Home » consumer devices (Page 15)
Category Archives: consumer devices
Marvell’s SMILE Plug for the “Classroom 3.0” initiative
SMILE = Stanford Mobile Inquiry-based Learning Environment
and this is currently a smartphone based solution aimed at the digital classroom.
In this sense it is a kind of a newer (only 1+ year old) approach than the 6 years old OLPC.
(Read about Marvell’s OLPC involvement in:
– Marvell® ARMADA® PXA168 based XO laptops and tablets from OLPC with $185 and target $100 list prices respectively [Jan 8-11, 2012]
– Marvell ARMADA with sun readable and unbreakable Pixel Qi screen, and target [mass] manufacturing cost of $75 [Nov 4, 2010 – July 20, 2011])
Remark: Will be interesting to see OLPC related educational initiatives merged in some way with SMILE during 2012 as Marvell’s “Classroom 3.0” initiative is rolled out. An Argentinian report on SMILE success (see well below) notes that: “… pilot projects and programs, driven by governments in most cases by applying the model 1:1, or also known as OLPC (One Laptop per Child), … Unfortunately, no results have been achieved educational and cognitive testing. Moreover, assessments of international experts from various experiences of OLPC in the world are not the most encouraging. Most of these programs have focused primarily on an abundant supply of hardware, often with little support, but above all, without proper teacher training, which keeps pace with the massive deployment of equipment. On the other hand, the vast majority of digital content that are being used by several of these programs are not innovative and do not promote interactive learning and motivating children.”
No wonder Marvell is contributing to SMILE as well:
SMILE Plug at CES 2012 [Jan 25, 2012]
Marvell Showcases ‘Classroom 3.0’ Education Technology at CES 2012 [Jan 9, 2012]
ARMADA powered SMILE Plug and One Laptop per Child tablet transform traditional classroom activities with interactive, multimedia curricula for more engaging learning experience
Marvell (NASDAQ: MRVL), a worldwide leader in integrated silicon solutions, today announced new education solutions designed to enable “Classroom 3.0,” a connected, secure learning environment that simplifies and speeds the deployment of technology to students around the world. Marvell’s collaboration with Stanford Universityhas resulted in the Marvell® SMILE Plug, the first plug development kit designed to turn a traditional classroom into a highly interactive learning environment. Designed to engage students in critical reasoning and problem solving, the SMILE Plug creates a “micro cloud” within a classroom that is completely controlled by the teacher. Marvell also announced that it has extended its relationship with the One Laptop per Child Association (OPLC) on a number of new products, including the upcoming OLPC X0 3.0, a low cost, low power tablet designed for education.
“Marvell is driving a revolution in the classroom with technology that improves the education experience for students and teachers around the world. We’re deeply committed to improving education worldwide, and through our work with organizations like OPLC and Stanford University, we are helping to transform learning from a static one-way activity to an interactive experience brought to life with compelling content, engaging interactive multimedia and numerous new ways to collaborate,” said Weili Dai, Co-founder of Marvell. “Marvell’s SMILE Plug, the first ultra small server designed specifically for multi-modal curriculum delivery, combined with our affordable, easy-to-use and durable OLPC XO 3.0 tablet, are important additions to the world’s classrooms. It’s a matter of time before we leverage the power of Google TV and other smart screens in our daily lives to bring knowledge experts from around the globe to any local classroom.”
The Marvell SMILE Plug, powered by Marvell’s high-performance, low power ARMADA® 300 series SoC and Marvell Avastar™ 88W8764 Wi-Fi, creates a micro-cloud, eliminating the problem of inconsistent Internet access within a classroom and creating a safe and secure connectivity for up to 60 students. The SMILE plug also securely delivers digital content to a range of devices, including personal computers and handheld devices. Teachers and students can now tap into an unprecedented amount of open or premium digital content. The SMILE plug also allows teaches to control and run interactive classrooms with real-time feedback and analytics, deepening the learning experience.
In tandem with the Stanford Mobile Inquiry Based Learning Environment program, Marvell has developed an easy-to-manage access point for a wide array of SMILE learning applications and has created an administration API and user interface, Plugmin, which provides access to many additional SMILE programs. These tools provide teachers total control of the devices and content used within their classroom for better lesson planning and student evaluation.
Additionally, the SMILE Plug Computer features an open platform based on Arch Linux for ARM, the Plugmin administration app and the Stanford SMILE Junction Server. The SMILE Plug includes a 5V Lithium-Ion polymer battery for back-up power, making it ideal for learning environments where electrical power can be inconsistent.
Also at CES, Marvell and OLPC showcased the first prototype of the X0 3.0, a low cost, low power rugged tablet computer designed for education in emerging markets. Built on the Marvell ARMADA 618 processor and its Avastar 88W8686 wireless chip, the XO 3.0 tablet will feature unique capabilities that allow it to be charged by solar panels, hand cranks and other alternative power sources. Marvell and OLPC also announced that the XO 1.75 laptop will begin shipping in February, with initial orders benefiting education programs in Rwanda and Uruguay. For additional information on the XO 3.0 prototype or the XO 1.75 laptop, please see the related release, “Marvell and One Laptop per Child Unveil the Eagerly Anticipated XO 3.0 Tablet at CES.”
Availability
The SMILE Plug will be available in spring 2012; please visit http://www.marvell.com for more information. The One Laptop per Child XO 1.75 will be available in February; please visit http://one.laptop.org/action/donateif you’re interested in donating or for more information.
Marvell will also be demonstrating the its education solutions at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in its booth, No. 30542, located in South Hall 3 on the upper level. CES will be held Tuesday, Jan. 10 – Friday, Jan. 13, 2012, at the Las Vegas Convention Center (150 Paradise Road, Las Vegas).
Lesson 2: How Do I Use Inquiry-Based Learning with Youth? [national4H, July 20, 2011]
Creativity in Mathematics: Inquiry-Based Learning and the Moore Method [Aug 8, 2011]
Classroom 3.0: Why the promise of the Digital Classroom depends on technology addressing the human issues first. [Announced Departmental Seminar for Feb 3, 2012, UC Berkeley]
Jack Kang
Director, Application Processor Business Unit, MarvellClassroom 3.0: Why the promise of the Digital Classroom depends on technology addressing the human issues first.
Abstract:
In this talk, Mr. Kang will share his vision for what a digital, next generation “Classroom 3.0” looks like. Before that however, Mr. Kang will focus on the people and process issues that have to be overcome in order to fully realize the value of technology–issues that technologists and engineers often underestimate. Covering use cases both in the United States and in developing 3rd world countries, the session will end with a practical call to action, with an opportunity for students to immediately contribute to the Marvell SMILE Plug project, a revolutionary new product that will improve student lives today.Bio:
Mr. Kang joined Marvell in February, 2006 and is currently director of Marvell’s Application Processor Business Unit. He has been in the semiconductor business for more than seven years, holding previous positions in design engineering at several leading technology vendors. At Marvell, Mr. Kang manages multiple product lines from design conception to mass market implementation and adoption. These include the industry-leading ARMADA PXA processors, which are fueling today’s premier consumer devices. Additionally, he oversees various market segments, including education, eReaders, gaming, tablets and other connected consumer and embedded devices. Most recently, Mr. Kang was responsible for the processor design powering Microsoft’s gaming console, Microsoft Kinect. This gaming console shattered sales records and was named the fastest-selling tech gadget of all time by the Guinness Book of World Records – totaling more than 20 million units since its launch in November, 2010.Mr. Kang is currently driving the development of Marvell’s ‘Classroom 3.0’, a connected, secure learning environment that simplifies and speeds the deployment of technology to students around the world. A new device called the SMILE plug, central to Classroom 3.0, creates a ‘micro cloud’ within a classroom that is completely controlled by the teacher.
SMILE (Stanford Mobile Interactive Learning Environment) [Aug 4, 2011]
SMILE workshop (Stanford Mobile Interactive Learning Environment – open source mobile application and mobile interaction management system) engages participants to experience how the latest open source mobile learning environment helps teachers to engage students in generating mobile media-based inquiries and using the student-generated inquiries as tools to promote self-reflection among students and formative assessment for teachers. An Android-based mobile learning device will be provided for each participant for the hands-on workshop.
Description
It is generally acknowledged that student-created questions play an important role in the learning process (Dale, 1937; Dillon, 1990; Hunkins, 1976) and they have been demonstrated to improve student learning outcomes (Barak & Rafaeli, 2004; Commeyras, 1995; Dori and Herscovitz, 1999; Rothkopf, 1966). In posing questions themselves, students must revisit previous learning materials and reshape their thoughts relating to prior learning, thereby deepening their understanding (Marbach-Ad & Sokolove, 2000). Moreover, if students are made aware that they will be asked to create questions at a later time, they will actively monitor and attend to what they are learning during class in anticipation (Mosteller, 1989; Wilson, 1986). Despite these findings, though, student-created questions have remained consistently absent from the majority of teachers’ repertoires (Gall, 1970). Studies have reliably shown that only a very small portion of questions asked in a classroom are created by the students(Corey, 1940; Dillon, 1988), implying that a powerful pedagogical tool is being underutilized.
The affordances of mobile phones present a unique opportunity to reintegrate student-generated questions back into the classroom. More specifically, considering that students are already actively trying to communicate with each other during class on their mobile phones (Educational Digest, 2005; Gilroy, 2004), there is an opportunity to reorient this communication toward class material through student-created questions. Indeed, it is slowly being recognized and demonstrated that mobile phones are highly engaging tools to be taken advantage of, not prohibited (Kolb, 2008). For example, data collected by Swan et al. (2005) from four elementary and two middle-school classes indicated that the use of mobile phones in the classroom increased student motivation, improving their quality of work. With mobile phone ownership among children has increased byin the past five years (MRI report, 2010) and a current trend towards the consolidation of open-source mobile operating system platforms (Shuler, 2009), there could be no better time to take advantage of these affordances in order to increase the incidence of student-generated questions as an effective way to promote student learning and engagement in the classroom.
Therefore, a newly developed SMILE (i.e., Stanford Mobile Interactive Learning Environment – open source mobile application and mobile interaction management system) will be demonstrated in a hands-on workshop format. Each participant will be given an Android mobile device to participate in the workshop and two facilitators will coordinate the setup and lead the workshop. The mobile learning workshop basically engages all participants to quickly generate a variety of inquiries (Shown in Figure 1), reflect on the inquiries, and rate participants’ inquiries through a real-time mobile interaction network while the facilitator demonstrates how teachers might be able to monitor the progress of the inquiry generation process and types of inquiries participants generate.
There are several important features of SMILE that were deliberately designed to maximize its effectiveness. First, allowing students to include digital photos in their questions garners the learning benefits gained from the presentation of materials in multimedia (Mayer, 1997). Second, having students create multiple choice question items help the student thoroughly reflect on the learned principles while thinking critically in synthesizing learning concepts and generating inquiries that are logical and sound. Third, permitting students to rate each other’s questions provides feedback and incorporates an element of peer assessment, which has been demonstrated to be valuable to a majority of students (Williams, 1992). Fourth, allowing students to view who scored the highest may foster a “non-pressured,” yet ultimately competitive game playing-like learning environment, which has been demonstrated to maintain an optimally motivating learning atmosphere (Reeve & Deci, 1999). Finally, supplying the teacher with all of the students’ questions and responsesthrough the graphic user interface provides invaluable formative assessment information, which has been demonstrated to greatly improve student learning (Black & William, 1998; Cross, 1998). For all of these reasons, SMILE provides a particularly effective means of promoting student-generated questions and in the end it can encourage the participants to engage in real-time learning and assessment with a multimedia-rich interactive learning environment.
Contact Information
Paul Kim phkim@stanford.edu
Stanford University
SMILE (Stanford Inquiry-Based Learning Environent) Workshop
Stanford Mobile Inquiry-based Learning Environment (SMILE) is basically an assessment/inquiry maker which allows students to quickly create own inquiries or homework items based on their own learning for the day. SMILE workshop is designed to introduce SMILE to people in the world and help them take advantage of SMILE.
AECT 2011 workshop ::
Date: on November 9, 2-11 at 9AM ~ 12PM
Location: Jacksonville, FloridaThis workshop engages participants to experience how the latest open source mobile learning environment helps teachers to engage students in generating mobile media-based inquiries and using the student-generated inquiries as tools to promote self-reflection among students and formative assessment for teachers. An Android-based mobile learning device will be provided for each participant for the hands-on workshop.
… [Included: Instruction Manual For learners by Sunmi Seol, Presentation document, Survey (paper / on-line versions)] …
Stanford Mobile Inquiry-based Learning Environment (SMILE) [first published Feb 23, 2011, excerpted Jan 29, 2012]
“Stanford Mobile Inquiry-based Learning Environment (SMILE)” is the subproject of POMI in Education.
Introducing SMILE: Stanford Mobile Inquiry-Based Learning Environment [Nov 21, 2011]
Using student inquiries as learning objects and meta-evaluation vectorsSMILE turns a traditional classroom into a highly interactive learning environment by engaging students in critical reasoning and problem solving while enabling them to generate, share, and evaluate multimedia-rich inquiries.
Stanford Mobile Inquiry-based Learning Environment (SMILE) is basically an assessment/inquiry maker which allows students to quickly create own inquiries or homework items based on their own learning for the day.
Stanford Mobile Inquiry-based Learning Environment (SMILE) is basically an assessment/inquiry maker which allows students to quickly create own inquiries or homework items based on their own learning for the day. For example, students can freely take a photo (Shown in Figure 1) of a diagram or any other object from their own textbooks or any phenomena discovered in their school garden or lab and create a homework item.
Figure 1. Students taking a photo of their textbookAll student-created multimedia inquiry items can be tagged by the generator, but rated by peers to indicate how relevant or useful the item is to their own learning. Obviously, teachers or facilitators could decide to review the student-generated homework items from the homework pool, weed out the ones that may not be relevant and leave only the ones that are highly useful or ones with highest student ratings (i.e., rules could be made at the local level).
