can receive notifications from the cloud.
- Support deep search across apps: Apps can implement an interface that enables the app container (generally the Web browser) to provide the user with a cross-app search experience that links deeply into any app that can satisfy the search.
Mozilla Labs | Open Web Apps [Oct 19, 2010]
Q: Why is Mozilla building an Open Web App platform?
Web apps are becoming a commonly used class of applications – often directly competing with native apps. Web apps offer similar features to native apps and are available through any modern Web browser (both desktop and mobile) from any place in the world. Yet, Web apps lack certain essential features around the user experience, including installation and launch, app discovery, monetization and some platform features, such as notifications and unified search through installed apps. App experiences are usually a tightly vertically integrated (e.g. iPhone/iTunes) with problems such as an opaque approval processes, lack of choice for developers, platform lock-in, high(er) development cost when going cross-platform, etc. Realizing these gaps and issues, Mozilla decided to build the underlying system to enable Open Web Apps – these apps are fundamentally built upon the Web infrastructure.
Q: Is Mozilla creating an Open Web App store?
At this point in time, Mozilla has no intention to build our own store or distribute apps ourselves. We expect to see app stores develop, which will provide access to both free and paid Open Web Apps. Developers will be able to publish their apps on their own sites and, if they choose to do so, charge for them.
Q: How are Open Web Apps different from add-ons?
Open Web Apps are applications produced on and delivered through the Web. Open Web Apps are complete applications such as office applications, productivity applications, image processing applications, games, etc. Open Web Apps run in any modern Web browser (both on desktop as well as mobile). Add-ons are extensions to your Firefox browser, which provide specific functionality to the browser itself.
Q: How will people discover new apps? Will there be recommended apps?We expect that we will see a whole array of directories and stores being developed to aid in discovery. This will be another area where stores will compete with each other. Further – as you can link into apps – a developer can market an app through the established online marketing channels such as keyword advertising.
Q: Will developers need to submit or create a new app?
All developers have to do to make their apps work in the proposed system is to provide a short manifest (as text document consisting of a few lines of JSON code). There is no submission process – the simple existence of a manifest is enough for the system to understand that the particular URL is an app. If the developer chooses to sell her app, she has to add some boilerplate code for purchase verification. We will provide example code and libraries for this purpose.
Q: Will the apps be localized and available globally?
This is completely up to the developer. An app can be distributed globally in exactly the same way you publish a website today – once the app is available through its URL, anyone around the world can access it. It’s up to the developer to decide if they want to localize, provide special features for certain geographies, etc.
Q: What is important about Mozilla’s proposed Open Web App infrastructure?
Apps are fundamentally of the Web; they live on the Web and you can link into them.
– Apps can be published without limitations (on your own site, in directories, in stores), fostering innovation on the store fronts/directories, remove problems with approval processes, etc.
- The system provides mechanisms for identification and authentication.
– You can easily charge for apps, similarly to experiences you have today on the iPhone or Android devices.- Apps run in any modern Web browser.
– You are not tied to a specific browser, your apps travel with you from browser to browser independent from the underlying OS (e.g. desktop to mobile). For developers, this means that they develop once and can deploy on every device that runs a modern Web browser.
Open Web Apps – An Update [Nov 30, 2010]
There has been a lot of discussion and progress in the month since we announced our proposal for an “Open Web App Ecosystem”, and we wanted to provide a snapshot of our progress and current thinking. This post outlines a new feature, “Application Sync”, as well as several proposed technical changes to Open Web Apps.
Syncing Apps
The way the Web works today, changes made on a site are often transparently visible across all of a user’s devices, changes such as photos posted to Flickr or updates sent to Twitter. Given that many popular sites use server based storage behind an authenticated user account, this “feature” is quite natural for the Web.
Open Web Apps, on the other hand, are more similar to browser bookmarks than they are to photos on Flickr. The set of applications that a user has installed is persistent in a browser’s storage on the client, and is not stored on any central server by default.
A problem in user’s expectations arises here: the more and more the dashboard ends up feeling like a hosted Web application, the more a user will expect to see her stuff wherever she is.
To address this problem, we have included “application synchronization” as a first class feature. The goal of this feature is to allow a user to synchronize their applications between devices and browsers if they choose. We’ve begun prototyping synchronization, and you’re welcome to follow our progresson github.
Refining the Manifest
The application manifest format for Open Web Apps is a specification of JSON encoded meta-data that describes the presentation, launch, and capabilities of an Open Web App. This specification is central to the system we propose, as it will be an important integration point for application developers, browser vendors, and application stores.
Given the central role of the manifest, it has been the focus of a commensurate amount of attention. We have received feedback from standards groups, engineers working on “Installable Web Apps” at other browser vendors, companies and individuals interested in running application stores, application developers, and our own security experts here at Mozilla.
All of this discussion has culminated in a handful of concrete proposed revisions to the manifest format which attempt to build a more secure platform for Web apps that serve all parties involved in the ecosystem. You can learn more about the current proposed changes, and join the discussion, in a separate blog entry dedicated to refining the manifest.
Defining the Application Repository
One key component of Open Web Apps is what we’re calling the Application Repository. This is a client side entity that exposes an API to Web content: applications, stores, and dashboards. Its primary responsibilities are to manage the collection of installed applications and ensure that the user remains in control of them.
One interesting element of the application repository is that it is the piece that we propose be built into browsers as a native component. In the past month we’ve completed a first pass proposal and proof of concept (in the form of browser add-ons) of the API that the application repository will expose. This API can also be provided by a JavaScript library to support browsers that have no special support for Open Web Apps.
You can view the latest versionof this API specification on github, and we’re especially interested in feedback from browser developers on this API. Our hope is that it will be possible to implement this API on browsers across mobile and desktop environments alike.
Upcoming
In the upcoming weeks we hope to complete a first prototype of application sync, and we will have a complete revision of the application manifest ready for further community review. Finally, we should have prototype add-ons complete for multiple browsers available for people to try out.
Our longer term goal is to have an Integration Release of the Open Web Apps concept ready by early next year, which will serve as a blueprint from which we can work with members of the community to help spark a vibrant new ecosystem of rich applications for your browser.
Building the Open Web App Ecosystem [Dec 6, 2011]
Editor’s Note: Today, Mozilla Labs posted an update on the Open Web App Ecosystem project. Included below is an excerpt from this post. You can read the full details from Director of Mozilla Labs, Pascal Finette here.
The Web needs support for the co-existence of multiple Open Web App stores, and to enable users to use applications from these stores in a consistent manner. People buy their shoes, food and music from different stores on the Web today, and we see the same need for diversity and choice with Open Web Apps. We are excited to build a truly free and open market which is the basis for innovation and fundamental to the Web.
We recently launched a project to build the infrastructure for an Open Web App Ecosystem because we want to enable many different stores to exist and work in any modern browser across devices and platforms. The Open Web App Ecosystem will allow app developers to publish apps on their own website under their own terms, and will provide opportunities for individuals and companies to develop innovative services.
Building the Open Web App Ecosystem [Dec 6, 2010]
The Web needs support for the co-existence of multiple Open Web App stores, and to enable users to use applications from these stores in a consistent manner. People buy their shoes, food and music from different stores on the Web today, and we see the same need for diversity and choice with Open Web Apps. We are excited to build a truly free and open market which is the basis for innovation and fundamental to the Web.
We recently launched a project to build the infrastructure for an Open Web App Ecosystembecause we want to enable many different stores to exist and work in any modern browser across devices and platforms. The Open Web App Ecosystem will allow app developers to publish apps on their own website under their own terms, and will provide opportunities for individuals and companies to develop innovative services.
Concretely, the system consists of a machine readable format to describe applications (the manifest), a client side collection of the apps a users has installed (the app repository), a user facing application launcher (the dashboard), as well as the interactions to support commerce (such as proving a user’s ownership of an app).
Progress
Numerous app developers and companies have shared plans to build stores and services (search, recommendations, etc.) based on the Open Web App Ecosystem prototype we released.
On the technical side, we are in the process of finalizing the APIs and the manifest format for developers (read more about the details of this work here).
We are experimenting with new app capabilities such as notifications, app sync and the possibility for apps to exchange data directly if permitted by the user(allowing your email app access to your address book and calendar app for example). We also continue to work on multi-browser specific integrations of the user-facing application launcher (currently referred to as the Dashboard).
What’s next?
Our “integration release” is on track to be available in Q1 2011, and will have a stable manifest format and APIs, and will include initial custom browser support for most popular browsers (via extensions), application sync, and an application dashboard. Additionally we are actively working with developers of apps and stores to help them integrate a presence within the Open Web App Ecosystem into their plans.
Find out more
To stay up to date on the development or get in touch with the team,
- Follow our GitHub account
- Check out our developer preview
- Contact us on irc.mozilla.org #openwebapps
First developer release of Web Apps Project [March 3, 2011]
We are excited to announce the availability of the first milestone release of Mozilla’s Web Application project. Web Apps are applications that run on any device, and can be distributed through any store or directly by the developer. This release contains stable APIs, developer utilities and documentation to help you get a jumpstart on building Web Apps and stores.
Developers can use this release to publish their application to users, or to create a Web App store or directory. Users can review a gallery of user experience ideas and beta-quality versions of Firefox and Chromeadd-ons that integrate the Web App experience more tightly with the browser.
To get started, watch this short video which describes the main features of the release, then head over to our landing page to learn more.
Web Apps are applications that run on any device, and can be distributed through any store or directly by the developer.Ready. Set. Build!
Head on over to the Mozilla Developer Network to understand how to:
- Build a Web App
- Describe your Web App using the stable manifest description
- Use our stable JavaScript APIs to let your Web App interact with the browser
Check out this gallery of some of the cool Web Appsthat developers have already started building using our APIs.
If you are interested in building a Web App Store, we have documentation to help you get started.
Further we have some nifty utilities that will help you test how your new Web App works in modern browsers:
- Download the Mozilla Web App extension for Firefox and/or Chrome. This extension implements the application launch and application management APIs.
- Use the Manifest Validatorto ensure your Web App manifests are working.
- Check out this proof-of-concept Web App dashboard written in HTML5. You may even be inspired to write your own dashboard!
To give you a taste of how we envision Web Apps will enable rich, immersive user experiences, head over to the user interface concepts gallery
What’s next?
In the coming weeks, we plan to pursue several new ideas, including:
- A deeply integrated “in browser” experience that spans the entire find, install, launch, use and manage flow.
- Syncing your Web Apps to your mobile devices.
- Supporting native browser controls and OS integration.
- Support for widgets and notifications to make your Web Apps more lively.
- and many more.
Give us feedback!
As always, we would love to hear from youas you build and deploy Web Apps. In particular, we’d love to hear if:
- You have feedback on improvements you’d like to see in our APIs and documentation.
- You have built an awesome Web App and want to show it off.
- You have an amazing dashboard you’ve built.
- You have an idea for a cool Web App.
We believe Web Apps enable us to package all the generativity of the Web as rich, immersive experiences that delight users. We look forward to building this world with you.
—
The Mozilla Web Apps team
Web Apps Update – experiments in Web Activities, App Discovery [July 7, 2011]
At Mozilla Labs, we’ve been experimenting with several concepts and ideas to build a Web of Apps. Today, we’re proud to release a new version of the experimental OpenWebApps add-on for Firefox that allows you to easily install and manage web applications in Firefox and aims to provide a tightly integrated app experience.
These features are aimed at developers and adventurous users and give you an idea of what to expect in the future. You can download the latest version of the add-on here.
With this release, you can try two new experimental features – Web Activities and App Discovery.
v0.3 release of the Mozilla Open Web Apps projectWeb Activites
This experiment is focused around the concept of linking apps together.
For example, if you use Flickr to share photos, then the Flickr Web App should let you easily share and integrate your Flickr photos with other Web Apps. If you use Twitter to share links with your friends, then other Web Apps should allow you to easily share via Twitter.
To try out Web Activities, do the following:
- Install the Rainbooth Add-On.
- Take an awesome photo.
- Install and Authorize the Flickr Connector Web App(you’ll need a Flickr account).
- Click Send To in the Rainbooth Web App to automatically send the photo over to Flickr.
We’re working with Google’s Chrome team on this new feature.
App Discovery
This experiment is built around the notion that you should be able to discover interesting Web Apps as you browse the web. To try this, once you have installed the OpenWebApps add-on in Firefox, visit nytimes.comand you will see a prompt to install the awesome NY Times web app.
Note:We have faked this for the NY Times site to give you a sense and idea of what the experience might be as more web sites add support for browser-based App Discovery.
What Next?
As a developer, you can:
- turn your web page into an Open Web App by publishing a manifest
- play with Web Activites by declaring that you support certain services in your manifest, and implementing the service handlers.
As always, we would love to hear your feedback. Check out our github repository. File bugs. Join us on irc and join our Google Group.
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The Mozilla Web Apps team
Windows 8 gaining smartphone like “connected standby” capability
New power state called “Connected Standby”
- Windows coalesces all the timer and network requests, turns the radio on periodically to satisfy them, then goes back to very low power consumption.
- But because app requests are getting satisfied they are up to date as soon as you press “ON”
8 ways Windows 8 benefits the retail industry [MSDN Blogs, Oct 5, 2011]
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7. Energy friendly – The tradeoff between instant-on for customer service and the constant consumption of power has been minimized. Now retail environments with any number of client machines can use the Windows 8 “Connected Standby” mode to ensure that devices are available for use instantly while using the least amount of power possible. This feature will even allow enterprise software updates to machines that are in a low power state.
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Dr. Paul Jacobs, CEO of Qualcomm on the Wireless Future [Global Technology Leadership Conference at the University of California Berkeley’s College of Engineering, Nov 18, 2011]
[24:10] Up to this point – I would say – tablets predominantly have been an iPad story. The Android tablets are out there. They haven’t been quite as successfull. But I think that will change, not just with the Android but also with Microsoft working on having Windows. So they are porting big Windows onto mobile phone chips.
And the interesting thing about that is now your Windows computer will act much more like a smartphone. So Microsoft spent a lot of effort implementing a feature that’s called ‘Connected Standby’ which means that when your PC goes to sleep it will go to sleep like a smartphone – meaning that power consumption goes down to very low and every so often it will blip up, collect your e-mail and your Facebook notifications, and whatever else it is that needs to update, and it goes back to sleep at very, very low power. And when you touch the screen, boom it comes on right away.
And that is going to be interesting because now you have a tablet with a full computing environment, on a full web, all the stuff that you would expect. So I think that’s going to be a very, very interesting thing. I’ve seen the form factors. There are extremely, extremely aggressive form factors that are going to be coming out when these Windows 8 launches happen. [25:30]
Steven Sinofsky, Julie Larson-Green, Antoine Leblond, Michael Angiulo, and Chris Jones: BUILD Keynote – Day 1 [Microsoft transcript for the press, Sept 13, 2011]
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MIKE ANGIULO: ARM and SOC hardware combined. This is a Qualcomm ARM reference design, this is the one we showed at Computex, this is an 8660 Snapdragon. It’s hooked up to this debugging system here that’s measuring power really accurately. And what’s going on on this monitor is you can actually see the amount of power being used. It’s very low. The system is not off, it’s in a new power state called “connected standby” which is a really low-power idle state. You can see these little spikes that show up here. What’s going on is Windows is coalescing all of the timer requests and all of the network requests, turning the radio on briefly, updating the apps, and then shutting the radio back down. So, when I turn the system on, it turns on with one click — or two depending on if you have demo gremlins.
The system is on. You can see the power jumps right up. It’s an instant-on type scenariobecause it was never off. I can interact with the system here and you can see the power kind of changes as we’re rendering and we’re drawing on the screen. And then when I go to turn it off, I click it, immediately the power drops down. What’s going on right there is the apps get a chance to pack up their data and then it’s shutting down and it immediately drops back to idle. That’s the kind of system — yeah. (Applause.)
STEVEN SINOFSKY: I mean, when we talk about fundamental performance, that’s what we’re talking about. We’re actually taking the things that you’d experience like in phones, and we’re bringing that to the PC architecture at the base kernel level.
MIKE ANGIULO: And it’s one of the things that all of these SOC systems will be able to do. If you’re good to the understanding connected standby session, you’ll see the same power demo running on the Nvidia Tegra 3, we showed — it was nine months ago at CES was the first time we showed ARM booting at all. And all it could do is just boot Windows 8 up to the desktop in one touch.
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Understanding Connected Standby [Microsoft Channel 9 video, Sept 14, 2011]
Your PC in a year: how Windows 8 will change hardware [TechRadar, Nov 16, 2011]
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Connected Standby
Microsoft uses words like ‘fresh’ and ‘alive’ to describe the future of the PC, especially when it’s talking about the Connected Standby mode that PCs using both ARM and low-power System On Chip (SoC) x86 processors will have. “It’s about the application experience,” says principal program manager Pat Stemen; “You want an app that’s fresh, that has connected content.
I don’t want to wait for it to download and I want it to show that fresh information when I turn on.” In fact the official name of PCs that support this is Always On Always Connected.
It’s also about consistent, consistently long battery life, he says; no more guessing how long the battery will last – you’ll know how much power the PC uses when it’s on and when it’s in Connected Standby, so you can accurately predict battery life.
Connected Standby is an “ultra-low power idle mode” implemented as a new level 5 ACPI modein the processor and it needs new hardware throughout the PC as well.
You need low-power memory (the kind of DRAM that’s been going into servers to save money because it doesn’t generate as much heat), low-power buses and devices and flash storagerather than a hard drive; that’s for speed as well as power saving, because the system can’t predict when the drive will be in use.
LIKE A PHONE:
Connected Standby stops using power much faster than today’s PCsThe Wi-Fi in Connected Standby PCs has to be much smarterbecause it’s on all the time, checking whether any of the network traffic matches the patterns of notifications that can wake the PC up – incoming VOIP calls or SMS and instant messages, for example.
That turns the whole PC back on so you can answer the call. Otherwise, the Wi-Fi connection periodically wakes itself up and collects data for the Metro apps that are on the Start screen.
That means putting a small processor in the Wi-Fi chipset and supporting NDIS 6.3, which lets the chipset do in hardware some of the network processing the PC would usually do in software; it also makes networking faster when the PC is on as well.
With Wi-Fi so important for Connected Standbyit has to get connected quickly; expect to get onto a hotspot or access point in about a second rather than the 12 seconds common now, even if you turn a PC off at work and turn it back on at home.
Tablets and a lot of notebooks will have built-in 3G next year. That’s going to use less power because new 3G connections will let Windows tell them when to turn off the transmitting radio because the PC is idle and just listen for incoming traffic, so the 3G card can go into ‘fast dormancy’ rather than keeping the radio on just in case (because turning the radio off saves power but turning it off and on again can use more power than leaving it on).
LOW-POWER 3G:
Knowing when to turn the radio off will stop 3G eating your batteryUSB 3 will be on all these PCs too, not just for the faster speeds but because “it works better at low power,” according to Dennis Flanagan, who runs the team implementing Connected Standby for Windows 8. “It uses much less steady-state power when there’s nothing being used on the bus.”
But the two main ways of connecting peripherals will be peer-to-peer Wi-Fi, using the Wi-Fi Direct standard which lets your notebook get online and connect to a Wi-Fi-enabled device at the same time, and the lower-power Bluetooth LE.
Flanagan calls that “low-power wireless connectivity for longer battery life and for a new class of low power devices that can last two or four years on a couple of batteries”. Having NFC that’s cheap enough to put into all PCs helps here as well, because you’ll be able to tap Wi-Fi and Bluetooth devices against your PC to pair them instead of following on-screen prompts.
Smarter than Smart Connect
Intel’s Smart Connect mode, coming in second-generation ultrabooks and netbooks with Cedar Trail Atom CPUs next year, also aims to keep new PCs up to date when they’re in standby but it’s not as sophisticated as Connected Standby– and doesn’t need as much new hardware to work. “It keeps your PC always updated,” Intel’s John Wallace told us.
“When the device is in a sleep state it wakes up and pings network so it can download email and update content. Windows 8 is push, this is pull; we’re waking up periodically and pulling content.” The problem with that is the PC will wake up and connect even if there’s no new content to download.
“We’ll have true connected standby on next generation hardware that gets push notifications and wakes up,” Wallace predicted; that could be the Haswell chip that will be used in third-generation ultrabooks, if it’s delivered as a SoC.
With ACPI 5 and Connected Standby, Wallace says Windows 8 PCs will have “weeks of battery life” in standby. In 16 hours in Connected Standby a Windows 8 PC will use up no more than 5% of battery life; if that sounds an odd amount of time to measure, it’s what you get if you put your PC into Connected Standby at 5pm and pick it up again at 9am next morning.
Initially Connected Standby and Smart Connection are only aimed at tablets and notebooks. “Over time, Connected Standby may also scale to all-in-on systems and desktop PCs as well, although we’re not really focused on that right now,” Stemen explained.
Rapid Start and fast boot
The improvements we’ll see in all PCs next year are include faster boot and better security. Again, the Microsoft approach to starting up faster is more aggressive than Intel’s Rapid Start, which aims at taking less than seven seconds to resume from hibernation; PCs with Connected Standby will wake in less than 300ms and all PCs with UEFI BIOS will boot in six seconds(and Windows 8 will actively warn you of any software you install that slows that down).
That includes checking that no malware has tampered with Windows and turning on your anti-virus software before you bootto avoid malware lurking on any USB sticks you have plugged in.
AV SOONER:
UEFI means PCs can start checking for viruses before they start Windows
Building a power-smart general-purpose Windows [Pat Stemen, program manager, Windows 8 Kernel team, MSDN Blogs: Building Windows 8, Nov 8, 2011]
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Our goals
We have 3 goals in mind when engineering Windows 8 power management:
- Let the hardware shine. We built Windows 8 such that the power efficiency of the hardware platform shines through, regardless of whether the system is a SoC-based Windows tablet or an SLI-equipped gaming PC. We designed our power management interfaces in a consistent, standardized way across all platforms. This allows our hardware partners and application developers to focus on their unique innovations and experiences instead of the differences in platform hardware and power management.
- Continue to deliver great battery life. Windows 7 delivered a significant reduction in power consumption and increase in energy efficiency, particularly mobile PC battery life. (In fact, you can read how we thought about it in this e7 blog post.) In Windows 8, we want to maintain that same level of efficiency on existing PCs even as we re-imagine the rest of Windows.
- Enable the smartphone power model. One of the coolest things about the System-on-Chip (SoC) platforms you’ve seen us talk about at CES and //BUILD/ is their capability to quickly enter very low-power idle states. We want to leverage that ultra-low idle power to bring the constant connectivity and instant-on features of the smartphone power model to capable Windows 8 PCs.
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How software influences power consumption
Software can influence power consumption by consuming resources—CPU, disk, memory, etc.–as each of those resources has a power cost associated. Software also influences power consumption through the OS and driver software responsible for managing hardware power states.
Windows 8 features 3 key innovationsto improve how software influences power consumption—the Metro style app model, idle hygiene, and a new runtime device power management framework. We will give you a brief overview of how these innovations improve power consumption in this blog post.
The Metro style application model
Most of us have experienced the influence of software on power consumption first-hand. It might be that you have an app on your phone that goes through battery quickly or you’ve heard the fan turn on in your laptop when playing a game or computing a spreadsheet. These are all examples of applications directly consuming CPU, GPU, network time, disk and/or memory.
One of the new power management innovations in Windows 8 isn’t a power management infrastructure feature; it is the Metro style application model itself. The Metro style application model is designed from the beginning to be power-friendly. The power management benefit is that the model makes it easy for developers to ensure their application is running only at the right time—applications in the background are suspended such that they do not consume resources and power when not in use.
Of course, we recognize that background activity is a critical component of apps that are always connected and responsive. The Metro style application model and the underlying WinRT support background activity through a new set of capabilities called background tasks. (See this Introduction to Background Tasks for more details.) Background tasks make it easy to perform background activity in a power-friendly fashion. They also enable developers to continue to deliver responsiveness and “freshness” in their applications, but the mechanisms are different than the existing Win32 model because of the desire for a fast-and-fluid interface and the other key attributes of Metro style apps (see 8 traits of great Metro style apps).
We’ve engineered background tasks and the overall Metro style application model to enable a new level of app responsiveness, while at the same time considering overall system attributes including power and memory consumption.
Task Manager showing suspended Metro style appsIdle hygiene
Software can have dramatic influence on power consumption even without consuming a lot of resources through intermittent idle activity. We refer to improvements to idle activity as idle hygiene.
