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CUPP crams ARM inside of a MacBook Pro, makes it run Android with a button press (video)
CUPP's original prototype wasn't exactly gorgeous, but the premise was sound -- couple an ARM platform with an x86 CPU in order to give consumers the ability to run a desktop OS and a low-power OS such as Chrome OS or Android. It's a tactic that has far-reaching potential. Imagine this: you're on a flight attempting to finish up a document, but you only have ten percent of your battery remaining. On a standard desktop OS (like Window 7 or OS X), that'll get you around 15 to 20 minutes of life; if you were instantly able to sleep that OS after saving your most recent copy on the hard drive, boot up Chrome OS and finish it there, you'd magically have at least an hour of usage time remaining. The fact is that ARM platforms require a fraction of the power that standard x86 systems do, with a demo unit here at MWC proving that a sleeping Windows 7 machine actually consumed more power than a typical ARM system that's running. The company has shown off a beast of a machine before in order to prove that it's concept was legit, but here at Barcelona's mobile extravaganza, it brought something special: a modified MacBook Pro with a TI OMAP-based daughter-board module sitting in place of the optical drive. In theory, a battery similar to that found in the machine above could power an instance of Chrome OS or Android for 20 to 30 hours, just to give you some numbers to nibble on. Care to see how it all panned out? Hop on past the break for a few impressions along with a video. %Gallery-116639%
LG Optimus 3D has dual-core 1GHz OMAP 4 CPU, video codecs up the wazoo
LG's been mighty stingy with details about its 3D smartphone, but some very promising ones have just trickled out of Barcelona ahead of Mobile World Congress -- in keeping with the company's theme of doubling everything, the LG Optimus 3D will ship with a dual-core 1GHz TI OMAP 4 chip. Considering that we've seen that particular SOC drive three screens, we're guessing that a single 4.3-inch stereo display (yes, 4.3-inch is confirmed) will be old hat, and we've certainly seen the included PowerVR SGX540 graphics throw around some weight in many a Galaxy S. Raw specs aside, though, the Optimus 3D has a feature that we've been waiting on in Android for a while: LG says it will have "four times more video decoders than competing designs." Admittedly, that probably means it will still only recognize about eight video formats in total, but as long as we can play the vast majority of our anime music video library without re-encoding the lot, we'll promise to only grumble occasionally. Deal? PR after the break. %Gallery-116393%
TI announces OMAP 5: two high-performance and two low-power cores, devices next year
We're still waiting for the first OMAP 4 devices to hit the market, but TI's planning ahead -- way ahead -- with its announcement today of the OMAP 5 platform that really kicks things into high gear. The headline feature would be the inclusion of two Cortex-A15 cores, each running at up to 2GHz; Cortex-A15 is the fastest architecture ARM has announced to date, featuring performance roughly 50 percent better than Cortex-A9 at the same clock speed. What's more, there are another two Cortex-M4 processors along for the ride, ready to take over less intensive tasks at much lower power consumption to improve device responsiveness. The platform can support up to four cameras operating at the same time, offer 3D playback, recording, and 2D upsampling to 3D at 1080p resolution, and control up to 8GB of RAM. The chips start sampling to device manufacturers in the second half of this year with retail devices expected in the second half of 2012. Follow the break for the full press release.
Samsung Galaxy SL drops AMOLED for Super Clear LCD, Hummingbird for OMAP3
You're Samsung, and you want to make sure you have enough still-limited S-AMOLED displays for the upcoming Galaxy S 2, but you don't want to discontinue the original Galaxy S. What to do? Well, you could always take a cue from the Galaxy S-based Russian Nexus S and use an LCD instead-- and so here we have the Galaxy SL GT-i9003, which is destined to hit the Middle East and Asia with both a Super Clear LCD and a processor swap from Sammy's Humingbird to a 1GHz TI OMAP 3630, along with a bump in thickness and weight due to a slightly larger battery. Apart from that it's pretty much just a Galaxy S, all the way down to the maddening stagnation on Android 2.2 -- but hey, give us 2.3 (or even 3.0) on the Galaxy S 2 and we'll be all smiles and giggles. Update: BestBoyz got a Vodafone price list that seems to indicate that the SL will hit Germany as well. Achtung, AMOLED fans!
