It’s clear that tablets are moving to the enterprise. The iPad has already infiltrated many markets (pilots are getting iPads to carry  manuals for example) and you’ll find them in many media companies. Android is moving that way too with Honeycomb leaning towards touch and mouse input methods. The operating systems are moving forward quickly (although there are still many limits) and the apps are following. What about the hardware though? Can you plug a keyboard and mouse into an Android tablet and get to work in a corporate fashion? Cisco seems to think so and on analyzing some more information and hands-on with the Cisco Cius, I’m liking what I see. This is a very flexible thin-client and mobile computing device that could show the way for true pro-mobile computing solutions of the future.

Android, Intel, Tablet are three words that many wouldn’t really expect to go together but it’s no secret that Intel have been working on Android for well over a year. They’ve been working on core items like power control and trying to dovetail the software with their new ultra-mobile platforms. The version of Atom inside the Cisco Cius is unique in that it can’t run Windows – another surprise from Intel. I also note that we’re seeing an non-Windows Intel tablet from a major brand here. Isn’t that what Intel wanted to do with MeeGo and Nokia?

Cisco Cius specifications, links, gallery available through our Cisco Cius information page.

Moving on, the tablet is only half of the product because the media dock is the really interesting bit. Docks are worth their weight in gold, especially when it’s one that’s a feature-rich as this.

• 3 USB ports

• 3.5-mm headset jack

• 10/100/1000-Gbps switch ports for wired connections and Power over Ethernet (PoE)

• Additional speaker for wideband hands-free communications

• DisplayPort^™ to connect to a larger display for an immersive video experience and for a virtualized desktop experience

• Two handset options: standard and slimline

So lets summarise that as  a quality docking station.

A bit more about the tablet software. It includes support for Cisco’s secure remote applications architecture. It’s thin-client for the big-boys basically and it integrates with cisco’s security, VPN and prioritisation support on their routers. A ‘VXI Endpoint’ is the Cisco term for this.

You’ve also got a Cisco marketplace with approved apps and a separate API and developer community. One assumes the IT people can remove access to the Google Market because that’s there too highlighting the fact that this is a fully approved X86 build of Android. Intel have done well to get past this point because it means a lot of value-add for their customers. One wonders if it could affect the value of Intels AppUp solution.  The Cisco store includes apps from Citrix, VMWare and Wyse for remote access solutions although these are available in the market. [I'm using Wyse Pocket Cloud Pro to test Android to Vista server remote desktop right now. It's nice to see Chrome on the Android screen.]

The Android build is only 2.2 unfortunately. Intel are working on Honeycomb but it’s not clear if Cisco will roll-out that upgrade for the Cius. I assume it would be a big software job.

Cisco Cius specifications, links, gallery available through our Cisco Cius information page.

Don’t forget that you’ve also got:

• HD video encoder hardware on the front facing cam. 720p 30fps should make for some great conferencing sessions. (Cisco WebEx is built-in)
• SIP support
• Removable battery

I’ve been looking around for reviews of the Cius and there isn’t much out there at the moment but the video below is worth a watch. It’s an honest overview from an owner who seems happy with the device overall but has a problem with battery life. Yes, you were wondering about that weren’t you. Intel, Tablets and battery life often don’t go together.

Take a look at the video below and you’ll hear a comment about the battery “draining like crazy.” It’s difficult to get a perspective on this comment so I asked the author. This is what he said:

 I have the most current firmware and I would say the standby time is around 5 hours. It would around 3 hours if I used it regularly.

If we were talking about a small battery here I’d say ‘OK’ but we’re not. The Cius packs a 19Wh battery in 520gm. Here’s what Cisco say about battery life.

• Removable 5200 mAh battery

• Battery estimated use times will be provided at a later date (battery is expected to last up to 8 hours for typical business use)

There’s quite a difference between 3hrs and 8hrs there. Given that this is a 2.2W TDP Morestown platform that should idle way down to sub 1w territory with Android, a screen-off, Wifi-on scenario should be returning at least 15 hours. With the screen on, add 1W. In-use, add another Watt and you should be at a minimum of 4hrs usage. I don’t understand what’s going wrong here. Maybe Intel have some work to do on the Android build still?

The video is worth watching because you’ll see smooth transitions across the board and you’ll see some apps demonstrated. I only wish we could have seen some benchmarks. Sunspider would be important as would Quadrant and a simple Benchmark Pi test.  Is the browser based on Chrome rather than the Android browser? [Update: It uses the standard Android browser.] Are there any other special features hidden in the system settings too?