Most PC platforms feature processor and chipset idle states that allow the hardware platform to stop the clock or completely turn off power to parts of the silicon when they are unused. These idle states are absolutely critical to enabling long battery life, but they require a minimal residency duration—that is, you have to be idle for long enough to make the transition in and out of the idle state worthwhile in terms of power used. This is because some power is consumed on the way into and out of the idle state. Software most effectively uses these idle states when there are as few exits from the idle state as possible, and the duration of the idle state is as long as possible.
We track the idle efficiency of Windows 8 using built-in ETW Tracing, some additions to the Windows Performance Analyzer, and a basic histogram. Below, you can see the difference in idle durations between Windows 7 and Windows 8. When the screen is on, we’ve already moved the bar significantly from a maximum idle duration of 15.6ms in Windows 7 to 35% of our durations longer than 100ms in Windows 8! With the screen off and during Connected Standby, our idle durations are even longer, currently in the tens of seconds.
Runtime device power management
PCs attain their longest battery life when all devices, including the processor, storage, and peripheral devices enter low-power modes. Almost every device in the modern PC has some kind of power management technology, and runtime device power managementdetermines how we use those technologies seamlessly without impact to the user experience. A really good example of runtime device power management is dimming the automatic display after a timeout in Windows 7.
Just to underscore how important device power management is, we have seen many systems where not enabling a single device’s power management features can easily reduce total battery life by up to 25%! (It’s worth noting here that disabling a device in Device Manager is almost equally bad—most devices are initialized by firmware at their highest power modes and require a device driver to get them to a more nominal power consumption.) You can diagnose some device power management problems using the built-in powercfg.exeutility in Windows 7 with the /ENERGY parameter. The output of /ENERGY is an HTML file that gives you a view of which devices and software are potentially running in a power-consuming state. Of course, using the factory image for your PC that came loaded with OEM and vendor-supplied drivers is almost always the best way to ensure the devices in your PC are well-behaved for power management.
Efficient power management of devices is performed by the driver for the device, in conjunction with the Windows kernel power manager and platform firmware. The power manager makes it easy for the drivers of these devices to implement their power management routines and coordinate any power state transitions with other devices on the platform.
For Windows 8, we’ve built a new device power framework that allows all devices to advertise their power management capabilities and integrate them with a special driver called the Power Engine Plug-in or PEP, designed for SoC systems. The PEP is provided by the silicon manufacturer and knows all of the SoC-specific power management requirements. This allows device drivers like our USB host controller or a keyboard driver to be built once, and still deliver optimal power management on all platforms from SoC-based PCs to datacenter servers.
We are hard at work with all of our ecosystem partners to deliver the low-power and long battery life technologies we all want in our Windows 8 PCs.
Application Craft: a multiplatform rapid development system and SaaS for HTML5 et al
Application Craft – our one minute overview [Oct 29, 2011]
Check out our fantastic one minute video. It shows you just some of the great development features available.
Related information: Microsoft and jQuery Mobile, PhoneGap [Oct 13, 2011]
More information:
– New website [Nov 4, 2011]
– Technology
– Features
– How our system works [Nov 9, 2011]
– Example SmartSites (=websites for smartphones, their core value proposition) in the Content ideas: Location Specific Web Sites, Retail, Publishing and Other
– Use cases in App Dev – Build Web, Mobile and Tablet Apps: Mobile, Workflow, Forms, Reporting, Mashups and Features for that
[this is called by them AppOps – their developer value proposition – meaning: “a substantial set of developer oriented functionality that allows you to build pretty well any sort of business or data-centric App (so not great for games) ”]
– Application Craft – Learning Center [from Oct 22, 2011 on, only half done yet]
(including an API Cheat Sheet, the other resources are very concise videos and links to the reference manual )
– Application Craft – User Guide
– Professional Services [Oct 20, 2011] offerings:
Fork Application Craft on GitHub
As of today (November 3rd, 2011) we are preparing our code for public availability on GitHub. Current estimations are that it will be available in the last week of November. As soon as it is available, we will be letting everyone know and you will find a large link here.
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I founded Application Craft in September 2009. We started writing code a month or two later and we released our first really proper version in June 2011.
I do the product design and have an extraordinary team of guys and one gal in Russia [in Yoshkar-Ola the capital city of the Mari El Republic]who are a full part of the company. They do all the really hard work and have most of the brains.
Investors [April 8, 2011]
Application Craft is a UK company, founded by Freddy May and backed by 3 Angel Investors.
Urs Wietlisbach – Angel
Urs is the co-founder and Vice Chairman of Partners Group, one of the world’s largest independent private markets asset management companies, with over US$ 23 billion in assets under management [and over 500 employees and 15 offices].
Application Craft IDE [Fredy May, Application Craft, Oct 13, 2011]
[Release: 1.12.1, October 24, 2011 with jQuery Mobile RC1 and Alpha release of Workflow.Detail; Release: 1.10.7, October 3, 2011]
We are just launching our new IDE for building Apps and Content that can be deployed to Mobile, Tablet and Desktop. It is all browser based and uses just HTML5/Javascript/CSS.
It is now released and available on our cloud platform (for not a lot of money) as well as on Amazon AWS from November (for free).
We are looking for advanced content designers as well as javascript developers of all levels to give us their feedback and help guide the product. We are still offering free support at this stage so there really is $0 cost.
It has full support for Responsive Design as well as Client and Server Side Javascripting.
Anyway, take a look and please feel free to contact me directly fmay@applicationcraft.com or on skype ‘freddymay’.
Responsive Design and Javascript Coding in a 100% browser based IDE. [Fredy May, Application Craft, Oct 30, 2011]
Responsive Design and Javascript Coding in a 100% browser based IDE. The first of its kind.
There is lots of chatter and twitter about Responsive Design for Web content right now. What about Apps (both Web Apps and Native ones)? This is my blog post on this topic
One of the key things that developers should be focusing on is how to build an App once that works on various screen sizes and, more importantly, on different devices such as Smartphones and Tablets.
This blog post looks at an extremely cool, 100% browser based IDE that enables mobile and desktop apps to be built while meeting all of these requirements for Responsive Design.
It highlights an App that works on everything from a large screen to an iPhone and looks great on all of them. This IDE (from Application Craft) also allows mobile content Apps to be built that also follow the Responsive Design principles.
URL: http://www.applicationcraft.com/blog/495-responsive-design-adaptive-layouts-application-craft
PhoneGap + Application Craft = Pain-Free Mobile App Development [a PhoneGap case study, Nov 7, 2011]
Remark: while among jQuery related tools it is one of 13, it is the only other development system case-study by PhoneGap next to the earlier mobileFX!
Just as the PhoneGap mantra is fast and easy cross-platform mobile app deployment, Application Craftcreators are committed to making the mobile app and content development process pain-free. No wonder these two technologies get on so well!
Application Craft is a cloud-based, desktop and mobile app development environment for building enterprise apps and mobile and tablet content. On top of its advanced browser-based IDE, Application Craft offers a sophisticated back end that supports database integration, data storage and more. Examples of apps built with Application Craft include the Tate Modern Museum mobile app and the JamieOliver.comapp.
So, why is Application Craft and PhoneGap a match made in heaven?
Application Craft generates 100% JavaScript apps. When combined with PhoneGap and PhoneGap Build, apps built using Application Craft can access native device features and can be automatically deployed to app stores.
PhoneGap Build–a cloud-based services that compiles PhoneGap apps for various platforms–provides a “huge bonus” because it seamlessly manages the complexities of native compilers, says Freddy May, Founder and CEO of Application Craft. “The PhoneGap Build API is icing on the cake because it meant we were able to achieve the tightest possible integration with Application Craft.”
May adds that integrating the PhoneGap API into Application Craft was easy. Despite PhoneGap Build being in beta, Application Craft developers completed the integration without a single email or call to PhoneGap. The result is an app deployment feature that Application Craft is proud of–a build of five platform binaries takes about a minute. “This is more than acceptable especially when you consider it’s an asynchronous process and we allow our users to work on other things as the apps compile. Once a user can specify a single platform build via the build API, it should be even faster,” he says.
By adding cross-platform app compilation to Application Craft, PhoneGap Build saves developers many tedious testing hours, which translates into a major competitive advantage for the Application Craft development environment and, ultimately, makes for happier app developers.
Watch this video to get a closer look at how Application Craft and PhoneGap work together:
AC Phonegap Short.mov [Sept 6, 2011]
Application Craft Phonegap Build Ripple Emulator ShortIn the last couple of weeks, Application Craft has launched a major update with a comprehensive implementation of jQueryMobile and added a new feaure allowing UI designers to build responsive design type page using the IDE. You can read more about this news on their blog.
World’s best and true cross platform to develop mobile application [dineshkamath1982, Nov 14, 2011]
Application Craft (AC) is the best true cross platform for developing mobile apps. AC allows you to develop apps and generate native files for major platforms (symbian, apple – ios, android, webos, blackberry).
They have excellent support (response within minutes) and they also direct you to the necessary documentation for your requirement. They have very good example videos.
The cloud based IDE for developing the apps is excellent. They provide you also preview and live mode to see how would your application behave on your mobile (even before trying out on your mobile).
I decided to go to AC after going through http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_a…. Its mentioned as it is the true cross platform (this is mentioned only for AC). But now i really know why is it.
I am neither an employee or marketing guy of AC. I am just a normal user trying out AC for my personal interest. Please try it out and see if what i quoted make sense 🙂
Application Craft ROCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Roadmap [Nov 9, 2011]
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To be Released (target release date 21st Nov)
ServerSide Javascript Support
This will enable an AC User to build scripts that run and execute server side. This will allow secure execution of rules etc. It will also tie in with the Data Storage Access and associated permissions so that only server side scripts can read from and write to connections and queries.
Other Plans not yet prioritised
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Improved WYSIWYG editor features
The Editor currently does an imperfect job of pasting in HTML from the clipboard. It also does not allow perfect support for AC’s own Styles. This is being rectified along with other user-friendliness aspects of the editor.
CRUD for Regular Databases
CRUD (database Create Read Update and Delete) operations only work on other Apps currently. We have just completed support for CRUD operations on regular databases such as MySQL, Postgres, Oracle etc.
Offline Instance Storage for Mobile Apps
Currently, a Native App cannot store instances to an offline mobile device. We are adding extensive capabilities to allow offline data collection that can be uploaded later.
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JQuerymobile Themeroller [Freddy May, Nov 7, 2011]
Just been looking at the new JQuerymobile Themeroller and it is a beauty. My plan is to annoy the hell out of Tolstoy (that is by new nickname for Max Kraev [Head of Engineering] by the way) and get this shoehorned in by the end of the year.
http://jquerymobile.com/themeroller/
I think it will make a beautiful addition to the product and give great control over the way that Mobile interfaces are created.
I think that we may then look at the regular Themeroller in a later stage as I think that our theme implementation is in need of improvement.
Anyone who wants to contribute thoughts and ideas on this before we get started, please do so here.
My thoughts are that it will fit into the Themes section of the console and pressing ‘edit’ will bring up the Themeroller Editor. Obviously, it will tie in nicely with the system and not require any manual messing around with the resultant CSS.
Why we love the ACE Cloud 9 Editor (and how we’ve integrated it) [Nov 8, 2011]
There are some parts of the Application Craft system where we need to give credit to other people or products where it is due. One of these is the ACE Cloud 9 Editor from ajax.org.
Code Editing is often an integral part of building an App and so having a really superb code editor is essential. We have successfully incorporated the ACE Editor into our IDE and we are extremely pleased with the result.
Click here to see a video in our Learning Center. Look at the first video (from 1:15) or the second one.
Where we use it
The most important part of our system is the Application Craft IDE. This does 2 main things
- build UI screens with the WYSIWYG, drag-and-drop UI Layout Editor
- edit javascript code (currently client-side code and, very soon, also server-side)
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Mobile Widgets (from the AC User Guide)
We have gone to a lot of effort to make developing for Mobile devices a really positive experience. There are three main components that we are working with which we have integrated very tightly into the product.
JQueryMobile
Application Craft has embedded JQueryMobileinto the Application Craft widget framework. We comment on this only because we would like to thank the JQuery team for their very high quality work. If you find that there are some things on the jquerymobile.com site that you would like to see included in Application Craft then please let us know.
Phonegap [currently pointing to PhoneGap 1.1.0 not the latest 1.2.0 released by Nitobi on Nov 7, 2011]
Phonegapis the magic that transforms the Web Apps that come out of Application Craft into Native Apps. This lets your Apps be deployed through App Stores and it lets them access device features and hardware such as GPS, Camera, Audio, Contacts and so on.
Ripple
Rippleis a superb emulator plugin for Google Chrome that lets you test out device features without needing to deploy to an actual device.
Thanks to all of the above for majorly improving both our own and our users’ lives (well the development part of their lives at least).
Big Update – Application Craft & jQueryMobile [Fredy May, Application Craft blog, Sept 23, 2011] [Release: 1.10.6, September 20, 2011 with PhoneGap and jQuery Mobile Beta 3 and heavily extended Mobile Widgets support]
We have just launched a major update. It contains a comprehensive implementation of jQueryMobile within Application Craft. We think that this combination of JQM and AC has to be the easiest and fastest way to build Web Apps for mobile and tablet devices (and they pretty good on the desktop, too). And thanks to our Phonegap:Build integration, Native Apps are also extremely easy.
In this post, I am covering
- A bit about the jQueryMobile implementation
- The range of jQueryMobile widgets we currently support
- A typical JQM widget inside the Application Craft IDE
- Requests for widgets and jQueryMobile related features we don’t yet support
- The next major announcement – Responsive Design and Adaptive Layouts
jQueryMobile implementation
The latest jQueryMobile (Beta 3) is a leap forward in terms of stability, functionality and speed. There were quite a few architectural changes, too. We have added these into a special ‘mobile’ toolbox section in the AC IDE. We find the stability to be really excellent and any bugs we found we have patched up, but they were few and far between. All jQueryMobile components have a comprehensive range of properties rendered in the IDE’s property bar and there is full javascript event support. Appropriate widgets also support the AC Data Storage Framework.
JQM comes with 5 standard themes. These have been well designed by the JQM team but we will soon be adding the ability for designers to upload their own custom CSS themes. These Themes are actually very simple and easy to add and everything is done in CSS. We’ll announce it on this blog when it’s ready.
The Mobile widgets we currently support
The table below shows the mobile specific widgets we support (we have a load more desktop ones, most of which can also be used in mobile Apps). Each of these widgets is highly configurable via the property bar in the IDE as well as from AC Scripting (Javascript).
- Checkbox
- Checkbox Group
- Select Button Group
- Single Line Text Input
- Multi Line Text Input
- Mobile Toolbar (dockable)
- Buttons (multi-size)
- Search Input Field
- Slider
- Flip Switch
- Navbar (button bar)
- Popup Dropdown (selection wheel)
- Popup Multi Select List
- List (for navigation and content)
- Collapsible Container
- Accordion
A typical JQM widget in AC
You either set properties or use javascript to control all the finer points of a widget’s behavior. Below are a few variations of the Mobile List widget
You can add Items to the list in two ways. You can use the Item dialog for navigation type stuff where you know your items in advance. Or, you can add data to the list programmatically.
1. You have an array of the following object, one element for each list entry
{ “value”:”1″, // Data value that gets stored in AC (if required)
“label”:”United Kingdom”, // appears as list content
“image”: imgUrl, // image url if required
“divider”: “false”, // true if divider should be shown
“count”: “25”, // the number to show in the count bubble
“aside”: “Short Text”, // appears on the right in smaller font
“action”: id // page jump action id
}
2. And this is how you update your list widget with the list item array
app.setData(‘myMobileList’, lstItems);Populating a Mobile List manually
Populating a Mobile List with JavascriptOver in the property bar, we can now start to make all sorts of adjustments relating to cosmetic and functional behavior. Here are the two more interesting proeprty sections for the Mobile List widget
Documentation
We have documented the new Mobile features. Your can find them here.
Requests for widgets and jQueryMobile related features we don’t yet support
If anyone is aware of a mobile feature that we aren’t supporting but should be, then please let us know. We are also interested in any cool widgets that are already mobile compliant or with a little work, could be.
Responsive Design / Adaptive Layouts
This is a really exciting topic and one which one of the next blog posts will go into in detail. Initiatives like “Mobile First” state that modern web designers and app builders should think about putting the mobile device at the top of the list when thinking about platform support.
Responsive Design allows you to build a single app design that looks and works great on Desktop, Tablet and Mobile devices.
Inaugural Blog Post as Application Craft and SmartSites enters Private Beta [Fredy May, Application Craft blog, June 23, 2011] [Beta 1.0, June 22, 2011, first full Private Beta Release, pre-launch announcement: “Full mobile support and lots of ‘Visual Basic in the Cloud’ features.”]
After some long, hard development and a little bit of pivoting from the original concept, Application Craft is now ready for prime time. We are extremely proud of the platform we have built and we think it does a totally unique job of delivering beautiful, rich mobile and desktop sites (SmartSites) all the way up to full-blown applications.
If you are a Web Designer or Marketer, SmartSites lets you build device independent sites incredibly quickly. If you are a Javascript developer(or about to become one) then Application Craft lets you build anything from great front-ends to forms apps, workflow apps or full-blown relational applications.
SmartSites
[The essence of the new value proposition, i.e. the evolution from the original one: “Democratizing the Building of Data-driven Apps … for Citizen Developers as well – i.e. application stakeholders who have historically been peripheral to, or shut out of, the development process” see the below September 27, 2010 announcement]
A SmartSite is really a Mobile Web Site built on the Application Craft platform. There are several things that make SmartSites very different from other sites.
- It is properly platform independent
- The layout options are really exceptional, supporting many mobile specific widgets
- Device orientation changes are fully supported
- You can deploy your SmartSite app as a Web Site OR as a Native App
- Thanks to the full development capabilities of Application Craft, you can turn a simple, static site into a full blown App with some Javascript knowledge.
Example SmartSites
Rather than explain what they are, take a look at the SmartSites section of our website, where you will find some really good examples.
See some examples on the various tabs on the SmartSites pageApplication Development
Javascript is the lingua franca of the web and everything about Application Craft is Javascript. It is written 100% in it(a lot of thanks to JQuery and JQueryMobile by the way), SmartSites and Apps are pure Javascript and you can add business logic to your Sites and Apps using it.
More about Application Craft AppOps
Private Beta
We are starting off with a Private Beta phase which I anticipate will last 3 to 4 weeks before it goes into Public Beta. We are delighted with the stability and the feature set of the product but we want to make sure that our provisioning systems and platform operations are functioning smoothly before we switch on the automated provisioning.
Support & Feedback
Our main goal in the next months is to work very, very closely with our users. We brought the product to where it now is by working with real users with real issues. We started working with these users in the early days after Robert Scoble did a pre-release video interview late last year. We are immensely grateful to their input and we now are ready to do the same with the next wave of users.
If you contact us for help or suggestions, you will hear back from us. We don’t just want your feedback and input, we need it. We are available on Skype, Twitter etc. You can find full support and contact information here (click on the Support button).
Version 1.0 Release
Application Craft has had a lot of very hard testing before Private Beta from ourselves as well as a handful of early adopters who have built substantial Apps and Sites using Application Craft. The first Commercial Offering is not yet certain but it will not be later than Fall 2011.
Pricing
We will be announcing proper pricing plans in July. There will be versions for all types of users. including a Free version for basic, single-user SmartSites usage all the way up to high end versions including special releases, features, unlimited users (SmartSite/App builders not consumers) and support options.
Future Blog Entries & Requests
Initially, I plan to write a series of blogs on the many usages of Application Craft and SmartSites. I will be showing real examples that focus in on a particular use of the product. If you would like to see me blog on a specific topic, please tweet either @appcrafty or me (Freddy May) personally @3bfred.
SmartPhones need SmartSites [Fredy May, Application Craft blog, June 24, 2011]
The main thrust of this article is to discuss a major problem (and a corresponding solution) with almost all web sites when they are visited by a SmartPhone. They appear so small as to be pretty well unreadable and clicking links is a lottery.
We all know that SmartPhone usage is growing rapidly, so many companies should prepare for lots more people to visit their web site using a SmartPhone. The proliferation of Gelocation Apps and Services (Google Search/Places/Maps, SimpleGeo, Factual etc.) cater explicity to the Mobile user and increase SmartPhone traffic even further.
If you take a look at the image on the left, it will probably be a familiar sight. Given the size of the opportunity, it is pretty amazing how poorly this situation has been addressed.
As you can see from the infographic excerpts above (full Infographic from Microsoft Tag available here), there is already a lot of mobile based internet usage and by 2014 it will exceed desktop usage. And already one half of all searches are performed on mobile devices. This all leads to a lot of people visiting web sites using their SmartPhones.
You should view SmartPhone web site visitors as exciting opportunities, because
- they are probably nearby
- they probably have a very specific and immediate interest in your product or place
- they need information, a local service or a product
One big problem
The big problem is that almost every web site looks terrible in a SmartPhone browser. And site navigation is even worse due to tiny links colliding with fat fingers (my good friend Dobs would appreciate this). Get your phone out and visit some random sites.
There are some notable exceptions (Twitter, Facebook) but take a look at these well known names below. Click on these to see them at their original size or go to the website on your phone or scan the QR-Code if you’ve got an App.
FYI: The QR-codes shown here can be read with QR-Reader Apps (iPhone try ‘ConnectMe’, Android try ‘Google Goggles’)
Starbucks
Apple
DHL… with a SmartSite solution
Take a look at the following example, which is a typical local business you might want to get information on. Click on the thumbnail or scan the QR-Code to see the website rendered on a phone, then read on.
Now, take a look at the SmartSite below, which is an Application Craft SmartSite. It is actually live, so you can interact with it. Be sure to check out the Location pages and both tabs on the Contact page.
This SmartSite took about 1 hour to build
- It includes a simple but cool ‘contact’ form
- It required absolutely no programming skills
- It is a really easy job for a Web Designer, Marketer or Product Manager
- If you want to add really advanced App capabilities and you have some Javascript knowledge then our AppOps features are genuinely superb (more on this in another post)
also reachable at
ac.applicationcraft.com/kallkwikSmartPhone Visitors will probably want different (and simpler) content
Clearly, this is a good thing, because they will usually want access to
- only the most relevant information
- information that relates to the fact they are on the move and probably nearby
- complex and rich layout is not required due to the limited form factor
Location Specific Content
There is another set of very relevant uses of SmartSites that are described on our SmartSites page. Location Specific Content is where you build a SmrtSite that is tied to an object, place or business and targets the SmartPhone user who is actually standing at the location. For instance, information boards at Airport, Tourist Office, Hotel or Shopping Centre. Or providing information to in-store shoppers. Printing QR-Codes/tiny URLs onto products as a better way of accessing manuals and assembly guides. The list is pretty well endless. Go to the SmartSites page to take a look at the example uses.
What are the alternatives?
There are alternative, but very expensive and non-trivial, ways of achieving an effective mobile-ready site
- Hand code it using developer tools such as Sencha or JQueryMobile. This requires proper web development skills and will take many times longer than using Application Craft
- Design your main web site to reformat for SmartPhones but this is really not for the faint-hearted
What if I want to add App like capabilities to my SmartSite
Well, this is where you really are in luck. Application Craft was initially conceived as a cloud based App development platform. Alongside SmartSites, we have AppOps, which is a substantial set of developer oriented functionality that allows you to build pretty well any sort of business or data-centric App (so not great for games) that you are likely to need.
I plan to do another blog post on AppOps soon, but feel free to explore AppOps now.
Application Craft: Sam Schillace to Advise Application Craft [Oct 7, 2010]
Google Docs Creator to Advise Cloud-based Rapid App Development Platform Innovator
London, UK October 7, 2010 – Application Craft today announced that Sam Schillace, creator of Google Docs and co-founder of new venture Restartle, is joining Application Craft as an Advisor. Launched at Tech Crunch Disrupt 2010 and currently in Public Beta, Application Craft radically shortens development cycles for even complex data-driven desktop and mobile applications. Importantly, Application Craft’s drag and drop Data Graphs and built-in collaboration tools allow an unparalleled level of involvement by Citizen Developers in the application development process. By eliminating the user/developer gulf, Application Craft reduces strain on development teams, promotes on-time and on-budget projects and blurs the boundary between content and applications.
Schillace led the Google Docs team after Google acquired Upstartle, the company he co-founded to bring the collaborative word processor Writely to market. Before leaving Google in June 2010 to found Restartle, he led the Internet giant’s Gmail and Apps team as Senior Engineering Director.