Nokia N9 to bust loose with MeeGo on Intel Atom power?
Nokia has to do something big if it wants to crack the US smartphone market. We can agree on that, right? And believe us, Nokia wants this -- nothing will make the mighty Finns (and the company's global investors) prouder than to gain some traction in the home of Apple pie and Google desserts. So how will the company do it? With Symbian? Oh, hell no. By introducing another MeToo handset? Nope, with MeeGo on a rockin' platform like the rumored N9 slider pictured above. Nokia announced its hardware plans for Maemo 6 a long time ago. At that time, the company was clear that it would continue using TI OMAP processors. Much has changed since then, however. In addition to several key leadership changes including a new Canadian-born CEO who spent much of his time working in the US, Nokia has joined Intel to roll up Maemo 6 and Moblin into MeeGo with Nokia's first Maemo 6 MeeGo/Harmattan handset pushed into 2011. Simultaneously, Intel has also been doing its best to show its new Moorestown platform as a powerful ARM alternative, even showing off MeeGo handsets exploiting a Lincroft SoC and Atom processor core. And Intel has said that Medfield-based smartphones (Moorestown's successor) would arrive in the middle of 2011. So why the build-up? Well, we've just been tipped to a claim by Prosessori, a respected Finnish technology magazine, that the Nokia N9 will launch with a 1.2GHz Atom processor. Better yet, it could be unveiled as soon as Mobile World Congress in February, presumably during Stephen Elop's keynote. Do we believe it? Not entirely, but it is possible given the chain of events that have taken place. And you can bet that the first commercially available Intel smartphone with a brand new Nokia user experience would certainly grab headlines in the US and around the world. Something that should translate into high-end market share (and profits) if it's as "exciting" as Elop claims. [Thanks, Janne]
Motorola Droid X gets 1.2GHz software overclock for China, we feel slighted too
For years foreign nations have received better and faster cars than America but, finally, we thought we'd at least received smartphone parity. Not for Motorola, who is bringing its 4.3-inch Droid X slab to China with one major tweak: a processor running at 1.2GHz. That's a 20 percent boost over its cycles in domestic form despite having the same TI ticker humming away in there. Now, that's not to say there aren't ways to unofficially overclock your X to 1.2GHz -- and beyond -- but those of us who prefer staying stock are left to wonder why, and to hope for an equivalent update on these shores. Futile hopes, these.
RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook using a 1GHz OMAP 4430 processor
We already confirmed that RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook was deadly fast in use, but up until now, we've still been left to wonder what kind of silicon was powering it. According to a RIM representative that spoke to us just now on the CES show floor, a dual-core OMAP chip from Texas Instruments is doing the honors -- more specifically, it's the blisteringly fast 1GHz OMAP 4430. And now, you know.
Texas Instruments announces DLP Pico HD chipset, slew of pico projectors CES-bound
Texas Instruments has just announced its latest DLP projector chipset, the Pico HD. The newest, tiny chipset offer HD WXGA resolution projections of up to 100 inches, and promises to be brighter and clearer than ever. So what does this mean to you, the consumer? Well, Texas Instruments is promising a host of hardware partners showing off their brand spanking new projecting wares. We don't have full details yet, but we do know that we can expect to see Acer unveil its HW300T pocket projector, while ViewSonic will show the PLED-W200 DLP Pico projector, and offerings from Optoma and LG to boot. We'll track them all down for you as soon as our tiny hands possibly can. And that, in a nutshell, is our Texas Instruments pico news of the day. The full-fledged, not in a nutshell press release is after the break.
