Meet:Mobility Podcast 45 is now available. Streamed live (meetmobility.com/live) on 12th March 2010 with special guest Charbax (Twitter, ARMDevices.net)
In the podcast we talk about the mobile computing highlights of CeBIT including the Archos 7, four convertible netbooks, the new Atom processors and ION GPU options and much more.
Full show notes and links to download/listen are at Meet:Mobility
We’ve had a few hands-on sessions with the Hanvon Tablet at IDF and CES and found it to be an interesting device that works smoothly and productively. The 1.6Ghz Menlow platform seemed to provide good performance. There have been hints that there’s a second version though and JKK managed to uncover it today by visiting the Hanvon booth at CeBIT. It’s the BC10C built on the Intel Celeron 1.3Ghz ULV743 CPU, an expensive but powerful CPU.
Image via Twitpic
The BC10C includes 2GB RAM, 10” multitouch capacative screen, 250GB HDD, 2 x 2Mp webcams and has a weight of only 900gm.
JKK spoke to us earlier on a MeetMobility update (embedded below) and has produced a demo video too; also embedded below.
As for the price points, JKK is quoting 500-600 Euros for the BA10E and 600-700 for the BC10C. I get the feeling that the BC10C will be more expensive than 600-700 Euros based on the costs of the parts in it but let’s wait and see. Maybe Hanvon are looking to make a big splash with these two devices when they launch.
Amy Barton from Intel explains the Million Dollar Fund intended to kick-start developers and get applications into the Intel Atom Developer Program which will then appear in the AppUp Center and other netbook (and possibly smartphone, mid, tv) app stores in the future on both Windows and Meego-based devices.
The press announcement was yesterday.
In a call with Intel last Friday we heard about a ‘Million Dollar Development Fund’ which should be officially launching right about now. (Should appear here.)
The fund is aimed at reducing the challenges that developers might have in developing for the Intel Atom Developer Program and it appears to be another part in an ongoing effort to seed the developer program.
The goal of the fund is to help accelerate innovation of software applications for Intel® Atom™ processor-based products, starting with netbooks and eventually supporting a variety of consumer electronics, including smartphones. With the netbook market segment set to grow from 35 million in 2009 to 139 million in 2013*, this new fund is designed to open up new opportunities for developers and independent software companies worldwide.
The Intel Atom Developer Program Million Dollar Development Fund represents Intel’s global commitment to support innovation by developers and software companies. The fund will be available to individual and student developers, as well as small, medium and large software companies to support the creation of new compelling applications and netbook user experiences. Hardware and financial aid also will be available to developers with the objective of reducing barrier to entry for new application development and accelerating time to market.
The first three elements of the development fund are available now with more to be announced over the coming months.
- Fast Track 2010: Developers want quick revenue and increased visibility. For 250 selected validated applications submitted between March 1-31, 2010, the developer or software company will receive $500. Talk about fast revenue!
- Download 2010: Revenue from one download is nice, but how about maximizing it? For 100 selected validated applications submitted between March 1-31, 2010, Intel will add to a developer or software company’s revenue on the Intel AppUp Center for 4 months (even for free apps).
- The Intel Atom Developer Challenge: This contest offers great prizes and marketing exposure for developers and their applications. Developers can join now at http://appdeveloper.intel.com/en-us/contest/developerchallenge, and watch for the announcement of more prizes on March 9, 2010.
So that means if even you developer a free app, you’ll get $500 when it’s approved and $2 per download. (Up to a limit of $5K for a free app. $25k for a paid app.)
It’s Windows-only right now but expect further announcements (and we get the feeling that more funds are set-aside) for the Moblin, sorry MeeGo-based app store soon. You should also see third-party app stores being built into OEM netbooks soon so there’s even more change that customers will download your app.
It’s a very interesting move by Intel and proves that applications stores are big business and costing millions and millions to get going. The next stage will be to convince the existing 40 million-plus netbook users to download and install the AppUp Center on their netbooks. Maybe if the apps are worth having, that stage will happen automatically!
Intel officially launched the N470 this morning. It’s the 1.83Ghz Atom CPU for the Intel Pinetrail netbook platform.