Apart from the battery life issue which needs to be confirmed, there are two other issues. This is a Wifi-only device right now which is not good for mobility. 3G is expected later this year via Verizon in the U.S.A. Secondly, you’re looking at $750 for the tablet and (my) estimated street price of $400 for the dock. It sounds a bit heavy for a thin client based on Android (considering I can do the same on my Iconia Tab wifi for about $500) but don’t underestimate the value of a rich dock. Charging, USB, headset, display port, gigabit Ethernet and handset is a lot of flexibility there. As for the tablet itself, yes, $750 is a lot for the hardware but this isn’t just any old Android hardware, it’s a software bundle too.  The price is right in my opinion. This is a corporate solution so don’t forget, if you’re looking at 200 of these units, you’ll be getting a huge reduction on those prices. 30% at least.

What we need now is for someone to make a consumer version of the Cisco Cius. Drop the handset and the Cisco-specific software, fix that battery life issue, style it up a little and you could be looking at an interesting crossover Android device. Fingers crossed for a real browser on the Intel Honeycomb build. It’s on the Google TV build so why not on a tablet build?

Cisco Cius specifications, links, gallery available through our Cisco Cius information page.

Moorestown is late. There’s no way that Intel can spin it otherwise because I’ve asked officials many times and they always promised ‘products’ in 2010. All we’re hearing about is Oaktrail and the reason for that might be because there isn’t an operating system for Moorestown yet. Moblin, MeeGo and Android are all listed as supported operating systems but none of those builds are completely ready for X86 prime-time yet. It looks like Moorestown is sitting in the wings for the time being and that’s very disappointing.

While we wait, let’s remind ourselves of some of the platform characteristics.

Moorestown is  a mobile-focused platform that uses an Intel Z6xx CPU where the memory bus, display controller and graphics (3D and video) are on the main die – Lincroft is the codename of the CPU. There’s no BIOS, no ACPI and no real PCI bus on the controller chip (Langwell) and therefore no Windows 7 support. The platform is designed to work with a special power control chip called Brierstown which provides the ‘power island’ support which will be critical in improving battery life and, for the first time, allowing an always-on idle mode that can be used for smartphones. It also integrates tightly with the Intel wireless module called Evans Peak.

Oaktrail is similar (but includes components to allow it to support Windows) as is Tunnel Creek. Tunnel Creek (E6xx CPUs) is intended for embedded designs but contains the same graphics core as Moorestown and Oaktrail. With 2x the 3D performance of the older Menlow platform  and a 20Mbps-capable hardware video decoder and 720p encoder, all based on PowerVR technology, it’s interesting to think about performance in terms of a handheld device.

Have a read at the Intel Embedded site here.

I’ve just stepped away from a tablet-fest. It’s like I’m partying in 2006, Origami style, here! The difference is that these devices are thin, look good and run from 9 to 12 inches.

The most interesting was, of course, the thinnest device which apparently runs on Moorestown with MeeGo which means, this is a smart Slate. E.g. Always-on. Obviously with MeeGo it will compete in the consumer space and it’s totally obvious that this bouncing off the iPad hype. I can’t wait to see it because if they include AppUp, it becomes a more complete product than most of the Android slates we’ve seen so far. Expect to see the MeeGo handheld UI experience demonstrated tomorrow in the ultra-mobility presentation. We might even see it at the keynote this afternoon. More coming soon.

There are a lot of Intel-related rumors and unqualified information that fly about and one of my jobs is to mash all that up and try and work out what’s happening so that I can ‘skate to where the puck is going to be’ as Steve Jobs would say. It allows me to do a lot of predicting. Device battery life, OS strategy, performance estimations and more.

A version of Moorestown that supports Windows will be announced in 2010 and it will allow UMPCs running desktop operating systems to shrink another 20% while gaining another 20% battery life but products using this may not appear in 2010. They could also be focused at the embedded market which puts a question-mark over price and small production runs for UMPCs. [Predictions for 2010]

There are three lose ends relating to Intel’s ultra-low-power platforms and it’s time to tie these up and make a prediction before I head to Computex (Where all will be revealed anyway. Why do I bother?)

1 – Mooly Eden announces a ‘tablet’ platform.

2 – Oaktrail will replace Menlow

3 – Rumors of ‘Moorestown-W’ that will allow standard builds of Windows and Linux distributions to run on the latest Intel ultra low-power platform.

I have two trains of thought right now. Either Intel will announce a new netbook platform or a new Menlow-like Win7-optimised platform for ultra mobiles.

New netbook platform.

Intel have to improve the video capabilities of their netbook platform. There’s no video playback acceleration at all and with flash 10.1 enabling smooth YouTube video on devices that do have video decoding, the netbooks are going to start to look dated. Battery life needs to be improved too. Smartbooks will, again, make netbooks look old and dated. Always-on battery life is also a consideration. If Intel want to unify the architecture from smartphone through embedded, TV and netbook platforms they’ll also need to drop the GMA3100 GPU and put something like an enhanced GMA500 in. GMA600 lives in the Moorestown platform, how about GMA700 with 800Mhz clock and VP8 decoding on board for 2011?

But is it too early for a new netbook platform? I think so. Cedar Trail is likely to be a more realistic thought. Late 2011.