Texas Instruments ups the wireless power game with industry's first Qi dev kit
We have yet to see a flood of Qi-enabled devices at CES, but here's a little something from Texas Instruments that will hopefully boost the number of products supporting this newfangled wireless charging standard. What we're looking at is the bqTESLA, the industry's first Qi-certified wireless power development kit that consists of a single-channel transmitter (presumably the transparent pad with a copper coil underneath), a direct-charge receiver (the black object) and "associated magnetics for applications requiring five watts of power or less" such as cellphones, MP3 players, cameras, etc. Interested techies can pick up one of these toys for $499, or for just $250 throughout CES 2011.
TI's OMAP4440 processor brings two blazing Cortex-A9 cores to the table
Phones and tablets based on TI's first production OMAP4 processor -- the OMAP4430 -- won't even be on the market until early next year, but TI's already planning ahead with the announcement of an upgraded chip that promises a 50 percent boost in overall performance. The new OMAP4440 can send its two Cortex-A9-based cores as high as 1.5GHz, while the 4430 tops out at 1GHz; TI says that means we should expect a 1.25x improvement in graphics performance, a 30 percent decline in webpage load time, and 1080p playback performance that doubles the slowpoke (comparably speaking, anyway) 4430. The company expects to sample these little speed demons to manufacturers in the first quarter of next year with volume shipment coming in the second half, itching to do battle with Samsung's Orion; in the meantime, we suppose your 4430 will have to do. Follow the break for the press release.
Nook Color processor revealed: ARM Cortex A8-based TI OMAP3621
Barnes & Noble provided most of the specs for the Nook Color when it launched the device on Tuesday, but notably absent was any word on the processor that powers the e-reader. Thankfully, Texas Instruments has now come out confirmed that the Nook Color uses its ARM Cortex A8-based, 45nm OMAP3621 processor (still no word on the speed). What's more, the processor is actually part of TI's eBook Development Platform, which the Nook Color also relies on. That's particularly interesting considering that the processor and platform support a few features that the Nook Color does not, not the least of which is 3G connectivity. Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean we'll see a future Nook Color that takes advantage of those features, but at least we know it's not too much of a stretch for Barnes & Noble to add them. Update: Texas Instruments pinged us to say the chip within the Nook Color hums along at 800MHz.
TI and XTR team up on touchless gesturing system for mobile devices
We've seen a few examples of touchless, gesture-based interfaces for mobile devices, but it looks like Texas Instruments might be closer than most to making it a reality -- it's just announced a partnership with Extreme Reality (also known as XTR) on a new gesture engine and framework specifically designed for its OMAP 4 platform. The two companies actually showed off such a system back at MWC earlier this year (check out a demo of ti after the break), but they've only just now made the partnership official, and they're promising plenty more advancements to come -- including the ability to not only recognize simple gestures, but even things like whole body movements and two-handed gestures. Head on past the break for the complete press release.
PS3 jailbroken with... a TI-84 Plus calculator
Sure, you can jailbreak a PS3 using a USB drive, or even a Palm Pre or Nokia N900 -- but isn't that a little too straightforward? Jailbreaking a PS3 with a TI-84 Plus calculator, on the other hand; well, that's more like it. Still skeptical? Head on past the break for the video evidence, and hit up the source link below for the necessary details to perform the feat yourself. And don't worry -- no calculators were harmed in the making of this exploit.
ARM reveals Eagle core as Cortex-A15, capable of quad-core computing at up to 2.5GHz
Way to take the wind out of our sails, ARM -- no sooner does your dual-core Cortex-A9 finally ship, do you reveal an even more powerful smartphone, smartbook and server-slaying beast. The Cortex-A15 MPCore picks up where the A9 left off, but with reportedly five times the power of existing CPUs, raising the bar for ARM-based single- and dual-core cell phone processors up to 1.5GHz... or as high as 2.5GHz in quad-core server-friendly rigs with hardware virtualization baked in and support for well over 4GB of memory. One terabyte, actually. Like we'd heard, the ARMv7-A "Eagle" chips are destined for Texas Instruments, but ST-Ericsson and Samsung as also named as "lead licensees," so we fully expect to see some badass silicon powering a Galaxy when the 32nm and 28nm parts ship in 2013. Press release and video after the break, replete with ARM partner companies fawning over the new hotness. We can't really blame them.