Today Intel introduced the Intel® Atom™ processor N470. This new, faster Atom processor for netbooks has integrated graphics built directly into the CPU to help enable improved performance and smaller, more energy-efficient designs for the popular netbook category. The single core Atom processor runs at 1.83GHz, with 512k of L2 cache and DDR2-667 support. Major OEMs are expected to introduce systems based on this processor over the coming months to further differentiate their netbook offerings with a higher frequency to deliver additional responsiveness for online and basic computing tasks.
Interestingly, Sascha (follow him at CeBIT on Twitter) sent this twitpic in from CeBIT a few minutes ago which highlights two more CPUs. The N455 and N475. I wonder if these are the Broadcom-enabled versions of the platform?
Update: These are DDR3-enabled versions of the CPU.
Stay tuned for more from CeBIT and join us in the studio for regular live updates. (Http://www.meetmobility.com/live)
Meet:Mobility Podcast 43 was a great session recorded live at the Intel booth at Mobile World Congress 2010 in front of a live audience. In the 40-minute podcast we talk about some of the best hardware and software aspects of MWC and hook into the money and business aspects of development for mobile software platforms. Round the table for podcast 43 were…
The audio version of the podcast, with show notes, will be in the normal channels soon but if you can’t wait for that, the video’s are available here.
Many thanks to Pages Media (YouTube-Channel : RedaktionPages ) and Software-Dev-Blog for their support in making this video and thanks to the live audience and of course to the Intel Developer Network who made this live session possible.
Podcast 44, a studio-based warm-up to CeBIT is coming tomorrow and the team will also be bringing you mini-podcasts each day from CeBIT as the news breaks.
Thanks for listening and watching.
What a fantastic start to the year we’ve had at Meet Mobility. First we’re live in Vegas at the Runcore booth and then a few weeks later, we’re running four sessions in Barcelona at the Intel booth at Mobile World Congress. I think I can speak for the whole Meet:Mobility team when I say that joining our individual web forces for podcasts and events has been one of most rewarding and exciting things we’ve done. You can guarantee we’ll be organising more of these events and as I write this, Sascha and JKK are trying to organise something for CeBIT next week so stay tuned.
My favourite session at MWC last week was the 30 minutes we spent with Scott Apeland. Scott is Director of Intel’s Developer Network and was able to answer most of our questions on the Intel Atom Developer Program, the AppUp Center Beta and the MeeGo announcement. The session is split into three parts and is available over at MeetMobility.
We’ve had ARM-based mini-notebooks and tablets for years and in recent months we’ve even had the chance to test out some new, high-powered arrivals. The Netwalker, Wirelession 1060, TouchBook and many more. The potential has always been there to make a killer product but no-one has executed correctly yet. The Mobinnova Beam gets close but there’s a lot missing from the OS on that one.
The Dell Mini 5 and Apple iPad might change that and in the world of 4-10” ultra-mobile devices are likely to be the biggest sellers this segment has seen for at least the last 5 years. They combine some unique features over X86 devices that I discuss below. These niche-market devices may not see multi-million sales but there are still big opportunities.
Up at the 10” netbook segment though there’s a well-established market for low-cost, portable, low-end internet-focused mini laptops. Netbooks have 40 million or more sales to-date and over 100 million sales predicted for 2013. Prices are low, battery life high, performance acceptable and even style is playing a role. Netbooks are just cool and very easy to justify. This is where ARM partners have a superb opportunity…in the Social Netbook.
ARM-partners aren’t in the netbook game yet but they do have a big chance if they use some unique weapons that Intel will have to think carefully about in their next-gen netbook platform. The ‘Social Netbook’ is a huge opportunity for ARM partners.
For the first time this week I finally saw an ARM-based netbook that executes well on what I think are the important unique and ‘lock-in’ features and the device slots neatly into a category of ‘social’ netbooks. Jolicloud beware because the Compaq Airlife 100 is good.
1 – Point of sale
First of all we have the point-of-sale element. Selling applications, books, videos, music and other online services adds value to the customer and value to the sales-chain which, in turn, can bring the price of a product down. Android, iPhone OS and other ARM-centric operating systems have proven that the model works and is important for the future. Windows-based netbooks aren’t POS devices. Intel and Nokia are working on this via their Intel Atom Developer Program and app-store framework but it’s in it’s infancy and needs a lot of marketing, development and commitment from OEMs before it becomes interesting for developers and customers. Point-of-sale is a lock-in feature.