“I have seen how fast the Application Craft team has built a really superb product over the last year,” said Mr. Schillace. “It is a genuine enabler for a new class of application developer and I think it will result in some major changes to the desktop and mobile application development landscape. I am excited to be involved with Application Craft during these early, formative days.”
“You would be hard pressed to find a software entrepreneur with as much SaaS and PaaS expertise as Sam Schillace,” said Freddy May, Application Craft Founder and CEO. “I have benefited greatly from Sam’s counsel over the past year and I am delighted that Application Craft will continue to do so now that he has joined as a formal company Advisor.”
About Application Craft
Launched at Tech Crunch Disrupt 2010 and currently in Public Beta, Application Craft’s rapid application development platform allows professional and ‘Citizen’ developers to quickly and collaboratively build amazing data-driven desktop and mobile apps. By eliminating the user/developer gulf, Application Craft reduces strain on development teams, promotes on-time and on-budget projects and blurs the boundary between content and applications. To learn more, please visit: http://www.applicationcraft.com
Application Craft Invites Citizen and Pro Developers to Get Crafty Rapid Development [TechCrunch Disrupt, London, UK and San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) September 27, 2010]
Platform Democratizes the Building of Data-driven Apps
Application Craft today opened the public beta for their rapid development platform that allows both professional and ‘Citizen’ developers to quickly and collaboratively build amazing data-driven desktop and mobile apps. Citizen Developers are application stakeholders who have historically been peripheral to, or shut out of, the development process, such as web designers, analysts, knowledge workers and IT staff. Getting Crafty means unprecedented ease of collaboration between hard core coders and Citizen Developers.
“Throughout my IT career, I have witnessed countless development projects fail due to lack of alignment between users and developers and overloaded development teams. Application Craft aims to eliminate the user/developer gulf by fostering active collaboration, which reduces strain on dev teams and promotes on-time and on-budget projects,” said Freddy May, Application Craft Founder and CEO.
You’re Getting Crafty When…
- Your apps can instantly pull data from virtually any source
- You can rapid prototype in minutes and build a production app in hours
- Web designers become Web developers in a day
- Agile is easy!
- Apps run everywhere out of the box
- Usability takes center stage
- Your projects are consistently on time and on budget
Watch this video to see it in action: http://tinyurl.com/GetCrafty
_C_ollaborative app development that welcomes pros and amateurs
_R_ich apps, extreme mash ups
_A_gile
_F_lexible deployment
_T_otal customization
_Y_our projects on time every timeAbout Application Craft
Application Craft is the quickest way to build apps. The company opened the Public Beta for their revolutionary Rapid Application Development Platform for Professional and ‘Citizen’ developers at TechCrunch Disrupt, where the company is also exhibiting on Tuesday, September 28. Application Craft is seeking Public Beta participants. To learn more and apply for the Beta, go to: http://tinyurl.com/GetCraftyAbout TechCrunch Disrupt
TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco (http://disrupt.techcrunch.com), is being held Sept 27-29 2010, at the San Francisco Design Center Concourse. TechCrunch Disrupt attracts over 1,500 leading technology innovators and investors and over 150 new startups. The format combines top thought-leader discussions with new product and company launches. Morning executive discussions debate the most timely disruptions in media, advertising and technology. Afternoons host the Startup Battlefield where 25 new companies will launch for the first time on stage, selected to present from more than 500 applications received from around the world. Another 100 early-stage startups will exhibit in Startup Alley. TechCrunch will award a $50,000 grand prize along with other award recognitions at the conclusion of the conference.
Corporate developers: exclusive first look at Application Craft, a new tool for corporate web apps [Robert Scoble, Sept 26, 2010]
http://www.applicationcraft.com/ has what they say is the quickest way to build apps. This is generally aimed at corporate developers, and looks like a modern Visual Studio — everything is in the web browser. Here I spend a bit of time with founder Freddy May who gives me a good look at what it does and why it’s an important new entrant into the web programming field.In the 1990s we had Visual Basic, Delphi, and then Visual Studio come along. All great tools for corporate developers who needed to build apps for their workgroups.
But since then developer tools have stagnated. Yeah, we’ve had Ruby on Rails, but that’s really aimed at web developers (Twitter was originally built in it, for instance) and the kinds of database and UI tools that corporate developers needed weren’t there.
Today Application Craft (CrunchBase info on Application Craft) is releasing a new system that looks somewhat like Visual Studio, but is completely web based. Here CEO Freddy May spends a lot of time with me showing how it works and giving me some idea of the power underneath.
Oh, and you can build a LOT without knowing any code. May says it’s not just aimed at developers, but can be used by “citizen developers.” IE, those who don’t know how to code very well. That is exactly the audience that Visual Basic was aimed at back in 1992, and it went on to be the tool for corporate developers. Will Application Craft take over that mantle? We’ll see, but this is a very interesting start. What do you think?
Samsung push for bada in 2012 and other Linux based devices–with Tizen UPDATE: 1st Tizen devices in 2013
‘bada’ = the Korean word for ‘ocean.’
It is a Linux based proprietary operating system by Samsung which is otherwise rooted in MOCHA (Modular & Configurable Handset S/W Architecture), later evolved into SHP (Samsung Handset Platform) on which the bada OS has been running since 2010 as the smartphone enhancement of the SHP.
Samsung also started a longer term pure Linux based mobile platform development effort in 2007 with the LiMO Foundation (XO v1.0) which has evolved into Samsung Linux Platform (SLP) the v2.0 version of which became LiMo Release 2 and as such the platform for Vodafone 360 smartphones in late 2009.
As the Android tide has killed the Vodafone 360 and similar carrier initiated smartphone platforms Samsung made an alliance with Intel in which SLP and MeeGo will form the basis of a new open source, Linux based device platform, called Tizen, targeted for HTML5/WAC applications. See the Tizen article on Wikipedia for independent and community based description continuously updated, as well as the Tizen project site (tizen.org) site and the related Tizen Association site from the industry consortium dedicated to providing in-market support and actively shaping the industry presence of Tizen.
The latest state of the Tizen effort has been described in:
Update: Tizen 2.0 Magnolia SDK and Source Code Release [Tizen project, Feb 18, 2013] (see also the Tizen 2.0 Release Notes)
We are pleased to announce that Tizen 2.0 source code and SDK are now available at https://developer.tizen.org/downloads/sdk. Tizen 2.0 represents a major milestone for software developers and device vendors. We encourage you to download the new SDK, and let us know what you think of it after you have installed and used it. If you have questions, or need to submit bugs, please visit our community page.
This release includes many new features and improvements over Tizen 1.0 released in April, and Tizen 2.0 alpha in September, 2012. As a Tizen 2.0 developer, you will find strong HTML5/W3C APIs and a new native framework.
Highlights of this release include:
- Enhanced Web framework that provides state-of-the-art HTML5/W3C API support
- Web UI framework, including full-screen and multi-window support
- Additional Tizen device APIs, such as Bluetooth and NFC support, and access to the device’s calendar, call history, and messaging subsystems
- Web Runtime framework supporting new configuration elements for specifying the required features and privileges, and providing the basic runtime environment for NPRuntime plugins
- Native framework supporting full-featured application development and providing a variety of features such as background applications, IP Push, and TTS (Text-To-Speech)
- Core and native reference applications including Calendar, Contacts, Gallery, Phone, Settings, and Video Player
- Enhanced Web IDE providing WYSIWYG design environment, Chrome-based JavaScript inspector, and JavaScript log viewer
- Native IDE providing a project wizard, WYSIWYG design environment, unit test tool, and dynamic analyzer
Go to https://source.tizen.org/release for more information on the release. If you are interested in building Tizen for your own devices, documentation on development and tools is found here: https://source.tizen.org/os-development.
We strongly encourage developers to attend the Tizen Developer Conference, to be held in May 2013 in San Francisco. The conference will cover a variety of Tizen-related topics, including presentations on both application and platform development. The call for papers and the registration for this conference are now open, seehttps://www.tizen.org/events/tizen-developer-conference/2013.
The Tizen Technical Steering Group
Update: Samsung reveals lessons learnt from early Tizen work [Mobile World Live, Oct 3, 2012]
LIVE FROM APPS WORLD [*], LONDON: The evolution of the mobile OS Tizen has taught its development team a number of lessons ahead of the first handset launch next year, according to Samsung’s lead evangelist for Tizen, Cheng Luo [**].
[*Discover the future of multiplatform apps]
[**audio record: Tizen: Yet another open source project or a different one?
abstract: This presentation will answer the question whether Tizen is just another open source project like Maemo and Moblin or it has its unique and different approach to developers and the market. It will focus on the USP [Unique Selling Proposition] of the Tizen platform from different aspects.]Discussing the development of the Linux-based platform for smartphones, which marries the former MeeGo efforts of Intel and Nokia with the work of the LiMo Foundation and is backed by Samsung (among other industry heavyweights), Luo said that the need for all participants to use open standards such as HTML5 when developing the OS has become apparent.
However, he added that HTML5 has been overhyped; despite a lot of “cool stuff”, it is limited by its frame rate. Luo added that the technology should not be used to compete with native apps but more to “fill in the gaps” in functionality.
In terms of licensing and governance, the best long-term strategy has been found to be “transparent governance”, according to Luo.
Luo also stressed the importance of industry support for Tizen to succeed. “To make open source projects move ahead we need strong leaders. You can’t build a healthy ecosystem without industry leaders,” he said. As well as Samsung, Tizen is backed by the likes of Docomo, Intel, NEC, Panasonic, Orange, SK Telecom, Sprint and Vodafone.
The alpha version of the Tizen 2.0 SDK was recently launched, including an improved integrated development environment, user interface framework and a greater number of device APIs. The first Tizen-powered device is due to be released next year, Luo confirmed.
as well as in Tizen 2.0 Alpha SDK and Source Code release [Tizen blog, Sept 25, 2012]:
…
Tizen 2.0 alpha has additional features, tools, and other improvements, including:
- Enhanced Web framework that provides better HTML5/W3C API support and more Tizen Device APIs
- Multi-process Webkit2-based Web Runtime which provides better security and reliability for Web applications
- Advanced HTML5 features such as video subtitles and captions, battery status API, screen orientation API, <keygen> and <details>, and more
- New Tizen Device APIs for file transfer, notifications, and power control
- Advanced IDE & SDK for Web application development
- Install manager support for snapshot-based network installation
- Enhanced support for OpenGL ES
- New Platform SDK that helps platform development based on OBS [Open Build Service]
More information on the release can be found here: https://source.tizen.org/release
…
Documentation on development and tools can be found here: https://source.tizen.org/os-development
As it stands now the Qt technologies in Meego will not be included into Tizen although number of parties are heavily agitating The Linux Foundation for Qt inclusion as well.
Update as of August 10, 2012: After acquiring the Qt commercial licensing business in March 2011 from Nokia, the Helsinki based, ~1000 people strong Digia, with 2011 sales of 121.9 million Euro, yesterday acquired all the rest of the Qt business from Nokia. More details in the Digia extends Its commitment to Qt with plans to acquire full Qt software technology and business From Nokia [Digia’s Qt Commercial Blog, Aug 9, 2012] and Digia Committed to Thriving Qt Ecosystem [KDE.NEWS, Aug 9, 2012] posts from Digia’s R&D director Tuuka Turunen. With this all pre-Windows Phone software platform commitments except the Java based S40 (evolved in the new Asha range) have strategically been revoked by Nokia.
Other updates:
– It’s a Wrap! Tizen Developer Conference Overview [Tizen blog, May 25, 2012]
– Tizen Developer Conference 2012: Converting your web app to Tizen [TheLinuxFoundation YouTube channel, May 16, 2012]
– The slides of the Cheng Lou’s presentation on the conference
– Opening Keynote – Jim Zemlin [TheLinuxFoundation YouTube channel, May 15, 2012]
– Other Keynotes: Imad Sousou & Jong-Deok Choi; Dr. Kiyohito Nagata; James Pearce [TheLinuxFoundation YouTube channel, May 15, 2012]
– Tizen Developer Conference Agenda and Tizen videos on linux.com
– Tizen Developer Conference [Tizen site, March 29, 2012]: “… engages and educates developers on Tizen technology and HTML5 app development for Tizen devices … at the downtown Hyatt in San Francisco, CA on May 7-9th, 2012 … Platina Sponsor OpenMobile …“
– Framingham company breaks the apps barrier [The MetroWest Daily News, Jan 23, 2012]: “… OpenMobile has developed the only compatibility layer that actually takes the Android run time and makes it portable to non-Android devices. This is not a virtualization; OpenMobile’s ACL leverages the actual Android virtual machine and makes it run transparently in the native environment. This is a much deeper and pure engineering integration that provides seamless integration, allows every app to appear as though it was created for the target operating system you are running and provides exactly the same performance as though it were running on a similar Android platform. …“
– With OpenMobile ACL for Tizen there is even much more chance for Android Device Makers Are Mutinying, Says Insider [Technology Review by MIT, April 4, 2012]: “… Nobody wants to just be a manufacturer for Google. You see that with what Amazon has done, where they made it their own, and you also see a whole host of manufacturers taking Android down their own path. …“
– Tizen Developer Conference Agenda [Tizen blog, April 10, 2012]
– 4Q FY2011 Earnings Conference Call [Samsung presentation, Jan 27, 2012]
…
…
…
– Tizen releases source code and SDK previews [Jan 18, 2012]
The nascent Tizen project unveiled its first set of materials on January 9, consisting of “preview” releases of the operating system source code and SDK, both intended to elicit feedback from developers. The announcement was accompanied by the launch of two new mailing lists and online documentation of the project’s architecture and APIs.
…
[Overview of sources, Web APIs and the SDK]
…
A related development on the project management front was the sudden disappearance of the LiMo Foundation web site, which was replaced by the Tizen Association on or about January 1. The Tizen Association is essentially a re-branding of the LiMo Foundation, and, as yet, Intel itself has not finalized its membership. The Association’s site describes its goal as enabling “key stakeholders to actively shape the industry role of Tizen and develop its market presence” by the “gathering of requirements, identification and facilitation of service models, and overall industry marketing and education.” The project itself will continue to be hosted by the Linux Foundation.The specifics of Tizen’s project governance have not been fleshed out, but those are probably details that should come after the code itself has been released and developers have had a chance to work with it. In retrospect, the MeeGo project was very organization-heavy (as it was marketing-heavy), and in the end that did not help it make an impact in the marketplace. Tizen may still be a long way from shipping on commercial devices, but starting with the code rather than the other trappings of a large distributed project is a good first step.
Tizen Association Launched to Drive Industry Engagement for Tizen™ [Tizen Association news release, Jan 9, 2012]
WHAT:
Further to the announcement of 27 September 2011 from LiMo Foundation and Linux Foundation, Tizen Association has now been formed to drive industry engagement and in-market support for the Tizen software platform.Tizen Association comprises mobile industry leaders (see company list below) serving as a Board to guide Tizen and its application ecosystem to fulfill the broad industry requirement for a software platform that enables flexibility in service selection and deployment.
Tizen (www.tizen.org) is a Linux-based open source, standards-based, cross-architecture device software platform, including an operating system, HTML5 application framework and customizable user experience. Tizen will span multiple device categories including smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, netbooks and in-vehicle infotainment systems.
The industry- and market-facing role of LiMo Foundation has now been incorporated into Tizen Association, while the engineering of the Tizen software platform is taking place within the Tizen open source project hosted by Linux Foundation.
The alpha version of Tizen was released today as open source through the Tizen.org project page.
WHEN:
Tizen Association was formed on 1 January 2012. The alpha release of Tizen was made available on 9 January 2012.
WHERE:
For more information on Tizen Association visit www.tizenassociation.org. To participate in or learn more about the Tizen Project visit http://www.tizen.org.
WHO:
Tizen Association is led by a Board of Directors which guides the industry role of Tizen, including gathering of requirements, identification and facilitation of service models, and industry marketing and education. The Tizen Association Board of Directors includes representation from:
- Intel
- NEC Casio
- NTT DOCOMO
- Panasonic
- Samsung
- SK Telecom
- Telefonica
- Vodafone
CONTACT:
Vivian Kelly for Tizen Association ( viviankelly@interprosepr.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ).
# # #
LiMo is a trademark of the LiMo Foundation. The Linux Foundation and Tizen are trademarks of The Linux Foundation. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.
Developers (page on Tizen Association site):
Tizen will provide a robust and flexible environment for application developers, based on HTML5 and Wholesale Applications Community (WAC). With broad capabilities and cross platform flexibility, HTML5 is rapidly becoming a preferred development environment for mobile apps and services. The Tizen platform supports Web applications (HTML, Javascript, CSS) and provides a rich set of services that include the application framework, along with content, location, messaging, multimedia, network, social, and system services.
Tools will be made available to help developers use HTML5 and related web technologies to write applications that run across multiple device segments and software platforms. These applications can then be distributed via the Tizen app-store, which offers a flexible and customizable storefront and a common Tizen application catalog to service providers and OEMs . In addition, developers can take advantage of broad distribution of their apps on a wide range of devices coming to market that will support the standards based HTML5 and WAC application framework.
More details on how developers can create, distribute and monetize Tizen applications will be available soon.
End of updates
Tizen has much wider scope than Bada. It will support multiple device categories, such as smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, netbooks, and in-vehicle infotainment devices. It is still unclear how Samsung intends to use Tizen for smartphones. One possibility, nevertheless, is to enhance a future bada version with Tizen. Meantime Samsung is starting to put heavy emphasis on bada-based smartphones, with 2012 target of a 17% device share in its offerings.
Considering that in the Q3 2011 Samsung surpassed Apple and took the #1 position on the smartphone market this could bring a very significant change to the current ecosystem wars.
Below you can find all the detailed and relevant information for the above, i.e. the overall situation, bada related information, other Linux activities from Samsung, and Tizen.
The Overall Situation
Samsung’s Won-Pyo Hong on the Mobile Phone Wars: The Full AsiaD Interview (Video) [Nov 11, 2011]
Samsung Bada 2.0 demo on the Wave 3 [Nov 3, 2011]
Samsung wants Bada on 17 per cent of its devices [Nov 4, 2011]
Keith O’ Brien, head of content at Samsung mobile … said, “Next year we expect there to be some changes. 2011 has been about Android and next year, Android will have 66 per cent of Samsung device share and Bada and Windows will have 17 per cent each.”
O’Brien said that Samsung’s strategy is to go for as wide a reach as possible, adding, “Each [OS] gives you a choice. Bada is perfect as it is created in tandem and Bada for us represents a strategy we have always had.”
He admitted, though, “It’s been an Android year and Android has dominated sales.” O’Brien added, “Next year, the market will increase significantly and the size of the smartphone market will increase, with all three platforms growing at the same time.”
…
O’Brien hinted that Samsung is also working on further integrating all of its electronics devices through content, with Bada seen as the perfect OS as it belongs to the electronics firm.
Samsung Takes Top Spot as Smartphone Market Grows 42.6% in the Third Quarter, According to IDC [IDC press release, Nov 3, 2011]
Samsung became the new leader in the worldwide smartphone market, with total smartphone shipments topping the 20 million unit mark for the first time in the company’s history. As in previous quarters, its Android-powered smartphones drove volumes higher, and joining the product mix was Samsung’s refreshed Galaxy S II. In addition, its bada-powered smartphones continued to gain salience in the market, and a new Windows Phone smartphone is expected to launch in 4Q11.
Apple, after taking the number one spot last quarter from Nokia, slipped to the number two spot worldwide. But even after relying on the iPhone 4 for five quarters and the iPhone 3G S for nine, demand for the iPhone remained strong enough for Apple to realize double-digit growth year over year. Now that Apple has launched its iPhone 4S and re-priced its older models in multiple countries, Apple stands poised to challenge Samsung for the leadership position.
Nokia maintained its third place position on the strength of its Symbian phones. Its most popular smartphones included older models, including the 5230, C5, and the C7. In addition, Nokia launched four models based on its newly enhanced Symbian Belle OS, including the Nokia 600, 603, 700, and 701 as well as its first MeeGo-powered smartphone, the N9. While these new models kept Nokia’s selection fresh, the N9 is expected to see limited availability and the Nokia 600 has been cancelled.
HTC moved up one spot and maintained its upward momentum during 3Q11. During the quarter, HTC acquired several companies to complement its devices, including Dashwire for cloud-based sync, Zoodles for kid-oriented applications, and a stake in audio company Beats. At the same time, HTC launched several devices for specific segments, including the multimedia-optimized Sensation, female oriented Rhyme, and the entry-level Explorer. HTC expects to ship similar volumes in 4Q11.
Research In Motion began shipping its new BB OS 7 smartphones to the market during 3Q11, including updated versions of the BlackBerry Bold, BlackBerry Curve, and the BlackBerry Torch. But, as in previous quarters, the company’s volumes were primarily comprised of older and less expensive models, leading to the company’s first quarter of year-on-year decline and landing in the number 5 position worldwide. Still, this was enough for Research In Motion to maintain a presence among the top five vendors worldwide, with a sizable margin ahead of the remaining vendors.
|
Vendor |
3Q11 Unit Shipments |
3Q11 Market Share |
3Q10 Unit Shipments |
3Q10 Market Share |
Year-over- |
|
Samsung |
23.6 |
20.0% |
7.3 |
8.8% |
223.3% |
|
Apple |
17.1 |
14.5% |
14.1 |
17.0% |
21.3% |
|
Nokia |
16.8 |
14.2% |
26.5 |
32.0% |
-36.6% |
|
HTC |
12.7 |
10.8% |
5.9 |
7.1% |
115.3% |
|
Research |
11.8 |
10.0% |
12.4 |
15.0% |
-4.8% |
|
Others |
36.1 |
30.6% |
16.6 |
20.0% |
117.5% |
|
Total |
118.1 |
100.0% |
82.8 |
100.0% |
42.6 |
Source: IDC Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, November 3, 2011
Samsung Electronics Announces Third Quarter 2011 Results [Samsung press release, Oct 28, 2011]
Highlighting the quarterly performance, the Telecommunications businesses recorded all-time high quarterly sales of 14.90 trillion won [US$13.4B], up 37 percent from the previous year, with growth mainly driven by strong sales of Samsung’s GALAXY smartphones. Operating profit for the businesses also hit a record 2.52 trillion won [US$2.3B].
…
“Despite the difficult business environment due to the economic slowdown in developed markets, Samsung achieved a solid performance and recovered its double-digit operating profit margin in the quarter, driven by strong sales of our smartphones,” said Robert Yi, Vice President and Head of Investor Relations.
…
Record Profit Driven By Smartphone Sales Growth
The Telecommunications businesses – including mobile communications and telecommunication systems – posted a record operating profit of 2.52 trillion won on revenue of 14.90 trillion won. This represents an operating profit margin of 16.9 percent for the quarter.
Samsung’s Mobile Communications Business saw revenues rise 39 percent year-on-year to 14.42 trillion won [US$13B]. Handset shipments rose more than 20 percent quarter-on-quarter, driven by growth in the smartphone segment where sales were up more than 40 percent on-quarter and 300 percent year-on-year. Samsung continued the global rollout of its flagship GALAXY SII, which has now sold more than 10 million units in the five months since its introduction.
Despite enhanced price competition, the average sales price of Samsung’s handsets increased on-quarter, while sales volume for the GALAXY Tab portfolio of tablets increased with the expansion of the 8.9- and 10.1-inch devices into the lineup.
Samsung expects strong seasonal demand to drive sales of its diverse portfolio of smartphones in the fourth quarter assisted by the launch of new premium devices, including GALAXY Nexus which features the latest Android 4.0 operating system for the first time in a smartphone, and the 5.3-inch GALAXY Note which is opening a new mobile device category. Strong demand in developed countries will sustain tablet growth in the quarter.
For the Telecommunications Systems Business, sales and profitability improved year-on-year due to the expansion of its 4G Long-term Evolution (LTE) business and 3G network upgrade business. Samsung expects strong network sales growth with expansion of LTE business in North America and Asia as well as 3G network upgrade business globally.
Q3 2011 Earnings Release presentation [Samsung, Oct 28, 2011]
My comments:
– The Telecom segment has become the #1 profit center of Samsung in a year by increasing its contribution from 24% in 3Q ’10 to 59% in 3Q ’11. The profit margin has grown from 10.7% to 16.9% at the same time. The revenue contribution from 27% to 36%. This is only because of the Mobile Communications Business subsegment since the rest of the Telecom segment essentialy experienced no growth, having a revenue of 0.46 Trillion Won [US$414M] in 3Q ’10 and 0.48 Trillion Won [US$432M] in 3Q ’11, which constituted only 4.2% and 3.2% of the whole Telecom revenue subsequently.