The SMILE application enables homework generation, completion and competition game during class. It offers opportunity to review what students learned in class and organize them and create their own inquires from them. Moreover, all student-generated questions are instantly collected, passed out to the whole class and all students are supposed to take a quiz created by all students and also give rating to each question based on standard rule made by local level. After students’ answers are submitted, they can review their results immediately. Through creating own question and sharing it with peers, students are able to check their understanding of what they learned for the day and compensate their lack of learning from peers’ questions. The instant activity blocks students’ learning of the day from fading away and after activity a teacher can give more additional information and detailed explanations to the class which helps them improve their understandings a lot. Quiz activity is controlled by teacher’s application so that students can not get distracted and do other actions. The current prototype of this application supports group/classroom level but village/school level, or community/school district level will be supported soon. Also, it enables a facilitator or teacher to map each inquiry or homework item with appropriate learning standard classifications. The former application is inside the classroom activity and the latter one is outside the classroom activity. The latter application enables students or teachers freely have access to SMILE server regardless of time and place if they have mobile devices. Basically, all homework items created by students are saved on SMILE server, and students can create their own homework items and upload them to the server. Also, they are able to solve homework items connected to the server. Teachers can review all homework items and manage all items to be high quality by seeding out ones which are not relevant to subject or have low-rating by peers from the server. In-out school network system offers continuous learning to all students and then they can pay attention to their own learning saving time and effort, and finally, are more likely to get better understandings of what they learned inside and outside the classroom.
Figure 2. Student-created inquiries incorporating own mobile photoThe immediate advantages of SMILE are in that it…
- involves the learners themselves in the reflection and generation of own learning stimuli and inquiries;
- makes it possible to have anytime/anywhere homework/inquiry generation possibility (where there is an opportunistic learning moment);
- empowers the learner to generate and incorporate mobile multimedia objects from own environment;
- allows the learn to rate peer-inquiries based on own assessment of the merit;
- enables a collective management of homework quality;
- enables any group or organization to track the academic performance of the learner at a granular (based on learning standards) level;
- makes it possible to conduct a variety of comparison analyses for benchmarking purposes;
- creates a competition or collaboration game environment.
SMILE is composed of teacher’s application and student’s application. Teacher’s application was developed using Java language and it works on web-based system which Java is installed in. To support ad-hoc network environment, XMPP server such as openfire and apache were installed at the server and both applications also include Junction library developed by Stanford Engineering School. All users connected to the server have same environment, in short all students are controlled do same action. Only teacher’s application can manage the each step of the activity happening at SMILE. On the contrary, student’s application can do action sent from teacher’s message.
1) Teacher’s Application
- GUI (Graphic User Interface)-based application and it works in any system which Java can be installed in such as desktop, laptop and net book.
- Server IP is fixed but it is changeable and a teacher can change the path of Apache directory if the path is different from the fixed one.
- This application supports two ways for a quiz activity: first one is to let students create their own inquires, share, solve and get the result of the quiz during class and other one is using saved questions. As for the latter one, a teacher can freely select the quiz set from the server and pass it out to the whole class.
- A teacher can use time-limit quiz way inserting time limit at the application (Optional).
- This activity is composed of four states: connection to the server, making question, solving questions and seeing the results. A teacher is able to see the current status from the activity flow and each state button is disabled after the state is over.
- At student status window, a teacher can check each student’s submission of the question and answers of the quiz, and final score. A teacher is also able to see total numbers of students joined the quiz, ones of students submit the question, and ones of students submit answers.
- Score board window shows each student’s final score and right answer, his/her answer and his/her rating about each question.
Figure 3a. Teacher’s application of SMILE in India
Figure 3b. Teacher’s application of SMILE in USA
- Top score window is for noticing top score winners. A teacher can see who get highest score at the quiz and who get highest rating on their own questions.
- Question status window includes the following information: as for each question, who created, how many students get right answers, and what ratings this question get. Moreover, if clicking each question, a teacher can see real question at question window. After getting result, more detailed information is added to original question.
- If clicking save questions, student-created questions are saved and they can be used for future class or other students.
2) Student’s Application
Figure4. Login Window Figure 5. Main Window Figure 6. Make your question
- To join this activity, students are supposed to insert their name and server IP which is usually fixed but if server IP is different from fixed one, change it to the right IP address. If clicking login button, this application connect to the junction server and all students’ applications are under same environment according to the teacher’s application.
Figure7a. Main Window in India Figure7b. Main Window in USA
- At main window, as shown in Figure 5 there are three buttons: Make your question, Solve questions, and See results. Each action button is automatically enabled so that students can not do different actions without a teacher’s direction.
- Each student’s application receives the message from teacher’s application, and action button is enabled and then each student goes to each action status by clicking the button. The first action is making own question.
- At making question state, students can generate their own inquires adding images related to the inquiry. At that time, students can use the pictures saved already or take a picture from their materials or everything around them. Currently, students can create multiple-choice question for supporting instant grading system. Using preview function, students can preview their own questions before submission.
Figure 8. Students are making questions
- If clicking post button, newly-created question is given to the server and the application comes back to the main window.
Figure 9. Main Window Figure 10. Solve Questions
- After getting message “Solve Questions” from the teacher’s application, the next button is enabled. All students are under solving questions state.
- Students can freely go to next or previous question and also check answer and rating. Before submitting answer sheet, students can not escape from this activity.
11a. The picture of solving questions in india
11b. The picture of solving questions in USAFigure 11. Students answering to questions made by their peers
- Accidental logoff may happen anytime but student’s application can join the activity is going on because the server is broadcasting the current state to all students’ application at regular interval.
Figure 12. Result Window Figure 13. Detailed Result Figure 14. Who’s the winner
- After all students submit their answer sheets, see result button is enabled and students can see their own result of quiz. As figure 9 shows, main result window includes total score and correct or wrong information for each question.
- If clicking detail button, students can check each question’s detailed information: correct answer, number correct people, average rating and my answer.
- Winner page has information about the winner with highest score at the quiz and the owner with highest average rating for their own-created question.
- If seeing the results is over, all activities of SMILE end.
Future Studies
Current SMILE will be expanded to an application which enables accessibility to quizzes outside the classroom. Anytime Homework application enables students and teachers have access to SMILE server regardless of the time and place. This application offers different access permission to both students and teachers. Students enjoy individual quiz activity by solving question items saved on the server and also they generate their own questions and upload them to the server anytime. A teacher is also able to have access to SMILE server and manage the quality of homework items saved on the server by removing the questions items with low rating or are less relevant to class-curriculum. Figure 15 represents next version of SMILE including Anytime homework and Junction quiz applications.
Figure 15. Next version of SMILE application
- Stanford Mobile Inquiry-based Learning Environment(SMILE): using mobile phones to promote student inquires in the elementary classroom
Sunmi Seol, Aaron Sharp, Paul Kim
Proceedings of the 2011 International Conference on Frontiers in Education: Computer Science & Computer Engineering, FECS 2011- Proceedings of WORLDCOMP’11: The 2011 World Congress in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and Applied Computing – Download Paper
Faculty Research Assistant Research Assistant Research Assistant Student
Dr. Paul, Kim Sunmi Seol Arafeh Karimi Rashid Ahwazian Aaron A. Sharp
Interview – Mr Paul Kim [Nov 18, 2009]
Stanford Mobile Inquiry-based Learning Environment (SMILE) [Google translation from Spanish, Sept 7, 2011]
Speaker: Claudia Muñoz-Reyes
(Stanford Inquiry-based Mobile Learning Environment – SMILE)
In this digital age, characterized by the rapid development of technologies, people who have less access and education opportunities will be reduced to be at greater risk of leaving the cycle of poverty. They will be increasingly difficult to be able to participate in the growing economies of information and knowledge societies, thereby increasing not only the digital divide-but also what is most important, the knowledge gap. The preferential commodities and value-added of the Century 21, are information and knowledge. Without an innovative intervention that addresses these effects of globalization and rapid technological advancement, the gap will grow more and more, excluding the communities of extreme poverty can not ensure their own survival.
It’s nothing new in Latin America and other developing countries have been taking several initiatives and attempts to introduce technology in public schools in the last 2 decades. In many of these countries, where in recent years have provided rural and suburban schools, old computers, today these “iron dinosaurs” were not only obsolete, but not used and only pollute our environment. Even in the last 6 years, have been giving greater emphasis to pilot projects and programs, driven by governments in most cases by applying the model 1:1, or also known as OLPC (One Laptop per Child), where Unfortunately, no results have been achieved educational and cognitive testing. Moreover, assessments of international experts from various experiences of OLPC in the world are not the most encouraging. Most of these programs have focused primarily on an abundant supply of hardware, often with little support, but above all, without proper teacher training, which keeps pace with the massive deployment of equipment. On the other hand, the vast majority of digital content that are being used by several of these programs are not innovative and do not promote interactive learning and motivating children.
The purpose of SMILE is to provide a pedagogical change in classrooms, through mobile technology. The pedagogical model used is the “Inquiry-based Learning Model” (Model-based Learning Questioning) and models of learning based on problem solving, which encourage creativity, critical thinking and scientific attitude collaborative work, the 21 st Century skills in our children today. Consequently, our dynamic innovative teaching to implement, through mobile devices, focus on the student as the star of the learning process and the teacher becomes more of a facilitator of this process. This tool and formats developed Android platform and IOS (iPhone, iPad) also provides a great opportunity for teachers to quickly assess learning and performance of children individually and in groups.
The first pilot of this innovative program were in India, Malaysia and the United States between January and March 2011 and last experience in August of this year has taken place in rural and suburban schools of Misiones, Argentina, with surprising results .
Short Video of the last experience with rural and suburban schools in Misiones and Buenos Aires, Argentina:
SeedsofEmpowerment [Aug 17, 2011]
Multiple photos and other videos from our pilot projects in Argentina, Malaysia and India using mobile devices (smartphones) and tablets:
SMILE (Stanford Mobile Inquiry-based Learning Environment) – Medical education [on slideshare, Nov 23, 2011]
SMILE-MedRIC Interview with Professors [Nov 21, 2011]
SMILE MedRIC-Part1: As part of SMILE project, Medical students in Chungbuk University used SMILE in their Medical Informatics class and created questions on HIV AIDS.
SMILE (Stanford Mobile Interactive Learning Environment)-MedRIC-Korea-Part1 [arafehkarimi, Nov 16, 2011]
Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5 – Part 6 – Part 7 – Part 8
Note: MedRIC (Medical Research Information Center), a Ministry of Science and Technology funded organization in S. Korea, focusing on research and development in medical informatics, medical data visualization, telematics, Virtual Reality-based medical training, and health communication and promotion policies and programs.
Background
Plug Computers [Marvell site, Jan 9, 2012]
Whether the need is remote access to data on a home network or to turn an entire classroom into a highly interactive learning environment, the solution is simple, convenient, and inexpensive. With a small form factor server called a plug computer, network connectivity is right at a wall socket.
Simply insert the plug computer into an electrical outlet and add an external hard drive or a USB flash drive through a USB port (depending on the deployment, a router may also need to be connected into the plug) — just like that, you have a network attached storage device.
Powered by Marvell embedded processors, a plug computer is packed with enough processing power and network connectivity for managing and serving up digital media files. It also draws less than one tenth of the power consumed by its PC counterparts enabling always-on, always-connected, and environmentally friendly computing. With a gigahertz-class processor, memory and storage the plug computer has ample processing power and resources to run any embedded computing application.
Applications for a plug computer include:
- Media Server
- Home Automation
- Remote Access
- A micro cloud for the classroom
Smile Plug for Education
Powered by Marvell’s high-performance, low power ARMADA® 300 series SoC and Avastar™ 88W8764 Wi-Fi, the SMILE Plug creates a micro-cloud, eliminating the problem of inconsistent Internet access within a classroom and creating a safe and secure connectivity for up to 60 students. The SMILE plug also securely delivers digital content to a range of devices, including personal computers and handheld devices. Teachers and students can now tap into an unprecedented amount of open or premium digital content. The SMILE plug also allows teaches to control and run interactive classrooms with real-time feedback and analytics, deepening the learning experience.
Plug Computer Developer Community
Pioneered by Marvell, the plug computer is originally based on the ARM ultra-low power architecture and built on an Open Development Platform. To encourage manufacturers to create applications on the platform, Marvell founded PlugComputer.org, an online community where developers can discuss ideas and share code solutions.
Enabling Classroom 3.0: Marvell SMILE Plug [Marvell platform brief, Jan 5, 2012]
Enabling Classroom 3.0: Secure Content, Teacher Control
Product Overview
Marvell® is excited and proud to create Classroom 3.0 with SMILE Plug. The SMILE Plug is a revolutionary way to change how technology is used in the classroom, offering unprecedented access to secure digital content, a seamless delivery mechanism, and a simple teacher interface to fully control the classroom.
Marvell’s SMILE Plug enables education institutions to create a micro-cloud within a classroom, facilitating a simple, low-cost way to network classrooms. The SMILE Plug eliminates the problems of inconsistent Internet access within a classroom environment, safely and securely providing connectivity in the classroom. The SMILE Plug also securely delivers digital content to a range of devices, including personal computers and handheld devices. Teachers and students can now tap into an unprecedented amount of open or premium digital content. The SMILE Plug also allows teaches to control and run interactive classrooms with real-time feedback and analytics, deepening the learning experience.
The Marvell SMILE Plug is being developed in partnership between the Stanford® University School of Education and Marvell—both of whom share the vision of using technology to revolutionize and improve the way students learn and educators teach. The SMILE Plug, which is named and built with Stanford’s Mobile Inquiry Based Learning Environment (SMILE), will provide the ability to establish a local Wi-Fi network for up to 60 students. SMILE turns a traditional classroom into a highly interactive learning environment by engaging students in critical reasoning and problem solving while enabling them to generate, share, and evaluate multimedia-rich inquiries. In addition, this creates access to many more SMILE learning applications. To simplify deployment and management of the SMILE Plug, Marvell has developed a plug administration API and user interface called Plugmin.
Smile Plug Components
The SMILE Plug contains the Marvell Plug Computer, as well as all of the software tools needed to develop applications for the platform. I/0 interfaces include 2x Gigabit Ethernet, 2x USB, Wi-Fi, and SD card slot up to 32GB. The Plug Computer is an embedded computer that plugs into the wall socket and can run network-based services that normally require a dedicated personal computer. Featuring a Marvell ARM-based CPU running up to 2GHz CPU with 512MB of Flash memory and 512MB of DDR3 memory, the Plug Computer provides ample processing power and resources to run any embedded computing application. Network connectivity is via Gigabit Ethernet; peripheral devices can be connected using USB 2.0 and Wi-Fi.