2 – Location Based Services and Social Networking
LBS is becoming very big business and customers are starting to catch on to the idea of local search, local social networking and other location-based services. There ARE solutions for Windows-based netbooks but they are few and far between. Take Google Buzz for instance. The only way you can use the location aspect of this service is to use it on an ARM-based smartphone. Windows just doesn’t lend itself to these services and despite efforts to include ‘sensor’ support in Windows 7, developers are just not developing with this in mind. All the action for LBS is exclusively on ARM-based platforms using operating systems built with this in mind. Intel and Nokia do have a solution in MeeGo but like the Intel Atom Developer Program, it’s a long way away from developers minds right now. LBS is a lock-in feature.
As for social networking, although the majority of it still happens on the desktop, the growth in mobile social networking is phenomenal and combined with LBS is something that an Intel/Windows netbook just can not do right now.
3 – Dynamic User Interfaces.
What’s more interesting? A static workbench or a tailored ‘active’ screen with dynamic wallpaper, active widgets, finger-attractions, location awareness and a neat integration and interleaving of notifications from device and external services? Despite Windows 7 being capable of all these things, it’s not delivering a dynamic, exciting, social-centric experience. How many usable finger-centric overlay packages did you see for Windows 7? What platform are developers looking at when they want to make a dynamic, mobile friendly UI? The answer is simple. Most of the work is going into ARM-focused operating systems right now and you only have to look to peoples reaction to ‘Sense’, the UI layer from HTC to see what a difference it makes. Funnily enough, Windows Phone 7 Series won’t be offering tailored overlay layers either so in terms of dynamic, evolving mobile user interfaces, Android is in the best position possible. Again, MeeGo is tackling that issue but again, it’s a long way away from developers minds right now. Dynamic user interfaces are a lock-in feature.
4 – Always on.
I’ve left the best until last. Always-on is a killer lock-in feature and the primary trojan horse for ARM-based products. Always-on is not about in-use battery life, it’s about staying connected and active when you don’t use the device. It’s the smartphone usage model and it’s the reason that many of us, despite having laptops with us, will choose to browse the web or do an email on a smartphone rather than on a mobile computer. We’re simply lazy.
I first experienced this always-on computing model with a productive device back in 2008 with the WiBrain i1 which was able to achieve a nearly all-day connected usage scenario but it got hot, was a little temperamental and was hardly the most attractive design. Since then we’ve started to see netbooks achieving a regular 8-hour connected battery life and we’re moving to the point where that is going up to 10 hours with designs based around Pinetrail and Menlow but they are all 1.2KG or more, all have huge 6-cell (expensive) batteries and all use an operating system and platform that aren’t designed for the out-of-use scenario. With the current mobile operating systems you get always-on in a much more efficient manner (expect connected active-standby times in days on an ARM netbook) and the OS is designed for that usage model too. From core OS functions to notifiers and the ability to light lamps and buzz buzzers when necessary – even based on location. Users understand these OS’ as ‘always-active’ whereas with Windows 7, users are associating a desktop usage model and power-down after use.
Always-on usage is one of the best advantages ARM-partners have in this space and the primary lock-in feature for ARM-based netbooks.
And…
Also worth thinking about are casual gaming, in-use battery life advantages, weight, design flexibility (smaller, fanless designs) carrier channels and subsidization models.
I sat down with Pankaj Kedia today. Pankaj is responsible for ecosystem development for the ultra mobility group at Intel and plays an important role in interfacing with software developers and bringing their products into ultra mobile devices. I took ten minutes to ask him a number of questions about MeeGo. We talk about timescales, strategy, opportunities and I ask about a developer conference; a question I will definitely follow-up because having experienced the excellent Maemo Summit in 2009, it makes perfect sense to run a similar event or roadshow in 2010.
Summary of responses from Pankaj:
Over the last 3+ years I’ve spent a rather embarrassing amount of time analysing battery drain on mobile computing devices. It’s become a specialty of mine to look at a device, look at the battery size and then estimate real-world battery life figures for certain usage scenarios although in the netbook world it really boils down to a simple equation – take 30% off what you see on the specifications.
