The worlds first Android laptop that runs everything awesomely well already!
Asus has an Android and Qualcomm powered smartbook as well, though Asus is hiding it at this point.
Acer, HP, all Nvidia Tegra based laptops, Texas Instruments based devices and Freescale based devices, all are launching with Android support.
In this video you can see how fast the current implementation of a browser in an Android laptop loads pages, while they still have optimizations to do, and I think they should try to get a full Google Chrome running on these, with support for an unlimited amount of tabs (though no need for all tabs to be active and heavy in the RAM memory).
An amazing demonstration by Gordon Grigor Director og Mobile Software at Nvidia (the software engineering lead in developing Tegra solution!) of the ways Nvidia accelerates web browsing, flash, HD video decoding, HD video streaming from the Internet and more.
I was very impressed today I interviewing the Nvidia executives and engineers, they are insanely confident about their Tegra ARM implementation, even though the current demonstration of the Tegra technology does NOT use the latest ARM Cortex processor which is 4x faster for things like a browser compared to ARM11!!!! Nvidia is processing many things from the browser using the GPU! Can you believe that? Rendering of browser contents, scrolling, font antialiasing, image rendering, flash animations, flash videos, all are taken care of by the Nvidia GPU! Look for my videos of all that, being uploaded now and filming more the next couple or three of days.
A complete overview and presentation of Nvidia’s amazing new line of $100-$200 laptops runing Android or Windows CE on an embedded ARM11 processor and Nvidia’s awesome 1080p and advanced 3D graphics capable Nvidia Tegra chipset.
bsquare works with Adobe to provide Adobe Flash support embedded platforms such as Texas Instruments OMAP platforms and other ARM based embedded systems.
Mitch Bradley, OLPC Firmware Lead and President and CTO of FirmWorks and Richard Smith OLPC Director of Embedded Engineering talk about their work in bringing the One Laptop Per Child XO 1.5 motherboard up to fully working for Quanta to switch over the mass manufacturing of OLPC XO laptops to the version 1.5, until OLPC releases the XO 2 based on ARM sometime later when the correct components and software become available.
Linpus makes a Linux OS for netbooks shipped by Acer, Quanta and other companies. They are also showing their QuickOS and talking a bit about their roadmap which includes being available for ARM laptops that are coming out.
Youtube links: HD quality (2mbit/s, 1280×720 h264, 44hz stereo audio) Normal quality (350kbit/s, 320×180 sorenson, 22hz mono audio)
This is the video-on-demand set-top-box by Verismo Networks, a Moutain View California and Bangalore company, it is also available as a $99 VN100SD Std-Def POD (with S-video output instead of HDMI) but the one that I am reviewing is the $149 VN1000HD with HDMI 720p full codecs support. You can read the specifications about this box at http://vunow.com
The $149 VN1000HD and $99 VN100SD are based on arguably the best and the most advanced SoC ARM and DSP solution on the market, the Texas Instruments DaVinci processor which gives the VuNow a value that you probably wont currently be able to find in any other set-top-box at this price:
- works without the need to have a computer in the home,
- plays all Youtube videos directly from the Internet,
- plays live pre-listed webtv streaming channels,
- uses http://vtap.com to pull search results for videos accross many more video portals then just Youtube,
- integrates movie rentals as progressively downloaded video-on-demand, (If the movie bitrate is higher then your available download bandwidth, then you can wait a few minutes before starting to watch the movie while it continues to download to the USB storage)
- can download videos and movies using BitTorrent peer-to-peer technology, you can also add torrents to it from a computer using a web-based interface,
- also has the basic media streamer functionality connecting to DLNA and NAS devices on the local network.
During my current testing of this box with its initial pre-loaded firmware, I notice that there currently are a few missing features in my opinion, those could be described as part of my list of initial feature requests and those could possibly be added to the box from the VuNow software team in upcoming firmware updates. I am told that the box does support automatic online firmware upgrades through a main menu popup notification:
- 720p Youtube is not yet available in their interface, (it’d be nice that it automatically display Youtube’s highest available bitrate quality based on the box’s detected available bandwidth)
From the VuNow.com FAQ:
Q. Can I play the new YouTube HD videos on the PoD?
A. No. Not currently. You will be notified when this feature becomes available.
- some other sites then Youtube don’t work yet in the http://vtap.com search results, (It might not yet show a huge amount of video-blog video-podcast RSS feeds and episodes within the http://vtap.com search results)
- WPA WiFi encryption is not yet supported using the WiFi dongle, (only WEP and open access points are supported yet, FON WiFi hotspots are not yet supported because they require a browser login process and the browser is not yet available)
- My USB1 keyboard is not yet supported for text input when searching videos, (but the keyboard is detected, Enter button pauses and resumes video for now. It’d be cool to post Youtube comments using a wireless keyboard. A comments and live chat interface overlay would have a great potential.)