• Software Tools
The SMILE Plug will be based on Arch LinuxTM for ARM and NODE.js, as well as a plug administration API and Stanford’s SMILE environment and software development kit (SDK). All components adhere to the open-source model, making the SMILE Plug an ideal platform on which to develop or port any additional learning applications. The Plugmin administration client runs on Android-based devices and enables easy administration of the SMILE Plug. Used in conjunction with the SMILE Junction Server Administration Client, the teacher can easily control or run interactive classroom learning experiences.System-on-Chip (SoC) Solutions
The SMILE Plug Computer incorporates two of Marvell’s industry-leading system-on-chip (SOC) solutions to drive unparalleled application performance and connectivity in online classroom environment:
• Marvell ARMADA 300 CPU SoC
This is a high-performance integrated controller. It integrates the Marvell developed CPU core that is fully ARMv5TE compliant with a 256KB L2 Cache. The Marvell ARMADATM 300 (88F6282) builds upon Marvell’s innovative family of processors, improves performance, and adds new features to reduce bill of materials (BOM) costs. The 88F6282 is suitable for a wide range of applications such as routers, gateway, media server, storage, thin clients, set-top box, networking, point of service and printer products. For product information, visit http://www.marvell.com/embeddedprocessors/armada-300/assets/armada_310.pdf• Marvell Avastar 88W8764 Wi-Fi SoC
This is a highly integrated 4×4 wireless local area network (WLAN) system-on-chip (SoC), specifically designed to support high throughput data rates for next generation WLAN products. The device is designed to support IEEE 802.11n/a/g/b payload data rates. The Marvell Avastar® 88W8764 provides the combined functions of DSSS, OFDM, and MIMO baseband modulation, MAC, on-chip CPU, memory, host interfaces, and direct-conversion WLAN RF radio on a single integrated chip. The device supports 802.11n beamformer and beamformee functionality, enabling a simplified, integrated solution. For product information, visit http://www.marvell.com/wireless/assets/Marvell-Avastar-88W8764-SoC.pdfKey Features and Benefits
…
Arch Linux, a lightweight and flexible Linux® distribution that tries to Keep It Simple.
Currently we have official packages optimized for the i686 and x86-64 architectures. We complement our official package sets with a community-operated package repositorythat grows in size and quality each and every day.
Our strong community is diverse and helpful, and we pride ourselves on the range of skillsets and uses for Arch that stem from it. Please check out our forums and mailing lists to get your feet wet. Also glance through our wiki if you want to learn more about Arch.
About Arch Linux [Dec 5, 2008]
Arch Linux is an independently developed, i686/x86-64 general purpose GNU/Linux distribution versatile enough to suit any role. Development focuses on simplicity, minimalism, and code elegance. Arch is installed as a minimal base system, configured by the user upon which their own ideal environment is assembled by installing only what is required or desired for their unique purposes. GUI configuration utilities are not officially provided, and most system configuration is performed from the shell by editing simple text files. Arch strives to stay bleeding edge, and typically offers the latest stable versions of most software.
Arch Linux uses its own Pacman package manager, which couples simple binary packages with an easy-to-use package build system. This allows users to easily manage and customize packages ranging from official Arch software to the user’s own personal packages to packages from 3rd party sources. The repository system also allows users to easily build and maintain their own custom build scripts, packages, and repositories, encouraging community growth and contribution.
The minimal Arch base package set resides in the streamlined [core] repository. In addition, the official [extra], [community], and [testing] repositories provide several thousand high-quality, packages to meet your software demands. Arch also offers an [unsupported] section in the Arch Linux User Repository (AUR), which contains over 9,000 build scripts, for compiling installable packages from source using the Arch Linux makepkg application.
Arch Linux uses a “rolling release” system which allows one-time installation and perpetual software upgrades. It is not generally necessary to reinstall or upgrade your Arch Linux system from one “version” to the next. By issuing one command, an Arch system is kept up-to-date and on the bleeding edge.
Arch strives to keep its packages as close to the original upstream software as possible. Patches are applied only when necessary to ensure an application compiles and runs correctly with the other packages installed on an up-to-date Arch system.
To summarize: Arch Linux is a versatile, and simple distribution designed to fit the needs of the competent Linux® user. It is both powerful and easy to manage, making it an ideal distro for servers and workstations. Take it in any direction you like. If you share this vision of what a GNU/Linux distribution should be, then you are welcomed and encouraged to use it freely, get involved, and contribute to the community. Welcome to Arch!
New Arch Linux ARM website! [June 22, 2011]
Welcome to the new Arch Linux ARM site! We hope you like the new layout, organization, and the brand new, unified effort from the PlugApps and ArchMobile teams.
For our existing PlugApps/Plugbox users, you have probably already got the new “rebranding” packages that renames much of PlugApps to Arch Linux ARM (ALARM for short), but beyond that, we’re still the same team members with the same goal in mind – to create an advanced but simple Linux distribution for ARM devices such as plug computers and newer ARM devices.
We’d love to hear your feedback on the change – post in the forums or get in touch with us in the Support menu.
Thanks for using Arch Linux ARM and you’ll be hearing a lot more from us as we go!
Welcome ArchMobile.org Visitors! [July 23, 2011]
You may not have noticed unless you came here looking for ArchMobile.org, but the domain now redirects to Arch Linux ARM.
ArchMobile was the first effort aimed at making Arch Linux run on ARM, with an emphasis on mobile phones such as the OpenMoko. PlugApps was the other effort, aimed at making Arch Linux for plug computers. They decided to join forces and create a new, unified effort, Arch Linux ARM, for all ARM devices. This redirect completes the move to Arch Linux ARM as the base for everyone’s work.
So, welcome! Post in the forums and join us on IRC!
Arch Linux ARM [June 26, 2011]
Arch Linux ARM is a distribution of Linux for ARM computers. We are aimed at ARMv5 platforms like plug computers, OXNAS-based ARMv6 PogoPlugs, Cortex-A8 platforms such as the BeagleBoard, and Cortex-A9 and Tegra platforms like the PandaBoard and TrimSlice. However, it can run on any device that supports ARMv5te or Cortex-A instruction sets. Our collaboration with Arch Linuxbrings users the best platform, newest packages, and installation support.
Arch Linux ARM is a full Linux distribution with all of the console, server, and desktop applications you’d find anywhere else. You can run many popular services, such as CUPS to print from networked computers; Apache, Lighttpd, Cherokee, and Nginx for web servers with full PHP and CGI support; FTP, NFS, AFP, Rendezvous, Windows and Time Machine-compatible Samba servers; or install a desktop environment (with a web browser, text editors, and more) accessible through VNC, DisplayLink, or HDMI displays.
The entire distribution is on a rolling-release cycle that can be updated daily through small packages instead of huge updates every few months. Most packages are unmodified from what the upstream developer originally released.
Platforms (exerpted as of Feb 1, 2012):
PlugApps maintains two software repositories specifically designed for the features available in each platform. The devices listed for each platform are those we officially support with precompiled kernels and root file systems tailored to their unique configurations.
However, just because a device isn’t listed doesn’t mean the software won’t run on it. Any ARM system with any of the architectures we compile for will be able to run the software, and any newer systems that are backwards compatible will be able to use the software as well.
Choose a platform from the menu above or in the list below to get started.
ARMv5
Processor
RAM
NAND
Ethernet
USB
SATA
Pogoplug Series 4
Marvell Kirkwood 800MHz
128MB
128MB
Gigabit
3
1
Pogoplug v2 (Pink/Gray)
Marvell Kirkwood 1.2GHz
256MB
128MB
Gigabit
4
Seagate DockStar
Marvell Kirkwood 1.2GHz
128MB
256MB
Gigabit
4
Seagate GoFlex Home
Marvell Kirkwood 1.2GHz
128MB
256MB
Gigabit
1
1
Seagate GoFlex Net
Marvell Kirkwood 1.2GHz
128MB
256MB
Gigabit
1
2
SheevaPlug
Marvell Kirkwood 1.2GHz
512MB
512MB
Gigabit
1
TonidoPlug
Marvell Kirkwood 1.2GHz
512MB
512MB
Gigabit
1
ARMv6
Processor
RAM
NAND
Ethernet
USB
SATA
Pogoplug Pro/Video/v3
PLX 7820 700MHz Dual-core
128MB
128MB
Gigabit
4
1
ARMv7
Processor
RAM
Ethernet
SD
USB
Wireless
BeagleBoard
TI OMAP 3530 720MHz
256MB
10/100
Full SD
1
BeagleBoard-xM
TI DM3730 1GHz
512MB
10/100
Micro SD
4
Gumstix Overo
TI OMAP 35xx 600/720MHz
512MB
10/100
Micro SD
Exp
B/G, Bluetooth v2.0 + EDR
PandaBoard
TI OMAP 4430 1GHz Dual-core
1024MB
10/100
Full SD
2
B/G/N, Bluetooth v2.1 + EDR
TrimSlice
NVIDIA Tegra 2, 1GHz Dual-core
1024MB
Gigabit
Full and Micro SD
4
Nokia CEO: salespeople to deliver true WP7 retail experience supported by improved product management, marketing and accelerated global coverage with a full breadth of products
Nokia Quarter 4 results 2011 webcast [Nokia, Jan 26, 2012]:
prepared remarks by Stephen Elop, President & CEO
[02:00] … Lumia …
In Q4 2012 Lumia was introduced to:
- a number of European countries
- Hong Kong, India, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea
… [remarks on January US introduction already covered by me in detail: Nokia’s Lumia strategy is capitalizing on platform enhancement opportunities with location-based services, better photographic experience etc. [Jan 12, 2012]]
- China and Latin America in this half
Current situation:
- to date well over 1 million Lumia devices sold
- since mid November from zero markets to 15 markets, from zero devices to well over a million devices, from no presence in the US to being in lead in the AT&T’s LTE launch
From this beachhead you will see us to push forward with the sales, marketing and successive product introductions necessary to be successfull.
Our performance with Lumia on a country by country basis varies. Often [it] is a combination of relative brand strength and retail execution capabilities.
- For example, in the United Kingdom, where competitive ecosystems are firmly entrenched, we have seen mixed retail execution around Lumia devices with a range of results among different locations, different chains, different stores and so on.
- Contrarily in Germany and Spain we have seen steady, weak on weak improvement in Lumia device activations up to the Holiday season followed by a small expected dip in the last week of the year, and then a continued weak on weak growth in January.
…
.. we are in the heart of our transition, which means as we bring the first of our new devices to market there are areas we are learning and areas where we must adjust:
- We are learning more about the variations in our store by store retail execution related to Lumia. Our consumer research indicates and response at CES validates that once a consumers use a Lumia device their responses are positive. Where we’ve secured strong support from the operators we need to increase the engagement of the retail sales associates in the stores, because it is the retail associate who speaks with our consumersand puts the Lumia device in their hands. As a result we are adjusting, we are adjusting our retail tactics by increasing the quantity and quality of our retail associate traning programs, seeding more Lumia devices into the market, and increasing point of sales activities.
- With the continued focus on consumer net promoter scores we are also learning about the areas where consumers are most favorable towards the specific capabilities of Lumia and those areas upon which we need to focus. For example, we’ve received very positive feedback on the elegance of design, ease of use, and absolute performance of the products. On the other hand, consumers initially reported that battery performance needed focus. Thus we immediately adjusted to improve battery performance with software updates which are now in the market. This rapid cycle of consumer learning and Nokia response is a critical part of our improved approach to product management.
- We are learning that awareness of Lumia is steadily growing, assisted by each of the successive product and country launches that continue. As awareness grows we are adjusting the focus of our marketing efforts from an aspirational aspect of a new launch towards an emphasis on a differentiated experiences and capabilitiesof the Lumia products.
- We are learning about the importance of truly breaking through. Thus we are adjusting our plans to increase the rate at which we enter new markets during the course of 2012. We also are increasing the focus of our corporate resources on continued marketing campaigns, and we are working to accelerate the introduction of a full breadth of products.