In the world of smart devices (computing and communication devices based around the ARM architecture) the equation is slightly different and as we move to ARM based tablets, pads and MIDs the equation gets even more wobbly because these devices can idle down to near-zero drain rates. Take the 300+hrs standby figures you see on some phones for example. With a 5W battery, that’s a drain of about 16mw, which is 100x less power than even the most efficient of PC-based mobile devices in idle mode. The problem is, however…
The days of ‘standby’ are long gone as even the most basic of phones are able to play music, access 3G networks, present information on backlit colour screens and run simple background tasks like alarm and event monitoring, location services, email polling and more. Move to a smartphone scenario and that 16mw idle figure is irrelevant. When I tested my N82 a few years ago I was shocked to find out that it could suck 9 batteries dry in a long day of heavy use.
I re-charged the device fully and did a static test using the same apps. Music playing, live GPS tracking (I use Nokia Sports Tracker) and IM via Gizmo. I left the device alone and didn’t use it. After 110 minutes it switched off indicating a 2.1W average drain from the 3.7wh battery. [Source]
Today I installed an interesting app on my N82 and confirmed those findings of nearly two years ago. Using the awesome (for geeks like me) ‘Energy Profiler’ for Symbian Series 60 I lay in bed for about an hour testing out various scenarios. Sure enough, the phone idled down to about 200mw and by simply streaming some music over 3G the figure shot up to 1W. Turn on GPS via the map application and crank up the volume and the device was using over 1.5W. Just cranking up the audio volume added 20-30% power load on the device!
Last week at CES Nvidia announced Tegra 2. It’s one of the most powerful ARM-based processing platforms on the planet. Think 2-4 times more CPU processing power than even the fastest smartphone out there right now. It’s amazing and exciting, especially when you known that the CPU cores only take around 400-600mw under full load. Once again, this platform can idle down to an almost frozen state. The platform is slightly too big and power-hungry for small smartphones at the moment but expect to see this in high-end media and internet phones and upcoming tablets and MIDs. The 4-10” screen range.
When you get to screen sizes of 4” and above, something happens that levels the playing field for Intel somewhat. Their CPU platforms (*1) don’t idle down very well but in a typical ‘internet-connected’ scenario on one of these ‘smart’ devices, that becomes almost insignificant as the screen backlight adds such a huge load to the platform that when combined with Wifi, 3G, BT, GPS and audio, the CPU is just 10% of the total load. Swapping Intel out for ARM would save you just 5-10% battery life in an ‘active’ scenario.
I’m a big fan of low-power computing and I understand that that most people won’t be using a device all the time so there’s a distinct advantage to use and ARM platform over a current Intel platform (*1) but usage models are changing and it’s now common to find people picking up a phone to use it once every few minutes and when they’re not using it, the GPS, Wifi, 3G and audio is still running. Simply being ‘connected’, polling the internet is going to mean that your device is going to be using 500mw of power on average. Standby is now an ‘active’ or ‘on-net’ experience.
All this confusion and range of figures is great for marketing teams. The ‘all-day’ connected’ expression will be used a lot along with a lot of talk about standby battery life of ‘days.’ Forget it! The average 4-10” tablet device will be using an average 1W to 2W per hour. Leave the screen backlight on along with a few flash and ajax-filled browser tabs running with a 10” slate and you’re in the 4W range. The 10W battery that would fit comfortably in such a device suddenly becomes a 2.5hr battery in that scenario.
You will hear a lot of battery life BS over the next year. Silicon manufacturers are in a truly critical fight to win in the new ‘smart’ devices market and as a result, they will use every weapon. BE AWARE that as devices get more fun, connected and dynamic, you will use them more and battery life will drop like a fly. IGNORE manufacturers battery life claims and wait for independent reviews. That’s what we’re here for!
Related articles:
How long does your smartphone last in ‘MID’ mode?
How big is an ‘all-day’ Mobile Internet smartphone?
(*1) The upcoming Moorestown platform brings a whole new power control architecture to the table in late 2010. More analysis on Moorestown here.
For those of you with netbooks running Windows in the U.S. or Canada, you might be interested in testing out the Intel AppUp applications store. If you haven’t heard the news, it’s a full app store with a purchase system and an account that tracks your apps and allows you to re-download them if necessary. There isn’t much in the store right now (approx 100 apps) but I don’t think it will take long for developers to start modifying and submitting the applications they have already written for the Windows platform.