– This is a quite remarkable change for Samsung since the profit margin of the previous #1 profit center, the Semiconductor segment, has decreased from 32.1% to 16.8% at the same time, and its revenue contribution from 26.5% to 23%.
– Even more important is that — according to the Q&A part of the earnings call webcast — the absolute amount of revenue growth and the contribution to the cash flow are more important in longer term for the Mobile subsegment than either keeping the currently achieved profit margin or buying market share agressively by joining the price competition.
– In fact for 4Q they intend to maintain profitability by introducing new premium products in the high-end (Galaxy Nexus and the new category, Galaxy Notes) as well as new ones to the mass-market (Galaxy Y for moving into the mid low-end and Galaxy Y Pro).
– Please note that on the corresponding presentation slide showing their 4Q flagship products (see the excerpt above) there is also a Windows Phone-based model as a premium offering and a bada based new model as a mass-market offering. This is a clear indication that they intend to work on lower end of the market with their own platform.
– See also: TI’s OMAP4460 in Samsung GALAXY Nexus with Android 4.0 [Oct 21, 2011]
– Samsung celebrates 30 million global sales of GALAXY S and GALAXY SII [Samsung press release, Oct 17, 2011]
GALAXY SII has set a new record for Samsung, generating more than 10 million sales – quicker than any device in Samsung’s history. … Launched in 2010, Samsung GALAXY S reached almost 20 million unit sales, making it the highest-selling mobile device in Samsung’s portfolio to date, and another record-breaker for the company and the mobile market.
– GALAXY Note hits European markets [Samsung press release, Oct 21, 2011]:
GALAXY Note features the world’s first and largest 5.3” HD Super AMOLED display. This is an expansive high-resolution smart screen that provides an immersive and best in class viewing experience while ensuring smartphone portability and on the go usability. Additionally, an advanced pen-input technology, called the S Pen, combines with GALAXY Note’s full touch screen to introduce a unique user experience. Taking full advantage of the large display, GALAXY Note users will be able to multi-task, create and consume more, with fewer interruptions, while on the go.
The incorporated digital S Pen can be used for accurate sketching and artwork, while superior handwriting recognition allows ideas to be freely captured and shared with other devices without the need to perform any additional digitization; handwritten text is accurately converted into digital characters.
“GALAXY Note is a revolutionary product to open a new category in the mobile industry and I am very proud of this accomplishment,” said JK Shin, President and Head of Samsung’s Mobile Communications Business. “Samsung GALAXY Note will redefine and enhance mobile communication by offering a more advanced, productive and creative user experience with its new innovative features such as S Memo, S Planner and S Choice.”
– Other information from the earnings call webcast:
- Regarding 3Q 2011 performance:
– Success of the high-end flagship Galaxy SII: 10 million units in the first 5 months, as well as the strong Galaxy brand: mass-market smartphones Galaxy Ace, Galaxy Mini.
– Units 20% YoY, smartphone sales (revenue): 40% QoQ, ~300% YoY - Regarding technology support from the other segments for the future:
– Flexible display: 2012, first in handsets
– Securing baseband technology for the AP business: currently looking for any possible solution — from inside or outside of Samsung — with regard to baseband technology
Samsung Y Smartphone – For the Young and the Restless [product page on Reliance Digital site in India, Oct 17, 2011, excerpted on Dec 29, 2011]
…
So make a SMART CHOICE – Buy the Samsung Galaxy Y S5360 Smartphone from any Reliance Digital Store… And we will make a SMART OFFER – 10% cash back on purchase! or 6 months easy finance on credit card at 0% interest and no processing fee!!
MRP : 7830
Offer Price : 7,399 (Gujarat, Kolkata, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu)Offer Price : 7,249 (Rest of India) [ US$137 ]
Quick Specs:
Specs Value Dimension 104 x 58 x 11.5 mm (97.5 gms) Display 3.0″ QVGA TFT (320 x 240) Camera 2.0 Megapixel FF cameras – Panorama Shot, Smile Shot Mobile Apps Samsung Apps / Android Market – Various applications downloadable Social Hub Integrates all SNS, email, and calendar accounts – Integrated Calendar (Google/Outlook) TouchWiz for Android Multiple Home screen, Hybrid Widgets Bluetooth BT 3.0 HS USB USB 2.0 FM FM Radio + RDS Music Music Player with SoundAlive – 3.5 mm Ear Jack – MP3/ AMR-NB/ AMR-WB/ AAC/ AAC+/ e-AAC+/ i-Melody/Midi (SMF)/ WAV/ OGG Video Video Playing (VGA@30fps), Video Recording (QVGA @ 15fps), Codec ( H.263, H.264, MPEG4), Format(3GPP, MPEG4, MKV) Operating system Samsung Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) Processor 832 MHz (BCM21552) [Broadcom] Memory 180 MB + MicroSD 2 GB inbox (Up to 32 GB) Battery Standard li-on (1,200 mAh), Standby time – 400 hrs (2G), 350 hrs (3G), Talk time – 560 mins.(2G), 300 mins. (3G) Network HSDPA 7.2 900/2100 – EDGE/GPRS 850/900/1800/1900 Sensor Accelerometer Sensor, Proximity Sensor, Digital Compass Integrated email Gmail, MS Exchange ActiveSync Additional Features SWYPE, Document Viewer, Multi Touch zoom-in & out
(Yonhap Interview) Samsung bullish on smartphones, tablets [July 18, 2011]
Samsung Electronics Co. is expected to outdo its smartphone sales target this year, with the popularity of its latest Android devices and upcoming bada phones, which run on its own mobile software, and a ramp-up in low-cost smartphones, … said Shin Jong-kyun, president of Samsung’s mobile communications and digital imaging.
“We will likely sell more than 60 million smartphones this year,” Shin said in an interview with Yonhap News Agency in his office in Suwon. “The Galaxy S2 has been well-received not only in Korea, but also in Japan, Europe and other regions, and responses to other smartphones have been positive as well.”
In February, Shin estimated Samsung’s annual mobile handset sales will hit a record high of 300 million this year, including 60 million smartphones. The company, which is only behind Nokia Corp. in terms of mobile phone shipments, sold 280 million cell phones in 2010, including 25 million smartphones.
“For the first time, Samsung’s cell phone sales will top 300 million this year. It is a very meaningful and important event,” he said. “To meet the goal, Samsung should manufacture and sell 1 million phones on a daily average and secure components for 1 million handsets every day, which isn’t an easy task.”
Part of its strategies is to boost its smartphone lineup outside Google Inc.’s Android system, including handsets running on its own proprietary mobile software, bada, and Microsoft Corp.’s Windows-based phones, Shin said. Samsung will release more “noteworthy” bada smartphones during the rest of the year, with some of them to be featured during a September trade show in Berlin.
It will also raise the production of low-cost smartphones as mid-range smartphones are replacing low-end cell phones that cannot surf the Web or download applications. Shin forecast that mass-market smartphones will become available for as low as US$150 and Samsung will try to advance into that price bracket before December.
Under Shin’s leadership, the electronics giant nimbly transformed from a smartphone laggard into a leading player in the highly profitable, fastest-growing segment of the wireless market in a mere year.
…
On the software front, Samsung plans to break into the cloud computing system, following Google, Amazon and Apple, Shin said.
“We have plans. We will respond,” he said without elaboration.
bada related information
Samsung opens Bada 2.0 to developers [Nov 4, 2011]
At a Samsung developer day yesterday, the phone maker announced that Bada 2.0 is now live, with a development kit and new features, and that the Wave 3 smartphone is coming to the UK “later this year”.
Samsung mobile UK MD, Simon Stanford said that Bada “will be a big focus” for the company “in 2012 and beyond”.
The firm claims to have so far seen 5,300,201 downloads of Bada in the UK with 300,000 Bada devices sold in the UK and eight million worldwide.
A Trio of new bada 2.0-powered ‘Wave’ Smartphones to Debut at Berlin [Samsung Tomorrow, Aug 30, 2011]
Samsung Electronics has announced the launch of the flagship 4” chic smartphone Wave 3, the social-powerhouse Wave M and the smart-start Wave Y. These all wave smartphones will be on display at Samsung’s Stand at IFA 2011 in Berlin.
All three devices, borne of Samsung’s heritage in innovation, are powered by Samsung’s own new Bada 2.0 platform which brings together a wide variety of new capabilities including multi-tasking, Wi-Fi Direct, voice recognition and Near Field Communication.
ChatONis Samsung’s proprietary mobile communication service that works across all major mobile devices. A global cross-platform communication service links all your friends and contacts instantly. Micro-communities can be set up through group chat, while a web client allows the sharing of content and conversations between mobile and PC.
Samsung Apps, an integrated application store for Samsung smartphones, is also available. With an improved UI and enhanced store features, Samsung Apps offers a wide variety of applications from globally well-known content to locally-customized applications.
“Smartphones are gaining popularity by the day. The new additions to the Wave portfolio are the first to benefit from the power of our bada 2.0 platform; the full extent of our commitment is clear to see in each device. We’ve produced easy-to-use smartphones that will inspire the market,”
– JK Shin, President and Mobile Communications business
bada 2.0 Interview (Justin Hong, VP with Samsung Mobile Communication) [Aug 26, 2011]
Samsung Wave [Sept 1, 2011]
The new bada 2.0 products summarized in a table view:
The Chronicles of Bada OS [Samsung Tomorrow, Oct 17, 2011]
Bada is an exclusive operating system (OS) for mobile devices developed by Samsung Electronics. Development was underway in 2010 when the smartphone wave started sweeping the worldwide mobile phone market. Since then Samsung has been gradually ramping up its mobile phone market share, selling mobile phones that are equipped with its latest OS, Bada 1.2. The main goal of Bada is not to compete with iOS or Android but to make easy-to-use and cost effective devices for everyone.
Smartphones which run Bada have proven extremely popular in Europe where consumers are more financially conservative, and the Bada-equipped phones have even ranked as the best selling smartphones in France. As far as market share is concerned, they beat Microsoft’s Windows OS smartphones.
Also, Bada offers support for running Samsung Apps with the purpose of creating its own mobile eco-system, with the total number of apps recently hitting 100 million downloads.
Launched at the same time as Galaxy S, Wave, (the first Bada-based flagship model), Wave37 and low-end Wave578 as well as Wave723 were most popular in Europe.
Bada 1.2 and the latest version, Bada 2.0, have a long history since around the year 2000. Of course, 10 years ago, the smartphone market wasn’t what it is now. Smartphones began to gain momentum only a couple of years ago whereas Bada has been around and constantly evolving over more than 10 years.
Bada OS runs on SHP (Samsung Handset Platform), which originates back to MOCHA (Modular & Configurable Handset S/W Architecture). MOCHA was developed by Samsung Electronics Software Laboratory which was looking ahead to the future growth of software segment. The laboratory aimed to develop an easily replicable platform that was able to easily multi-task.
Based on this platform, the first video-capable 3G mobile phone (SGH-Z100) was released to the European market. After its successful launch, MOCHA was replaced by SHP, a further developed version of MOCHA, which is now applied to many 3G mobile phones. Each year, about 50 to 60 million handsets with SHP are shipped out of Samsung’s 200 million annual production volumes.
SHP has claimed a very important part of Samsung Electronics Mobile Business Division for over 10 years and the platform was upgraded in 2010 to keep pace with the popularization of smartphones. The new generation contains such features as multipoint-touch, 3D graphics and an enhanced User Interface (UI) among other features. A middleware layer, called OSP (Open Service Platform), was added to the platform to be later renamed Bada, on which you could develop various applications or download apps from the Samsung app store.
Samsung enhances its own mobile platform with the launch of ‘bada 2.0’ [Samsung Tomorrow, Aug 25, 2011]
Unveiled at Mobile World Congress in February 2011, bada 2.0 includes many compelling, new features. Borne of Samsung’s heritage in innovation, bada 2.0 brings together a wide variety of new capabilities including multi-tasking, Wi-Fi Direct, Near Field Communication (NFC) and voice recognition. It enables smartphone users to experience advanced services such as mobile payment, transport pass-card recharge and file sharing without Internet networking.
With the improved support for web applications including Flash and HTML 5, users can experience enhanced web capabilities. It also means that smartphones based on bada 2.0 can run any web application developed with Flash or HTML. Samsung expects that this upgrade will help to greatly expand its developer community into Flash and JavaScript as well as the existing C++ community.
A key feature for developer partners is the introduction of In-app Ads. Using the Ads API (Application Programming Interface) developers for bada 2.0 can easily insert advertisements, creating new revenue opportunities. Samsung has also upgraded and strengthened its application development environment, providing developers with increased support. An Emulator has been added to foster a development process suitable to the target environment. Tools such as Profiler optimize the device’s performance ensuring that resources like memory and processing power are used to their fullest capacity.
Samsung has enhanced the ‘Samsung Apps’ retail store and expanded full availability through to 121 countries worldwide. With this 2.0 version, more differentiated functions will be offered from Samsung Apps, including new purchasing options and recommendations.
In the third quarter this year, three new Wave smartphones, powered by bada 2.0, will launch the market; the devices will range from premium models with enhanced performance to entry-level devices that focus on affordability. Bada 2.0 SDK can be downloaded from the bada developer site (developer.bada.com).
Other Linux activities from Samsung
Samsung Linux Platform v1.0 / v2.0 (Nov. 2008 ~ Present)
Samsung Linux Platform (SLP) is a mobile operating system based on the Linux 2.6 kernel and X.org server. Evolving from XO v1.0, SLP changed and developed several features, such as the replacement of the window system to X Window, as well as the support of EFL (Enlightenment Foundation Library) for applications. Furthermore, SLP has gradually expanded its target devices from mobile phones to TVs, cameras, MP3 players, tablets, and laptops. Not only has SLP been compatible with LiMo, but the SLP team has become LiMo foundation’s leading contributor. SLP’s design is based on the principles of the standard Linux desktop, suitably adapted for the mobile environment. SLP reuses a large number of Open Source components. Hence, its software architecture is easy to understand for anyone familiar with a standard Linux desktop. The SLP software stack has a layered architecture consisting of applications, middleware, and the Linux kernel.
Members: approximately 300 developers…
Vodafone 360 H1 / M1 – Linux-based SNS Specialized Smartphones (Jun. 2009 ~ Sep. 2009)
Based on SLP2, Vodafone 360 H1 and Vodafone 360 M1 are smartphones, the first LiMo Release 2 products that provide Vodafone’s specialized 360 online service focused on SNS. H1 is a high-end model based on TI (Texas Instruments)’s omap3430 CPU, which has the SGX340 GPU core. M1 is a lower-priced model based on SEC (Samsung Electronics)’s S3C6410 CPU. The Vodafone 360 H1 features a large 3.5-inch WVGA AMOLED display, a 5-megapixel autofocus camera with the capability to shoot 720p high-definition video, 16 GB of onboard storage, integrated GPS, plus Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless networking capabilities. It also supports EDGE/GPRS 850/900/1800/1900 and HSDPA mobile broadband capabilities. The M1 scales back slightly, providing a 3.2-inch TFT display, 1 GB of memory (with microSD expansion), a 3-megapixel camera, and integrated GPS. The M1 lacks Wi-Fi, but still offers HSDPA. Both phones feature a unique 3D interface that enables users to have a depth-based chronological view of mail and calendar items, as well as tie into exclusive Vodafone services.
Members: over 500 developers
XO v1.0 – LiMo Compatible Linux Platform (Sep. 2007 ~ Oct. 2008)
XO is a Linux-based mobile platform that provides high level features, performance, and reliability, while supporting multiple sets of BSP, Window System, and Mobile Browser. XO is compatible with LiMo Release 1. The LiMo Platform is a modern Linux-based Operating System for mobile handsets. As a window system, XO adopted DirectFB, a thin library that provides hardware graphics acceleration, input device handling and abstraction, integrated windowing system with support for translucent windows, and multiple display layers, not only on top of the Linux Frame Buffer Device.
Members: about 120 developers
Vodafone kills 360 at last [Oct 19, 2011]
Its attempt to create its own-branded mobile web experience will be closed down by year end
Vodafone is to shut down its 360 cloud-based service by the end of the year, in another blow to carriers’ hopes of creating web offerings under their own brands to fight back against Google and Apple.
In many ways, 360 was forward looking when it was introduced in 2009. It offered storage and synchronization across multiple devices in the cloud, long before iCloud or Amazon Cloud Drive came to Android, and it unified key user experiences such as social networks around a single address book and UI. It also included a portal for accessing music and video content, a number of third party widgets, and an application store.
There were several problems though. For one, Vodafone wanted 360 to be more than just a useful service to go a step further than simpler cloud offerings like O2’s. It wanted it to be a vehicle to assert its own independence in the software platform, so it ran the initial offering on LiMO, a Linux-based OS which was the latest attempt to create a carrier-controlled mobile environment (it is now merged with MeeGo to form Tizen). As with other such attempts, developers and consumers remained largely indifferent, putting their efforts into the mass market Android and iOS, and so after a while Vodafone scaled back its ambitions and transferred key elements of 360, such as the address book, to the Google OS.
However, the LiMO plan had cost it the interest of many handset makers and developers, and by the time it reworked the offering, other cloud services had appeared. Its main smartphone partner for LiMO and 360 was Samsung, but despite a friendly user interface, the 360-branded handsets were never as heavy hitting as models such as Galaxy Sand eventually they were axed altogether, relegating 360 to a service available on a range of smartphones.
Vodafone compounded its problems by trying to use its new-found Android support to push its 360 agenda. It caused a storm of negative publicity for its service when it forcibly downloaded 360-branded apps and UIs when customers upgraded their Android release on certain HTC handsets.
All these missteps meant 360 was pushed to the back of the Vodafone armory, along with its loftier cloud ambitions, and this week it confirmed it would phase out the brand over the next few months. It sent text messages to customers advising them to copy any contact details, emails or photos currently stored in the cloud before December 31. The writing has been on the wall for this round of Vodafone’s over-the-top endeavours for a while – a year ago, its head of internet services, Pieter Knook, poached from Microsoft two years earlier, resigned.
Samsung’s Software Prowess: Big Changes are Coming! [Samsung Tomorrow, Oct 14, 2011]
Dubbed as the Next Generation Software R&D Group, Samsung’s elite crew of programmers and experts endeavor to develop software for next generation media. It’s always hard to predict the future, but this group continues to move forward, based on media-market analyses and ongoing research. We had a chance to speak with some of the folks about the development.
…
Q. What does your team do?
Lee: The team develops the right software for the next generation mediabased on our research and analysis as to what types of media will prevail in the market. Bada, Android and iOS are currently in equal positions, allowing users of these devices to download applications from their own proprietary online application stores, such as “App Store” or “Android Market”.
In contrast, web-based OS will be using a cloud-based approach rather than individual users running applications installed on their devices. With the advent of web OS, users on any browser-enabled mobile device will be able to access a whole slew of services on the web without the bothersome task of installing. It is our top priority to develop web OS-specific software accessible to everyone.
Kim: It started with a big idea of building an open web application platform allowing you to run apps online written for any devices. Just to be clear, “next generation software” means applications distributed across web servers or online or running inside the cloud. We’ve been trying to explore possibilities for better solutions, continuing to engage in research and development to get geared up to be the market leader in the future.
Q. Can you share a bit more specifically what you do?
Kim: My team is currently developing UI related functions for a SLP browser. I’m sure it’s safe to say we’re the end user’s first point of contact, as they first come face-to-face with the UI when using the browser.
Lee: I’m looking after a script engine that converts JavaScript, being the only dynamic language on the web, into programming languages, which will help speed up PC gaming.
Park: I’m working on webcore, linking UI with the script engine.
Q. Tell us about your future goals.
Lee: We are looking at about 3 years for the emergence of a huge market for the web-based standard OS, creating an integrated ecosystem for mobile applications. Wouldn’t it be nice for us to take the lead?
This group debuted back in January, consisting of 40 professional engineers assembled and organized from the ground up within Samsung. Keeping up with the unprecedented pace of emerging technology, this team is now in the midst of developing web OS-specific software accessible to everyone. Samsung has a lot of confidence in its group of excited, passionate and able engineers. Shouldn’t be long before you have something made by this group running in your hands.
Tizen
Welcome Tizen to the Linux Foundation [Jim Zemlin, Executive Director of the Linux Foundation, Sept 27, 2011]
Tizen is a Linux-based, open source platform designed to address the future of HTML5-based applications across a variety of device types.
Welcome to Tizen [Dawn Foster, Community Manager for MeeGo, Intel, Sept 27, 2011]
Tizen will support multiple device categories, such as smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, netbooks, and in-vehicle infotainment devices.
…
The Tizen application programming interfaces are based on HTML5 and other web standards, and we anticipate that the vast majority of Tizen application development will be based on these emerging standards. These APIs will cover various platform capabilities, such as messaging, multimedia, camera, network, and social media. For those who use native code in their applications, the Tizen SDK will include a native development kit. We will open the entire Tizen software stack, from the core OS up through the core applications and polished user interfaces.We expect the first release of Tizen and its SDK in the first quarter of 2012.
What’s Next for MeeGo [Imad Sousou, Meego’s technical steering group co-leader, Director, Intel Open Source Technology Center, Sept 27, 2011]
I want to personally thank everyone who has participated in MeeGo over the past year and a half, and I encourage you to join us at Tizen.org.
Limo Foundation And Linux Foundation Announce New Open Source Software Platform [LiMo Foundation™ and the Linux Foundation global press release, Morgan Gillis, Executive Director of LiMo Foundation, Sept 27, 2011]
Tizen combines the best open source technologies from LiMo and the Linux Foundation and adds a robust and flexible standards-based HTML5 and WAC web development environment within which device-independent applications can be produced efficiently for unconstrained cross-platform deployment. This approach leverages the robustness and flexibility of HTML5 which is rapidly emerging as a preferred application environment for mobile applications and the broad carrier support of the Wholesale Applications Community (WAC). Tizen additionally carries a state-of-the-art reference user interface enabling the creation of highly attractive and innovative user experience that can be further customized by operators and manufacturers.
…
… a well-timed step change which unites major mobile Linux proponents within a renewed ecosystem with an open web vision of application development which will help device vendors to innovate through software and liberalize access to consumers for developers and service providers.
(and see also LiMo&Tizen for what’s actually happening there).
Tizen Summit Asia 2011 coming! [Oct 27, 2011]
Nomovok organizes Tizen Summit Asia 2011 at Beijing Marriott Hotel City Wall 8-9 December. The event gathers together Open Source Vendors, OEMs, operators and other Tizen project contributors, together with local Open Source contributors in China. Check the event website and register here!
Dear Intel & Samsung, Can Tizen have some Qt ? [Oct 24, 2011]
Is banking everything on HTML5/JS/CSS3 the best way forward ? I think Not. Could we not have HTML5 + Qt Support in Tizen ? Already Nomovok have announced that they will provide Tizen with integrated Qt, but for this to work we need it to be adopted by the project as a whole. If we lose Qt then we Lose a lot of Developers that believe in it and NOT in HTML5 and have not bought into being able to make the move to HTML5. For the wholesale of applications HTML5 seems like the one, but for more specialist applications Qt is a Development Framework that a lot of development companies prefer and that is a fact that you can’t get away from.
….
sleeve says: October 26, 2011 at 10:33 pm
@uncle steve: now intel says no to qt?
no, samsung says no to qt as it is open source LGPL and any improvement or deployment would help Nokia tiny 1% – Samsung afraids. Samsung is happy with its vaporware BSD-licensed englightement without even one stable release in 11 yearsbecause the license allows to close any single bit if needed. If enlightenment fails samsung will use the backup tech aka HTML5 as already plans and no qt at all. Again, because in their flawed perception that would give nokia a point. All in samsung’s SLP/Limo – 4 bloody years without even single flawed release. The korean giant is strong in pushing hardware that’s all about it. Otherwise bada would be such a success for them.
Yeah Intel apparently HAPPILY supports qt on its part of tizen on its hardware and in AppUp stores. Intel wants apps SO qt will give what enlightenement wont.
More info about Tizen… [Florent Viard, Oct 24, 2011]
Hi all,
I want to share with you all the info the MeeGo Network France gathered from unofficial sources about Tizen.
Some of these info could be inaccurate, so consider them with care.
When the Tizen project was announced, it was more a “political” decision about a view for a future system than the announcement of an already existing new technical platform.
