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TI picks up first license for ARM's Eagle CPU core, mass market devices still a couple of years off
The mythical next generation of ARM's Cortex-A series, the Eagle, has made a reappearance in the news this week, but much of the mystery remains. Texas Instruments has now revealed itself as the first licensee of the new core, while also waxing poetic about its deep involvement and collaboration with ARM on its design and particular specifications. No, nobody was kind enough to let us in on what those specs might yet be, but since -- technically speaking -- the Eagle CPU hasn't even been announced yet, that's probably fair enough. For its part, TI expects to be first to market with its OMAP systems-on-chip integrating the latest Cortex core, but that won't be happening for a good while yet, as most projections peg the Eagle's landing to be no sooner than 2012. Guess we'll just have to make do with some dual-core Snapdragons until then.
Hands-on with TAT's dual-screen phone concept and augmented reality app
What, you thought Home was the only project in the pipeline for these guys? The mobile UI experts at Sweden's TAT are in the house at MWC this week showing off a couple other nifty developments that are keeping them busy these days: a dual-screen UI concept utilizing TI's next-gen hardware, and an app that makes good on a concept it had demoed before. First up, they've been using a TI Blaze to demonstrate their vision of a phone with two displays, likely in a slider configuration (in fact, they showed a Droid to represent how they think the form factor could work) with a screen where you'd normally expect they physical QWERTY keyboard to be. It's slick and wicked smooth on the brutally powerful OMAP4 core, but realistically, this is something unusual enough so that we'd need to play with a unit for a good, long while before drawing any usability conclusions. TAT believes we could see devices with this kind of setup by years' end, but we don't know what carriers, manufacturer, or time frames would be involved at this point. Next up, Recognizr is the realization of the Augmented ID concept it showed off last year that lets you tag your face (it sounds weird, but it's quite literally true) with icons representing services that you use, each of which exposes information about you that you want others to know; then, other users with the system can put you in their viewfinder and see the same icons. It's not flawless -- in fact, TAT readily admits that they probably need better camera tech before it can be commercialized, and they had quite a few issues during our demo time -- but it's a clever concept that's better watched on video than explained, which is convenient considering that we've got videos of both of these goodies in action after the break. Check 'em out, won't you?
Texas Instruments introduces ARM-based OMAP 4 SOC, Blaze development platform
Texas Instruments has just made its OMAP 4 system-on-chip official, and garnished the announcement with the first development platform for it, aggressively titled Blaze. We already caught a glimpse of it in prototype form earlier this month, and the thing is quite a whopper -- you can see it on video after the break and we doubt you'll accuse TI of placing form before function with this one. The company's focus will be on promoting innovative new modes of interaction, with touchless gesturing (or "in the air" gesture recognition) figuring strongly in its vision of the future. Looking at the SOC diagram (available after the break), you'll find that its grunt will be provided by the same ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore class of CPU that powers the iPad, though TI claims it will be the only mobile platform capable of outputting stereoscopic 720p video at 30fps per channel. Perhaps its uniqueness will come from the fact that nobody else cares for the overkill that is 3D-HD on a mobile phone, whether it requires glasses or not. It'll still be fascinating to see if anybody picks up the chunky Blaze idea and tries to produce a viable mobile device out of it -- we could be convinced we need multiple displays while on the move, we're just not particularly hot on the 90s style bezel overflow.
TI's OMAP4 prototype drives three independent displays without breaking a sweat
It's been a long, long while since we've seen any life from the OMAP4 labs at Texas Instruments, but with the sudden resurgence of the tablet, now seems just about right for the company to start showcasing the platform's prowess once more. TI is expected to have a mind-bending showcase at Mobile World Congress later this month, but Slashgear was able to get a sneak peek at what's to come at the outfit's Dallas office. The device you're peering at above definitely piqued our interest, as it's some sort of twin-screened handheld that can actually support a third independent display courtesy of an integrated pico projector module. We're told that OMAP4 will bring along dual 1GHz ARM A9 cores, patently ridiculous battery life figures (145 hours of MP3 playback with a 1,000mAh battery) and support for 1080p output via HDMI. Naturally, TI has no intention of ever bringing this piece of hardware to market, but it'd certainly love if some other firm stepped in and did so. Here's hoping we're overrun by potential suitors in Barcelona -- given that the show kicks off on Valentine's Day, we'd say the timing would be just about perfect.
TI's OMAP 4 bringing 1080p support to smartphones and MIDs
Right around this time last year, Texas Instruments was busy showing off its OMAP 3 platform, which enabled 720p playback from a mobile phone. At this year's MWC, we've got a real live handset recording 720p, and TI upping the ante once more with a chip that handles 1080p. For those still with us after being blasted with resolutions, the predictably titled OMAP 4 aims to bring 1080p support, 20 megapixel imaging and "approximately a week of audio play time" to mobiles and MIDs that house it. Granted, TI also calls this stuff "future-proof," so don't believe it's totally incapable of uttering some pretty outlandish stuff. At the heart of the platform is a dual-core ARM Cortex A9 chip, a programmable multimedia engine based on TI's C64x DSP and a POWERVR SGX540 graphics engine. We're told that it'll play nice with Linux variants such as Android and LiMo, Symbian and Windows Mobile, though it'll have to be mighty impressive to outgun NVIDIA's Tegra. Battle on, we say.[Via Linux Devices]