New Win7 ‘handhelds’ platform.

Menlow has been with us in products since mid-2008. It got a refresh last year but during its lifetime we’ve gone from mainstream XP to mainstream Windows 7 and it’s time for an update in order to keep up. As with Lincroft (the CPU on the Moorestown platform) and Tunnel Creek (the CPU on the Queensbay platform) optimisations in size and performance can be made by bringing the GPU and memory controller on-board with the CPU and into a 45nm process. Interestingly, Queensbay/Tunnel Creek does this and has been already been labeled as the follow-on to the embedded (extended lifecycle) Menlow products so if we think about the similarities between that and Moorestown, it’s difficult to imagine the platform being anything other than a variation on this. What was rumored as the Oaktrail platform should look very similar to Queensbay and should be just enough for a smooth Windows 7 multi-touch performance in a handheld form-factor. In effect, another UMPC platform.

Here’s what I estimate the platform will look like: Highlights, highlighted.

• Integrated Atom CPU (optimised to give 20% more per-clock performance than Menlow) with GMA600 graphics, Display controler, Memory controller
• Connected to controller (USB, I/O ports) via Intels DMI bus in a similar fashion to Moorestown.
• GMA600 will be clocked at 400Mhz (double the performance of Menlow)
• GMA600 will include h.264 video ENCODE (720p) and up to 1080p decode. Flash 10.1 will be supported under Win-7
• Hardware encryption/decryption for SSL.
• 5mp camera interface.
• Turbo Boost features will allow the system to run at higher-clock for short periods.
• SATA 300 Interface (meaning much faster SSD speeds)
• 4GB DDR2 RAM at 667 or 800Mhz
• HDMI output
• Hyperthreading
• Intel VT support
• TDP 5W (platform) Unchanged from Menlow.
• Average power drain down by 30-50% (effective TDP lowered)
• CPU speed with turbo boost to 1.9Ghz.
• No power-gating support as on ‘smartphone’ Moorestown
• Standard BIOS support
• Windows 7, Linux and MeeGo support.
• Availability 2H 2010. Products early 2011

If Intel and Microsoft have been working well together, we might even see some special Windows-7 always-on state but that’s possibly too much to hope for. I don’t expect Intel to say anything about netbooks but to me, this look like a platform that could evolve to 32nm and dual-core easily and thus would become the next netbook platform for 2011/2012. Current target markets for the product would be unchanged from Menlow. I.e. MID and UMPCs but the marketing will change and you’ll see a lot of ‘tablet’ talk. I don’t see it as a huge segment but it was something that Intel was doing anyway so it makes sense to ride on some of the hype around at the moment.

Summary:

The ‘tablet silicon’ is likely to be Oaktrail/Moorestown-W, another UMPC-style platform. It could enable 10”, 15mm tablets weighing 600gm running Windows 7 and giving 6hr battery life. Not only would it enable tablets of 600gm but it would enable very thin and light netbooks, slider and clamshell handheld devices running Windows 7 to a point where it could be a better Windows 7 experience than on a netbook (assuming 1.9GHz max clock, double GPU power) and therefore, could evolve in to the next netbook platform at higher clock rates in a 32nm process. Note that the Intel AppUp store would run on this platform. Its sister product, Moorestown will continue to be aimed at even smaller devices with ‘always-on’ capability. I.e. ‘smart’ devices. These would only be able to run Android or Meego however. All products are likely to have CPU’s in the Z6xx series and are likely to be marketed as a family that fits inside Intel’s idea of a ‘Continuum.’

Note: This is all educated guesswork. All will be revealed next week at Computex. I’m attending under the ‘Intel Insiders’ program and should get some great access to products, information and people.

In press events on Tuesday, Intel launched Moorestown and gave journalists their full marketing package on the smartphone and tablet-focused platform.  The key highlight was ‘performance’ and one element I want to focus on is Web browsing.

In tests I’ve been doing with many devices over the last 6 months using the SunSpider javascript benchmark, the Atom CPU, running at 1.3Ghz, whips the A4 CPU into the ground with a >3X speed advantage. Moorestown, with its 1.5Ghz clock looks to improve that to a 4x speed advantage according to the slide below. That’s a huge win for web-based applications implemented in AJAX.

Of course, javascript is only a component of the total time needed to fetch and render the average web page so I decided to do a real world test.

To simulate how Moorestown would perform under web-browsing conditions I took the Intel Atom-based Viliv X70, a 7” tablet with a 1024×600 7” touchscreen running Windows XP Home, installed the latest Google Chrome, locked the CPU to 800Mhz and did some random web browsing tests. Remember that the Menlow platform used in the X70 is very close to the architecture used on Moorestown. The CPU are GPU are architecturally almost exactly the same. I side-by-sided it with an iPad which is, according to my tests with the Archos 5, X10 and HTC Desire (all running high-end ARM V7 architecture cores) the fastest ARM-based browser solution out there.