Overall we’re pursuing this pattern. We’ll take each step up the ladder one running at a time recognizing that the competitive dynamics vary country by country. This underscores the large amount of work immidiately ahead of us to break through as the third ecosystem, to capture the attention of retail sales associates, to convert the increasing awareness around Lumia and the purchase intent, and ultimately to delight our consumers. [09:12]
the essence of the answers to some questions:
on carriers’ motivation:
… motivation on third ecosystem is very strong … consistency on user experience on behalf of Microsoft … it is in our favor but we need earn their respect …
on Lumia sell-through:
… different [retail] experiences and so forth … focus on when and how those [retail] experiences are different … we do see different [retail] experiences and patterns in different countries … some are related to competitive dynamics, brand strengths, retail capabilities and so forth … for example, a lot of those reports tend to focus on UK, which in the context of Europe is the hardest market in terms of breaking through the strength of the competing ecosystems and so forth … you’ll see a lot of ballance in that direction … what’s really interesting is, and this is we’re so much in very early days that you have to really dig into the details … even when you’re in the UK. I was there a couple of days ago, and as you can imagine, I went to store, to store, to store, and asking: tell me about smartphones, what’s new and all that type of thing. You’ll see a great variability of in-store performance in terms of retail experience. .. in certain stores the retail presentation is great, the associates are well trained, everything is right, and of course it correlates very closely with the success that we’re seeing in certain chains of stores, in certain areas and so forth. Very good performance. … In other areas we are not as far along as we need to be. We need better retail execution, associates are not as well prepared, or there are other dynamics that are at play. The reason I tell you about this variability is because, first of all, how people report depend very much on the experience they have, this mix from location to location in some countries. But also as you assess, OK, as we apply more resource, as we make sure that we are very focussed on getting everyone upto the base level, if not the excellent level of retail execution, we can clearly see our way through the work that need to be done in order to deliver the results that we want to continue to deliver. …
on China dynamics:
… The Chinese operators are increasingly, on accellerated basis entering into structures where there’s effectively retail rate plan bundling is going on at the store. The operators are driving very hard for the volume of 3G data subscribers. And this is not necessary an economic measure as it is driving volume on certain networks for certain technologies. I think those targets are probably set more broadly for all of the operators [he could mean: by the state, as all three operators are majority owned by the state]. And the impact of that is that they are discovering that with very low priced devices on certain radio technologies they can drive a lot of volume at those levels. And so we are seeing, for example, a very significant uptake in a number of low-priced devices that are on CDMA, there’s also a very significant focus on the Chinese technology TD-SCDMA, again all of the low levels ought to drive those volumes. My comment in the prepared remarks is that Symbian is not well positioned today against that. We do not have Symbian CDMA products at all, so we are not participating in that part of the market. So as that part of the market grows our addressable market has gone down because of that. In TD-SCDMA we do have some products in that space but not at the price points and configurations that is the real focus of this market. …
… We have not yet announced our specific products for the Chinese market but I will say that when we first announced our launch plans, I think all the way back in October, we did highlight that we would have CDMA based Windows Phone products and TD-SCDMA Windows Phone products. That thing said it is the case that we have work to do to successively drive the prices down further and further and further. That will take a bit of time but this is clearly the pattern you are going to see us on the months ahead. …
[I have a couple of deep and current analysis on that:
– The new, high-volume market in China is ready to define the 2012 smartphone war [Jan 6, 2012]
– China TD-SCDMA and W-CDMA 3G subscribers by the end of 2011: China Mobile lost its original growth momentum [Jan 21, 2012]
– China becoming the lead market for mobile Internet in 2012/13 [Dec 1, 2011]]
on differentiating the Windows Phone:
… the overall user experience is differentiated against Android … good response from the customers on Music service included, location services (Map and Drive) … partnerships: e.g. ESPN … in addition we have to ensure that the retail experience is differentiated … even price, e.g. in US/T-Mobile case already …
[I have a couple of deep and current analysis on that:
– Nokia’s Lumia strategy is capitalizing on platform enhancement opportunities with location-based services, better photographic experience etc. [Jan 12, 2012]
– The precursor of 2012 smartphone war: Nokia Lumia vs. Samsung Omnia W in India [Jan 3, 2012]
– The leading ClearBlack display technology from Nokia [Dec 18, 2011]
– Nokia Lumia (Windows Phone 7) value proposition [Oct 26, 2011]]
on rapid scalability for lower prices of Chinese market:
… a critical consideration for us … work is under way with Microsoft … you will see a stepwise progress in that direction in the periods ahead.
on the mobile phones business:
… feature phones and how that market is perceived is less about the collection of features and what it does and doesn’t do, but it is more about the price span, the opportunity to drive, increase sales in that area, to serve consumers who don’t want to spend the money, or don’t have the money to spend on what we would today consider smartphone and so forth. …
[I have a deep and more current information on that:
– Smarterphone end-to-end software solution for “the next billion” Nokia users [Jan 9, 2012]]
– Nokia Lumia Momentum Map [Nokia Maps Blog, Jan 15, 2012]
If a picture is worth a thousand words, an interactive map is at least worth ten thousand words! To coincide with the launch of Nokia Lumia in USA; we launched the Nokia Lumia Momentum Map – an interactive way to check out the countries where Nokia Lumia smart phones are either available or will be coming soon. You can also check out the tweets, videos and photos from users about the Lumia series.
The content of the Momentum Map as of Jan 15, 2012:
| Country | Lumia 710 | Lumia 800 |
| Germany | Now | Now |
| Netherlands | Now | Now |
| Italy | Now | Now |
| Russia | Now | Now |
| India | Now | Now |
| Hong Kong | Now | Now |
| Taiwan | Now | Now |
| Singapore | Now | Now |
| Spain | Jan 11, 2012 | Now |
| United Kingdom | Feb 1, 2012 | Now |
| USA (+ Lumia 900 “in coming months”) |
Jan 11, 2012 | Coming Soon |
| France | n.a. | Now |
| Austria | Coming Soon | Now |
| Hungary | Jan 20, 2012 | Jan 20, 2012 |
| Greece | Jan 21, 2012 | Jan 20, 2012 |
| Portugal | Feb 2, 2012 | Jan 26, 2012 |
| Switzerland | n.a. | Jan 13, 2012 |
| Denmark | n.a. | Jan 20, 2012 |
| Sweden | n.a. | Jan 23, 2012 |
| Norway | Feb 1, 2012 | Feb 1, 2012 |
| Canada | Feb, 2012 | Feb, 2012 |
| Belgium | Mar 1, 2012 | Feb 1, 2012 |
More information:
– Nokia Q4 2011 net sales EUR 10.0 billion, non-IFRS EPS EUR 0.06 (reported EPS EUR -0.29) Nokia 2011 net sales EUR 38.7 billion, non-IFRS EPS EUR 0.29 (reported EPS EUR -0.31) [Nokia press release, Jan 26, 2012]
– Quarter 4 report tables in xls [Jan 26, 2012]
– Nokia Names Siilasmaa as Chairman to Replace Retiring Ollila – BusinessWeek
… Nokia investors lost more than 60 billion euros ($79 billion) in share value after Apple Inc. leapfrogged it with the iPhone. Siilasmaa will oversee Chief Executive Officer Stephen Elop’s efforts to win customers as Apple and Google Inc. expand into new markets. … An investor in Finnish startups, Siilasmaa may also broker more tie-ups with new companies such as “Angry Birds” maker Rovio Entertainment Ltd.
“I don’t want to leave a fortune to my kids,” Siilasmaa told a panel on startup investment …
– Nordic Chairman of the Year 2009: Speech of thanks by Risto Siilasmaa, F-Secure Oyj. [Feb 18, 2010]
Relative to that media reports are very narrow focused as you could even see from the below entries considered the best among them:
Nokia Posts Huge Loss [The Wall Street Journal, Jan 27, 2011]
…
Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi said Nokia’s shipments were in line with expectations. ‘Overall, what we have been looking for is an improvement over the third quarter, and we got that. But while it seems Nokia is on track, there is still a lot more to do,’ she said.
…
Nokia CEO taps salesmen to assure Lumia push [SlashGear, Jan 27, 2012]
Over the last year when it came to Windows Phone, we saw a lovely looking user interface fall victim to less than stellar engagement and interest on the part of the public – Stephen Elop this week says that it’s the work of the salesmen, not the manufacturer, to make the final drop of the device into the hands on the consumer. Without a doubt there’s a certain flair to the Lumia line of smartphones being released both here in the USA and abroad this year, but without the folks in the stores actually pointing people to the hands-on equipment, there’s certainly no chance of a big hit in the engagement environment. Elop let the world know in Nokia’s sales call what he expects from store employees in the very near future.
Without that final point-of-sale touch, all else will certainly fail, at least that’s what Nokia’s top minds seem to be saying this week. Though the devices are perfectly legitimate in their build and execution, and the advertisements surrounding them may be lovely, there’s always a third step that must be taken. Elop said thusly this week in Nokia’s sales call:
“We need to increase the engagement of the retail sales associates in the stores, because it is the retail associate who speaks with our consumers and puts the Lumia device in their hands. For example, in the United Kingdom, where competitive ecosystems are firmly entrenched, we have seen mixed retail execution around Lumia devices with a range of results among different locations, different chains, different stores and so on.” – Elop
…
And the comments were mostly supportive of that:
…
Joseph Paradis
1 day ago
I think he has a good point. I had known about WP7 for quite some time before the launch and had already chosen the phone I wanted. The last step for me was going to the store and getting a little hands-on to seal the deal. I had 3 sales reps (from 3 different stores) tell me to check out the Android phones instead (?!). One told me that the Windows OS is no good because its buggy, the other two were just astounded that I was interested in a WP7. I knew way more about the specs of those phones (and a good count of Android phones) than the sales rep. There are a lot of people who I think would like Nokia WP7 phones and other WP7 phones, but kind of go to the store without much knowledge and get carted around by these reps who may have ulterior motives.
…
Stephens_Eloped
I think anyone who is reading a website like SlashGear is the kind of person who probably knows more than the average salesperson in a mobile phone store. Definitely. I’ve had the experience of being “too knowledgeable” myself on many occasion. You stand there listening to false information and you’re either tempted to let it fly, (poor guy didn’t any training) or if they’re douches, you just say, “No, you’re wrong, the N9/L800/L910 isn’t all aluminum, it’s all poly-carbonate, which is a plastic.”
I think salespeople in the States are the worst – they’re so entrenched with Android and iPhone (and also any OEM + WP that ISN’T Nokia), that unless Nokia say, “ok salesteam, here’s a much, much bigger commission for you if you sell a Lumia”, then they haven’t got much chance of changing the mindset of the average American consumer. It’s not a Nokia friendly world here, so they’ve got to up their game. TV ads ain’t nowhere near enough.
…
Clever
It’s definitely the salespeople who make it hard for WP7 to take off. Phone carriers make their biggest profits from sales of Android handsets and are able to load the Android phones with their bloatware, therefore the sales staff are trained to push these phones over iPhone and WP7 handsets.
Here in Australia our stores are all Android themed and one store in Melbourne has a whole floor called “Android Land”, where phone shoppers can explore and learn all about the Android ecosystem. Now that there are some decent WP7 handsets coming out, I think Microsoft really needs to do three things to get their OS to take off:1 – Get some handsets out to carriers and stores. Only 1 carrier out of 4 in Australia even sells WP7 devices and they are outdated and you’d be lucky to even find them on display in stores. I think a lot of people would like to by a Nokia N900 but if it takes another 12 months before they even hit our shelves I’m sure we will have lost interest.
2 – Work with carriers to not only sell WP7 devices but to actually push them. Make the devices resonably priced and give carriers incentives in the way of good subsidies to entice them to get their staff to actually push WP7 devices.
3 – Market WP7 so people actually know it exists and know to look for it when they do walk into a phone store. Apart from us tech heads I would bet that half of the population doesn’t even know that WP7 exists. People who don’t know about something are a lot less likely to purchase it. Where are the TV ads telling us why we should be buying a WP7 device?
Dumb salesmen are hurting us – Nokia CEO [The Register, Jan 27, 2012]
Incentivising the McJobs
Analysis Stephen Elop got a pretty indulgent reception from analysts, and most of the press yesterday, after delivering some shocking results. Nokia turned a profit of €2bn into a loss of €1bn in the new boss’s first full year; volumes are down by 29 per cent; sales of the new Windows phone are unremarkable (to put it generously); and Elop has scrapped guidance for the rest of the year. [Summary] News like this would normally have analysts reaching for the panic button – but not today. Why would this be?
Well, obviously, much can be explained by the appreciation that Nokia is in rapid transition – it isn’t even a full year since the Elopcalypse. Elop got the bad news out of the way in his (still) remarkable Burning Platforms memo. But it’s also because he was quite unexpectedly frank and forthcoming about why Nokia isn’t making more headway with its shiny new platform – the one that isn’t burning. Elop explained that Nokia has a very stiff learning curve ahead of it in consumer retail. He also said that sales staff in the channel weren’t helping. He even detailed this country-by-country. I’m surprised more Nokia-watchers haven’t remarked on this – or why Elop dwelled on retail in such detail.
Nokia staff should be glad he did, because of a forlorn sight I saw last November. Just as the Christmas shopping season was getting underway on London’s Oxford Street, I saw a quite ominous sight. The flagship West End Carphone Warehouse store, next to John Lewis, had large posters in the window announcing the arrival of the Lumia 800. There were two live Lumia 800s available for curious punters to play with – of around half a dozen such working retail models from rivals. Except they weren’t live. They were completely dead. And although Nokia had secured the prime corner spot for its devices, it may as well have hidden them on some remote industrial wasteland. The shop was very busy, but nobody came and asked if they could see the Lumia working.
If Nokia is to claw its way back into contention, this won’t do. Getting one million Lumias stocked really isn’t a terrific achievement considering that the six largest European markets had the 800, and some pretty significant Asian markets had the 710. The needle hasn’t moved.
“There are areas where we are learning and areas where we must adjust. First, we are learning more about the variations in our store-by-store retail execution related to Lumia,” said Elop yesterday.
He then re-emphasised how important it was to show people the Windows UI, and suggested that quality of the sales droids was very variable:
“We need to increase the engagement of the retail sales associates in the stores, because it is the retail associate who speaks with our consumers and puts the Lumia device in their hands,” he added, correctly. And he singled out some of the domestic channel here, suggesting he hadn’t been impressed by what he saw:
“For example, in the United Kingdom, where competitive ecosystems are firmly entrenched, we have seen mixed retail execution around Lumia devices with a range of results among different locations, different chains, different stores and so on.”
I know several first-time smartphone buyers and Windows Phone wasn’t even on the radar. People don’t know it exists. In the UK, Android gained an early and enthusiastic foothold, which two years on translates into a mature and knowledgeable market. The Samsung Galaxy SII was the best-selling phonein the UK at Christmas, by some distance. For the average punter a buying decision begins with a binary choice between Apple and BlackBerry, and if it’s a touchscreen then it’s between the iPhone and “one of the other lot”. The other lot is Android. Sales staff in stores like Carphone aren’t uniquely thick – they’re like all savvy retail staff – they want their commission, and they know there’s a huge appetite for Android out there.
It’s a sign of how things have changed. Nokia can no longer play hardball with its channel partners – today, it really needs their help. Windows has made no impression on the market and gaining people’s attention – which includes aligning the incentives of the channel – is going to be much more expensive than analysts realise.
I’m onto my second Lumia, and I like the UI very much indeed. But I still haven’t seen a civilian – someone who isn’t an analyst, journalist or Nokia industry partner – carrying a Lumia in the wild. Have you?
VIZIO’s two pronged strategy: Android based V.I.A. Plus device ecosystem + Windows based premium PC entertainment
The VIZIO Internet Apps® Plus (“V.I.A. Plus”) ecosystem of devices was launched on June 28, 2011 with the introduction of VIZIO’s first tablet. Each VIZIO V.I.A. Plus product features a VIZIO-designed user interface that is not only intuitive but also consistent across screens, for superior ease-of-use for the casual, non-technical user. It is built on the Android™ platform. All the information about that innovative ecosystem is available in an earlier “collection post” on this blog: Innovative entertainment class [Android] tablet from VIZIO plus a unified UX for all cloud based CE devices, from TVs to smartphones [Aug 21, 2011].