Ever since then, the Linux Foundation, Intel and Samsung are working on how they could create it based on MeeGo and Limo. It looks like they are still not sure of the architecture and this is certainly why they haven’t disclosed any technical info yet.
A big part of Tizen will be to have a framework and the corresponding SDK to support HTML5-WAC applications. Native applications development should also be supported through the usage of the EFL (Enlightenment_Foundation_Libraries –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightenment_Foundation_Libraries) with the SDK. So we could suppose that the reference UI of the system will also be based on the EFL.How the merge between MeeGo and Limo will be done? MeeGo will give a big part of the system with the components that are not QT-based, and Limo will provide the EFL components. More components of Limo will be used for the handset stack of Tizen. So, the overall appearance of the system should be similar to MeeGo and it should not be too hard to have derived version with the QT-things for those who want it.
In the current planning, the first version of Tizen is supposed to be released in February 2012 with the SDK. But we don’t know if the development and sources will be opened to everyone before this.
>From the governance side, the reassuring thing that we heard is that Samsung and Intel really want to have Tizen be a common system shared with other manufacturers and not be seen as their own system, so they gave the leadership to the Linux Foundation. And that is why there is currently not so much communication coming from Samsung or Intel about Tizen, because it is of the responsibility of the Linux Foundation to decide what and when communicate and if there could be community involvement or not in the first stage of Tizen.
So, our questions go to the Linux Foundation to know when they will start to disclose more info? If nothing will be available before February 2012, maybe it will be good to at least release MeeGo 1.3?
Don’t hesitate to reply if you want to correct things or if you have more details.
++
Florent
MeeGo Network France
Re: More info about Tizen… [Dawn M Foster, Community Manager for MeeGo, Intel, Oct 26, 2011]
On Oct 26, 2011, at 6:32 AM, Arnaud Delcasse wrote:
> Novomok looks like actually being the organizer, yes. But Linux
> Foundation people are announced for keynotes and presentations.
> On IRC, Paimen from Novomok said that he would send more
> informations on the mailing list “later today”.
>
> Short things I’ve read from him on IRC :
> – this would be an “unofficial” summit (14:16:56 Paimen | so
> basically this is unofficial event for community and vendors)
> – it replaces a “MeeGo summit” which should have been organized in
> Asia (14:18:19 Paimen | well it supposed to be meego summit
> and because of current events we decided to change it for open forum
> for tizen)Yes, it is being organized by Nomovok as an unofficial summit, but we’ve known about it, and I have also been talking to Pasi Nieminen about this summit. We’ll work with Pasi and others to help clear up this confusion shortly.
Re: More info about Tizen… [Akira Tsukamoto, Oct 26, 2011]
Hi all,
I work for Nomovok and I would like to add some comments about Tizen summit in Asia: http://tizensummitasia2011.com/
- I understand your frustration having no public information released from the Linux Foundation and relevant companies yet. Please be patient for a while because they are preparing the background to make the information public.
- I understand that when the Linux Foundation frozen the all the MeeGo development infrastructure such as wiki, build server and repository, equivalent Tizen infrastructures are not hosted yet. It is also ongoing and please be patient.
- As Ms. Dawn Foster from Intel mentioned that Pasi is the CEO of the Nomovok and coordinating the Tizen Summit 2011 in Beijing with the Linux Foundation and relevant companies, so it is concrete event.
- The main purpose of having the Tizen Summit is to get all the people interested on Tizen to have face to face gathering and share the information together. This activities should improve the speed of project of Tizen process.
I Hope thing gets clear with the above.
Jukka Raninen is also the person who has clear situation for the event.Thanks,
Akira
Will Intel’s Tizen mobile operating system succeed where MeeGo failed? [Dr. Axel Rauschmayer, Oct 20, 2011, ]
Tizen [1], Intel’s new mobile operating system, is supposed to succeed where MeeGo failed. However, the article “From MeeGo to Tizen: the making of another software bubble” by David Neary for VisionMobile expresses doubt:
One thing which has not changed from MeeGo is the wide range of participants being targeted by the project. At the moment, the target audience can best be summarised as “everyone”. Tizen is aimed at platform developers, integrators, vendors, application developers, and mobile enthusiasts. That’s a very wide range of target audiences, each with different needs and expectations. Not knowing your target customer is a surefire way to throw money down the drain.
Technology-wise, there are also many cooks:
We also know is that the primary APIs for 3rd party developers are targeting HTML5 and WAC environments. WAC stands for Wholesale Applications Community, a set of APIs for building and delivering rich HTML5 applications, based on APIs from JIL (Joint Innovation Labs) and BONDI (a platform specified by the now-defunct Open Mobile Terminal Platform, OMTP). The Enlightenment Foundation Libraries (EFL), are also set to be a key part of the platform. We can infer two things from this: Qt will be taking a back seat in Tizen, if it is part of the platform at all, and it appears that SLP [the Samsung Linux Platform] will be the basis of the Tizen platform.
Explanations:
- WAC is an organization run by telecom companies – not by handset makers. Supporting its standards smells like a marketing decision, not a technical decision. At least it makes sense in the HTML5 context. Compare: RIM supporting Android apps on the PlayBook where a completely different technology is hosted by the native QNX.
- EFL is a portable user interface library that originated with the X11 (Unix) window manager Enlightenment. It has bindings for several languages, including Python, JavaScript, Perl, C++, and Ruby.
The world could really use a truly open mobile operating system. Using HTML5 for the user interface layer also makes a lot of sense. I’ve always wondered why Intel does not go it alone. So far it has not had a lot of luck with its partners; and with Tizen, it is already doing all the talking, while Samsung is largely silent. Another paragraph from the article explains the reason:
Tizen seems set to be another victim of misaligned incentives across several industry partners. Samsung is bringing SLP to the “standards” table simply to find a new home for it, now that LiMo [the organization that previously backed SLP] is winding down. Intel is seeking another marriage of convenience, trying to tempt a major OEM to ship significant x86 chip volumes.
Related reading:
The early 2010 Windows 8 alternative: the Courier tablet
Why Microsoft killed the Courier [Nov 1, 2011]
The inside story of how Microsoft killed its Courier tablet [Nov 1, 2011]
… At one point during that meeting in early 2010 at Gates’ waterfront offices in Kirkland, Wash., Gates asked Allard how users get e-mail. Allard, Microsoft’s executive hipster charged with keeping tabs on computing trends, told Gates his team wasn’t trying to build another e-mail experience. … Courier users could get e-mail from the Web, Allard said, according to sources familiar with the meeting. … The key to Courier, Allard’s team argued, was its focus on content creation. Courier was for the creative set, a gadget on which architects might begin to sketch building plans, or writers might begin to draft documents.
“This is where Bill had an allergic reaction,” said one Courier worker … He conveyed his opinions to Ballmer, who was gathering data from others at the company as well. Within a few weeks, Courier was cancelled because the product didn’t clearly align with the company’s Windows and Office franchises, according to sources.
…
While the internal fight over Courier occurred about 18 months ago, the implications of the decision to kill the incubation project reverberate today. Rather than creating a touch computing device that might well have launched within a few months of Apple’s iPad, which debuted in April 2010, Microsoft management chose a strategy that’s forcing it to come from behind. The company cancelled Courier within a few weeks of the iPad’s launch. Now it plans to rely on Windows 8, the operating system that will likely debut at the end of next year, to run tablets.
… using Windows as the operating system for tablets also implies that Microsoft will update the devices’ operating systems on the Windows time frame, typically every three years. Compare that to Apple, which seems likely to continue to update the iPad annually, a tactic that drives a raft of new sales each time a new generation hits the market. By the time Windows 8 rolls out, Apple will likely have introduced its iPad 3. Moreover, Amazon’s much anticipated Kindle Fire tablet, which goes on sale November 15, will have nearly a year head start on the Windows-powered tablet offerings.
On the other hand, Courier, with its modified version of Windows, could have been updated more frequently than the behemoth operating system itself.
…
Early on, the group opted to use Windows for Courier’s operating system. But it wasn’t a version of Windows that any consumer would recognize. The Courier team tweaked the operating system to make sure it could perform at high levels with touch- and pen-based computing. What’s more, the graphical shell of Windows–the interface that computer users associate with the operating system–was entirely removed. So while it was Windows under the hood, the home screens bore zero resemblance to the familiar PC desktop.
…
Designers working on Courier came up with clever notions for how digital paper should work. One of the ideas was to create “smart ink,” giving text, for example, mathematical properties. So when a user wrote “5+8=” on, say, digital graph paper, the number “13” would fill in the equation automatically. Additionally, if users selected lined digital paper, words would snap to each line as they were jotted down.
The phrase at the core of the Courier mission was “Free Create.” It was meant to describe the notion of eliminating the processes and protocols that productivity software often imposes on workers.
“Free Create is a simple statement that acts as a rallying cry, uniting the consumer’s core need and Courier’s core benefit,” reads a passage in an internal Microsoft book memorializing the Courier effort, reviewed by CNET, that was given to the team after the project was shuttered. “Free Create is a natural way to digitally write, sketch and gather inspiration by blending the familiarity of the pen, the intuition of touch, the simplicity of the book and the advantages of software and services.”
…
When Courier died, there was not a single prototype that contained all of the attributes of the vision: the industrial design, the screen performance, the software experience, the correct weight, and the battery life. Those existed individually, created in parallel to keep the development process moving quickly. Those prototypes wouldn’t have come together into a single unit until very late in the development process, perhaps weeks before manufacturing, which is common for cutting-edge consumer electronics design. But on the team, there was little doubt that they were moving quickly toward that final prototype.
“We were on the cusp of something really big,” said one Courier team member.
In late 2009, before the iPad had launched, the Courier team recognized the market for tablets was ready to explode. It laid out a detailed engineering schedule and made the case to Microsoft’s top brass that Courier could be a revolutionary device that would define a new product category. The team put forward a vision that Microsoft could create a new market rather than chasing down a leader or defending an established product.
“J (was) incubating with his tribe, very much thinking consumer and very much thinking the next few years,” a former Microsoft executive said. “He was trying to disrupt Microsoft, which hasn’t been good at consumer products.”
In fact, one of the mandates of Alchemie was to look only at product ideas and business concepts that were no farther than three years into the future. The Alchemie book includes something of an innovation process road map that lays out four “gates” that ideas needed to pass through to move from incubation to product development. And a source said that Courier had made it through all four gates.
So why did Courier die? The answer lies in an understanding of Microsoft’s history and culture.
Microsoft “Courier” secret tablet [Sept 22, 2009]
Special: Interview with Microsoft NUI/UX Designer Ron George [Nov 25, 2009]
The futuristic videos you see may or may not come from MSFT. It all depends. Sometimes MSFT gives challenges to outside vendors to think up something crazy and those are usually the videos that somehow get, “leaked” online. The true MSFT videos that are created internally, at least in my experience, have never been leaked. These are where the real ‘gold’ is. I saw the ‘courier’ video that was leaked (click here to see it -MSK) and it was very basic with few truly useful interactions. If that was done in house, it would have been much grander and much more detailed. People seem to forget about how large and how the scope of MSFT is beyond what you see today by 3-10 years.
Microsoft confirms Courier tablet, quashes hopes of shipping it [AppleInsider, April 29, 2010]
Microsoft has finally confirmed that it has been working on a tablet concept known as “Courier,” but the company has also announced that it has “no plans to build such a device at this time.”
The evolution of Courier at Microsoft
In 2008, Microsoft floated a mobile collaboration app for Windows Mobile under the name Courier. Nobody seemed to notice, given the overshadowing presence of iPhone 2.0 over the mobile software market.
The following year, Courier tablet concept photos were leaked by Gizmodo. It presented rendered depictions of dual-screen notebook supporting both touch and stylus input. The leak occurred just in time to suggest that Microsoft had big plans in place to rival the iPhone in the mobile arena, much like the introduction of the quickly forgotten Surface in 2007 had served as a temporary distraction from the original iPhone launch.
Shortly after the introduction of Apple’s iPad, new pictures were leaked by Engadget depicting the dual screen Courier as a veritable competitor and near twin of the iPad, although there were no real details about availability or pricing.
Microsoft continued to officially promote the Slate PCs introduced in January by PC makers, but bloggers excitedly spoke of Courier as a real product that would ship at the end of 2010, presumably at a reasonable price and with lots of features missing from Apple’s iPad.
Courier was also expected to run the same software (and Windows CE operating system) as the company’s Zune HD music player and Windows Phone 7 smartphones, creating a counterpoint to Apple’s iPhone OS and its App Store for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad devices.
Today, Frank Shaw, Microsoft’s VP of corporate communications, dashed any hopes for Courier in telling Engadget, “At any given time, across any of our business groups, there are new ideas being investigated, tested, and incubated. It’s in Microsoft’s DNA to continually develop and incubate new technologies to foster productivity and creativity. The ‘Courier’ project is an example of this type of effort and its technologies will be evaluated for use in future Microsoft offerings, but we have no plans to build such a device at this time.”
Engadget mused that “Courier will always remain in our hearts as one of the finest unicorns that ever unicorned across our screens.”
Speculation About the “Courier” Project [April 29, 2010]
Over the past few months there has been a ton of speculation about the “Courier” project from Microsoft. We’ve not discussed or confirmed the project. There is more speculation today, and below is what we are saying publicly:
“At any given time, across any of our business groups, there are new ideas being investigated, tested, and incubated. It’s in Microsoft’s DNA to continually develop and incubate new technologies to foster productivity and creativity. The ‘Courier’ project is an example of this type of effort and its technologies will be evaluated for use in future Microsoft offerings.”
I am excited about the great set of products and services rolling out from the company in the next few months – Office 2010, Windows Phone KIN, Windows Phone 7, SQL Server 2008 R2, Project Natal from the Xbox team, Windows Live Wave 4, among others. It is going to be a fun next few months!
Posted by Frank Shaw
Corporate Vice President, Corporate Communications.
Microsoft’s New Mobile Strategy: Software for Every Platform [Sept 17].
Microsoft’s Tivanka Ellawala told the WSJ that the company’s done with smartphone hardware (beyond in-house prototypes, presumably): “We are in the software business and that is where our business will be focused,” he said. That means no follow-ups to the Kin social media smartphone, definitely; no resuscitation of the Courier e-reader/tablet project, probably; and a new focus on making apps for other platforms, quite possibly.
J Allard [June 28, 2008]
Chief Experience Officer and Chief Technology Officer, Entertainment and Devices Division
As Chief Experience Officer (CXO) and Chief Technology Officer (CTO), J Allard is responsible for the technical architecture and user experiences related to products and services of the Entertainment and Devices (E&D) division. Allard works closely with technical leaders across the company to align E&D product teams with Microsoft’s overall services strategy and product architecture, and drives the technical and design agenda to deliver Connected Entertainment experiences for consumers. With a unified approach and his personal passion for the possibilities of digital entertainment, Allard manages the E&D design group and also oversees an incubation team that scouts new opportunities for the division.
A 15-year veteran of Microsoft, Allard previously managed the technical development of the Xbox game console and Zune media player, and launched the Zune portable entertainment devices and services business. Allard helped shape the company’s Internet strategy, has shipped over 30 products at Microsoft and was a founding member of the Xbox, Windows NT and TCP/IP product families.
Allard holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Boston University and was recognized in 2003 as a Distinguished Alumnus, the highest honor the university confers on its alumni. Allard has been named to several leadership and influentials lists, including The Hollywood Reporter’s “Top 35 Entertainment Execs Under 35” and Details’ list of “Most Powerful Men Under 38,” and is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leader program.
Microsoft still dreaming of Courier, patents dual screen “digital notebook” [Oct 2, 2010]
As far as we know Microsoft’s Courier project is stone dead, but like due to its rather violent demise it spirit clearly still haunts the company, as its ghost appears to pop up every once in a while.
On this occasion we have a patent submitted very recently, on the 30th September, for a device which clearly embodies many of the concepts we first saw in the leaked Courier project.
The patent is summarized as such:
BACKGROUND
Touch sensitive displays are configured to accept inputs in the form of touches, and in some cases approaching or near touches, of objects on a surface of the display. Touch inputs may include touches from a user’s hand (e.g., thumb or fingers), a stylus or other pen-type implement, or other external object. Although touch sensitive displays are increasingly used in a variety of computing systems, the use of touch inputs often requires accepting significant tradeoffs in functionality and the ease of use of the interface.SUMMARY
Accordingly, a touch sensitive computing system is provided, including a touch sensitive display and interface software operatively coupled with the touch sensitive display. The interface software is configured to detect a touch input applied to the touch sensitive display and, in response to such detection, display touch operable user interface at a location on the touch sensitive display that is dependent upon where the touch input is applied to the touch sensitive display.In one further aspect, the touch input is a handtouch input, and the touch operable user interface that is displayed in response is a pentouch operable command or commands. In yet another aspect, the activated user interface is displayed upon elapse of an interval following receipt of the initial touch input, though the display of the activated user interface can be accelerated to occur prior to full lapse of the interval in the event that the approach of a pen-type implement is detected.
This Summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in a simplified form that are further described below in the Detailed Description. This Summary is not intended to identify key features or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used to limit the scope of the claimed subject matter. Furthermore, the claimed subject matter is not limited to implementations that solve any or all disadvantages noted in any part of this disclosure.
Nokia Lumia (Windows Phone 7) value proposition
Follow up:
– Nokia World 2011 videos on YouTube NokiaConversations channel [Oct 26 — Nov 20, 2011]
– ST-Ericsson NovaThor SoCs for future Windows Phones from Nokia [Nov 3, 2011]
– Designing smarter phones–Marko Ahtisaari (Nokia) and Albert Shum (Microsoft) [Nov 23, 2011]
Updates:
– 3 Minutes with Nokia CEO Stephen Elop [YouTube, Oct 27, 2011]
Why a sequencing of launches? US operators have nothing to do with that. N9 is for learning a lot. Not answered yet: elements of UX and Qt environment in the future. Nothing clear for “the other ecosystem” [presumably the Android] what is the standard UX. Nokia sees the Windows 8 opportunity, commonality with Windows smartphone for itself as well. Microsoft bet on HTML5 is also important for the forming of the ecosystem. One is clear it is more than just the phones … it is also search, advertising, unified communications (like Skype), business productivity, gaming, music … that’s the experience people are looking for.
[About N9 and Qt:] Elements of N9. The things that really define that product you will see continue on. The reason we continue with N9 is because we believe we could learn a lot about certain things that actually make the N9 unique in the way that it is. … What remains unanswered, and will remain unanswered for today, is when I say ‘elements of the user experience’ or ‘the Qt environment’. What does that mean? That’s still something you’ll see ahead from Nokia.
…
In terms of (Windows Phone) doesn’t allow for the Sense UI or whatever, I would suggest that one of the biggest challenges facing that particular ecosystem is the fact that there is more and more of that going on. And when I go into the store and look at what that brand was supposed to stand for, I’m not quite seeing it — it’s just unclear what the standard is for the user experience.
…
The user experience of Windows 8 is essentially a supercharged version of the Nokia Lumia experience that you saw on stage today. And you see the parallels and opportunity for commonality from a user perspective. You say wow, this is more than just smartphones, there’s a broader opportunity here. And clearly we see that broader opportunity as well, without specifically commenting on what that may mean in the future.
More hints on N9 and Qt are in the Sept-Oct “Updates” parts of Nokia N9 UX [?Swipe?] on MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan [June 24, 2011]
– Nokia’s Elop Plans U.S. Return in ’12 With Multiple Carriers [Bloomberg Business Week, Nov 2, 2011]
“There’s a new tablet opportunity coming,” he said. “We see the opportunity. Unquestionably, that will change the dynamics” of the tablet market.
– Nokia EVP Jo Harlow [Smart Devices] explains why Windows Phone is “Easier, faster, and a hell of a lot more fun” [inc. the 7 min video interview, Oct 27, 2011]
– Nokia Drive gets you where you need to go [inc. the 5 min video interview, Oct 26, 2011]
– Nokia Music makes music personal & portable [inc. the 5 min video interview, Oct 26, 2011]
– First look at Kinectimals for Windows Phone [inc. the 2 min video interview, Oct 26, 2011]
– Xbox 360 on your Nokia Lumia 710 and Nokia Lumia 800 [inc. the 2 min demo video, Oct 26, 2011]
– New music picks for Nokia Lumia 710 and Lumia 800 [Oct 27, 2011]
– Nokia Music on Nokia Lumia 800 – complete video tour [Oct 27, 2011]
– Nokia Maps on Nokia Lumia smartphones [Oct 28, 2011]
– Nokia Drive and Nokia Music, with MirrorLink [Oct 28, 2011]
– 40 hours of hard code: Nokia Hackathon winners [Oct 28, 2011]
End of Updates
Content: Nokia Lumia 800 & 710 – Three Unique Differentiators (Nokia Music and MixRadio, Navigation, ESPN Sports Hub – all free) – A Better Representation of the General WP7 Differentiators – Experience “The Amazing Everyday” Marketing Campaign – Nokia Maps Updates – Other Map-related Applications
NOKIA World 2011 Keynote Handout [Oct 26, 2011]
Nokia Lumia 800 & 710, Windows Phones Announced [Anandtech, Oct 26, 2011]
Nokia Lumia Windows Phone Lineup:
| Lumia 800 | Lumia 710 | |
| SoC | Qualcomm S2 MSM8255 1.4GHz | Qualcomm S2 MSM8255 1.4GHz |
| Display | 3.7-inch AMOLED PenTile RGBG | 3.7-inch TFT-LCD |
| Camera | 8MP LED Flash rear facing camera Carl Zeiss lens |
5MP LED Flash rear facing camera |
| Memory | 512MB, 16GB NAND | 512MB, 8GB NAND (up to 24GB via a 16GB microSD) |
| Dimensions | 116.5 x 61.2 x 12.11 mm, 142g | 119.0 x 62.4 x 12.5 mm, 126g |
| Battery | 5.365Wh | 4.81Wh |
| Network Support | WCDMA, EDGE Class B, GPRS Class B HSUPA 5.76Mbps HSDPA 14.4MbpsWCDMA 850/900/1900/2100 GSM 850/900/1800/1900 |
WCDMA, EDGE Class B, GPRS Class B HSUPA 5.76Mbps HSDPA 14.4MbpsWCDMA 900/1900/2100 GSM 850/900/1800/1900 |
| Connectivity | 802.11n b/g/n (2.4 GHz), BT 2.1+EDR, USB 2.0 | 802.11n b/g/n (2.4 GHz), BT 2.1+EDR, USB 2.0 |
Nokia Lumia 800 Presentation and Hands On [26 minutes long, Oct 26, 2011]
Nokia relying on Mango smartphones to maintain global market share [Oct 26, 2011]
…
Nokia will release new Mango models powered by dual-core CPUs with additional functionalities, including the support of NFC technology, in 2012, the sources added.
Nokia should rely on handset ODMs in Taiwan such as Compal Communications and Foxconn International Holdings (FIH) as back-up units, said the sources, noting that Taiwan-based ODMs have enough expertise in the development of Windows Mobile phones and have long been in cooperation with Nokia.
The launch of Mango phones offer a chance for Nokia to build up a complete supply chain that will also include Taiwan makers of optical lenses, modules, flat panels, chassis and cases so as to compete effectively with other handset vendors using supply chains in China or Korea, the sources commented.
Nokia unveils Mango phones, optimizing Taiwan supply capacity [Oct 27, 2011]
Nokia, with strong support from Taiwan-based handset ODMs and component suppliers, has unveiled two a series of its Windows Phone 7.5-based Mango phones, the Lumia and Asha lineups.
While Qualcomm is supplying the chipset solutions for Nokia’s Mango phones, the majority of other parts and components are coming from partners in Taiwan, according to industry sources.
Nokia Mango phones: List of parts and components suppliers from Taiwan
Item Company
ODM/Assembly Compal Communications, Foxconn International Holdings (FIH)
LCD panel Chimei Innolux (CMI), AU Optronics (AUO)
Touch panel Wintek, Young Fast Optoelectronics, JTouch
Keypad Silitech Technology, Ichia Technologies
Metal chassis Silitech, Chi Cheng Enterprise
Case Catcher Technology, Foxconn Technology, Lite-On Technology, Chi Cheng
PCB Compeq, Unimicron Technology, Ichia
Connector Foxlink
Lens Largan Precision
Headset Merry Electronics
Quartz component TXC
Source: Industry sources, compiled by Digitimes, October 2011
Nokia showcases bold portfolio of new phones, services and accessories at Nokia World [Oct 26, 2011]
…
The first Nokia Lumia [the word ‘Lumia’ is the term coined by 20th Century Artist Thomas Wilfred to refer to art created from light] smartphones
First two smartphones based on Windows Phone introduce a range of new experiences designed to make everyday moments more amazing.