The video below shows that the browsing speed with the Viliv at 800Mhz is almost neck and neck. An 800Mhz Atom on a multi-tasking OS matches a 1Ghz A4 on a single-tasting OS. Ignore the UI and product, this is just a test of web page loading speed.

In the second part of the video I boosted the Atom CPU up to 1.3Ghz, the maximum on this platform, to simulate what would happen when a Moorestown smartphone ran at the highest clock-rate of 1.5Ghz. Remember the CPU and GPU architectures in Menlow and Moorestown are the same although Moorestown has a 200Mhz advantage here, can support faster memory and has a faster GPU clock.

The difference is very noticeable with the X70 rendering pages much more quickly, even with Flash enabled. Move to Firefox and disable flash and the difference is even bigger.

I see real-world advantages here. Faster, full Internet experience and a huge advantage for web-based applications and compressed or encoded content although it has to be said that in this high CPU-load scenario, battery drain on the Moorestown platform is likely to be slightly (although not considerably) more.

Remember, we’re ONLY comparing CPU platforms here and in this simulation, the Moorestown platform is showing great potential. It can deliver web pages, process script, decrypt HTTPS, GZIP and images much faster than the best ARM-based solution out there. It also adds multitasking and large memory support too. As a platform, if it delivers on the battery life claims, Moorestown is going to be a great, high-performance smartphone, tablet and even netbook option.

Recommended reading – Why social netbooks have a ‘lock-in’ opportunity. In this article I talk about key features of a smartbook. Many of these apply to a Moorestown/MeeGo-based product.

Recommended reading – Anandtech on Moorestown. Detailed with good background research and knowledge.

Yesterday’s Intel Moorestown announcement caused me some surprise. It also caused some confusion so here’s a round-up of the state-of-play as I see it relating to Atom and operating systems.

A huge number of journalists clearly didn’t read the fact-sheet highlighting that Android is now formally part of the Moorestown equation. That was the surprise for me. Many didn’t even pick up on the lack of ‘Microsoft’ in the press releases and many just see ‘Atom’ as a single product when it’s not. It’s a CPU architecture component in a range of low-power computing platforms.

Intel haven’t really been clear about the strategy here (and don’t help much with their statement to Engadget) but it you had attended some of the Intel Ultra-Mobility Group events over the last few years you will have picked up on what’s going on.

Atom is a simple X86 CPU core that can run X86 code. That part is simple.

Moorestown is a platform; the first version of which will include the Atom core (yup, the same core architecture as on a netbook) but will include some very new elements such as new idle states and very very fine-grained power control. [start here for more tech detail.] It also uses a different bootstrapping and system interface (called the Simple Firmware Interface. Tech details PDF here) so no matter how you try, it’s not going to work with the DOS/BIOS/ACPI-based architecture required by mainstream Windows and Linux builds. That’s why the ‘handheld’ version of Moblin/MeeGo was built. It contains 1) the support for the new bootstrap mechanism 2) the links to enable power control. It also contains the sensor and messaging (between apps) support that Windows can’t provide. Finally, it’s compact in terms of memory and disk footprint. Oh, and it’s license-free!

Intel have also been working to bring Android up to speed for this platform. This doesn’t mean that Android will work on netbooks now but it does mean that a customer has a choice of highly branded and trusted mobile platforms and OS stacks to choose from now across the ARM and Intel portfolios. Intel is approaching business-case-parity with ARM here.

Did Intel just push Microsoft out of the door? No.

Intel is working in Moorestown-W. Moorestown-W (not officially announced but picked up in conversations and interviews) uses a more-traditional PC-like architecture that allows XP and Win7 to run. Some of the power-saving elements will be redundant (or removed) but there will be thermal, memory and size gains to be had that make Moorestown quite attractive for slim and netbook solutions.

Finally, Intel is also working on the next-generation of their netbook platform and naturally, this will support Windows.

In fact, if you look across Intel’s low-power platform product range, you can see the architecture aligning. If the next-generation netbook platform drops the GMA3100 GPU and slots-in the licensed core from Imagination Technologies (as on other Intel Atom platforms – Why? It removes IP and patent issues for the customer) then will have something that be a simple variant of Moorestown-W or the Queensbay platform.

It’s confusing, yes, but you have to think of Atom as a small component in a range of low-power platforms that will support everything from tight mobile operating systems to a full flexible WIndows-7 desktop. Intel are just giving their customers the widest choice possible.

Sidenote: I’m investigating the possibility that the WebOS UI could, technically, run on top of an Intel architecture. If HP want to stick with Intel for WebOS solutions, it should be possible.

Sidenote 2: This is a 5-10 year play by Intel. What you see with Moorestown is just start of it. The next-gen 32nm Medfield platform is already announced and you can be sure that the work on the ‘tock’ after that has already started.