We will look into the essential expansion of V.I.A. Plus announced at CES 2012 later. Here is sufficient to include just a short piece from the above mentioned collection in order to make the concept of V.I.A. Plus ecosystem absolutely clear (before we will go into the details of the brand new Windows based premium PC entertainment from VIZIO):
VIZIO Tablet [VIZIO video, Aug 1, 2011]: the value proposition video from the vendor which is extremely well demonstrating not only the VIZIO-specific V.I.A. Plus UI but the whole new user experience:
This week Vizio has added the alternative, Windows based PC entertainment to its portfolio as well: VIZIO Bursts Into the Computing Realm with Five Innovative and Sleek PCs Set to Redefine Consumer Entertainment [VIZIO press release, Jan 9, 2011]
CES — VIZIO, America’s #1 LCD HDTV Company*, announced today an innovative line of five premium personal computers designed to turn the PC market upside down and accommodate the entertainment needs and wants demanded by consumers. Set to launch with Windows 7 in spring 2012, the elegantly designed PCs will provide an entertainment experience only VIZIO can deliver, complete with top notch 2.1 audio and video quality. The personal computing line consists of two all-in-one computers, two thin + light notebooks and one notebook. VIZIO’s line was developed to raise the bar in personal and home entertainment while also keeping powerful performance at the forefront.
Much like its entrance into the HDTV category nearly a decade ago, VIZIO believes it has identified a need in the PC world for a device that addresses a recent change in consumer behavior. Growing popularity in video streaming services has resulted in the need for personal computers that can stream content for a family movie night and put together an important business presentation the following day. The VIZIO PCs address this change by meeting both the entertainment and productivity demands.
VIZIO PCs will be a continued progression of the VIZIO Internet Apps (V.I.A.) Ecosystem, which provides a seamless, cohesive entertainment experience across multiple screens. As the V.I.A. experience spans across the brand’s HDTVs, Blu-Ray players, tablets and more, today’s announcement represents a natural extension of the experience over to the PC as well. Together with Windows, VIZIO’s PCs will deliver power, mobility and familiar ease of use, ensuring a fast, fluid and immersive user experience that distinguishes them from devices that function and those that are truly entertaining.
“PCs are often associated with productivity and the workplace, routinely lacking the excitement that would be expected with what and how consumers want to use their PCs today – as an extension of their entertainment experience,” said Matt McRae, Chief Technology Officer. “VIZIO wanted to change that. Our new line of VIZIO PCs are truly high quality and consumer focused, delivering enhanced multimedia capabilities while upholding our high standards of performance, style and design.”
Complete with high-performance hardware, the VIZIO PCs boast a clean system image optimized by Microsoft and an elegant industrial design incorporating authentic, high-quality materials that is sure to turn heads both on-the-go and in the living room. Known for HDTVs that boast stunning high-definition pictures, VIZIO engineered its new line of PCs to meet the same high-quality standards.
Always committed to pushing the envelope, VIZIO believes their groundbreaking PCs will alter the way consumers view computing. With entertainment at the heart of the VIZIO PCs, users will find that consuming content will be just as desirable as on their HDTV. With an already high demand for devices that are able to multitask between work and play, the consumer’s choices are limited. VIZIO accepted the challenge and has elegantly bridged both worlds to provide a Windows-based PC that offers a rich entertainment experience alongside tools needed for getting work done.
“We’re excited to see VIZIO enter the PC market and the positive impact they will have on the Windows ecosystem,” said Steven Guggenheimer, CVP OEM Division, Microsoft. “With their expertise in providing connected entertainment experiences and an innovative go-to-market approach, we look forward to working with VIZIO to bring premium consumer PCs to market.”
VIZIO anticipates its entry into the PC category will challenge consumers to expect more from their computers enabling them to play as hard as they work. Discover more at http://www.vizio.com/CES.
*Source: IHS iSuppli Corporation Research Q4 2011 Market Tracker Report of Q4 2010 – Q3 2011.
About VIZIO
VIZIO, Inc., “Entertainment Freedom For All,” headquartered in Irvine, California, is America’s #1 LCD HDTV Company. In Q2 2007, VIZIO skyrocketed to the top by becoming the #1 shipping brand of flat panel HDTVs in North America and in Q3 2007 became the first American brand in over a decade to lead in U.S. LCD HDTV shipments. Since 2007 VIZIO LCD HDTV shipments remain in the top ranks in the U.S. and were #1 for the total year in 2009 and 2010. VIZIO is committed to bringing feature-rich consumer electronics to market at a value through practical innovation. VIZIO offers a broad range of award winning consumer electronics. VIZIO’s products are found at Costco Wholesale, Sam’s Club, Walmart, Target, BJ’s Wholesale, and other retailers nationwide along with authorized online partners. VIZIO has won numerous awards including a #1 ranking in the Inc. 500 for Top Companies in Computers and Electronics, Fast Company’s 6th Most Innovative CE Company of 2009, and made the lists of Ad Age’s Hottest Brands, CNET’s Editor’s Choice, CNET Best of CES 2011 – Television, IGN Best of CES – Television, Bluetooth.org Best of CES, Good Housekeeping’s Best Big-Screens, PC World’s Best Buy, Popular Mechanics Editor’s Choice and OC Metro’s 10 Most Trustworthy Brands among many other prestigious honors. For more information, please call 888-VIZIOCE or visit on the web at www.VIZIO.com.The V, VIZIO, VIZIO Internet Apps, Theater 3D, CinemaWide HDTV, Full Array TruLED, Edge Lit Razor LED, 240Hz SPS, 480Hz SPS, Entertainment Freedom and Entertainment Freedom for All names, logos and phrase are registered or unregistered trademarks of VIZIO, Inc. All other trademarks may be the property of their respective holders.
SOURCE VIZIO, Inc.
Brand New Line of Gorgeous Vizio Products from CES 2012! [TEKHD, Jan 10, 2012]
CES 2012: Vizio takes on the iMac [IGNentertainment, Jan 9, 2012]
Note that there is certainly an outstanding design professional behind these products: Scott McManigal, Senior Director of Global Design who has been with VIZIO since June 2009. Before he had been with OpenPeak, Herbst LaZar Bell, BMW Group DesignworksUSA (10 years!), Mattel Toys and Patton Design. It is no wonder that the new PCs got immediate recognition from media with headlines like:
– The New Vizio PCs and Notebooks Are Worthy of Apple [Gizmodo, Jan 9, 2012]
– Vizio PCs and Laptops are the closest to Apple when it comes to style [Newlaunches.com, Jan 9, 2012]
A First Look at Vizio’s new line of ultrabooks [CNETTV, Jan 10, 2012]
CES 2012: Vizio Takes On the MacBook Air [IGNentertainment, Jan 9, 2012]
So far there are no tablets among these premium PC entertainment offerings. VIZIO will introduce them surely when Windows 8 will be launched late summer as the earliest.
The CES 2012 expansion of the V.I.A. Plus
From the V.I.A. Plus related press release (see later): Among the V.I.A. Plus products to be included in VIZIO’s Las Vegas showcase are the 65-inch, 55-inch and 47-inch V.I.A. Plus HDTVs with Theater 3D™, the VBR430 Blu-ray Player and the VAP430 Stream Player, all of which incorporate the latest Google TV experience. VIZIO will also show two V.I.A. Plus enabled [Android] tablets—the current VTAB1008 and the new 10″ VTAB3010. [The tablets are Android based (as all of the V.I.A. Plus system). Detailed information on that: Innovative entertainment class [Android] tablet from VIZIO plus a unified UX for all cloud based CE devices, from TVs to smartphones [Aug 21, 2011].]
Vizio 10 inch tablet hands on [AndroidCentral, Jan 10, 2012]
Vizio 10-inch tablet preview [TheVerge, Jan 10, 2012]
Vizio’s New 10-inch Tablet to Have Intel Chip, Android [IDG News, Jan 10, 2012]
A new tablet from Vizio will come with Intel’s upcoming Atom chip, code-named Medfield, and will run Google’s Android operating system, a source with knowledge of the product plans said.
The M-Series tablet with a 10-inch screen was announced by Vizio at the Consumer Electronics Show, and the device will be “coming soon,” according to Vizio’s website. The tablet is being shown at the trade show in Las Vegas this week.
Vizio has not shared further details on the tablet, saying it is “powerful” and has Wi-Fi. The tablet provides “a world of entertainment right at your fingertips,” according to the company’s website.
The Vizio tablet could be the launching pad for Intel’s Medfield chip, which is not yet available in devices. The Medfield chip has been designed for smartphones and tablets, and Intel later this week is also expected to announce its first smartphone customers for the chip.
Intel’s Medfield & Atom Z2460 Arrive for Smartphones: It’s Finally Here [AnandTech, Jan 11, 2012]
It’s here. Intel’s first smartphone SoC that you’ll actually be able to buy in a device before the end of the year. The platform is called Medfield and Paul Otellini just announced its first device partners.
Medfield starts out as a bonafide mobile SoC. Whereas Moorestown was a “two-chip” solution, Medfield is just one – the Penwell SoC:
…
There’s only a single version of Medfield being announced today: the Intel Atom Z2460. The Z2460 features a single Atom core with a 512KB L2 cache, a PowerVR SGX 540 GPU and a dual-channel LPDDR2 memory interface. In a world where talking about four Cortex A9s and PowerVR SGX 544MP2s isn’t uncommon, Medfield starts out almost sounding a bit…tame. But then you see its performance:
Although running what appears to be a stock Gingerbread browser, Intel’s Medfield reference platform posts SunSpider performance better than any other smartphone we’ve tested – including the Galaxy Nexus running Ice Cream Sandwich. Intel promises that Medfield’s performance will scale on ICS as well – the gap should be maintained. We’ve seen high results from reference designs in the past, but the Medfield platform is a little different as you’ll soon see – it’s a complete smartphone design that should be representative of handsets that hit the market later this year.
Medfield isn’t a one trick pony either, performance is similarly dominating under BrowserMark:
These are tablet-like scores. Here the Galaxy Nexus running ICS comes close, but once again Intel expects that on the same OS Medfield should be faster than any of the currently available SoCs.
I asked Intel where its SunSpider and BrowserMark performance advantages came from, especially considering we’ve typically only seen huge gains with new browsers and not new SoCs. Their response pointed to a bunch of factors, but one stand out issue was the A9 has a great execution core but seems to be more limited on the memory interface. Atom can support far more outstanding misses in L2 than the Cortex A9, which chokes bandwidth to the processor for anything not already in the L2 cache. This may be one of the reasons why we’ve never been able to get really high bandwidth numbers out of A9 based SoCs. It’s probably safe to assume that things will be different with the Cortex A15, but for now it’s little things like this that give Medfield a performance advantage.
GPU performance is understandably not as impressive. We couldn’t get offscreen numbers of GLBenchmark 2.1 but we did get results at the device’s native resolution (1024 x 600):
3D performance is better than the OMAP 4460 due to Medfield’s 400MHz GPU clock compared to ~300MHz in most OMAP4 devices.
Performance without power considerations is meaningless, especially in the smartphone world. Luckily for Intel, Medfield seems very competitive there as well. …
…
Medfield, at least in Intel’s reference platform, looks very good.
The actual values are pretty astonishing as well. Sub 20mW idle, sub 750mW during a call on 3G and although not pictured here, Intel’s internal data suggests ~1W power consumption while browsing the web compared to ~1.3W on the iPhone 4S and Galaxy S 2. I’ve done my own measurements on 4S web browsing and came up with a very similar value.
Intel Measured Smartphone Power Consumption
(Identical Display Brightness)
Standby (3G) Talk (3G) Browsing (3G) Video Playback 720p Apple iPhone 4S ~38mW ~800mW ~1.3W ~500mW Intel Medfield Reference ~18mW ~700mW ~1.0W ~850mW Samsung Galaxy S II ~19mW ~675mW ~1.2W ~650mW The performance and power data both look great for Medfield. You would think that this data, assuming there’s nothing fundamentally wrong, would be enough to convince a handset maker to actually give Intel a shot. You’d be right.
In addition to disclosing Medfield performance data, Intel is also announcing partnerships with both Motorola and Lenovo. The former is a broad, multi-year agreement stating that Motorola plans on creating many devices based on Intel silicon – the first of which will be a smartphone due out before the end of the year. Tablets will follow at some point as well.
Lenovo on the other hand will actually be taking and tweaking Intel’s own Medfield reference platform, and releasing it in China in Q2.
All of this is exactly what Intel needed: a start.
The CPU
…
The GPU, Process & Roadmap
…
What’s Different This Time Around: Google & A Sweet Reference Platform
…
ARM Compatibility: Binary Translation
…
Final Words
…
Medfield and the Atom Z2460 are a solid starting point. Intel finally has a chip that they can deliver to the market and partners to carry it in. Intel also built a very impressive reference platform that could lead to some very interesting disruptions in the market.
…
VIZIO and Google TV Join Forces to Create a State of the Art Stream Player [VIZIO press release, Jan 10, 2011]
– New stream player turns any HDTV into an enhanced smart TV with access to countless entertainment content and online services as well as powerful search and web browsing capabilities
– Part of the VIZIO Internet Apps Plus ecosystem, the new VIZIO Stream Player incorporates the power of the latest Google TV in combination with premium setup experience and included Bluetooth universal remote with touchpad control
– Integrated app and TV watching experiencelet users multitask seamlessly and access photos, audio and video stored on networked computers, hard drives and smart phonesVIZIO and Google today jointly announced the introduction of the VIZIO VAP430 Stream Player, an innovative stream player that turns any HDTV into an enhanced VIZIO Internet Apps Plus® (V.I.A. Plus) smart TV that incorporates the latest Google TV. The Stream Player allows consumers to access countless entertainment content and online services with web access through a fully capable Chrome browser, and to also enjoy photos, music and video stored on any computer, hard drive or smart phoneconnected to a local network and/or the cloud.*
With the VAP430 connected to an HDTV over an HDMI cable, users can quickly and seamlessly access content and services from their favorite apps and websites using the included Bluetooth premium universal remote control with integrated touchpad. In addition to movies, TV shows and music on demand, the VAP430 lets users search the web for even more entertainment options using the Flash-capable Chrome browser.