Nokia Lumia 800
The stunningly social Nokia Lumia 800 features head-turning design, vivid colors (cyan, magenta and black) and the best social and Internet performance, with one-touch social network access, easy grouping of contacts, integrated communication threads and Internet Explorer 9. It features a 3.7 inch AMOLED [PenTile RGBG from Samsung] ClearBlack curved display blending seamlessly into the reduced body design, and a 1.4 GHz processor with hardware acceleration and a graphics processor. The Nokia Lumia 800 contains an instant-share camera experience based on leading Carl Zeiss optics, HD video playback, 16GB of internal user memory and 25GB of free SkyDrive storage for storing images and music. The estimated retail price for the Nokia Lumia 800 will be approximately 420 EUR [US$ 585], excluding taxes and subsidies.[Nokia Lumia 800 Data Sheet PDF (351.27 KB) and Detailed specifications]
Nokia Lumia 710
The purposely built, no-nonsense Nokia Lumia 710 can be personalized with exchangeable back covers and thousands of apps to bring the Lumia experience to more people around the world. The Nokia Lumia 710 is designed for instant social & image sharing, and the best browsing experience with IE9. It is available in black and white with black, white, cyan, fuchsia and yellow back covers. With the same 1.4 GHz processor, hardware acceleration and graphics processor as the Nokia Lumia 800, the Nokia Lumia 710 delivers high performance at an affordable price. The estimated retail price for the Nokia Lumia 710 will be approximately 270 EUR [US$ 376], excluding taxes and subsidies.[Nokia Lumia 710 Data Sheet PDF (181.31 KB) and Detailed specifications]
Both smartphones include signature Nokia experiences optimized for Windows Phone, including Nokia Drive, which delivers a full-fledged personal navigation device (PND) with free, turn-by-turn navigation and dedicated in-car-user-interface; and Nokia Music introducing MixRadio, a free, global, mobile music-streaming application that delivers hundreds of channels of locally-relevant music. In an update delivered later this year, Nokia Lumia users will also gain the ability to create personalized channels from a global catalogue of millions of tracks. Also integrated in Nokia Music is Gigfinder, providing the ability to search for live local music for a complete end-to-end music experience, as well as the ability to share discoveries on social networks and buy concert tickets also coming in the Nokia Music software update delivered later this year.
Completing the ultimate mobile audio offering, Nokia also introduced the on-ear Nokia Purity HD Stereo Headset by Monster and the in-ear Nokia Purity Stereo Headset by Monster, co-designed and co-developed by Monster, a recognized leader in high performance audio. Both products provide a fresh listening experience and are the first output of the exclusive long-term partnership between Nokia and Monster, intended to introduce a range of premium audio accessories to reflect the outstanding quality and bold style of the Lumia range.
The new Nokia Lumia 800 is now available in select countries for pre-order on www.nokia.com and is scheduled to roll-out across France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK in November, with 31 leading operators and retailers providing unprecedented marketing support in those first six countries. It is scheduled to be available in Hong Kong, India, Russia, Singapore and Taiwan before the end of the year, and in further markets in early 2012.
The Nokia Lumia 710 is scheduled to be available first in Hong Kong, India, Russia, Singapore and Taiwan toward the end of the year alongside the Nokia Lumia 800, before becoming available in further markets in early 2012.
Nokia also announced its plans to introduce a portfolio of products into the US in early 2012 and into mainland China in the first half of 2012. In addition to the existing products, which include coverage for WCDMA and HSPA, Nokia also plans LTE and CDMA products to address specific local market requirements.
Three Unique Differentiators
Free Nokia Music and MixRadio:
Music and Entertainment – Nokia Lumia 800 [Oct 26, 2011]
Music and Entertainment – Nokia Lumia 710
Nokia’s new Windows Phone include MixRadio streaming music [Oct 26, 2011]
Nokia unveiled its first two Windows Phone smartphones this morning at its Nokia World conference in London: the Lumia 800 and Lumia 710.
Both will include an app called Nokia Music which represents the company’s latest digital music initiative.
During the keynote presentation at the event, Nokia SVP Kevin Shields borrowed one of Apple’s famous phrases to trumpet the simplicity of Nokia Music: “No signup. No subscription. No login. No password. No nothing. It just works!”
What is ‘it’ though? Well, the key feature of the Nokia Music app is called MixRadio. It provides a host of streaming music mixes – playlists of tracks – which can also be cached locally on the device. Sorted by genre, the playlists will be updated every week or so by Nokia’s music team with new tracks.
Music Ally got hands on with the app directly after the keynote, and was shown another feature of MixRadio: its Pandora-style ability to create personal mixes for people when they search for a specific artist. These too can be downloaded to the Lumia phones for offline play.
“I think we have finally solved the mobile music problem. I don’t know how to make it any easier,” said Shields during the keynote. But what about licensing? Afterwards, we asked the Nokia staffer who was demonstrating the app where it stands regarding licences.
He said that Nokia will be building on its existing relationships with rightsholders for its a la carte store and other music services, but said the specific deals for MixRadio are still being negotiated and will hopefully be in place for the launch of the new phones in November.
As with Pure Digital’s announcement of its Pure Music service earlier this week, it could be seen as risky to unveil a new app before the licensing deals are sealed.
There is a music panel session later today at Nokia World with representatives from PIAS and Warner Music International, so we’ll aim to sneak in a question about it.
Free Navigation:
Nokia Drive for Lumia [Nokia Conversations, Oct 26, 2011]
Nokia Drive on WP7 demo by Andre Kuhn [Oct 26, 2011]
Nokia Drive has been crafted for the new Nokia Lumia phones using the years of expertise we have accumulated in location-based services. This resulting translation for Windows Phone is an application specifically designed to make navigation effortless.
Driving while referring to your smartphone’s sat-nav is not always easy, especially in busy traffic, when you need it most. That’s why we simplified the user interface of Nokia Drive, so that you can focus on features and information you need most.
A map of your position, the direction to take, your speed and the distance to your destination are essential elements of Nokia Drive. So we’ve made them easy to read from the screen of your Nokia Lumia.
Nokia Drive also has neat features like support for 2D and 3D maps, a night mode and satellite view. And, to make it easier for you to find your next destination, Nokia Drive supports type-ahead suggestions and search history. You can also swipe between search results.
Most importantly, you can save on data costs with Nokia Drive because you can preload country maps. Fast, reliable, nice to look at and available in more than 100 countries, you are going to love our vector maps.
Nokia Drive comes preinstalled on Nokia Lumia 800 and Nokia Lumia 710 and is available in almost 50 languages.
Of course, Nokia Drive is also available for smartphones with Symbian Anna and Symbian Belle, and for Nokia N9 which also support Nokia Car Mode and MirrorLink. Read more about our location-based apps on the Nokia Maps Blog.
Drive and Maps – Nokia Lumia 800 [Oct 26, 2011]
Drive and Maps — Nokia Lumia 710
Nokia Maps for Lumia [Nokia Conversations, Oct 26, 2011]
You might already be familiar with Nokia Maps on other platforms: it’s currently available for Symbian, MeeGo but also on the web and on your iOS or Android mobile browser.
Whilst Nokia Drive has been specifically designed for your effortless driving experience, Nokia Maps lets you see where you are and discover places nearby in an instant. In other words Nokia Maps is your perfect companion if you want to explore the world around you, no matter whether you are a local or not.
With Nokia Maps you can easily find a place because it supports intuitive auto-complete suggestions and search history.
However, if you are unsure of where to go next, Nokia Maps helps you decide which place to pick by including reviews and photos from over 50 guides & local content providers.
And that’s not all. With just a tap you can now see which other places are close to the one you’ve just selected. So, after a good meal at a restaurant you know where to go for a drink without going to the other side of town.
Getting to the place you have selected is very easy with Nokia Maps because you get smart directions for drive, walk and public transport. It puts you in charge of navigation. You decide where to go and how to get there.
These are only a few of the things that are keeping us busy bringing you the best location-based experience.
Nokia Live View, for instance, which is currently in beta for Nokia Symbian smartphones, is our augmented reality application. Wherever you are, just open the camera of your smartphone to discover more of what’s around you. And if you are into outdoor activities, you will be thrilled to know that we are working on a specific application for you, called Nokia Tracks. With more than 80% of the planet covered by non-urban areas, we know that you have a lot to explore. This is why we want to give you the ability to record where your route has taken you so far, your current direction, your altitude, and how fast you are going. Stay tuned to know more about the development of Nokia Tracks!
The most advanced features of Nokia Maps are also available on Nokia smartphones with Symbian Anna, Symbian Belle, and MeeGo. You can read more on the Nokia Maps Blog. Nokia Maps is going to be available soon in the Marketplace for your Windows Phone. We can’t wait for you to let us know what you think about it.
Free ESPN Sports Hub: shown only as a “sneak peak” of the future service which will come exclusive to Nokia
Nokia showcases bold portfolio of new phones, services and accessories at Nokia World [Oct 26, 2011]:
This unique collaboration between our two companies on the ESPN Hub has been a truly global effort that will see us continue to work closely together in the months ahead. Nokia not only provides a great distribution platform, but they’re also a driver of innovation, which allows us to create an experience that enables ESPN to better serve sports fans around the world.
Russell Wolff, Executive Vice President and Managing Director, ESPN International
Nokia Sports App for Windows Phone 7
Nokia’s third and final innovation for its own branded Windows Phone devices will be in the sports field. Nokia Sports will be integrated with ESPN Sports Huband will highlight Windows Phone 7′s panoramic screens to provide highlights, news, scores, and team information.
Users can pin a league or a team back to the start page on the Metro UI as a live tile. This way, users can have quick access to their sports teams.
A Better Representation of the General WP7 Differentiators
[Social] People and Messaging – Nokia Lumia 800 [Oct 25, 2011]
People and Messaging – Nokia Lumia 710
Office and Mail – Nokia Lumia 800 Smartphone [Oct 26, 2011]
Office and Mail – Nokia Lumia 710
Marketplace and Games – Nokia Lumia 800 [Oct 26, 2011]
Marketplace and Games — Nokia Lumia 710
Browsing and Search – Nokia Lumia 800 [Oct 26, 2011]
Browsing and Search — Nokia Lumia 710
Experience “The Amazing Everyday” Marketing Campaign
An excellent summary of the marketing campaign and sales approach:
– More than just sexy phones: how Nokia will help sell Windows Phone 7 [Oct 29, 2011]
Introducing Nokia Lumia – The Amazing Everyday [Oct 26, 2011]
10:18 JJ: Steven Overman – marketing – wants to drive lust for Lumia. Marketing communication target age is 25 years old.
10:20 JJ: The Amazing Everyday campaign. “Everyday can be amazing. You can do everyday things in amazing ways. We are going to fill the world with tiles. It’s about time someone offers an alternative smartphone UI.”
The tagline is meant to emphasize optimism and new experiences. Overman said in every channel where Nokia is selling its Windows Phone devices, Nokia will launch a kind of viral marketing campaign – think people dressed as Windows Phone tiles, DJ booths at bus stations – to drive interest in Windows Phone. The design of stores where the devices will be sold will reflect the mutli-colored tiles that mark Windows Phone’s user interface.
10:23 JJ: “We’re going to invade cities. A journey which is leading people to a store. We’re making marketing that is contagious. That people will take photos of.”
The Amazing Everyday TVC – Nokia Lumia 800 Smartphone [Oct 26, 2011]
Nokia Lumia 800 – Eggs and Bacon Guy [Oct 26, 2011]
Nokia Lumia 800 – Wind Skating [Oct 25, 2011]
Nokia Lumia 800 Smartphone – Gangster Ironing [Oct 26, 2011]
Nokia Lumia 800. The designer’s story. [Oct 26, 2011]
Nokia Maps Updates
Nokia Maps for Web update [Oct 25, 2011]
Our maps.nokia.com has been recently updated with yet more features that we are sure you are going to love.
Nokia Maps 3D: Making Of [Oct 24, 2011]
With Nokia Maps 3D (http://nokia.ly/snhwAs) it’s almost like being there. You might be wondering how we manged to get such a high level of detail. It certainly isn’t easy, but it’s easy to explain.First of all, a nice surprise for the location fans among you: the wonderful Nokia Maps 3D is going to be 100% 3D and 0% plugin. If you want to give it a try, it’s been available for a while. All you need to do is point your browser (only Chrome at the moment, other browsers are being tested) to http://maps.nokia.com/webgl
New additions to Nokia Maps – Plugin-free 3D maps- Heat maps in 56 countries – Public Transport guides- Explore Places Since we first launched Nokia Maps 3D, many of you were eager to know exactly how we are able to provide such a photorealistic experience. With you in mind, we prepared the video at the top of the page that helps to explain all.
But of course maps.nokia.com is not only about 3D where you can feel like you were at any part of the world. Which is why we are introducing editorial pages for more than 50 cities around the world. Now you can discover all the cool places in, for instance, London, New York City, Buenos Aires, Melbourne, get the latest weather forecasts and Lonely Planet suggestions in one place.
And to make you feel more like a local anywhere, we increased the coverage of heat mapsto 56 cities. However, that’s not all. We have one more feature we would like to highlight: public transport.
Now, in more than 420 cities you can plan your journey from A to B also with underground, light rail and similar options. In more than 30 of those cities you also get timetable information to know exactly when you have to leave home.
Give maps.nokia.com a try today to find your perfect destination and have Nokia Maps guide you there, effortlessly.
Nokia Maps set the 3D world on fire, with heat maps [Oct 25, 2011]
GLOBAL – Ever since the new-look Nokia Maps was unveiled last Tuesday, we’ve been playing around with the new features. If we’re not taking a 3D look at the new cities, we’re zooming into different places to see where the local hotspots are by using the heat maps. Want to know more about how these features work? Then read on.
Nokia Maps 3D
Nokia Maps has been a great service offered by Nokia for a couple of years now. We’ve seen it grow from an on-device service to one that now works on the Web. As good as Nokia Maps is, it’s the new feature that’s blowing people’s minds. Nokia Maps 3Dshows you the world in a full 360º perspective – or at least certain cities of the world, for now.
In order to capture the images of a city, specialised camera equipment takes an image a second of the same object, up to 100 times, each at a different angle. It’s at this point the images are automatically joined together to form the 3D object by clever image processing software and those images in turn are joined to the previous image resulting in a seamless tapestry of 3D mapping-goodness.
There are currently 23 cities that have been turned into 3D models with a plan to create 3D representations of everywhere in the world. The practicalities of this can prove difficult, though, particularly with local laws which might prevent our cameras from flying overhead.
Here’s two images of a 3D Buckingham Palace in London with a north view and a south view – Select the images for a close-up.
Heat Maps
Heat maps on Nokia Maps works for one reason, and that’s down to the Points of Interest (POI) that are stored on the Ovi Places directory. Let’s say you want to go out in London for the night, but you’re not sure where the buzzis, or where’s popular. The heat map is an overlay that shows you a darker red colour for more popular – or POI dense – places, with the orange and yellow colours representing the less dense places. Somewhere still exciting, but maybe more intimate and secluded.
In order to achieve this visualisation and not have every single POI on the map, Nokia selected some of the premium POIs. This is due to the fact that people can add their own public place to the map which saves to the directory, and we wouldn’t want to spend the day visiting other people’s houses or offices, would we? The premium POIs are provided from services, such as Lonely Planet, WCities and Michelin to name a few, and these bring reviews and some great photos, too. So you know what to expect before you set off out on your travel to the hotspot.
As the POIs are constantly being updated to add more great restaurants, bars, sight-seeing spots or shopping outlets, this heat map will evolve over time, too. So we’ll expect to see this feature to continually grow and evolve and maybe even see the hotspots shift, slightly.
Here’s what the London Explore local sights heat map looks like with one of the photos selected – Click the image to zoom in and for more details.
You can see there’s the option to expand the window so you can see more details of that place, along with the address and some other options, too, such as share, directions and even a star rating.
What’s your favourite feature of the new and improved Nokia Maps? Have you used the heat maps yet for ideas of where to go? Let us know, below.
Yahoo! Maps: Now powered by Nokia [Oct 25, 2011]
Last year Nokia and Yahoo! joined forcesto create an alliance that leverages each others’ strengths in email, instant messaging, maps and navigation services. The purpose of the alliance is to provide consumers with access to world-class experiences on both PC and mobile devices.
Following on the successful transition of Yahoo! powering Nokia’s email service, Yahoo! is now making the switch to using the Nokia Maps platform. With a gradual rollout which is starting today in the United States and Canada, Yahoo! Maps is now amongst others benefitting from new features provided by Nokia Maps: latest maps with up-to-date location data/addresses, new routing options allowing users to avoid tolls and freeway, updated road networks and points of interest.
The Nokia Maps engine has been then customized by Yahoo! to offer a new, simplified layout and visual design with a maximized viewable area, enhanced business listings support, leveraging the improvements made to the Yahoo! local listings database, and a consistent interface across the Yahoo! network with the universal location widget, allowing users to search and select locations.
This platform switch is further proof of the world class platform expertise and scalable global infrastructure that Nokia has been building over the last couple of years in the location platform space. Other companies have also recognized Nokia’s leadership in that area. All over the world we are supporting partners like Foursquare, Yelp, VKontakte and Sina, to mention a few, in the development of innovative location services – for web as well as for native mobile apps.
In doing so, our partners benefit from our modularly usable platform. What does that mean? It’s quite simple: Every partner can use exactly those pieces of the platform that he needs. At the same time our global platform infrastructure is designed to scale – allowing us to partner with some of the largest companies in the world. You want a proof for that? Just check out Yahoo! Maps – now powered by Nokia.
You can give it a spin now at maps.yahoo.com (US, English); espanol.maps.yahoo.com (US, Spanish); ca.maps.yahoo.com (Canada, English); and qc.maps.yahoo.com (Canada, French).
Other Map-related Applications
Nokia showcases bold portfolio of new phones, services and accessories at Nokia World [Oct 26, 2011]
In addition to its world-class, free walk-and-drive navigation for more than 100 countries worldwide, the Nokia Public Transport application tracks public transportation directly on a mobile device in more than 430 cities worldwide, including up-to-the-minute updates on bus and train routes for 45 cities. Nokia also introduced Nokia Pulse, which allows location-tagged updates and photos to be sent privately, adding location to conversations with the people that matter most. Nokia also showcased Nokia Live View, which turns the phone’s camera view finder into a reality augmenting tool. With Nokia Live View, a phone can be pointed to a building or street and the names of the places become superimposed over them, offering one click access to detailed information about businesses, restaurant or attractions. All the applications announced today are available at Nokia’s Beta Labs (betalabs.nokia.com).
Nokia also announced:
…
An agreement with the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority to develop a NFC-based smartphone ticketing solution to pilot on New York regional commuter trains starting before the end of 2011
Nokia Pulse Beta (likely to graduate to a commercial product) [Oct 26, 2011]
Nokia Pulse. The New Way to Check in [Oct 25, 2011]
Adding an inspired twist on social location, Nokia Pulse lets you instantly send location-tagged updates and photos to private groups of family and close friends. So syncing up in town and staying up to date is even simpler than sending a text message, but still just as private.Nokia Pulsebrings your everyday conversations to life by automatically tagging photos and updates with your location.
Every conversation, from pickups and drop-offs to meet-ups, is as instant, private, and simple as sending a text, but far more useful and engaging. Nokia Pulse is integrated with Maps, so finding people nearby, discovering new places, and getting directions is a snap.
Group Conversations:
Keep it Private. Keep it Personal. Keep it Real.
- Private check in – All your conversations stay private and safe
- Photo check in – Automatically tag your location to all your photo updates
- Private by Default – No complicated privacy settings needed
Live Places:
One tap and they know where you are. Two taps to get you there.
- Bring your favorite places to life – Post a favorite place to a conversation
- Discover what.s nearby – Make and view recommendations of nearby places of interest
- Getting there is a snap – Get directions directly from the recommended place
Your People:
Your Family. Your People. You Decide.
- Instant: Receive instant on-device notifications of all new updates
- Open: Everyone with an email address can participate
- Easy: Sending and receiving messages with Nokia Pulse is as easy as SMS
- Powered by the cloud: Your conversations are saved in the cloud for as long as you need them
- Accessible from anywhere: Nokia Pulse is available on multiple touch-points – desktop web, mobile web, Windows Phone and Symbian devices
Nokia Maps Suite Beta (likely to graduate to a commercial product) [Oct 26, 2011]
Nokia Maps Suite brings you the future of location-based services. Places helps you discover where to go and Public Transport shows the best way to get there with buses, trams and trains with worldwide coverage. Nokia Live View, the augmented-reality browser, turns your phone.s camera viewfinder into a new way to spot nearby attractions, shops, restaurants and places of interest. With Pulse, you can check in with the people you care about most—your family and close friends.
Wherever you are, you have access to everything you need to explore your surroundings, share special moments, and plan your next adventure.
Nokia Maps Suite includes:
Live View
A new way to easily find information and services on the go.
Learn more | Discussion | Suggestions | Bug reportsPlaces
Discover places around you.
Learn more | Discussion | Suggestions | Bug reportsPublic Transport
Plan your journey from here to there easily.
Learn more | Discussion | Suggestions | Bug reportsPulse
Privately share and discuss your location, photos, and more.
Learn more | Discussion | Suggestions | Bug reportsTry one, get four.
Even if you only use one of these stand-alone apps, we’d like you to install the Nokia Maps Suite and see how things work. Please read the installation and set up instructions on the Try It page. And note that there are some Known issues.
Make a difference. Give feedback!
Please share your thoughts, questions, bugs, and suggestions in the feedback forum (after checking the Known issues). When submitting feedback, select the most appropriate sub-category to make sure the right developers see it.
Discover your world and share it with people who matter the most [Oct 26, 2011]
It’s nice to feel like a local no matter where you are. Maybe you’re in London for Nokia World and have taken some time to see the sites, Places helps you find out where you are. Then you feel like having a coffee and use Live View to get information and reviews about the cafes closest to you. Enjoying your double cappuccino, you check in with Pulse and see that friends are in London for Nokia World too. Finally, you use Public Transport to find the quickest way to meet up with them. But how do you know all of the apps are up-to-date and that you have the latest and greatest from Nokia’s Location team?
We present to you the new Nokia Maps Suite for Symbian. It brings you all of the latest location applications in one easily downloadable package. The Nokia Maps Suite installer checks for the latest each app has to offer and automatically updates, optimizing performance. Today, Nokia Maps Suite is introducing a whole new range of apps: Places, Live view, Pulse and Public Transport, all of which can be installed together on your phone’s home screen. Be one of the first to try it!
Places
With one tap from your home screen, see where you are and instantly discover places around you listed in handy categories.
Live view
Explore your surroundings in a new way. The Live View augmented-reality browser uses your phone’s camera viewfinder to spot nearby places and instantly shows what’s around you: landmarks, restaurants, bars, shops, public transport stations and more.
Pulse
An exciting new way to check in with the people you care about the most—your family and close friends. By default, it’s private and you don’t need to be part of a social network, simply add your email address and post. You can automatically add location to every update and receive instant notifications for new updates. Pulse is integrated with maps so you can easily discover nearby places, get directions and recommendations from trusted family and friends.
Public Transport
All of your commuter information and trip planning at your fingertips! You can choose from multiple route suggestions and follow the slick list of directions for buses, trams, underground or trains. Check the next departure times for the nearest station and any one you have in mind, and easily save your regular commutes to favourites.
This first release of Nokia Maps Suite for Symbian lays the groundwork of things to come. We’d love for you to try it out and let us know which apps you like to use and when. Give it a try and tell us what you think in Nokia Beta Labs!
Best,
Rebekah, Community Feedback Manager
More Information on Nokia Maps Suite: Places [Oct 26, 2011]
Nokia Places helps you discover where to go faster. Simply open the app and instantly see what’s around. With just a tap or two you can turn places on the map on or off. Tap on the markers to see what the places are and how they are rated. Go to the details to read reviews, make reservations, and find your way there.