In a press-release from Intel today they have announced more details on what we know as Moorestown; the low-power computing platform that should take Intel to the historical moment of enabling an X86 mobile phone. The two-component platform will implement the Z6XX processing unit (was Lincroft) containing Atom-based CPU, GPU, 1080p video decoders and 720p encoder, and the MP20 ‘Platform Control Hub’ (was Langwell) alongside a power control module that has previously been referred to as Briertown.

Moorestown. As seen at IDF 2009.

Our analysis of Moorestown can be found here.

Details in the press release highlight much of what we have gleaned before but there are two very interesting bits of additional info. First the summary…

Collectively these new chips deliver significantly lower power including >50x reduction in idle power, >20x reduction in audio power, and 2-3x reductions across browsing and video scenarios – all at the platform level when compared to Intel’s previous-generation product1. These power savings translate into >10 days of standby, up to 2 days of audio playback and 4-5 hours of browsing and video battery life. When combined with 1.5-3x higher compute performance, 2-4x richer graphics, >4x higher JavaScript performance, and support for full HD 1080p high-profile video decoding and 720p HD video recording, these low-power innovations bring a rich, PC-like visual experience to powerful handheld computers.

In effect you’ve got a platform that halves the power profile of the previous generation platform while introducing new features that enable lower power states and power control over individual CPU sub-modules know as power islands. That will bring the average platform utilization down to 1W levels (in-use) which, if you’ve done any MID-style activities on a smartphone lately, means it’s in the same ballpark as modern smartphones. Intel’s ‘4-5 hours’ browsing figure is based on using a 5.5wh battery (1500mah single-cell) with all the usual power-hungry components like screens and radios.It’s unlikely to beat the battery life on the best smartphones but there’s another twist here. Turbo!

These power management capabilities, when combined with Intel® Burst Performance Technology for high-performance on demand, and Intel’s Bus Turbo Mode for high-bandwidth on demand, help to deliver industry leading performance and power efficiency across a range of handheld devices.

So if you add the low-power idle features with the turbo modes you’ve got a platform that spans a wide range of uses. The smartphone version of the Z6 is going to be able burst to 1.5Ghz [We’ve heard that it nominally runs at 600Mhz] and there will be a higher-power version that will burst to 1.9Ghz and could make a sweet sweet MID, or ‘smart’ computing platform.

All this new technology is going to need a new operating system and that’s what Moblin was for. Intel built Moorestown and Moblin in parallel so that they would dovetail together. Don’t expect Windows to be running on these platforms.

Of course, Moblin is migrating into MeeGo (where it will support two competing architectures; X86 and ARM) but there’s another OS mentioned here. Android.

Why would Intel mention Android and not Windows? Probably because they are working with Google on a X86 version of Android that would slot in well here. Remember, Intel are members of the OHA, the organisation that brought you Android. There’s been no formal announcement on Android yet but Intel are not exactly trying to keep it a secret. How that will sit with MeeGo is anyone’s guess but it does give Intel an important second-string to their bow.

Update from the fact-sheet: “Intel has worked with Google over the past few years and is providing support for the Android platform at launch”
Fact-Sheet (PDF)

Here’s a video of Android running on a Moorestown smartphone from MWC in Feb.

Additional info: What Moorestown Means for Consumers.

One last thing to mention is that Intel are now happy to talk about tablets in their PR again. It seems that the old days of hopeless ‘tweener’ UMPCs are behind us now! Personally I think there’s more potential in social netbook-style devices than tablets but that’s another story.

We’re meeting Intel at Computex next month (as an Intel Insider I’ve been invited to Computex) where I’m sure we’ll hear about launch dates, devices and a whole lot more so stay tuned. The only problem is, does all this belong on UMPCPortal, the productivity-focused mobile devices website, or Carrypad, our sister website devoted to consumer internet devices? Moorestown has the potential of spanning both and that’s exactly the big story here.

Update: I’ve posted some more analysis of the Operating system options here.

Z6XX Press Kit
Press release.

Lots more Moorestown reading under our ‘Moorestown’ tag.

Source: Carrypad

Over the last 4 years, Samsung have consistently produced good quality UMPCs and Netbooks. The NC10 is still a good netbook choice and the Q1 Ultra (image right) was a cracking UMPC. When Samsung announced that they would build an MID or UMPC back in 2008, we were interested to see what would happen. Unfortunately, not much happened. Samsung were a no-show at IDF08 and all we saw in the end was the Mondi WiMax device on ARM and the rather unexciting Q1 EX on the VIA platform.

You’ll excuse us then if we take the report of a new Samsung Slate with a pinch of salt then!

A senior Samsung executive in Australia has revealed that they will be producing a ‘Slate’ in the second half of the year. The word ‘Atom’ is mentioned alongside keywords like ‘pc-grade’ , ‘consumer’ and ‘connectivity.’