“We’re excited about what Google TV brings to our new VAP430 Stream Player,” says Matthew McRae, VIZIO’s Chief Technology Officer. “This isn’t just an ordinary streaming box that accesses a few predetermined video services. It’s a true entertainment portal that opens up everything the Web has to offer, as well as all the content consumers already have stored on computers and hard drives. And the incorporation of Google TV and our V.I.A. Plus interfacemakes it all incredibly easy to setup and a joy to use.”
Using the included premium remote with QWERTY keypad and integrated touchpad, viewers can easily search for any program or content they want from their favorite apps or the Internet. Users can also check out new apps from an ever-expanding Android Market, or access personal medialike videos, photos and music that are stored on devices connected to the same home network as the stream player. Images are displayed right on a connected TV set, and sound plays through the TV or a connected audio system.
“We’re thrilled to partner with VIZIO on the launch of their Stream Player,” said Mario Queiroz, head of Google TV. “VIZIO has established itself as a leader in the consumer electronics market. Combining Google TV with VIZIO’s innovative, easy-to-use consumer electronic products will bring more great entertainment and Android apps to the living room.”
Painless Setup, Powerful Capabilities
Part of the V.I.A. Plus ecosystem, the slick yet discreet VAP430 can easily compliment any HDTV using an HDMI cable. Installing the VAP430 and connecting it to the Internet is blazingly fast and simple to do with the built-in setup experience and 802.11n WiFi connection.
The VAP430 also has an HDMI pass-through that lets the user connect a cable or satellite box to the stream player and pass the signal over to the TV for a truly integrated TV watching experience. The smart TV interfaceoverlays the live TV signal so multitaskers can search for the next thing to watch without completely stepping away from what they’re currently watching.
Bluetooth capability also makes it simple to enjoy content from smart phones through the connected TV wirelessly. And with the USB input, connecting any USB drive directly to the VAP430 takes only seconds.
VAP430 is the first V.I.A. Plus device to launch this year, followed by the VBR430 3D Blu-ray player, which combines the features of the VAP430 with Blu-ray’s state-of-the-art high-definition video and audio playback capabilities.
Preorders for the VAP430 will begin this spring 2012. Find out more and sign up to be the first at www.vizio.com/ces
* The VIZIO Internet Apps® (V.I.A.) platform requires Internet access, equipment and subscription services that are not provided.
See also (especially because VAP430 is likely based on Marvell’s platform): Google’s revitalization of its Android-based TV effort via Marvell SoC and reference design[Jan 5, 2012]
VIZIO Expands the Next-Generation VIZIO Internet Apps Plus® (V.I.A. Plus) Ecosystem, Announcing New HDTV, Blu-ray Player, Stream Player and Tablet Products That Share a Unified User Experience Across All Screens [VIZIO press release, Jan 10, 2011]
– V.I.A. Plus provides access to a world of apps on each device with attention to details that optimize the entertainment experience on each and every screen
– V.I.A. Plus offers today’s most advanced and functional smart TV user experience, with an intuitive, app-centric interface optimized for the 10-foot viewing experience
– New V.I.A. partners to include iHeartRadio®, The Wall Street Journal® and M-GO®
– VIZIO’s expanded line-up incorporating the Google TV platform include the 65-inch, 55-inch and 47-inch HDTVs with Theater 3D, the VBR430 Blu-ray player, and the VAP430 Stream Player
VIZIO, America’s #1 HDTV Company*, announces the continued expansion of its next generation of the award-winning VIZIO Internet Apps® platform: VIZIO Internet Apps Plus (V.I.A. Plus). V.I.A. Plus brings a unified user experience to a wide range of devices that include HDTVs, Tablets, Blu-ray players, Media Players and more. From the big screen to mobile devices, V.I.A. Plus bridges the worlds of entertainment, content and services with one sophisticated and intuitive interface. V.I.A. Plus accesses a world of apps on each device, with attention to details that optimize the entertainment experience on each screen.
Among the V.I.A. Plus products to be included in VIZIO’s Las Vegas showcase are the 65-inch, 55-inch and 47-inch V.I.A. Plus HDTVs with Theater 3D™, the VBR430 Blu-ray Player and the VAP430 Stream Player, all of which incorporate the latest Google TV experience. VIZIO will also show two V.I.A. Plus enabled tablets—the current VTAB1008 and the new 10″ VTAB3010.
“The way users consume content has changed drastically over recent years. Technology has enabled nearly every device with a screen to connect to some form of delivery platform, each with its own mechanism for searching, browsing and viewing content.” said Matthew McRae, Chief Technology Officer, VIZIO. “V.I.A. Plus focuses entirely on what users care about – their content. By delivering a seamless, intuitive experience that is consistent across multiple screens, V.I.A. Plus products distinguish themselves from devices that function and those that are truly entertaining.”
The V.I.A. Plus experience features an intuitive, app-centric interface on every device, making it easy for consumers to understand and navigate as they move between devices. Users can also access thousands of apps from the Android Market™ for even more entertainment options.
“We’re thrilled to partner with VIZIO on the launch of the Stream Player,” said Mario Queiroz, head of Google TV. “VIZIO has established itself as a leader in the consumer electronics market. Combining Google TV with VIZIO’s innovative, easy-to-use consumer electronic products will bring more great entertainment and Android apps to the living room.”
In addition, VIZIO is announcing new partners who are collaborating to bring their content and services to the V.I.A. Platform, including:
iHeart Radio– iHeartRadio, Clear Channel’s industry-leading digital radio service, brings users a best-in-class customizable digital listening experience, one which combines the best of both worlds to deliver everything listeners want in one free, fully-integrated service: More than 800 of the nation’s most popular live broadcast and digital-only radio stations from 150 cities, plus user-created Custom Stations which provide listeners more songs, better music intelligence, more user control and deeper social media integration.
The Wall Street Journal®– WSJ Live from The Wall Street Journal offers up to four total hours of live video programming each business day from across The Wall Street Journal Digital Network, including the Journal, Dow Jones® Newswires, Barron’s™, MarketWatch®, SmartMoney® and AllThingsD.com. Users can access seven half-hour live shows, breaking news updates, exclusive interviews, and special events coverage. The service also offers more than 2,000 videos per month from an extensive library of on-demand content.
M-GO™ video-on-demand– M-GO from Technicolor is a next-generation app that combines all of your media including movies, music, apps, live TV, and more. M-GO will come pre-loaded on VIZIO HDTVs and Blu-ray Players with VIZIO Internet Apps or VIZIO Internet Apps Plus. The app will help consumers find the content they’re looking for through its extensive content library and state-of-the-art discovery engine, while also providing a unique second screen functionality for searching additional content.
“We are extremely excited to be partnering with VIZIO to bring consumers all of their media anywhere, anytime, and anyway they want it,” said John Batter, CEO of M-GO. “As consumers continue to access digital media at home and on the go, it is even more important to provide them with a consistent experience that is easy to navigate and convenient to use. VIZIO’s technology combined with our accessibility to content does just that.”
On V.I.A. Plus enabled HDTVs, Blu-ray players and Media Players, users can multitask between apps and traditional TV content through an interface designed for the 10-foot viewing experience, created specifically for situations where users want to sit back and enjoy the ultimate in channel and web surfing. Users can also complement their entertainment experience with VIZIO tablets for seamless access to their favorite apps and content in any room in the home or on the road.
With a wide range of apps on each device, V.I.A. Plus enables consumers to choose from a new universe of entertainment options, redefining the TV experience with multi-screen access, gaming, full browsing and enhanced search capabilities, and the ability to view live events streamed over the Internet.
Navigating V.I.A. Plus is simple and intuitive, using the QWERTY keypad and integrated touchpadthat’s built into the premium Bluetooth remote control included with every V.I.A. Plus product. Users need no technical know-how to get their new devices online, thanks to the advanced wireless Internet access and simplified onscreen setup.
Smart Blu-ray
The VBR430 Blu-ray player is the most advanced on the market today. Not only does it offer the incomparable entertainment power of V.I.A. Plus with Google TV, the player comes with a touchpad universal remote with QWERTY keypad that makes it easy to control apps, content and other functions. As part of the VIZIO Internet Apps Plus ecosystem, the VBR430 also lets users access video, audio and photos stored on any DLNA-compatible computer, network-connected hard drive or cell phone connected to a home network. Built-in WiFi makes network connection easy, and Bluetooth capability provides yet another conduit for streaming media from cell phones and computers.
Smart TV Plus 3D
VIZIO’s V.I.A. Plus products will also include Theater 3D technology, for crystal clear, brighter and flicker-free 3D, viewable with lightweight, comfortable, battery-free 3D glasses. The TVs feature LED backlighting with smart dimming technology to achieve dynamic contrast ratios of 1,000,000:1 or greater.
The Ultimate Stream Player
The VAP430 Stream Player with Google TV is an innovative media player that turns any HDTV into an enhanced VIZIO Internet Apps Plus (V.I.A. Plus) smart TV. As sales of stream players are poised to pass Blu-ray players in unit volume sales (by 2013, according the CEA U.S. Unit Shipment Forecast of January 2011), the VAP430 is the perfect solution for media multitaskers who consume most of their media over the Internet. The VAP430 is the one of the most advanced Stream Players with built-in HDMI ports that lets users connect existing components like gaming consoles or set-top boxes for unified access to all media sources through the VI.A. Plus touchpad remote. It even supports 3D content and 3D streaming.
Many of the new VIZIO V.I.A. Plus products will be on display at the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas during the Consumer Electronics Show, January 10 – 13, 2012. For more information, please visit www.vizio.com/ces
* Source: IHS iSuppli Corporation Research Q4 2011 Market Tracker Report of Q4 2010 – Q3 2011.
Vizio’s Google TV delayed until early fall, now edge-lit [C|net, Jan 10, 2012]
LAS VEGAS–Google TV has a way of disappointing expectations, and one strong case in point is the Vizio’s VIA Plus platform for TVs.
At CES 2011 we named the VIA Plus models as our favorite TV product of CES. They used Google TV to deliver what the company described as interoperability between the TV and Android-equipped phones and tablets. Among other features, Via Plus was also said to support the OnLive gaming service. Those extras, along with the same kind of full-array local-dimming backlightwe know and love, was enough to convince us that the so-equipped TVs were going to be pretty awesome.
Unfortunately, because of what Vizio describes as Google TV-related issues beyond its control, they never came out.
We asked about the VIA Plus sets during a pre-CES briefing with Vizio and were told they were still on the company’s product release roadmap. The new release date is “early fall.” They will have different model numbers and at least one change for the worse: that backlight is now an edge-lit affair. Vizio further specified that the new VIA Plus models would have a 240Hz refresh rate, passive 3D, and three screen sizes: 47-, 55-, and a new 65-inch option.
On the bright side, maybe having all that extra time to perfect VIA Plus will allow Vizio to do something really special with Google TV’s Honeycomb customizations. We’ll see.
Strong business backings from Taiwan that enable such bold strategy expansion for VIZIO
Vizio sees 2012 with optimism [Nov 2, 2011]
TV brand Vizio has indicated sales of Japan-based brands such as Sony, Panasonic and Sharp have been weak. However, South Korea-based brands such as Samsung and LG have been growing becoming Vizio’s biggest competitors. Vizio estimates 2011 shipments of LCD TVs to reach over six million units.
According to William Wang, CEO and founder of Vizio, the strategy to face the South Korea-based players is to improve products, such as by providing customers with the best 3D TV. If products can be sold with cheaper retail prices, then do it.
Wang indicated Vizio’s biggest partner is still Taiwan-based Amtran Technology, which accounts for 70-80% of Vizio’s OEM orders. Foxconn is responsible for small-size products. Wang complimented Taiwan’s technology, innovation and product quality.
The recent weak demand in the TV market has been causing panel makers to suffer huge losses, Vizio stated. Except for shipments in the first quarter 2011 which were comparable to those of 2010, the rest of the quarters in 2011 have all seen declining shipments.
Wang concluded that panel makers have been suffering due to oversupply and lack of consumer confidence due to weak economic conditions in Europe and the US. However, 2011 should be the year when the industry hits rock bottom, which means firms should face 2012 with optimism.
CES: Value Outweighs Price, AmTran Says [excerpt on the VIZIO site, Jan 6, 2010]
Behind Vizio’s success is a partnership with Taipei-based AmTran Technology, a contract manufacturer that specializes in computer monitors and televisions. The company, which owns a 23% stake [i.e. majority] in Vizio, now makes annual revenue of about $2 billion, more than quadruple the $428 million it reported in 2004.
To read more about this article please click here.
[Hon Hai/Foxconn is said to be the 2nd largest shareholder ov VIZIO as well as having 10% of shares of AmTran]
[click here >> WSJ Blogs, Jan 7, 2010]
In a rare interview, its chief executive and chairman Alpha Wu spoke to The Wall Street Journal about his views on the fast-changing industry at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas
The Wall Street Journal: Why have your products been so successful?
Mr. Wu: We think very simply about how we can provide the best value to customers world-wide. I have pretty good relationships with key component makers in Japan, Taiwan, China and now Korea, and I make sure we get high-quality components, so we can provide high-quality displays. We try to have attractive prices, but that can’t be the only reason for customers to buy. Value is more important than anything. We try to provide attractive prices, but that can’t be the only reason for customers to buy.
We also keep very tight production schedules. We learned from our customers that we must meet schedules. As long as we have discipline over our schedule, we can compete against anybodybecause when a rival announces a new technology, we can develop similar products quickly and take the market.
WSJ: Why do you think the traditional television makers in Japan are having such a hard time in the television market, particularly in the U.S.?
Mr. Wu: To be a pure original equipment manufacturer is a tough business. That’s why we teamed up with Vizio. The Japanese engineers work hard and demand perfect products, but they don’t know the market very much. In the U.S., people don’t want very high-end products especially in the current economic situation. Japanese consumers, however, are more willing to invest in expensive products.
Products that are made in Japan with Japanese components by Japanese suppliers are very important to them, but their factories aren’t as advanced as ours because they’re old. An older managementalso makes them less able to accept new technologies and innovation.
WSJ: 3D televisions are expected to be big news at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show. How soon do you expect this technology to take off?
Mr. Wu:3D movies are absolutely coming. 3D televisions might take two or three years. One big problem that has to be overcome is glasses. No one wants to wear glasses to watch TV. Plus if you have five people in the family you need five pairs of glasses. The technology is also not mature yet.