Live View: Augmenting Reality Everywhere Experimental Beta (prototype that may change or disappear after the trial period) [updated: Oct 26, 2011, released: July 12, 2011]
A new way to easily find information and services on the go
Have you ever wished you could spot the closest restaurant or ATM? Nokia Live View is a fun and easy way to discover what is around you. Simply launch the app on your phone and Live View will display the points of interests in the camera viewfinder view/ List view / Maps view.Nokia Live View connects you to what you.re looking for . and more . exactly when and where you want it. With Live View you can:
- Select your interests in many different categories . Live View will filter the points of interests and present your choices
- Know your options . get details, read reviews of restaurants and hotels
- Enjoy the place . with one tap you can make a reservation, or navigate to the location via turn by turn walking map
What is different in this version?
Based on your feedback the product has been refined and has the following new features:
- Live View is now available in several views – Camera viewfinder view, List view, Maps view. Accessible via screen navigation circles on the menu bar
- Settings to configure the distance in Miles vs. Kilometers
- Search and My Stuff . Search for a place and access previously searched items from My Stuff
- Places grouping . when many places are located at the same location they are grouped and can be accessed by expanding the group
- Browse through the Famous Places around the world
- Scrollable List view sorted by distance with places details and orientation
- A single click access to Call, View Ratings, Walk, Drive or Share the place
- Layout, UI and performance improvements
Nokia Live View augmented reality browser (experimental beta at Nokia Beta Labs) [July 11, 2011]
http://betalabs.nokia.com/apps/nokia-live-view Nokia LiveView is a fun and easy way to discover what is around you. Simply launch the app on your phone and LiveView will display the points of interests in the camera viewfinder.We are looking forward to your feedback!
We would love to hear from you with feedback on the productand any enhancements that you could think of to make this a better product.
Please make sure to rate our service by answering the NPS question in the client. If you want to leave more detailed feedback you can use the forum here on Beta Labs. Our team will be monitoring the feedback and we respond to you in the forum.
Nokia Live View updated. Augmenting reality everywhere. [Oct 26, 2011]
Are you hooked on Nokia Live Viewyet? If not, we’re pretty sure you will be—because Live View changes the way you see the world around you. It doesn’t matter what you’re looking for, like a café, ATM, or train station. Just look through your phone’s camera viewfinder, and the Live View augmented reality browser actually shows you whatever you’re looking for.
Say you’re taking a taxi to meet friends at that new hot spot downtown. But when the driver drops you at the curb, you don’t recognize a thing. You know it must be close by, but where exactly? No worries. Just pull out your Nokia N8, launch Live View, and see exactly where the place is. It sounds like a gadget 007 might carry. But it’s already in your pocket. Just tap to call or navigate with turn-by-turn instructions. With Live View, you’ll probably beat your friends there. So share your location with them via email or SMS.
Live View can even help you spot new places of interest. Always looking for the best Korean BBQ on the block? Save your customized searches so you can explore even easier next time. And once you discover someplace new, you can read reviews, descriptions and destination information.
So what do you think? Has Live View saved you from wandering aimlessly? Helped you find something new and different? Share your stories!
Try Nokia Live View for yourself. This new beta releasehas the following new features:
- Live View is now available in several views – Camera viewfinder view, List view, Maps view. Accessible via screen navigation circles on the menu bar
- Settings to configure the distance in Miles vs. Kilometers
- Search and My Stuff – Search for a place and access previously searched items from My Stuff
- Places grouping – when many places are located at the same location they are grouped and can be accessed by expanding the group
- Browse through the Famous Places around the world
- Scrollable List view sorted by distance with places details and orientation
- A single click access to Call, View Ratings, Walk, Drive or Share the place
- Layout, UI and performance improvements
– Ashok, Nokia Live View team
More Information on Nokia Maps Suite: Public Transport [Oct 26, 2011]
Nokia Public Transport helps you navigate cities by public transportation. You can:
- Choose from multiple routes and follow the list of directions for buses, trams, underground or trains.
- Smart navigation for walking helps you reach your destination door-to-door.
- Check the next departure times for any stop in your city and easily save your regular commutes to favourites.
You can enjoy of all these features with time-based information in these areas:
Berlin & Brandenburg, London, New York City, Toronto, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Diego, Denver, Bay Area, Las Vegas, Honolulu, Chicago, Miami, Atlanta, Boston, Turin, Flanders, Denmark, Auckland
We also offer worldwide Simple routing information. Simple routing uses the map data to calculate a heuristic route, based on the likely frequency of lines.
Check out the list of citieswhere coverage is available.What’s different from the last version?
We have increased our time-based coverage (before we only supported Berlin & Brandenburg) and added Simple routing for many cities all over the world. There’s also a new Stations nearby page (formally known as Departures) with all the stations and departure times around a selected spot. And the Journey details page visuals has been improved.
Nokia City Scene Experimental Beta (prototype that may change or disappear after the trial period) [Oct 25, 2011]
Nokia City Scene (Nokia Beta Labs) [Oct 21, 2011]
Explore cities in 3D with Nokia City Scene from Nokia Research Center. http://nokia.ly/q78Qhw Click on buildings to browse their stores and services, or use search to jump to what you are looking for. Connect to your social networks to find friends’ check-ins or share locations. Now featuring about a dozen US cities with coverage expanding both in the US and to Europe.
Explore cities in 3D with Nokia City Scene from Nokia Research Center. Click on buildings to browse their stores and services, or use search to jump to what you are looking for. Connect to your social networks to find friends’ check-ins or share locations. Now featuring about a dozen US cities with coverage expanding both in the US and to Europe.
The application combines NAVTEQ street imagery, building models and terrain data to create interactive panoramic street scenes. It uses building models to make buildings clickable, and to present information right on the building facade, so you can discover information just by browsing along a street.
You can use City Scene’s location aware search to jump directly to a panoramic view of the place you’re looking for, so you’ll recognize it when you go there. The application lists your friends’ Foursquare and Facebook check-ins so you can jump to where they’ve been. You can also share “postcards” of locations complete with street address (maybe suggesting a place to meet for coffee later). The Featured Cities list will grow automatically as NAVTEQ completes more drives.
We’d be really happy to hear your feedback about Nokia City Scene. If you’ve any comments or suggestions please visit our forum. Please check also the Frequently Asked Questions.
TI’s OMAP4460 in Samsung GALAXY Nexus with Android 4.0
Updates: Samsung cuts LTE chip cost by half, ABI Research teardown reveals [Feb 7, 2012]
The Samsung Galaxy Nexus made a big impact on the market in December 2011, thanks to its sleek design, new Android OS (Ice Cream Sandwich) and NFC capability. The smartphone has another notable hidden feature that makes it more cost-competitive.
The Samsung Galaxy Nexus modem is constructed with the combination of a VIA Telecom CDMA/EVDO Rev.A integrated circuit and a Samsung LTE baseband integrated circuit, ABI Research said in its teardown note. This combination is now common for Samsung’s Verizon phones, but the Galaxy Nexus sports a new version of the LTE baseband chip. The new chip is estimated at nearly half the cost of the prior chip’s US$23 price tag.
This cost reduction is an important milestone in securing the rapid migration to LTE throughout the world, ABI Research indicated.
The application processor found inside the Galaxy Nexus is a TI OMAP4460, which runs at 1.2GHz, according to ABI Research. Other notables include an NFC antenna embedded in the device battery, and a CSR GPS single chip, a Broadcom Wi-Fi/BT/FM single chip and an Avago LTE PA and GPS frontend.
– Samsung Electronics Announces Fourth Quarter & FY 2011 Results [Samsung press release, Jan 27, 2012]
…
“Despite intensified competition amid the global economic slowdown, our Telecommunications businesses continued to post solid earnings with an enhanced line-up of high-end smartphones, resulting in higher average selling price (ASP). Moreover, improved profitability and earnings growth of our Set businesses, including smartphones and flat panel TVs led to our company’s strong earnings,” said Robert Yi, Senior Vice President and Head of Investor Relations.…
Smartphone Sales Remain Main Driver
The Telecommunications businesses – including mobile communications and telecommunication systems – posted a record quarterly operating profit of 2.64 trillion won for the period. Fourth quarter revenue reached a record 17.82 trillion won compared with 11.75 trillion won for the same period of 2010.The stellar performance has allowed Samsung to register full year 2011 operating profit of 8.27 trillion won, up 90 percent on-year. Total sales for fiscal year 2011 also hit an all-time yearly high of 55.53 trillion won, accounting for almost one-third of Samsung Electronics’ total revenue for the year.
Samsung’s flagship GALAXY S II smartphone and its full lineup of high-end mobile devices, such as the GALAXY Note and the GALAXY Nexus, and entry-level models drove up revenue for the year by almost 40 percent compared with the previous year.
All told, shipments of Samsung smartphones rose by approximately 30 percent in the fourth quarter, compared with the previous quarter.
For the global market outlook for this year, demand for entry-level smartphones and tablet PCs will increase significantly, while the growth momentum for feature phones is expected to stay static. Emerging markets and the spread of LTE (Long-Term Evolution) wireless telecommunications technology have also contributed to the growth of the smartphone market, which is expected to grow by more than 30 percent.
The Telecommunication System Business will further solidify its leadership in the wireless network market with the expansion of the LTE service in Korea and North America.
…
4Q FY2011 Earnings Conference Call [Samsung presentation, Jan 27, 2012]
…
…
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End of updates
Samsung and Google introduce GALAXY Nexus [Samsung Mobile press release, Oct 19, 2011]
World’s First Smartphone to feature Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and a HD Super AMOLED display
…
Best-in-class hardware meets the most advanced software
GALAXY Nexus is the first smartphone to feature a 4.65’’ display with a market-leading resolution of 720p (1280×720), ensuring you can enjoy GALAXY Nexus’ immersive entertainment capabilities and fast web browsing in superior clarity.
Succeeding the original Contour Display of Nexus S, GALAXY Nexus comes with a rounded shape that fits perfectly within your palm or to your face for phone calling. Hyper-skin backing on the battery cover improves the ergonomic feel of the device and makes the phone slip-resistant. At just 8.94mm thick, with a minimal 4.29mm bezel, GALAXY Nexus provides superb portability alongside an expansive screen.
GALAXY Nexus also features an ultra-fast 1.2GHz dual core processor, providing superior power and speed, ensuring you can take full advantage of GALAXY Nexus’ enhanced multitasking capabilities with ease, or enjoy the large, vivid display to its full capacity with high-definition gaming or video streaming. LTE or HSPA＋ connectivity combined with a dual core processor delivers high-speed web browsing which ensures you always have the web at your fingertips, wherever you are.
GALAXY Nexus will be available in the U.S., Europe, and Asia beginning in Novemberand gradually rolled out to other global markets.
GALAXY Nexus Product Specifications
Network HSPA＋ 21Mbps/HSUPA 5.76Mbps 850/900/1900/1700/2100
EDGE/GPRS 850/900/1800/1900
＊LTE version will be available depending on the region.Processor 1.2 GHz Dual Core Processor Display 4.65” 1280X720 HD Super AMOLED OS Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich Camera Main(Rear) : 5 MP AF with LED Flash with zero shutter lag and fast shot2shot
Sub (Front) : 1.3MP for Video CallVideo Codec : MPEG4/H.263/H.264
Playback : 1080p@ 30fps
Recording : 1080p Full HD Video@ 30fpsAudio Codec : MP3/AAC/AAC＋/eAAC＋3.5mm Ear Jack Google™Mobile Services Android Market™, Gmail™, Google Earth™, YouTube™, Movie Studio
Google Maps™ 5.0 with 3D maps and turn-by-turn navigation
Syncing with Google Calendar™, Google＋ appConnectivity Bluetooth® technology v 3.0 USB 2.0
Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n (2.4GHz/ 5GHz)
NFCSensor Accelerometer, Compass, Gyro, Light, Proximity, Barometer Memory 1GB(RAM) ＋ 16GB/ 32GB Internal memory Size 135.5 x 67.94 x 8.94mm, 135g Battery Standard battery, Li-on 1,750 mAh
TI confirms OMAP 4460 is in Nexus Galaxy [Oct 19, 2011]
We got word from TI that says it clearly. “Yes, the highly-anticipated Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich” release runs on the OMAP4460 processor.”
They went on to say that this is mainly due the fact they are better than the competition. They claim “the ability to provide hardware-integrated security, distinctive and advanced imaging features, enhanced memory and
more, all on a smart multicore architecture.”TI’s vice president of OMAP platform business, Remi El-Ouazzane continues with something we will break into a separate story. He tells the word that OMAP 4460 is inside Nexus and that they are the first with Android 4.0 phone. It looks like they are the reference even for Ice Cream Sandwich tablets.
“What I may be the most excited by is not only the ability to converge to one Android release for both smartphones and tablets, but to be able to pack that level of performance across graphics or video on an HD screen and within the power envelope of a smartphone device.This is where our OMAP smart multicore architecture makes a huge difference,” he said.
Also, He goes after Nvidia with this comment: “At the end of the day, brute force (number of cores, for instance) does not rival sophistication.” TI is telling the world that their two core with great video and graphics with great power is just enough.
According to OMAP™ 4 Platform: OMAP4430/OMAP4460 [March 28, 2011] and OMAP™ 4 Platform: OMAP4470 [June 2, 2011]:
| OMAP4430 | OMAP4460 | OMAP4470 | |
| Process node | 45nm | 45nm | 45nm |
| ARM® Cortex™-A9 Clock Speed (two) | 1 GHz | 1.5 GHz | 1.8 GHz |
| 2D & 3D Graphics | Hardware accelerated [POWERVR™ SGX540, greater than 2x the sustained performance compared to the previous SGX530 core] |
Hardware accelerated [POWERVR™ SGX540, greater than 2x the sustained performance compared to the previous SGX530 core ] |
Hardware accelerated Dedicated 2D and 3D graphic cores [POWERVR™ SGX544, more than two times the sustained performance compared to the previous SGX540 core performances, supports DirectX with maximum hardware acceleration] |
| Video performance (2D) | 1080p HD | 1080p HD | 1080p HD |
| Video Performance (3D) | 720p stereoscopic 3D | 1080p Stereoscopic 3D | 1080p Stereoscopic 3D |
| Imaging Performance (per second) | 20 MP main camera 5MP stereo (dual cameras) |
20MP main camera 12 MP stereo (dual cameras) |
20MP main camera 12 MP stereo (dual cameras) |
| Availability | Currently sampling | Currently sampling | Samples in 4Q 2011 |
| Display Support | WUXGA (1920 x 1200) | WUXGA (1920 x 1200) | QXGA (2048×1536), multiple screens |
Why the Galaxy Nexus uses OMAP instead of Exynos [Oct 18, 2011]
The rumors seemed strange from the start — a Samsung phone with a Texas Instruments processor? Last year’s Nexus S was a Samsung device, and it was Samsung through and through with a 1GHz Hummingbird system-on-a-chip (SoC). Now here we are looking at the new Googleflagship, the Galaxy Nexus, and it has a TI OMAP4460 on the inside. Why not Samsung’s own Exynos part?
There area few factors at work here, but the most important one is related to how the Nexus program works. Back when Google announced the Motorola Mobility buy, the company finally revealed a bit about how it operates the Nexus program. This was done in an effort to show that Motorola won’t be getting preferential treatment.
According to Google’s Andy Rubin, each year Google selects a device maker that it wants to work closely with on the next Nexus phone. But it’s not just the OEM that is involved — Google decides on components in the phone individually. Unlike other devices, Google gets it way with the Nexus.
So the team that will eventually “huddle together in one building” will be made up of the OEM, and several component makers that supply things like the SoC and radios. Then 9-12 months later, a little Nexus is born. Last year, Google went with Samsungfor the device itself, and the SoC. This year, Google has decided to put Texas Instruments on the processor team.
So now the OMAP4460 is getting quite a lot of scrutiny, even though it isn’t exactly a new chip. This dual-core SoC is clocked at 1.2GHz, and uses ARM Cortex-A9 architecture, just like the Exynos. That’s not a problem, but the older GPU, the PowerVR SGX540 is. We were hoping for a step up in the graphics department.
[Samsung’s own Cortex A9 based SoC, Exynos 4210 [Sept 22, 2011] in 1GHz and 1.2GHz version is currently sampling.]
Why did Google choose the OMAP for its new Nexus? Well, it might not live up to the high graphical standards set out by the iPhone, but it is a solid chip in its own right. The OMAP4 platform makes use of an additional hardware accelerator called IVA 3 [IVA-HD as called in the Technical Reference below] that makes encoding and decoding HD video a snap. The Galaxy Nexus has an HD screen, so this hardware focus on video is a big plus.
Google engineers were likely also drawn to the OMAP for its use of a dual-channel memory controller. Android’s multitasking system means that data is constantly being moved into, and out of, active memory. This is definitely a strength of TI’s OMAP parts.
Google will be developing the new version of Android on OMAP for the next year, so be ready for more devices based on this one. Much like the Nexus One started the Snapdragon revolution two years ago, this could be TI’s time to shine. If that OMAP4460 starts looking old and tired to OEMs in the coming year, there is always the upcoming OMAP4470 (which is armed with the much-newer and faster SGX544 GPU) to maintain compatibility and increase performance, too.
One official benchmark (GLBenchmark 2.1) to show the GPU performance differences:
OMAP4460 Multimedia Device Silicon Revision 1.x – Technical Reference Manual [PRELIMINARY, February 2011–Revised October 2011, 5620 pages]
- NOTE: Missing functionality in OMAP4430 Multimedia Device Silicon Revision 2.x – Technical Reference Manual [July 2010–Revised October 2011, 5564 pages]
Overview
The OMAP4460 high-performance multimedia application device is based on enhanced OMAP™ architecture and uses 45-nm technology.
• The architecture is designed to provide best-in-class video, image, and graphics processing for 2.5/3G wireless terminals, high-performance personal digital assistants (PDAs). For that purpose, the device
supports the following functions:
– Streaming video up to full high definition (HD) (1920 × 1080 p, 30 fps)
– 2-dimensional (2D)/3-dimensional (3D) mobile gaming
– Video conferencing
– High-resolution still image (up to 16 Mp)• The device supports high-level operating systems (OSs) such as:
– Linux®
– Palm OS™
– Symbian OS™
– Windows™ CE, WinMobile™• The device is composed of the following subsystems:
– Cortex™-A9 microprocessor unit (MPU) subsystem, including two ARM® Cortex-A9 cores
– Digital signal processor (DSP) subsystem
– Image and video accelerator high-definition (IVA-HD [IVA 3 as called in marketing materials]) subsystem
– Cortex™-M3 MPU subsystem, including two ARM Cortex-M3 microprocessors
– Display subsystem
– Audio back-end (ABE) subsystem
– Imaging subsystem (ISS), consisting of image signal processor (ISP) and still image coprocessor (SIMCOP) block
– 2D/3D graphic accelerator (SGX) subsystem
– Emulation (EMU) subsystem
Texas Instruments OMAP4460 Block Diagram
OMAP4430 and OMAP4460 comparedMemory Adapter
The purpose of the MA is to improve the missed latency of the L2 cache between the ARM Cortex-A9 processor and external memory. One of the PL310 master ports is connected to the MA and is used for all accesses to SCRAM. The PL310 address filtering mechanism is used to split incoming addresses between the MA connected to one of the PL310 master ports and the local interconnect connected to the other PL310 master port.Cache Management Unit
The CMU provides the ability to perform maintenance operations on Cortex-A9 MPU caches by physical address range. This reduces the execution time required by the Cortex-A9 CPUs to perform cache maintenance operations, while improving the overall throughput of maintenance operations. This frees the CPUs for other useful work. The registers inside the CMU are configured using the 32-bit interconnect configuration port from the local interconnect. The CMU operates at half the clock speed of the CPU core.…
EMIF Controller [EMI Module]
The EMIF [External Memory InterFace] module provides connectivity between the device and the LPDDR2-type memories and manages data bus read/write accesses between external memories, the microprocessor unit (MPU), and the direct memory access (DMA) controller.
…
The EMIF is an L3 bus peripheral that provides an interface to the LPDDR2 memories.
The diagram below shows the interconnection between the EMIF module and the other modules.
Digital locked loops (DLLs) are used to delay the input DQS signals during reads so that these strobe signals can be used to latch incoming data on the DQ pins, as required by the LPDDR2 standard.
Physical layers (PHYs) are hard macros that convert single-data rate (SDR) signals to DDR signals.
EMIF of OMAP4430 and OMAP4460 comparedL3 Interface
The EMIF supports three local interfaces: one connects to the system interconnect, one to a low-latency master, and one comes from the MPU half of the EMIF-to-MPU connection. These interfaces are used to request all external memory device accesses, to access the EMIF registers, and to transfer all data to and from the EMIF controller. … A third interface arranges the connection between the EMIF and the MPU. It is separated to the MPU half of the EMIF-to-MPU L3 Interface and the EMIF half of the EMIF-to-MPU L3 Interface.[PRCM module]
• The device includes state-of-art power-management techniques required for high-performance mobile products.
• Comprehensive power management is integrated into the device.• The device also integrates:
– On-chip memory
– External memory interfaces
– Memory management
– Level 3 (L3) and level 4 (L4) interconnects
– System and connecting peripheralsCortex-A9 MPU Subsystem Description
The Cortex-A9 MPU subsystem [is based on the symmetric multiprocessor (SMP) architecture and] integrates the following submodules:
• ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore
– Two ARM Cortex-A9 central processing units (CPUs)
– ARM Version 7 ISA™: Standard ARM instruction set plus Thumb®-2, Jazelle® RCT and Jazelle DBX Java™ accelerators
– Neon™ SIMD coprocessor and VFPv3 per CPU
– Interrupt controller (Cortex-A9 MPU INTC) with up to 128 interrupt requests
– One general-purpose timer and one watchdog timer per CPU
– Debug and trace features
– 32-KB instruction and 32-KB data level 1 (L1) caches per CPU• Shared 1-MB level 2 (L2) cache
• 48 KB bootable ROM
• Local power, reset, and clock management (PRCM) module
• Emulation features
• Digital phase-locked loop (DPLL)
TI OMAP4460: Cortex-A9 MPU – ABE – DSP subsystemsABE Subsystem Description
The ABE subsystem handles audio processing for the application. It manages the audio and voice streams between the Cortex-A9 MPU subsystem and/or DSP, and the physical interfaces.The ABE subsystem allows:
• Buffering of audio samples
• Mixing audio with voice downstream and/or microphone upstream (sidetone)
• Postprocessing of equalization, 3D effects, bass-boostThe ABE subsystem consists of:
• Audio engine (AE) subsystem, which performs real-time signal processing such as:
– Muxing and mixing voice and data streams
– Postprocessing operations such as sampling rate conversion, volume control, 3D effects
– Execution of whole data transfers in the ABE subsystem using audio traffic controller (ATC)The AE subsystem includes an AE and has the following on-chip memories available: 64-KB data memory (DMEM); 6-KB coefficient memory (CMEM); and 18-KB sample memory (SMEM).
The ATC manages the data movement in the ABE subsystem and is in charge of interrupt generation to the DSP and Cortex-A9 MPU subsystems.
• Four general-purpose timers (GPTIMERs) and one watchdog timer (WDTIMER)
• Peripheral interfaces:
– Three multichannel buffered serial ports (McBSPs) for inter-IC sound ( I2S™) external connectivity
– One multichannel audio serial port (McASP) supporting Sony/Philips digital interconnect format (S/PDIF) output
– One MIPI SLIMbus interface to support new generations of MIPI-compliant components
– One digital microphone (DMIC) for three stereo digital microphones support
– One multichannel pulse-density modulation (McPDM) interface, which ensures communication with the TWL6040 audio companion chip• Internal interfaces for connection with the DSP and Cortex-A9 MPU subsystems and other modules in the device
• Dedicated power domain (ABE power domain)
DSP Subsystem Description
This information is not available in the public domain.
IVA-HD [IVA 3 as called in marketing materials] Subsystem Description
The IVA-HD subsystem is a set of video encoder/decoder hardware accelerators. It supports up to 1080p × 30 fps, slow-motion camcorder, triple play (HD and SD capture and JPEG capture), real-time transcoding of up to 720p, and video conferencing up to 720p.
The IVA-HD subsystem is composed of:
• Improved motion estimation acceleration engine (iME3), which is used in encoding processing
• Improved loop filter acceleration engine (iLF3), which performs deblocking filtering
• Improved sequencer (iCONT1) based on the ARM968E-S™ microcontroller. It includes memory and INTC and is used as a primary sequencer.
• Intraprediction estimation engine (iPE3). It is used in encoding processing.