If you ask me, the timing and positioning sounds right for a MeeGo tablet-style device running the Intel Moorestown platform. Samsung have worked closely with Intel on mobile devices in the past and it would be the perfect partner to go alongside LG for a big Moorestown launch at Computex 2010 or even a separate Nokia/Intel/Meego launch event alongside a new Nokia smartphone. (Sidenote: I doubt we’ll see MeeGo+Nokia at Intel’s IDF or MeeGo+Intel at Nokia World. What do you think? Joint marketing could be quite the challenge with MeeGo.)

We know already that the Moorestown platform runs at 600Mhz with ‘turbo’ features enabling it to run for short periods at 1.2Ghz (video) which would make it far more powerful than the iPad (mentioned in the article.) With ‘power-gating’ bringing it smartphone-like always-on features, HD (720p) video encoding and HD video decoding along with the unique feature of being very USB-host-capable (think docking stations) you can see that Moorestown fits in very well with the keywords mentioned above and offers quite the flexible solution.

Personally I hope that Samsung doesn’t go the Windows 7 route. We’ve learned over the last year that Windows 7 + Atom is not the best solution if you want to enable consumer features like Windows Media Center and multitouch. With the mobile-focused hardware/software partnership of Moorestown and MeeGo, we could see some far more usable and consumer-friendly systems.

Source. APCMag

At Computex in June 2009 I had a press meeting with Anand Chandraseker and one thing he mentioned as the press challenged him about netbooks and smartbooks was the fact that Moorestown could make a good platform for smartbooks. If I remember correctly, the words he used were ‘a better smartbook than ARM-based products.’ (Analysis here)

ARM platforms are scaling well and in mid-2010 a multi-core ARM processor will be able to reach processing power levels that are close to what we’re seeing on Atom (with a single core.) The power envelope of a Moorestown-based tablet or smartphone won’t be significantly higher either so when you think about Moblin, its stability, its brand and potential for a lot of Intel-backed marketing, the code-sharing that’s happening with Nokia and its Maemo teams, its ‘appup’ store, its roadmap, and the support it’s getting from leading computer manufacturers you can see a lot of advantages over skinned WinCE, non-existent Chrome OS and re-hashed Android open-source models.

Proof that tablets and ‘smart’ devices are possible was given in the keynote speech and I’ve included the relevant 5-min segment below. You’ll also here a very interesting line in the first 20 seconds. Paul Otellini specifically mentions that Nokia is in partnership with Intel ‘around’ the Moorestown platform. That could be the software development work that’s going on (Nokia and Intel are sharing a lot of software across Moblin and Maemo) but it could be something else too!

Skip to the following segments for specific information on the key elements from the Ultra Mobile section of the keynote.

00:21 ‘We’ve announced partnerships around Moorestown with leaders like LG and Nokia’

02:00 Multipoint (3-way) video conference on Moorestown smartphone. (from Vidyo.com)

03:40 HD movie demo (720p)

04:30 Open Peak tablet demo. (Note e-reader application)

Next stop: Mobile World Congress, Barcelona.

One of the big surprises of CES was the LG GW990 smartphone and based on progress I’m seeing with Moblin, the AppUp Store and what we’re hearing from Intel, we should expect to see those devices feeding in in Q3 this year. Moorestown is not only limited to smartphones though. There’s huge potential for ‘smart’ connected devices based around the tablet and larger slider form factors. Intel were showing a number of designs at CES and you’ll see them all in the video below.

Paul Otellini

Apart from the usual TV display highlights from Intel (including an amazing 3D demo) Paul Otellini covered computing in the home, entertainment, security and energy efficiency but in the area of ultra mobile computing, Paul had a few surprises for us at the Intel keynote at CS this week.

Highlighting the quick progress (and priority!) of the Intel Application Developer Program, Paul announced ‘App Up’ (Press release) which is Intels version of the storefront for application purchases and downloads across Moblin (handhelds to Windows. What this means is that the complete architecture for the app store, including the financial services, is complete. Developers can now earn money and end users can now buy apps!

I spoke with Peter Biddle, Director of  the Intel Application Developer Program about a number of aspects of the program and it’s clear that this isn’t just a skin-deep effort. They’re thinking about everything from affiliate programs to tailored stores. Naturally I’ve installed the store on my netbook here and i’ll be giving it a test over the coming weeks. It will be insteresting to see the rate at which applications start flowing into the system! Note that Dell, Asus, Samsung and Acer are building storefronts which I can only assume will be pre-installed on netbooks soon. The end-user base is likely to grow very quickly.

Intel’s AppUp store is available here.

On the hardware side we got to see a couple of interesting products. The big news (which we found out about a few hours before the event) was the demonstration of the LG GW990 smarthone on the Intel Moorestown platform. Intel and LG announced that they were working on this early last year but to see a working demo and hear about a Q3 release is confidence-inspiring. We’ got a hands-on demo after the keynote and you can find details of that, including the specs, here.