So far, I’m seeing a very interesting platform that when extended across smartphones, mids, netbooks and TV’s has huge potential in market segments that could total hundreds of millions of potential end-users. Already there are tens of millions of netbooks out there so if you’re a developer you need to be taking a close look at this.
Detailed blog article from Intel
I wasn’t expecting this at all. Here are some photo’s of the LG GW990, Intel Moorestown-based smartphone.
Details so far:
Unfortunately this is behind glass.
The Intel keynote is in a few hours. It would be crazy if Intel didn’t show it off.
The N450 is the new Intel Atom-based chip that will be used for ‘Pineview’ netbooks in 2010. Many of you have heard about the new ‘leaked’ netbooks over the last few weeks and although it’s focused at netbooks, we think there is some scope for some relatively powerful UMPC designs using the N400-series silicon. To that end, we’ve been following the news closely.
The N450 integrates the GPU and CPU on the same die and there have been some questions over the capabilities, especially in the area of video decoding. The technical documents that are now available make it clear. There is no H.264 or WMV decoding on board and no support for digital monitor outputs. MPEG2 decoding is supported (useful for DVB and DVD standards) but that’s about it for video. So its certainly not a GMA500 core. It’s Intel technology through and through.
One thing we can clearly state now is that you won’t be watching HD-quality Flash videos on a standard netbook. Even when Flash 10.1 is released, there’s simply no decoding hardware for it to use. This leaves a big gap for Nvidia and Broadcom although if Intel get their act together with Moblin, the higher-clockrate Z200 Z500 series CPUs might be an option for video-focused netbooks.
For all the technical details, check out the N400-series PDF here.
Meet:Mobility is a project organised by Sascha Pallenberg of Netbooknews, JKK of JKKMobile.com and myself. We create regular podcasts and vodcasts and join together to cover major events. Be sure to add the podcast to your podcatcher!
Meet:Mobility Podcast 36 is now up. Recorded on Dec 3rd 2009.
JKK, Sascha, Chippy and special guest, Warner Crocker from GottaBeMobile talk about the new Fujitsu Handheld PC, Time Inc’s Tablet concept and the Crunchpad. What happened there? We also tell you how you could win a car with the Intel Atom Developer Program.
All the details including download, itunes link, rss and multi-format streaming link over at Meet:Mobility
If you are interested in sponsoring the bi-weekly podcast, please contact us.
Meet:Mobility is a project organised by Sascha Pallenberg of Netbooknews, JKK of JKKMobile.com and myself. We create regular podcasts and vodcasts and join together to cover major events. Be sure to add the podcast to your podcatcher!
Meet:Mobility Podcast 36 is now up. Recorded on Dec 3rd 2009.
JKK, Sascha, Chippy and special guest, Warner Crocker from GottaBeMobile talk about the new Fujitsu Handheld PC, Time Inc’s Tablet concept and the Crunchpad. What happened there? We also tell you how you could win a car with the Intel Atom Developer Program.
All the details including download, itunes link, RSS and multi-format streaming link over at Meet:Mobility
If you are interested in sponsoring the bi-weekly podcast, please contact us.
Intel are going to make my Mifi giveaway (coming up this week) look a little cheap! Read on…
Intel have just announced that the SDK for the Intel Atom Developer Program has reached Beta stage and along with the announcement comes information about how you can now start testing and submitting applications to their program. In order to get things moving, Intel are offering some big big prizes. How about a Smart Car or a $20K vacation? There are 100 netbooks on offer too!
Here’s a quick summary of what’s happening.
You developers get all the perks. Where’s my old Kernighan and Ritchie book?
More information on the latest news and a ton of information links are available on the information page that has just gone live at Intel.
Qualcomm announced the ‘first’ smartbook [*1] yesterday. It’s due in 2010 and it’s going to be a very very tough challenge to make an impact of this wildly dynamic mobile device market we’re seeing right now. My opinion is that ‘smartbooks’ are not going to impress anyone in the first half of 2010 but as we near 2011, they have a chance to break through. Operating system and processing power are the key issues but in this report I talk through a number of the ingredients that go together to make the complete smartbook product.
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