• Calculation engine (CALC3), which performs transform and quantization calculations
• Motion compensation engine (MC3), which creates an interprediction macroblock with given motion vectors and modes from the reference data
• Entropy coder/decoder (ECD3), which uses Huffman and arithmetic codes during the process of encoding and decoding the stream
• Video DMA processor (iCONT2), which is also based on the ARM968E-S microcontroller and can be used as secondary sequencer
• Video DMA engine (vDMA), which is a DMA engine for data transmission between external memories and shared L2 memory
• Synchronization box (SyncBox) embedded in each hardware accelerator and in both iCONTs
• Mailbox for communication between IVA-HD and external to it processors (DSP, Cortex-A9, and Cortex-M3)
• Shared L2 interface and memory
• Video local interconnect for connection between the submodules of the IVA-HD, and between the IVA-HD and DSP subsystems
• IVA-HD system control module (SYSCTRL), which controls the clocks in the subsystem and PRCM handshakingThe IVA-HD subsystem can process three data formats for internal data: picture or slice, macroblock header, and residual data.
The IVA-HD supports [the following codec standards natively; that is, all functions of standards are accelerated (without any intervention of the digital signal processor [DSP])] the following formats:
• MPEG-1/-2/-4 such as MPEG-2 MP, ML, and MPEG-4 as SP/ASP
• Divx 5.02 and above
• Sorenson Spark [V0 and V1] (decode)
• H.263 P0 (encode and decode) and P3 (decode)
• H.264 Annex G (scalable baseline profile up to 720p)
• H.264 BP/MP/HP
• [H.264: Fast Profile/RCDO Encode and Decode]
• H.264 Annex H (partial) [up to 720p30]
• Stereoscopic video
• JPEG [(also MJPEG)] (encode/decode)
• VC-1 [WMV9/RTV] SP/MP/AP
• AVS-1.0
• RealVideo® 8/9/10 (decode only)
• On2® VP6.2/VP7 (decode only)[IVA-HD 1.0 will use eXpressDSP Digital Media (xDM) standard as the principle software interface. The xDM standard defines application programming interfaces (APIs) through which an application invokes a
particular class of codec, such as video decode or audio encode.xDM developers kit, technical documentation and full compliant codecs can be downloaded from http://focus.ti.com/docs/toolsw/folders/print/tmdxdaisxdm.html.
Software released on IVA-HD 1.0 will be xDM-compliant and will be available during 2010.]
TI OMAP4460: DSP – IVAHD – Display subsystemsDisplay Subsystem Description
The display subsystem provides the control signals required to interface the OMAP system memory frame buffer (SDRAM) directly to the displays. [The display subsystem (DSS) provides the logic to display a video frame from the memory frame buffer on a liquid-crystal display (LCD) panel or a TV set.] It supports hardware cursor, independent gamma curve on all interfaces, multiple-buffer, and programmable color phase rotation. The display subsystem allows low-power display refresh and arbitration between normal and low-priority pipelines.
The display subsystem consists of the following sections:
• Display controller: It can read and display the encoded pixel data stored in memory and write the output of one of the overlays or one of the pipelines into the system memory. It supports the following components:
– Three video pipelines, one graphic pipeline, and one write-back pipeline. The graphic pipeline supports pixel formats such as: ARGB16-4444, RGB16-565, ARGB16-1555, ARGB32-8888, RGBA32-8888, RGB24-888, and BITMAP (1, 2, 4, or 8 bits per pixel). It allows selection of the
color-depth expansion.
– Write-back pipeline: it uses poly-phase filtering for independent horizontal and vertical resampling (upsampling and downsampling). It allows programmable color space conversion of RGB24 into YUV4:2:2-UYVY, YUV4:2:2-YUV2, or YUV4:2:0-NV12, and selection of color-depth reduction from RGB24 to RGB16.
– Two LCD outputs, each one with dedicated overlay manager, for support of passive matrix color and monochrome displays (up to 8-bit interface) and active matrix color displays (up to 24-bit interface). Secondary LCD output is available through parallel CMOS interface for MIPI®-DPI 1.0
support.
– One TV output with dedicated overlay manager
– Own direct memory access (DMA) engine• Remote frame buffer interface (RFBI) module.
– Support for MIPI-DBI protocol
– 8-/9-/16-bit parallel interface
– Programmable pixel modes and output formats• Two MIPI display serial interfaces (DSIs) with the following main features:
– Support for MIPI-DSI (four data-lane complex inputs/outputs (I/Os) for DSI1 and two data-lane complex I/Os for DSI2)
– Support for video mode and command mode
– Data interleaving support for synchronous and asynchronous streams
– Bidirectional data link support• High-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) encoder with the following main features:
– HDMI 1.3, HDCP 1.2, and DVI 1.0 compliant
— Including support for the 3D Stereoscopic frame-packing formats of HDMI v1.4 standard (720p, 50Hz, 720p, 60Hz and 1080p, 24Hz)
– Deep-color mode support (10-bit for up to 1080p and up to 12-bit for 1080i/720p)
– Support for uncompressed multichannel audio
– Integrated high-bandwidth digital content protection (HDCP) encryption engine for transmitting protected audio and video content
– Integrated transition minimized differential signaling (TMDS) and TERC4 encoders for data island support• NTSC/PAL video encoder with the following main features:
– Output to on-chip video digital-to-analog converter (VDAC) providing composite analog output signal: NTSC-J, M; PAL-B, D, G, H, I; PAL-M
– Support for square pixel sampling
– Programmable horizontal synchronization, vertical timing, and waveformsNOTE: The NTSC/PAL video encoder and VDAC function are not supported.
Face Detect Module Description
The face detect module is a stand-alone module that performs face detection and tracking on a picture stored in the SDRAM memory. It communicates with the Cortex-A9 MPU, DSP, and Cortex-M3 MPU
subsystems.Face detect is typically used on:
• Video encoding
• Face-based priority auto-focusing
• Red-eye removalThe face detect module comprises:
• Face detection core with embedded DMA engine for data memory access
• RAM and ROM memories
• L3 and L4 port interfacesCortex-M3 MPU Subsystem Description
[The dual Cortex™-M3 microprocessor (MPU) subsystem controls the imaging subsystem (ISS) and manages some controls of the video and display subsystem. It contains two ARM® Cortex-M3 processors (CPUs) that share a common level 1 (L1) cache (shared cache). One of the CPUs is dedicated to sequencing still image coprocessor (SIMCOP) accelerators, and the other CPU is dedicated to the ISS and display subsystem control. A single image real-time operating system (RTOS) runs on both cores, thereby minimizing the code size. The integrated interrupt handling of the dual Cortex-M3 MPU allows efficient control of the ISS.]
The Cortex-M3 MPU subsystem includes the following components:
• Two Cortex-M3 CPUs: One for SIMCOP control, and the other for RTOS, ISP, and display subsystem control
• ARMv7-M and Thumb-2 instruction set architecture
• Dedicated INTC with up to 64 physical interrupt events
• Two-level memory subsystem hierarchy
– L1
— 32-KB shared cache memory
– L2 ROM + RAM
— 64-KB RAM
— 16-KB bootable ROM
• Cortex-M3 system bus directly connected to the ISS interconnect
• MMU for address translation
• Integrated power management
• Emulation feature embedded in the Cortex-M3
TI OMAP4460: Display – Face Detect – ISS – Cortex M3 MPU subsystemsISS Description
[The imaging subsystem (ISS) deals with the processing of the pixel data coming from an external image sensor, data from memory (image format encoding and decoding can be done to and from memory), or data from SL2 in IVA-HD for hardware encoding. With its subparts, such as interfaces and interconnects, image signal processor (ISP), and still image coprocessor (SIMCOP), the ISS is a key component for the following multimedia applications: camera viewfinder, video record, and still image capture.]
The ISS processes data coming from the image sensor, memory, and IVA-HD subsystem. The ISS is responsible for multimedia applications such as: camera viewfinder; video record with up to 1080 p at 30 fps with digital zoom and still image processing, such as image capture up to 16 Mp with digital zoom and rotation. The ISS supports a pixel throughput of up to 200 Mp/s. It assures good performance with sensors up to 16 Mp and more (higher resolution can be achieved through multiple passes). The ISS can implement third-party algorithms for further flexibility when working with image sensors.
The ISS consists of:
• The ISP, which deals with on-the-fly or memory-to-memory data processing. It allows data collection for autoexposure, autowhite balance, autofocus, resizing, and histogram generation.
The ISP consists of:
– Image pipe interface (IPIPEIF) for synchronization signals (HD, VD) for the ISIF, IPIPE, RSZ, and hardware 3A (H3A) modules, and data transfer from video port, SDRAM, ISIF. Various pixel data manipulation functions.
– Image pipe (IPIPE) front-end and back-end modules for raw data processing and RGB and YUV data processing, respectively. They support:
— Sensor data linearization for dynamic range extension
— Programmable 2D lens shading compensation correction
— Black-level compensation
— Gamma correction
— RGB color correction
— RGB to YUV4:2:2 color conversion
— 3D look up table (LUT) for color correction
— 2D edge enhancement
— False chroma suppression
– H3A for autowhite balance, autoexposure, and autofocus
– Pattern generator (PG) for internal data generation for test purposes. It provides the ability to test some of the ISP submodules without the use of an external image sensor.
– Two independent resizers, which allow YUV4:2:2 to YUV4:2:0 planar Chroma filtering and downsampling. The resizers support input and output flows with up to 200 Mp/s, and memory-to-memory rescaling in the range ×1/4096 scale down, and ×20 scale up.– Image sensor interface (ISIF) can process the incoming data and supports the following main functions:
— Sensor data linearization
— Supports VGA read out mode
— Color space conversion
— Digital clamp with horizontal/vertical offset drift compensation
— Vertical line defect correction
— Programmable 2D-matrix lens shading correction
— 10-to-8 bits A-Law compression table inside
– Buffer logic (BL), which processes and manages the requests to the module and memory subsystem• Peripheral serial interfaces for connection with sensors and memories:
– Two PHYs, CSIPHY1 and CSIPHY2, for physical connection to external sensors
– Peripheral serial interfaces CSI2-A and CSI2-B/CCP2 for image data transfer from sensors to memory or ISP• Peripheral 16-bit parallel interface, BT656 and SYNC mode
[Parallel interface (CPI)
• 16 bits wide
• up to 148.5 MPix/s
• BT656 and SYNC mode (HS, VS, FIELD, WEN)
…The camera subsystem can manage a parallel interface and [up to] two serial image sensors. Depending on the configuration of the shared pins, two of the interfaces can be active at the same time. However, only one data flow can use the ISP. Moreover, if the parallel interface is used data from it goes to ISP and the other used interface must send it to memory.]
• SIMCOP module for memory-to-memory operation; JPEG encode/decode hardware acceleration; high-ISO filtering; block-based rotation; warping and fusion; and general-purpose imaging acceleration.
The SIMCOP includes the following main submodules:
– Two imaging extension (iMX) modules – programmable image and video processing engines
– Noise filter 2 (NSF2) – for advanced noise filtering and edge-enhancement
– Variable-length coder/decoder for JPEG (VLCDJ) module
– Discrete cosine transform (DCT) module
– Lens distortion correction (LDC) module
– Rotation accelerator (ROT) engine
– Hardware sequencer, which offloads sequencing tasks from the MPU
– Shared buffers/memories
– DMA controller• Timing control module for CAM global reset control, CAM flash strobe, and CAM shutter
• System interfaces and interconnects comprising:
– Two configuration interfaces
– One 128-bit master data interface
– Internal ISS interconnects for image data and configuration
– On-chip RAM interface
– Circular buffer (CBUFF) and burst-translation engine (BTE) for efficient communication with external memory (SDRAM/TILER support)2D/3D Graphics Accelerator [SGX Subsystem] Description
The 2D/3D graphics accelerator subsystem is based on POWERVR® SGX540 core from Imagination Technologies. It supports phone/PDA and handheld gaming applications. [The POWERVR SGX540 v1.2.0 architecture is scalable and can target all market segments from mainstream mobile devices to high-end desktop graphics.] The SGX can process different data types simultaneously, such as: pixel data, vertex data, video data, and general-purpose data processing. [Targeted applications include feature phones, PDAs, and handheld gaming applications.]
The SGX subsystem has the following features:
• Universal scalable shader engine ( USSE™), multithreaded engine incorporating pixel and vertex shader functionality to reduce die area
• Advanced shader feature set in excess of Microsoft VS3.0, PS3.0, and OGL2.0
• Industry-standard API supports Direct3D™ Mobile, OGL-ES 1.1 and 2.0, OpenVG™ 1.1, and OpenMAX™
• Fine-grained task switching, load balancing, and power management
• Programmable high-quality image antialiasing
• Advanced geometry DMA driven operation for minimum CPU interaction
• Fully virtualized memory addressing for OS operation in a unified memory architecture
• Advanced and standard 2D operations, such as vector graphics, BLTs, ROPs, etc.
• Programmable video encode and decode support for H.264, H.263, MPEG-4 (SP), WMV9, and JPEGOn-Chip Debug Support [EMU Subsystem] Description
[Debugging a system containing an embedded processor involves an environment that connects high-level debugging software, executing on a host computer, to a low-level debug interface supported by the target
device. In between these levels is a debug and trace controller (DTC) that facilitates communication between the host debugger and the debug support logic on the target chip.A combination of hardware and software that connects the host debugger to the target system, the DTC uses one or more hardware interfaces and/or protocols to convert actions dictated by the debugger user to
JTAG® commands and scans that execute the core hardware.The debug software and hardware components let the user control multiple central processing unit (CPU) cores embedded in the device in a global or local manner. This environment provides:
• Synchronized global starting and stopping of multiple processors
• Starting and stopping of an individual processor
• Each processor can generate triggers that can be used to alter the execution flow of other processors.System topics include but are not limited to:
• System clocking and power-down issues
• Interconnection of multiple devices
• Trigger channelsFor easy integration into applications, a set of libraries (APIs) for debug-IP programming and a software message library are being provided. CToolsLib is a collection of embedded target APIs/library to enable
easy programmatic access to the chip tools (CTools), which are system-level debug facilities included in the debug subsystem capabilities of TI devices. More information about the APIs, download files, and
other useful links for available libraries can be found on the CToolsLib Wiki site: http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/CToolsLib]The on-chip debug support has the following features:
• Multiprocessor debugging lets users control multiple CPU cores embedded in the device, such as:
– Global starting and stopping of individual or multiple processors
– Each processor can generate triggers that can be used to alter the execution flow of other processors
– System clocking and power down
– Interconnection of multiple devices
– Channel triggering• Target debugging, using IEEE1149.1 (JTAG®), or IEEE1149.7 (complementary superset of JTAG) port
• Reduction of power consumption in normal operating mode
• Real-time software trace allows the OMAP software masters to transmit trace data from OS processes or tasks on 256 different channels.The debug subsystem includes:
• IEEE1149.7 adapter
• Generic TAP for emulation and test control ( ICEPick-D™)
• Debug access port (DAP)
• Processor trace subsystem
• System trace subsystem
• EMU configuration interconnect
• Cross-triggering unit (XTRIGGER)
• Debug resource manager (DRM)ICEMelter:
• Controls the wake-up and power-down of the emulation power domainCORE instrumentation interconnect:
• Initiator ports:
– L3 interconnect (for software instrumentation and performance probes)
– OCP-WP
– IVA-HD instrumentation (HWA profiling)
– CM2 instrumentation
• Target port:
– EMU instrumentation interconnectOCP watch-point (OCP-WP):
• Monitors L3 interconnect transaction when target transaction attributes match the user-defined attributes or trigger on external debug event
• Only one instance, shared among the following L3 targets:
– GPMC
– L4_PER
– L4_CFGPower management events profiler (PM instrumentation)
Clock management events profiler (CM instrumentation)
Statistics collector (performance probes)
TI OMAP4460: EMU subsystem – PRCM module –
System Peripherals – SAR RAM – SAR ROMPower, Reset, and Clock Management [PRCM module]Description
The PRCM module allows efficient control of clocks and power according to the required performance, and reduction of power consumption.
[Power management (efficient use of the limited battery resources on a mobile device) is one of the most important design aspects of any mobile system. It imposes strong control over limited available power resources to ensure they function for the longest possible length of time.
The device power-management architecture ensures maximum performance and operation time for user satisfaction (audio/video support) while offering versatile power-management techniques for maximum design flexibility, depending on application requirements.
This introduction contains the following information:
• Power-management architecture building blocks for the device
• State-of-the-art power-management techniques supported by the power-management architecture of the deviceTo provide a versatile architecture supporting multiple power-management techniques, the power-management framework is built with three levels of resource management: clock, power, and voltage management.
These management levels are enforced by defining the managed entities or building blocks of the power-management architecture, called the clock, power, and voltage domains.
A domain is a group of modules or subsections of the device that share a common entity (for example, common clock source, common voltage source, or a common power switch). The group forming the domain is managed by a policy manager. For example, a clock for a clock domain is managed by a dedicated clock manager within the power, reset, and clock management (PRCM) module. The clock manager takes into consideration the joint clocking constraints of all the modules belonging to that clock domain (and, hence, receiving that clock).
NOTE: In the following sections, the term module is used to represent the device IPs (that is, modules or subsystems), other than the PRCM module, that receive clock, reset, or power signals from the PRCM module.
Clock Management
The PRCM module manages the gating (that is, switching off) and enabling of the clocks to the device modules. The clocks are managed based on the requirement constraints of the associated modules. The following sections identify the module clock characteristics, management policy, clock domains, and clock domain management.
…Power Management
The PRCM module manages the switching on and off of the power supply to the device modules. The power to the modules can be switched off when they are not in use to minimize device power consumption. Independent power control of sections of the device allow the PRCM module to turn on and off specific sections of the device without affecting the others.
…Voltage Management
The PRCM module controls the voltage scaling (that is, switching the voltage in discrete steps or in a continuum within a range of possible values) of the power sources of the device. This allows control of the
device power consumption according to the performance criteria defined. Higher performance is ensured with higher voltage and clock frequencies (and hence higher power consumption), while lower performance can be supported with lowered power consumption by reducing or completely gating the power supply to specific areas of the device and gating the associated clocks.
…]The PRCM module is divided into:
• Power and reset management (PRM), based on the SmartReflex™ framework with the following features:
– Dynamic clock gating
– Dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS)
– Dynamic power switching (DPS)
– Static leakage management (SLM)
– Adaptive body bias (ABB)
– Retention-till-access (RTA) for memories• Clock management 1 (CM1) for clock generation, distribution, and management for the Cortex-A9 MPU, ABE, and CORE always-on power domains. The clock management allows reduction of dynamic
consumption.• Clock management 2 (CM2) for clock generation, distribution, and management for other modules
System and Connection Peripherals
The OMAP device supports a comprehensive set of peripherals to provide flexible and high-speed (HS) interfacing and on-chip programming resources.
System Peripherals [see on the above diagram]
• Seven general-purpose timers (GPTIMER)
• One watchdog timer (WDTIMER)
• One 32-kHz synchronization timer (32KTIMER)• System control module, which contains registers for the following functions:
– Static device configuration
– Debug and observability
– Status
– Pad configuration
– I/O configuration
– eFuse logic
– Analog function control
– System boot decoding logic• System mailbox with eight mailbox message queues
[Communication between the on-chip processors – Cortex-A9 MPU, DSP and Cortex-M3 MPU – of the device uses a queued mailbox-interrupt mechanism. The queued mailbox-interrupt mechanism allows the software to establish a communication channel between two processors through a set of registers and associated interrupt signals by sending and receiving messages (mailboxes). ]
• One SPINLOCK module [provides hardware assistance for synchronizing the processes running on multiple processors in the device] with 32 hardware semaphores, which can service tasks between the Cortex-A9 MPU, DSP, and Cortex-M3 MPU subsystems
• One chip-to-chip (C2C) interface, which [is a serial, low-latency, peer-to-peer communication protocol that enables the extension of an internal protocol bus to one physical device over a printed circuit board (PCB). It] services the communication between the OMAP device and external devices
Connection Peripherals
… [see later]
On-Chip Memory Description
The on-chip memory is divided into L3 OCM RAM, SAR ROM, SAR RAM, and memories in the subsystems (Cortex-A9, Cortex-M3, ABE, and IVA-HD).
• The L3 OCM RAM consists of 56KB of on-chip SRAM.
• The save-and-restore (SAR) ROM [see on the above diagram] consists of 4KB and contains a linked list of descriptors used by the system DMA (sDMA).
• The SAR RAM [see on the above diagram] consists of 8KB divided into four blocks. It is used as context-saving memory when the device goes into off mode.Memory Management Description
The memory management is performed from:
• sDMA controller with up to 127 requests, 32 prioritizable logical channels, and 256 × 64-bit FIFO
[The system direct memory access (SDMA) module, also called DMA4, performs high-performance data transfers between memories and peripheral devices without microprocessor unit (MPU) or digital signal
processor (DSP) support during transfer. A DMA transfer is programmed through a logical DMA channel, which allows the transfer to be optimally tailored to the requirements of the application. ]• Dynamic memory management (DMM) module, which performs global address translation, address rotation (tiling), and access interleaving
[The dynamic memory manager (DMM) module is typically located immediately in front of the synchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM) controller (SDRC), as shown in the below diagram.
In a broad sense, the DMM manages various aspects of memory accesses such as:
– Initiator-indexed priority generation
– Multizone SDRAM interleaving configuration
– Block object transfer optimization – tiling
– Centralized low-latency page translation – MMU-like featureThe dynamic qualifier for memory management highlights the software configurability, and hence the runtime nature, of the four aspects of memory management handled by the DMM.]
External Memory Interface Description
There are two main interfaces for connection to external memories: general-purpose memory controller (GPMC) and dual-channel SDRAM controller (SDRC).
The GPMC [an unified memory controller dedicated to interfacing external memory devices] supports:
• Asynchronous SRAM memories
• Asynchronous/synchronous [, and page mode (available only in nonmuxed mode) burst] NOR flash memories
• NAND flash memories
• Pseudo-SRAM devicesThe SDRC/EMIF [provides connectivity between the device and LPDDR2-type memory and] allows:
• Connection between the device and LPDDR2-type memory. It supports double-data rate (DDR) and single-data rate (SDR) protocols. The EMIF is the interface between LPDDR2 SDRAM and the Cortex-A9 MPU subsystem, ISS, IVA-HD subsystem, SGX, and DMA controllers.
• PHY is the DDR physical interface, which implements data-rate conversion in compliance with LPDDR2 JEDEC requirements.
TI OMAP4460: DMM Module – External Memory Interface – L3 OCM RAM – Connection Peripherals – sDMA ControllerSystem and Connection Peripherals
The OMAP device supports a comprehensive set of peripherals to provide flexible and high-speed (HS) interfacing and on-chip programming resources.
System Peripherals
… [see earlier]Connection Peripherals
• Three universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter (UART) modules as serial-communication interfaces
• One UART + IrDA SIR up to FIR + TV remote control interface (CIR)
• McBSP module to provide full-duplex serial communication between the OMAP and other applications chips and codecs
• Five HS I2C™ controller modules; four of them are general-purpose modules with rates up to 3.4 Mbps, and the fifth one, in the PRCM module, performs dynamic voltage control and power sequencing with an external power IC.
• HDQ™/ 1-Wire® – Benchmarq HDQ and Dallas Semiconductor 1-Wire protocols interface
• Two HS MMC/SD/SDIO modules with 8-bit data bus interface, that can act as an initiator on L3 interconnect thanks to an embedded DMA
• Three HS MMC/SD/SDIO modules with 4-bit data bus interface
• Six general-purpose input/output (GPIO) modules with 32 I/Os each
• One keyboard controller, which supports up to 9 × 9 matrix keypads
• One MIPI SLIMbus interface
• Four multichannel serial peripheral interface (MCSPI) modules
• One HS universal serial bus (USB) On-The-Go (OTG) module with embedded PHY, compliant with the USB2.0 (up to 480 Mbps) standard for HS functions and with the OTG supplement
• One HS multiport USB host module, which can be used for interchip connection or with an off-chip transceiver. It is compliant with the USB2.0 standard. The USB host module allows communication with USB peripherals with data rates up to 480 Mbps for HS, up to 12 Mbps for full-speed, and up to 1.5 Mbps for low-speed.
• One full-speed USB module compliant with the USB1.1 standard for full-speed functions
• One MIPI high-speed synchronous serial interface (HSI) module with two full-duplex serial communication interfaces. It is used for communication between the OMAP device and an external device, with data rates up to 192 Mbps for transmission, and up to 225 Mbps for reception. The MIPI HSI supports 16 logical channels on each destination (RX/TX).
| GLBenchmark 2.1 |