Also mentioned was continuing partnerships with LG and Nokia in this area. Whether that means Nokia is going to build a moorestown-based phone is up for question but it certainly sounded like it.

Finally we saw that Intel are not ignoring the potential for Moorestown and Moblin to make a very good ‘smart’ device platform and the demonstration of ‘Open Peak’, a dockable tablet, was proof that Moorestown means a lot for consumers.

As part of my work with the Intel Insiders I was given an Insiders view of the LG smartphone. More details on MIDMoves

Gallery of GW990 at the LG booth

Specifications confirmed:

• Intel Moorestown platform with HD 720p encoding and 1080p decoding.
• 5mp cam (single led flash)
• 1850mah (single cell I assume) battery
• A-GPS
• Compass
• HSDPA/HSUPA
• Q3 availability

Note the marketing: Multi-Tasking.

I had a stroke of luck this morning as I was waiting for Sascha from Netbooknews to do a video of an LG netbook today, I wandered across the booth to look at the smartphones and there it was. The LG GW990 built on Intel’s Moorestown platform. Intel’s first ever phone. (Announced back in Feb) The display included some specifications so I’ve listed those below.

Gallery of GW990 at the LG booth

At the Intel keynote a few hours later, the GW990 appeared again along with a note from Paul Otellini that not only LG are partnering on Moorestown but Nokia are too. I’ll just say that again. Nokia are partnering with Intel with the Moorestown platform. This is significant.

Finally, after the keynote, we managed to get hands on with a live demo. Here’s the video which, according to Intel, was the worlds first public demo.

We were all impressed with the UI transitions and smoothness of the Mobiln 2.1 for handhelds but questions remain about the web experience (we assume it will continue with a Mozilla based browser) and general usage in terms of phone, connectivity and a million other aspects but this is a fantastic first outing for an Intel smartphone.

Specifications confirmed:

• Intel Moorestown platform with HD 720p encoding and 1080p decoding.
• 5mp cam (ingle led flash)
• 1850mah (single cell I assume) battery
• A-GPS
• Compass
• HSDPA/HSUPA
• Q3 availability

Unconfirmed:

• 1024×480 resolution

My guess right now is that we will see a lot more of this, and other Moorestown devices, at MWC in Feb.

Note the marketing: Multi-Tasking.

There’s one thing that always happens at bar camps; people talk. They talk with a passion and if you listen carefully you can always pick up a few little tasty morsels of information.

At the Mobile Dev Camp in Munich today it was no different. Apart from some excellent talks that I’ll write about over at MIDMoves (I had my MIDmoves hat on today) I picked up the following bits of info.

Moorestown /Moblin graphics performance (video below)

I saw a nice demo which made me think that yes, that GMA500 that annoys so many people on the Menlow platform, will be a whole lot better under Moblin and Moorestown and might even work in Menlow. The demo was a MSI Wind U115 playing a Quake III demo in the Moblin OS. 35 fps on an external monitor isn’t bad at all! Apparently the drivers are the latest (under NDA) and were back-ported to work with Menlow. The software engineer ensured me that Moorestown would be better. He also assured me that the core was PowerVR in a GMA500. That’s two software engineers that have confirmed that now. Seeing Moorestown graphic drivers working in Menlow kind of proves it too!

What clock for Moorestown?

More of an engineers hunch than something set in stone was the thought that Moorestown would run up to 1.2Ghz. Actually I see no reason why it can’t go higher over time as long as the devices thermal characteristics allow it. When you think about the processing range that Moorestown could cover you’re looking at something that starts at the current high-end of smartphones and goes up, in multi-threaded form, to at least twice the processing power.

Intel Atom Developer Program.

IADP will launch very early next year. That’s earlier than I thought but the earlier the better because the momentum for the Android and iPhone ecosystem is huge.

HTML5.

HTML5 is exciting. Flash is exciting too but both of these software technologies are going to put more load on your CPU. On mobile devices, that means trouble. Either the battery drains faster or the page loading slows down. You can turn Flash off but I hope you can turn HTML5 support off too otherwise the battery problem on mobile devices just gets worse.

No news on GPU for PineView.

I tried to squeeze out the details from a few people but no-one knew. Is it the GMA 3150 or the GMA500 as I predicted? The jury is still out on that one.

I took MIDMoves to the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco last week with a focus on the three M’s of MIDs, Moblin and Moorestown. IDF is the highlight of my mobile computing year and I was hoping to see Moorestown MIDs being demonstrated, the launch of Moblin 2.0 and a bunch of new products. As it happens, we got the expected Moblin 2.0 launch but didn’t see much in terms of hardware. We did get a few surprises though and as usual, in-depth information that helps us predict what is going to happen in 2010 and 2011. Here’s a summary of the Intel Developer Forum 2009 for a mobile computing perspective.

Read the full story

While we didn’t get full details about Moorestown at Intel’s Developer Forum this week, we did get a sneak peak, as Intel love to call it, into what Moorestown brings to the table by the chief architect himself, Shreekant (Ticky) Thakkar.