Intel acquires TI's cable modem unit, might be sneaking into your AV rack
Intel's been trying to break into the home entertainment market for years, and while it's made some inroads, it's also looking at a notable list of ho hum attempts that never managed to gain traction. Take the CE3100 processor, for instance -- a couple of years ago, the outfit seemed certain that this here chip would be powering every last living room box for the rest of eternity, and nowadays it's hardly a household name. But this week, Intel has picked up Texas Instruments' cable modem unit, which gives it a direct link into the very area it's been trying to exploit. The goal of the acquisition -- which is scheduled to close in the fourth quarter of this year -- is to combine TI's Puma product lines with DOCSIS and Intel SoCs. Once that magical marriage takes place, Chipzilla intends to push out complex set-top boxes, residential gateways and modem products, possibly even going for the OEM artery. Details beyond that are few and far betwixt, but we doubt it'll be too long before the pickup begins to bear fruit.
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.
Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots goes motion-controlled for TI design challenge
Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots have already seen some new life in an augmented reality demo, and they've now gotten yet another taste of the future -- Zachery Shivers and Anne Flinchbaugh have created a motion-controlled version of the game as part of Texas Instruments' Co-op Design Challenge. As you can probably imagine, that requires plenty of servos and circuit boards underneath the ring, but the key ingredient is TI's accelerometer-equipped Chronos watch, which lets you translate your actual punches into rock 'em sock 'em punches. Check it out in action in the video after the break, and hit up the source link below for the complete details on building your own.
Christie creates baffling 3D HD CAVE 'visual environment,' or your average Halo display in 2020
Whenever the word "Christie" is involved, you can generally count on two things: 1) you can't afford it and 2) you'll want to afford it. The high-end projection company is at it once again, this time installing a truly insane visual environment at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York. The 3D HD CAVE is intended to help researchers find breakthroughs in biomedical studies, and while CAVE itself has been around for years, this particular version easily trumps prior iterations. For starters, it relies on eight Christie Mirage 3-chip DLP projectors, all of which have active stereo capabilities and can deliver a native resolution of 1,920 x 1,920. Yeah, that's 3.68 megapixels per wall. The idea here is to provide mad scientists with a ridiculous amount of pixel density in an immersive world, but all we can think about is hooking Kinect and the next installment of Bungie's famed franchise up to this thing. Can we get an "amen?"
Milestone XT720 spec changes again, this time for the worse
Hey, we admit it, as far as Motorola's concerned hacks like us probably have no business browsing its Motodev pages, but we can't help but be a little peeved at the freestyle updates the company is making to its Milestone XT720 spec sheet. The processor hasn't changed -- it's always been a 720MHz-capable TI OMAP3440 -- but its speed rating has fluctuated between 550MHz, 720MHz exactly, and now the most enigmatic value yet: "up to" 720MHz. The RAM too has gone on a rollercoaster journey, jumping from 256MB at first, to a tasty 512MB, and now back down to a lean quarter gig. What's going on over there, too many webmasters spoiling the spec soup? [Thanks, Marius]
Texas Instruments' Blaze tablet coming to developers this August
Back in February when Texas Instruments announced its ARM-based OMAP 4 system-on-chip 'Blaze' dev platform, we sort of figured it might be tablet-bound. And, here it is -- Blaze is going to be a tablet! Not a shocker, but we're glad to hear it, of course, since the tablet wars are hotter than ever and we love a good fight. So, what do we know about TI's entry in the game? Hardware wise it's going to be a 10.4-inch XVGA touchscreen LCD with two USB ports. Internally, we hear it'll boast a 1GHz OMAP4430 cpu, 1GB of DDR2 RAM, WLAN, Bluetooth, GPS, and FM, plus external camera and pico projector modules. The tablet is not set for retail release, but for developers, but we're still pretty excited to see this one come out to play.