- .mpg, H264 .mp4 720p, DivX .avi 720p from a USB hard drive are not yet working (perhaps I need to activate the “Premium” codecs somewhere in the interface, or perhaps they are not added yet in the firmware. The advertised video resolution support is of 720p but the exact details about which codecs at what bitrates has not been detailed clearly yet within the specifications of the device.)
- NTFS formatted USB hard drives are not yet supported neither to read or to write from,
- when progressively downloading a rented movie, fast forwarding or skiping in the video is not yet possible until the video has been completely downloaded to the USB storage,
- there currently is a thin layer of a few green pixels on the right side of the screen in HDMI output mode on my European PAL LCD HDTV using the VuNow HD box. I will look further if there is something in the settings that I need to change or perhaps VuNow need to fix this in a firmware update.
In my further upcoming testing, I am going to test how BitTorrent is used on this box. How the Box Control feature allows me to add Torrents to the box’s download manager remotely using the web based Interface, if there is some way to add BitTorrent and plain link video RSS feeds to the box and if those can be set to be automatically downloaded in the background with some way to alert on new available episodes and on auto-downloading of new episodes and if there is some way to submit more live web tv stream sources. I will test how it manages NAS storage and if it can use NAS storage to store downloaded video contents.
In my opinion, the VuNow VN1000HD is getting pretty close to having a perfect hardware with the best yet available chipset on the market. That is, if Texas Instruments and Verismo Networks can confirm that this hardware will support Youtube HD, thus 1280×720 resolution H264 video streaming. If it can write downloaded files onto an NTFS formatted USB hard drive, even automatically onto several USB hard drives using a USB Hub or onto writable NAS storage, then I think that it would make things easier then having to use FAT32 or EXT3 formatted hard drives for storage of all those video downloads.
The scenario of users sitting back in their sofas with wireless keyboards and ergonomic remote controls has a huge potential to change the way people spend their 3-4 hours on average each day infront of their TVs, so really, I believe that Verismo Networks needs to optimize the interface experience in the upcoming firmware updates if they want to start a mass market Internet video-on-demand to the TV revolution.
Archos has been working on the same type of autonomous video-on-demand set-top-box solution with the Archos TV+ also using the same technology from Texas Instruments, though Archos provides built-in storage and more features such as video recording which positions Archos at a higher price. The $99 set-top-box price point I believe is really the correct price point which can kick-start a real media consumption revolution in society which I believe will not only decentralize the production of mass media content, it will also improve our democracy and change election results in certain countries such as France, Italy and Denmark where the traditional TV channels have such a huge monopoly on the influence of public opinion during elections. The VuNow solution is the kind of revolution that I am waiting for.
This past few days, my video of the HiVision miniNote has been seen by over 100 thousand people thanks to links from Slashdot, Gizmodo and Digg. But at IFA 2008, I actually saw a Laptop by Menq International Ltd called the EasyPC E760 that was advertised as being even cheaper at only $89 per laptop. It runs on a Samsung ARM processor, has a 7″ 480×272 resolution screen and runs Windows CE with some customized browser, word processing, Skype and media player.
DivX HD 1280×720 3.5mbit/s: Play, Download (148mb)
Showing the speed and compatibility of the Opera browser in this Archos 5 product that is being released right now. It has a 4 times faster ARM Cortex processor by Texas Instruments, which significantly increases the browsing experience making this a full Internet Media Tablet experience. In this video review I am showing and testing many different graphics heavy websites.
Here I am unboxing the Archos 5 which is a 250GB Linux based Internet Media Tablet based on the new Texas Instruments ARM Cortex processor that is just being released right now. It’s got a really nice high resolution 4.8″ touch-screen, HD video formats support. Check out this screen, it is pure awesome!!! It looks awesome in the metro, in the bus, in the train, pretty viewable outdoors in the sunlight. Everyone was looking at me at the train station and asking about what it was, it looks awesome and will amaze everyone up to about 100 meters around you. A bigger screen in a smaller device, that’s pretty awesome.
This video is just the initial unboxing. Check for more videos coming up on all the new faster features, showing the web browsing speed, the new awesome looking DVR Station with HDMI output and more in the next parts of this review.