Most of it is summarized in a PDF issued to the press but there’s also a set of slides to check out too. See SPCS004 on this content page. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend the session but I’ve been through the documents and have pulled out some key features below.

2x power reduction in use. In real terms we should see what I call ‘on-net’ active power drain (using the device) reduced to under 2W. With the smaller screen devices that will reduce further. This is about double what you’d see on an ARM-based device under similar usage sdcenarios but in terms of getting things done, should be much snappier.

50x idle power reduction. This brings, for the first time, a PC into always-on scenarios.

Hyperthreading capability. As we’ve experienced on Menlow, devices with hyperthreading feel faster.

Burst Performance Technology (BPT) – Monitoring thermals to allow short-term bursting of the CPU clock beyond the design limit. Basically, as other parts of the Moorestown platform are turned off, there is the potential to increase clock until certain temperatures are reached.

Bus Turbo mode – Allows the bus speed to be increased in line with CPU frequency scaling thus reducing memory latency and increasing bus bandwidth.

Active power management – Turns off certain parts of the system when not in use. E.g. turn of video decoders when web browsing. Power management is controlled by a ‘profile’ system that identifies certain usage modes and turns on and off ‘power islands’ as required. Here’s a thermal map of the system in a fully-on and controlled (‘gated’) state. This is something that may only be successfully achieved when using a Moblin-based OS.

Through this technique we should be looking at 2x power reduction overall but in certain usage modes the effect will be dramatic. Standby, video decoding and audio playback modes will be vastly more power efficient. Up to 50x in standby more for example.

Briertown. This embedded mixed-signal analogue control circuit integrates functions that were previously found on descreet chips. DC-DC power conversion, audio, LED control, battery charging circuits. This module also integrates with the ‘power-gating’ process mentioned above.

In addition to the information released this week, we should not forget what we’ve learnt before. We’re probably looking at a PowerVR SGX graphics core, hardware decoding video to 720p or even 1080p levels, hardware encoding of video and huge reductions in platform size (about 2x volume reductions expected in devices.)

CPU clock rates aren’t known at the moment (expect SKUs to be announced in early 2010) and pricing is also an unknown factor that could affect OEM choices but I think that’s enough information to be getting excited about for the time being.

Note: Moorestown could scale from smartphone to MID and UMPC scenarios, smartbooks and many other product categories. For a look past the technical specifications into what the Moorestown platform could mean for consumers, see this article.

One of the things I expected to find out at the Intel Developer Forum this year were details about Pinetrail and Moorestown graphics. GMA950 on the current netbook platform clearly needs a boost in the video codec department and if Moblin 2 is only going to support Moorestown and Pinetrail along with the current generation of netbooks, it makes sense that they have the same graphics core right? It fits perfectly with Intel’s ‘Continuum’ of devices on the Atom platform. Unfortunately the information on the graphics was limited to notes about OpenGL 2.0 ES and a mention of a PowerVR core in a ‘Sodaville’ Atom-based media processor presentation (image right.)

During a session at IDF this week though, I had fairly concrete confirmation from people in-the-know that the graphics on the Moorestown platform would be a GMA500 (PowerVR SGX core) as you’ll find in the Menlow (Poulsbo chipset as seen on the Asus T91, Viliv X70 and other mobile and long battery-life-focused solutions.) I was a little surprised that it’s the GMA500 but have no reason to disbelieve the info I was given.

Dovetailing nicely with that information though is continuing speculation that Pineview, the CPU+GPU on the Pinetrail netbook platform is also going to use the GMA500. The original info comes from a June article by HKEPC but LinuxDevices seem fairly confident that it is in fact a GMA500 core in Pinetrail.

Its looking like we’re going to have a very closely-matched range of platforms come mid-2010 then.

• Pinetrail – Netbook platform. Atom 1.66Ghz + GMA500 GPU
• Menlow – MID platform. Atom ranging from 800Mhz-2.0Ghz + GMA 500 GPU (with PowerVR SGX core)
• Moorestown – Atom CPU (clockrate unknown) + GMA 500 GPU (With PowerVR SGX core)
• Sodaville – Atom  CPU + PowerVR SGX core.

Note: In each case the graphics may be clocked at different speeds ranging from 133 – 400Mhz. On current devices we see a 133Mhz graphics clock.

The exciting thing about this is that everything is aligned well to keep it simple for developers and there’s just one operating system that will sit on top of all these to provide optimised kernel, drivers, SDK and app-store. Moblin. From smartphones to netbooks through set-top boxes, PNDs, PMPs, Web tablets and more. One platform for developers that covers, in the 2010-2012 timeframe, an addressable market of over 400 million units, in just the mobile internet device and smartphone segment. Add a few hundred million on top of that for netbooks!

Intel’s ‘Continuum’ is starting to come together.