WSJ: What is your vision for AmTran’s future?
Mr. Wu: We want to support the best brand with the best technology products. We are trying to do it in different regions, step by step. We’re trying in Taiwan, Japan and China. Maybe someday we’ll try in Europe.
One of our customers, Bang & Olufsen, has a remote control that I use at home every day to control the curtains, lighting, television and audio. That’s our dream too, but to provide it to the mass market.
WSJ: What kind of opportunity do you see in the Chinese market?
Mr. Wu: By 2011, China’s market for televisions will be bigger than the U.S. From our point of view, we have some advantages — we know China better than people in other countries. Whoever can become No. 1 in China and in the U.S. will be No. 1 in the world.
Amtran Technology Co Ltd (2489.TW) – Overview – Full Description [Reuters, excerpted on Jan 10, 2012]
AMTRAN TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD. is principally engaged in the manufacture and distribution of monitors and digital televisions. The Company provides liquid crystal display (LCD) monitors, which are applied in personal computers (PCs), workstations, automobile instruments, point of sale (POS) equipment and automatic teller machines (ATMs), among others, as well as LCD televisions. During the year ended December 31, 2010, the Company obtained approximately 94.89% of its total revenue from digital televisions. The Company distributes its products primarily in Japan, Europe and the Americas.
» Full Overview of 2489.TW
Amtran sees increased 4Q11 revenues [Jan 10, 2012]
Taiwan-based TV OEM firm Amtran reported December revenues of NT$6.44 billion (US$214 million). Fourth quarter revenues reached NT$19.66 billion, the highest quarterly revenues in 2011, accounting for 35% of 2011 total revenues.
Due to sales during the year-end holiday season in the North America market, total shipments in December reached 660,000 units while total shipments in fourth quarter reached 1.94 million units, outperforming the previous three quarters in 2011. According to Amtran, total shipments in 2011 reached 5.35 million units. Shipments of products in the range of 32-37 inch accounted for 54% of the firm’s total flat TV shipments. Amtran noted that sales of large-size products (42-, 47-, 55-, and 65-inch) LCD TVs accounted for 46% of total revenues.
Amtran expects LCD TV shipments to increase as the firm develops products such as internet TV, smart TV and 3D TV.
Amtran faces challenge to attain 2011 LCD TV goal [Aug 17, 2011]
Taiwan-based Amtran Technology’s LCD TV shipments reached nearly two million units in the first half of 2011, according to industry sources. But the maker may have difficulties achieving its shipment goal of five million units for the entire 2011 given that its major market, North America, has been weak.
Amtran, the chief manufacturer for Vizio, shipped a total 4.2 million units of LCD TVs worldwide in 2010.
Microsoft on five key technology areas and Windows 8 –UPDATED [Dec 15, 2012] with full content up to delivery and change of command
After this update there are three detailed sections in the post:
- Julie Larson-Green’s and her team journey to build the new Windows 8 and Windows Live experience and getting to the top of the whole product group
- The follow-up posts to the original May 2011 one
- The original May 2011 post, which described the five key technology areas for the Windows 8 journey which Microsoft earlier (in H2 CY2009]
– identified to transform the industry over the next few years, and
– was committed to investing and innovating and leadingThese were:
- Natural user interface
- Natural language
- HTML and JavaScript
- Chip and form factors
- The cloud
As the end-result of that effort we had delivery shown in Microsoft Windows 8 – Launch Event Keynote Highlights [HD] [BuildingWindows YouTube channel, Oct 28, 2012]
Then came:
Steven Sinofsky, ex Microsoft: The victim of an extremely complex web of the “western world” high-tech interests [this same ‘Experiencing the Cloud’ blog, Nov 13-20, 2012]
resulting also in Julie Larson Green’s promotion to the top job of leading all Windows software and hardware engineering, and in her membership in the Senior Leadership Team of Microsoft.
All this during quite a turbulent year at Microsoft, with quite a lot at stake, as shown in:
2012: A Year of Microsoft Milestones [Microsoft YouTube channel, Dec 12, 2012]
Going into the detailed sections below (including the linked posts in the second section) you will be able to judge for yourself how much Microsoft would be able to transform the ICT industry over the next few years. All this is, certainly, in addition to your own experience with Windows 8 on a proper touch device. Your own experience should also last as long as from two days to two weeks depending on how deep you are involved in the old way of doing things with mouse and keyboard, as well your degree of resistance to change.
1. Julie Larson-Green’s and her team journey
to build the new Windows 8 and Windows Live experience
and getting to the top of the whole product group
Update: When she started the journey:
Interview with Julie Larson-Green about Office 2007 and Windows 7 [BryZad YouTube channel, Nov 21, 2009]
Her Microsoft Office achievement is well described in the description of her 2008 Outstanding Technical Leadership award:
In revamping the interface of Microsoft Office 2007, Larson-Green effected a paradigm shift in one of the company’s most successful products.
“At first, no one wanted to change Office dramatically,” says Julie Larson-Green, who was tasked with overseeing a reimagining of the product’s end-user interaction and overall experience in the fall of 2003. Larson-Green’s leadership of Microsoft Office 2007’s redesign, the most radical revamp in the product’s history, required immense courage and conviction, to which this award attests.
A specialist in user-interface design, Larson-Green began working with Office in 1997, when she program-managed FrontPage. She subsequently helmed UI design for Office XP and Office 2003, which had evolved into a large organization of carefully negotiated compromises among the application suite’s various programs. Although Office’s great success was based on customer familiarity, the Customer Experience Improvement Program was indicating that users, while basically happy with the product, were increasingly either unaware of (possibly redundant) functions among Office’s different programs or frustrated by the amount of training necessary to use an astonishingly complex set of commands, dialogs, and interaction modes.
After deciding that Office needed to be made easier to use, Larson-Green’s team arrived at the elegant solution of the browsable Ribbon (or Office Fluent user interface) and its contextual cousins that united the product’s common capabilities and ease of experimentation. “The breakthrough,” Larson-Green says, “arrived with contextualizing the user interface and realizing that all of the product’s features didn’t have to be present all the time.”
SELLING THE REDESIGN
As development of Office 2007 proceeded, Larson-Green was confronted with the equally formidable task of selling the redesign across Office’s various programs. “Our biggest challenge,” she says, “was convincing people that we had an idea that would work.” Heavily invested in the earlier version, the Word, Excel, Outlook, and other organizations were initially reluctant to relegate control to an umbrella design team. Even more significant, Larson-Green had decided not to compromise the integrity of Office 2007 with the safety net of a “classic mode.”
It’s difficult to change the direction of a large organization at the best of times. It’s even more difficult when the goal is still incomplete. Larson-Green’s ability to argue her vision without necessarily being able to address myriad objections in detail is a remarkable trait in a data-driven culture such as Microsoft’s. One by one, however, the suite’s principals bought into the design as it was being tested and fleshed out.
Office 2007 shipped to nearly universal critical acclaim in January 2007, and Larson-Green was promoted to corporate vice president of program management for the Windows Experience. As with Office 2007, she plans to identify and solve customer problems, which will in turn drive a new design and its subsequent engineering. “In the old world,” she notes, “coding would start and design would kind of evolve with the coding.”
COLLABORATIVE EFFORTS
Flattered by her nomination for the Outstanding Technical Leadership Award, Larson-Green admits to shock at winning. “I was very pleased,” she says, “but also kind of embarrassed. I may have been the ringleader, but I couldn’t have done it without a lot of help from a lot of people.” She cites principal Office User Experience Team Program Manager Jensen Harris, Product Design Manager Brad Weed, General Manager Dave Barthol, and Test Manager Sean Adridge as key collaborators.
As for the prize, Larson-Green will treat its dispensation as a family affair. “Unless we all agree on one, we’re going to split the award and each pick a charity,” she says. “My seven-year-old son has already decided he wants to do something with animals. My fifteen-year-old daughter wants to do something with children. And my economist husband is doing all the research on how much money goes to programs versus administration.”
View Larson-Green’s official press profile.
Update: When she delivered:
Windows 8 Launch Live Event Part 1 – 25/10/2012 [LiveSports TechNews YouTube channel, Oct 25, 2012]
Windows 8 Launch Live Event Part 2 – 25/10/2012 [LiveSports TechNews YouTube channel, Oct 25, 2012]
After that an Interview with Microsoft’s Windows Program head, Julie Larson-Green [VentureBeat YouTube channel, Oct 25, 2012]
Update: before the promotion on Nov 12, 2012 to lead all Windows software and hardware engineering, and becoming member of the Senior Leadership Team of Microsoft, her official corporate biography [Microsoft, Oct 25, 2012] was as follows:
As corporate vice president of program management for Windows at Microsoft Corp., Julie Larson-Green oversees the design and delivery of the Windows operating system. Leading a team of technical engineers, her responsibilities include program management, design research and development of all international releases for Windows 8.
Larson-Green joined Microsoft in 1993 and has focused on technical design and development throughout her career. As a program manager in Development Tools and Languages, she was instrumental in several releases of Visual C++ for 32-bit operating systems and led the development of Microsoft’s first customizable integrated development environment for Windows. Moving to the Windows team, she was responsible for the Internet Explorer 3.0 and Internet Explorer 4.0 user experiences, including features related to the Web-integrated Windows desktop.
Continuing her focus on end-user software, Larson-Green joined the Office team in 1997 and led program management for Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft FrontPage, including the early work in information worker servers. More recently, she has been responsible for leading the user interface design for Microsoft Office XP, Microsoft Office 2003 and the 2007 Microsoft Office system, which was lauded for its innovative reinvention of the user experience for productivity software. Before Windows 8, Larson-Green served as corporate vice president of Windows Experience for Windows 7, charged with leading the design and development of the Windows 7 OS.
Before joining Microsoft, Larson-Green was a senior development engineer at a Seattle-based company that created leading desktop publishing software. She has a master’s degree in software engineering from Seattle University and a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Western Washington University. A native of Washington state, she lives there with her husband, who is a university professor, and her two children.
This time she had her earlier key collaborator, Jensen Harris again to lead the program management of the user experience. Watch Harris’ presentation about The Story of Windows 8 [keynote on the UX Week, Aug 21, 2012, published on vimeo on Oct 25, 2012] as it is extremely important to the whole story:
UX Week 2012 | Jensen Harris | The Story of Windows 8 from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.
… [26:04] David Pierce said [in The Verge that] the Start Screen [of Windows 8] feels like a house made out of the Internet …
The 5 Microsoft (previously Metro) design [style] principles he is talking about
- Do more with less, i.e. “fierce reductionism for every piece of UI”
- Authentically digital, i.e. “skeumorphism … removing decoration, ornamentation in a ‘Bauhaus‘ style … content over chrome … as in the [3d party] my History Digest application … icons reimagined as tiles”
- Pride in craftsmanship, i.e. “caring about every detail … getting details perfect … typographic grid underlying everything on the screen”
- Be fast and fluid, i.e. “… feel broadcast TV quality … as in the [3d party] Cocktail Flow application …”
- Win as one, i.e. “… have a product feel as designed by one person …”
With the goal of having one device for consumption and productivity
“New Microsoft led by principled design” as the result of all that
About
Jensen Harris is Director of Program Management for the Windows User Experience Team.
He has worked at Microsoft since 1998. Prior to his current job, he was the Group Program Manager of the Microsoft Office User Experience Team, where his team redesigned the user interface for Office 2007 and Office 2010, adding the Ribbon, Live Preview, Backstage View, and other innovations.
Jensen attended Yale University and Interlochen Arts Academy, graduating with degrees in music composition.
For completeness some additional information from Jason Harris:
– Windows 8 Consumer Preview: Product Demo [WindowsVideos YouTube channel, Feb 28, 2012]
– Creating the Windows 8 user experience [Building Windows 8, May 19, 2012], highly recommended reading as gives all the background information, from Windows 1 released in 1985 upto Windows 8.
– Windows 8 UI vision mockups from 2010 [a 3d party report from the UX Week video]
– Jensen Harris: Windows 8′s lockscreen photos are design easter eggs [a 3d party report from the UX Week video]
– 8 traits of great Metro style apps [Channel 9 video of Jansen Harris’ Build2011 session, Sept 13, 2011]
– Notes from BUILD – Day 1 – Big Picture Session 1 – Jensen Harris on 8 Traits of Great Metro Style Apps [Oct 6, 2011]
– bldwin – 8 traits of great Metro style apps (notes in German about Jansen Harris’ Build2011 session) [Sept 13, 2011]
– regarding his earlier achievements see The Story of the Ribbon [Jensen Harris: An Office User Interface Blog, March 12, 2008] with video and slides embedded
And Jensen Harris had a team behind him as well. From that team Bonny Lau, Senior Program Manager, Windows User Experience Team had been the most active member. Here she is briefly talking (click to the link which follows) in a concise way about the same subject what Harris was talking about in great detail a year earlier:
8 traits of great Windows Store apps [Channel 9 video, Oct 18, 2012]
The 8 traits she is talking about:
- Microsoft design style
- Be fast and fluid (the Cocktail Fow 3d party app is shown again)
- Snap and scale beautifully
- Use the right contracts
- Invest in a great tile
- Feel connected and alive
- Roam to the cloud
- Embrace Microsoft design style principles
Her related materials:
– Creating Metro style apps that stand out from the crowd [Windows 8 app developer blog, July 12, 2012] using the “Food with friends” application shown for Microsoft design style (in Jason Harris’ UX Week keynote as well to illustrate by him the Do more with less design style principle) as an example for development
– Make great Windows Store apps (Windows) as her contribution to “Getting started” MSDN materials for developers
– Designing UX for apps as contribution from her team to MSDN documentation with everything including samples to learn from
– earlier she was with Microsoft Project 2010 Scheduling Engine Project 2010: Bonny Lau [MSFTProject YouTube channel, Oct 28, 2009]
Finally here is a light talk of Bonny Lau about Windows 8 User Experience [MSUserCommunity YouTube channel, Sept 18, 2012]
Update: The Woman Charged With Making Windows 8 Succeed [MIT Technology Review, Dec 13, 2012]
In a Q&A, Julie Larson-Green explains why Microsoft felt it was necessary to rethink an operating system used by 1.2 billion people.
As the head of Windows product development at Microsoft, Julie Larson-Green is responsible for a piece of software used by some 1.3 billion people worldwide. She’s also the person leading the campaign to introduce as many of those people as possible to Windows 8, the dramatic redesign of the iconic operating system that must succeed if Microsoft is to keep pace with a computing industry now shaped more by phones and tablets than desktop PCs.
Windows 8 throws out design features familiar to Windows users since 1995, swapping in simpler, bolder interfaces designed to be operated using a touch screen. The release of the Surface, a device somewhere between a tablet and laptop, also sees Microsoft break its tradition of leaving the building of hardware to other companies.
Larson-Green took over the role a few weeks ago, after Microsoft veteran Steven Sinofsky left amid rumors of personal disputes with other Microsoft executives. However, Larson-Green has long been a senior figure inside the Windows division and even took the lead on drawing up the first design brief for Windows 8. An expert in technical design, she also led the introduction of the novel, much copied “ribbon” interface for Microsoft Office, widely acknowledged as a major improvement in usability.
Larson-Green met last week with Tom Simonite at Microsoft’s campus in Redmond, Washington.
Why was it necessary to make such broad changes in Windows 8?
When Windows was first created 25 years ago, the assumptions about the world and what computing could do and how people were going to use it were completely different. It was at a desk, with a monitor. Before Windows 8 the goal was to launch into a window, and then you put that window away and you got another one. But with Windows 8, all the different things that you might want to do are there at a glance with the Live Tiles. Instead of having to find many little rocks to look underneath, you see a kind of dashboard of everything that’s going on and everything you care about all at once. It puts you closer to what you’re trying to get done.
Windows 8 is clearly designed with touch in mind, and many new Windows 8 PCs have touch screens. Why is touch so important?
It’s a very natural way to interact. If you get a laptop with a touch screen, your brain clicks in and you just start touching what makes it faster for you. You’ll use the mouse and keyboard, but even on the regular desktop you’ll find yourself reaching up doing the things that are faster than moving the mouse and moving the mouse around. It’s not like using the mouse, which is more like puppeteering than direct manipulation.
In the future, are all PCs going to have touch screens?
For cost considerations there might always be some computers without touch, but I believe that the vast majority will. We’re seeing that the computers with touch are the fastest-selling right now. I can’t imagine a computer without touch anymore. Once you’ve experienced it, it’s really hard to go back.
Did you take that approach in Windows 8 as a response to the popularity of mobile devices running iOS and Android?
We started planning Windows 8 in June of 2009, before we shipped Windows 7, and the iPad was only a rumor at that point.
I only saw the iPad after we had this design ready to go. We were excited. A lot of things they were doing about mobile and touch were similar to what we’d been thinking. We [also] had differences. We wanted not just static icons on the desktop but Live Tiles to be a dashboard for your life; we wanted you to be able to do things in context and share across apps; we believed that multitasking is important and that people can do two things at one time.
Can touch coexist with a keyboard and mouse interface? Some people have said it doesn’t feel right to have both the newer, touch-centric elements and the old-style desktop in Windows 8.
It was a very definite choice to have both environments. A finger’s never going to replace the precision of a mouse. It’s always going to be easier to type on a keyboard than it is on glass. We didn’t want you to have to make a choice. Some people have said that it’s jarring, but over time we don’t hear that. It’s just getting used to something that’s different. Nothing was homogenous to start with, when you were in the browser it looked different than when you were in Excel.
I wonder if you’re experiencing a little déjà vu, after previously leading a radical change to the interface for Office that initially met with complaints.
Yes! A lot of it is familiar. Some people who review it for a shorter period of time may not feel how rich it really is. We’re going for the over time impression rather than the first 20 minutes out of the box. We’ve found that the more invested you were in the old way, the more difficult the transition is, which is unfortunate because we first hear about everything in the tech press. Those are the ones that we knew up front are going to have the most challenge.
How long does it take people to adjust?
Two days to two weeks is what we used to say in Office, and it’s similar in Windows 8. We do a “living with Windows” program where we watched people over a series of months in their household. A lot of people don’t have trouble upfront.
What data do you have on how people buying Windows 8 are reacting?
When you sign into your Windows PC, one of the things you get asked is whether you’ll be part of our customer experience improvement program, and if you will, then you’re sending some data to us. Everyone gets asked that. We get terabytes and terabytes of data every day, and we can’t possibly use it all. So far we’re seeing very encouraging things. Over 90 percent of customers, from our data, use the charms and find the start screen all in the first session. Even if you’re a desktop user, over time there’s a cutover point around six weeks where you start using the new things more than the things you’re familiar with.
Microsoft has chosen to make its own hardware for Windows 8 with the Surface tablets. Why not leave that to the equipment manufacturers, as you’ve done in the past?
It was a way to test our hypothesis of a new way of working. It takes time for individuals to adjust, but it also takes time for the industry to adjust to new things—all the complicated things about the supply chain and issues like what sizes of glass gets cut. Surface is our vision of what a stage for Windows 8 should look like, to help show consumers and the industry our point of view on what near perfect hardware would look like. We believe in Surface as a long-term product, but we know that partners will have other innovations and ideas. One of the things that’s always been nice about Windows is choice—you’re not locked into one size, one shape, one color, one version.
Your predecessor, Steven Sinofsky, was widely credited with driving Microsoft to create Windows 8 through sheer force of will. Is that true?
Steven is an amazing leader and an amazing brain and an amazing person, but one person can’t do everything. It’s really about the team that we created and the culture that we created for innovation.
What changes now that you’re in charge?
Not a whole lot. I’ve worked directly with Steven for seven years but known him for the whole 20 years I’ve been at Microsoft. We think a lot the same about what the role of Windows is in society, what computing looks like, and getting people on board with that point of view.
Now that Windows 8 has been released, what are you and your team doing now?
We didn’t really slow down. There are always new technologies to think about that can be helpful to people.
Read more about Microsoft’s efforts to track users’ reaction to Windows 8: Microsoft Has Been Watching and It Says You’re Getting Used to Windows 8.
2. The follow-up posts to the original May 2011 one
-
Microsoft’s next step in SoC level slot management [May 27 – June 2, 2011]
-
A too early assesment of the emerging ‘Windows 8’ dev & UX functionality [June 24 – Aug 19, 2011]
-
Windows 8: the first 12 hours headlines and reports [Sept 14, 2011]
-
Windows 8 Metro style Apps + initial dev reactions [Sept 15, 2011]
-
The early 2010 Windows 8 alternative: the Courier tablet [Nov 2, 2011]
-
Windows 8 gaining smartphone like “connected standby” capability [Nov 23, 2011]
-
The killing power of bloated web communications [Dec 6, 2011]
- The future of Windows Embedded: from standalone devices to intelligent systems [March 9-29, 2012]
- Standards-based adaptive layouts in Windows 8 (and IE10) [March 24, 2012]
-
Giving up the total OEM reliance strategy: the Microsoft Surface tablet [June 19 – July 30, 2012]
-
The cloud experience vision of .NET by Microsoft 12 years ago and its delivery now with Windows Azure, Windows 8/RT, Windows Phone, iOS and Android among others [Sept 16-20, 2012]
-
NOOK Media LLC: the finalization of the strategic joint venture between Barnes & Noble and Microsoft [Oct 6, 2012]
-
ASUS: We are the real transformers, not Microsoft [Oct 17, 2012]
-
Microsoft Surface: its premium quality/price vs. even iPad3 [Oct 26, 2012]
-
Microsoft Surface: First media reflections after the New-York press launch [Oct 26-28, 2012]
-
Acer Iconia W510: Windows 8 Clover Trail (Intel Z2760) hybrid tablets from OEMs [Oct 28 – Dec 14, 2012]
-
Microsoft Surface with some questions about the performance and smoothness of the experience [Nov 12-28, 2012]
-
Steven Sinofsky, ex Microsoft: The victim of an extremely complex web of the “western world” high-tech interests [Nov 13-20, 2012]
-
Boosting both the commodity and premium brand markets in 2013 with much more smartphones and tablets while the Windows notebook shipments will shrink by 2% [Nov 20 – Dec 10, 2012]
-
Marko Ahtisaari from Nokia and Steven Guggenheimer from Microsoft on the Internet of Things day of LeWeb Paris’12 [Dec 6-8, 2012]
3. The original May 2011 post
Windows 8 on ARM expected to appear by the end of 2011 [DIGITIMES, May 24, 2011] (emphasis is mine)
Tablet PCs that adopt Windows 8 and ARM-based processor are expected to appear by the end of 2011, but due to the platform lack of system performance, the platform will be mainly used for targeting the tablet PC market, according to sources from notebook players.
However, due to the combination still have several issues need to be resolved, most notebook players are taking a conservative attitude toward the new platform and will not rush to open up new projects for the related products.
Due to the Windows 8/ARM platform initially only testing in the tablet PC market, the sources believe the platform is unlikely to affect Intel’s position in the traditional PC segment, while the operating system is also unlikely to impact Google’s Android in the next one year.
Steve Ballmer: Microsoft Developer Forum [Microsoft, May 23, 2011] (emphasis is mine)
There is so much in the way of exciting innovations to look forward to over the next few years. At Microsoft, we’ve identified five things that we think will transform the industry over the next few years, and five areas where Microsoft, as a company, is committed to investing and innovating and leading. We think there will be other companies working in these areas. There are going to be opportunities for developers. Certainly we’re going to see a lot of competition. But these five key technology areas are the ones that I think more than anything else will make people look back and say, wow, computing is fundamentally simpler and easier to use, whether it’s on my phone, my PC, or my TV, than ever before.
The first one I’ll highlight for you is natural user interface. This is the notion that we really want to speak, wave and gesture, touch and mark on our computing devices. We want smart devices to work the way we work, to recognize us and our actions. Speech recognition, vision, handwriting recognition, touch interfaces, these are all part of the theme. And certainly whether it’s in phones, or what we’ve done with Kinect for large room, and living room type environments, for vision, and visual recognition are all emblems of the move in this direction.
…
The second big area of innovation will come in natural language. And the distinction is important. With natural user interface, we’re talking about voice, and vision, and touch. With natural language, we’re really asking ourselves the question, can we let you control your computing environment by expressing intent instead of specific commands. Today on a PC, it’s file open, blah, blah, blah, respond, reply, forward. I can’t just say to my device, get me ready for my trip to Tokyo.
…
The third area that I think will be increasingly important is HTML and JavaScript. We’ve made a big investment, obviously, in Windows and IE9 in our HTML and JavaScript support, but more and more of the world’s programmers will be fluent in these technologies in addition to whatever skills people have in C++ and C# and a variety of other important skills. But we have to recognize that more and more of the world’s talent will know these techniques. And whether it’s writing a website or a client application, or a server application, we want to build and develop the range of things that you can do not only using .NET, but also in using HTML and JavaScript. And, in fact, even how you can weave these things together into sensible programs in the future.
No. 4 is chip and form factors. Just think back three or four years ago and how quickly performance and size, and miniaturization and the move to ARM processors has happened. We’ve announced with Windows that we’re going to support system-on-a-chip architectures, not only from Intel and AMD, but also from a set of ARM vendors.
The form factor of the devices that we all use will continue to change. I think there will be a day in the future where it will be hard to distinguish a phone from a slate, from a PC. You literally will have displays that become paper thin and very easy to fold out form your phone. And at the same time, you’re going to get more and more PC-like capabilities in smaller form factor devices.
Last, but certainly not least is the cloud. And with both Azure, Windows Azure and SQL Azure, as well as Office 365, we’ve made a major step into the cloud. I’m sure I’ll get a few questions about Skype. Skype is just another representation of what we think is the importance of enabling a broad range of scenarios in the cloud. If those are the technologies, the flipside is to ask what can we do with them? They’re all great, but what will we, Microsoft, do and what do we expect the developers that we work with here in Japan, and across the world to do?
…
We’re obviously hard at work on the next version of Windows. Windows 7 PCs will sell over 350 million units this year. We’ve done a lot in Windows 7 to improve customer satisfaction. We have a brand new user interface. We’ve added touch, and ink, and speech. And yet, as we look forward to the next generation of Windows systems, which will come out next year, there’s a whole lot more coming. As we progress through the year, you ought to expect to hear a lot about Windows 8. Windows 8 slates, tablets, PCs, a variety of different form factors.
The browser is an area where we’ve been very active. Internet Explorer 9 is the fastest browser around because of the way that we’ve married it to Windows systems and allow essentially full exploitation of the hardware to have the fastest and most beautiful Web on the planet run on Windows systems.
We’ve integrated the browser into Windows more fully, so that you can put jumplists, and pin those to the taskbar on Windows. We’ve improved JavaScript performance. We’re running on downloads that are about five times the rate of customer acceptance that we saw on IE8, and when it comes to HTML and JavaScript, and the browser, there will be simply no one who pushes that, not Google, not Firefox, nobody will push that faster and harder than we push with IE.
Microsoft’s Ballmer says next-gen Windows systems due in 2012 [ZDNet, May 23, 2011]
During remarks at a developers conference in Japan on May 23, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer referred to the next version of Windows as “Windows 8.” He also said the next generation of Windows systems will be out next year.
To those not following Microsoft’s Windows saga closely, this may seem like a “so what” moment. But Microsoft execs have been studiously avoiding any references to the timing or naming of the next version of Windows to try to keep the specifics of the product as quiet as possible. Microsoft’s top brass has been avoiding calling the next version of Windows “Windows 8″ publicly, preferring instead to call it “Windows Next.” (Internally, a number of Microsoft job postings and leaked slides have referenced “Windows 8,” however.”
…
Update: OK, believe it or not, the “official” response is Ballmer’s statement isn’t what it seems to be… Sent from a Microsoft spokesman earlier tonight:
““It appears there was a misstatement. We are eagerly awaiting the next generation of Windows 7 hardware that will be available in the coming fiscal year. To date, we have yet to formally announce any timing or naming for the next version of Windows.”
And, as usual, there are many ways to interpret these remarks. Is the next-generation Windows release nothing but Windows 7 with new paint? Windows 8 not the final name for the next version of Windows? (The final name possibly being something other than Windows 8 is something that I’ve heard from my tipsters…) You be the judge….
