Posts Tagged ‘freescale’
Freescale’s $199 Smartbook Tablet Design Means Tablets For Everyone (Later This Year) [Freescale]
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News, Technology on January 4th, 2010
Freescsale, supplier of the chip that powers the Kindle as well as about 70% of the ebook market, has just developed a 7-inch tablet reference design that will basically be the genesis of many tablets starting 2010. And it's $199.
Now, to be fair, those two figures are a bit preliminary. The $199 figure is the one quoted by Freescale, not the final price that OEM companies that will buy this design from Freescale and put their own spin and customization on it will charge. And, although Freescale says this tablet design will allow companies to bring the tablet to market in as low as 6 months, customizations (hardware or software) and bug killing will undoubtedly inflate that.
Even if only on paper, this Freescale reference design is pretty damn promising. It's powered by a netbook-esque ARM processor, a 7-inch touchscreen (resistive, unfortunately, to keep the design under $200—you'd go up to $250 if any OEM put a capacitive touchscreen on there), 512MB RAM, 4-64GB internal storage, removable microSD slot, an optional 3G modem, 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1, GPS, USB, audio ports, SIM card, speaker, microphone, 3-megapixel webcam, 1900 mAh battery, accelerometer and light sensor. Whether or not including all these options in a build will result in a machine that's less than $200 is unclear, so there might be some sacrifices that need to be made.
As for the OS, it's primarily browser based, but the root of it is a customized Debian Linux build, so you could theoretically go and install Linux applications onto it. But, as a tablet, people are mostly going to be consuming media, so going with a browser, like the JooJoo did, makes sense. Freescale did come up with an interesting $50 keyboard docking station addon that you can keep at home and use as an input device if you actually need to do some typing, so it's kind of the best of both worlds.
The bottom line is that Freescale has made a pretty enticing design, and if a decent enough OEM picks it up and gets it to market at under $200, it could be the start if a very interesting computing category—one that's a step higher than smartphones but a step lower than netbooks.
Remainders – Things We Didn’t Post [Remainders]
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News on October 22nd, 2009
Microsoft Takes Aim at App Store's Useless Fluff...Monster Cable's Miles Davis Headphones Cost a Month's Rent...Baseless Analyst Speculation Over Google Hardware Makes Me Furious...New Partnership May Mean Cheaper Ebook Readers...
Microsoft's new "Inside the Apps Lab" video takes the App Store to task for its boatloads of useless apps—a valid point, to be sure, but Microsoft might be living in a glass house here. Or a nonexistent house. Sure, there's tons of bullshit in the app store—there was a legal debate over fart apps, for god's sake—and I like some of the ideas Microsoft's putting forth here. That Virtual Sundial is damnably close to believable, for one thing. But the ad is a plug for Windows Marketplace, which admittedly doesn't have the crap, but only because it also, um, barely exists. Sort of funny, but not enough self-awareness, and so it plops into Remainders. [YouTube]
If you're a big Miles Davis fan, and have somehow missed the news that even when Monster Cable products don't outright suck, they're criminally overpriced, have I got a product for you! The Miles Davis Tribute Set includes Monster Cable's gaudy, gold-plated Miles Davis earbuds, a few accessories, and some kind of deluxe version of Kind of Blue (even though Bitches Brew is better YEAH I SAID IT JAZZ NERDS. DEAL.), all for the outrageously high price of $400! Why's it in Remainders? Screw Monster Cable, that's why. [CrunchGear]
The Street "exclusively" reports what seems to be totally unfounded speculation from an industry analyst: Google is coming out with their own Android smartphone hardware. What evidence is there to back up this theory? Well, um, Google wants lots of people to use Android, and, well...this analyst talked to Google's design partners about it! Design partners who remain anonymous and give absolutely no concrete details to back up a "plan" that runs counter to the overall Android concept! Plus there's this awful, wrong-on-several-levels sentence that acts like a beacon transmitting "WARNING. WARNING. ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER THIS STORY" in Morse Code:
By bypassing the carriers, who keep tight controls over the features and applications that are allowed on phones, Google will presumably offer a device that lets users determine the functions.
Oh right, because somehow a Google-made Android phone would...not need a wireless network? And darn those carriers for crippling Android phones—oh wait that hasn't happened, at all.
In the parlance of our times: Sweet exclusive, bro. [The Street]
The two companies who supply the most vital parts of any ebook reader, Freescale (processor) and E Ink (display) have joined forces in a "development deal" that they say will both lower costs of existing readers and give the option for increased capability in the future. That's pretty sweet and all—it could mean ebook readers finally hit their magic price point, whether it's $200 or $100—but without concrete results, we're keeping this little tidbit in Remainders purgatory. Keep us updated, Free-Ink (get it?). [TechFlash]
Sharp’s 5-inch PC-Z1 NetWalker honors Zaurus legacy with touchscreen Ubuntu
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News on August 27th, 2009
It's worth noting that the current US ban on the import of BGA-packaged products like Freescale's i.MX processors should not affect the import of the PC-Z1 as Akihabara News contends. As we understand it, that ban affects the import of the chips, not the systems using them and assembled elsewhere. Otherwise, Amazon wouldn't be selling its Kindle, dig?
[Via Akihabara News and Engadget Japanese]
Read [warning: Japanese PDF]
Filed under: Handhelds, Laptops
Sharp's 5-inch PC-Z1 NetWalker honors Zaurus legacy with touchscreen Ubuntu originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Aug 2009 03:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | CommentsGoogle names Chrome OS compatriots, Dell noticeably absent
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News on July 9th, 2009
Filed under: Desktops, Laptops, Software
Google names Chrome OS compatriots, Dell noticeably absent originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Jul 2009 20:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsGoogle Chrome OS Partners: PC and Chip-Makers, but Not Dell, Sony, or Toshiba [Google]
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News on July 9th, 2009
Google released a partial list of their Chrome OS partners, and it includes most of the big boys you'd expect, from all sectors of the computing world, from full-featured PCs to netbooks to handhelds, plus Adobe for some Flash support.
The full list: Acer, Adobe, ASUS, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments. Google is quick to note that it's a partial list, but we can see a range from primarily small-form computer makers like ASUS to bigger PCs like HP and Lenovo, and the addition of Qualcomm and TI means they've got low-powered chipset makers on board. Adobe is an interesting pull—can we expect heavy use of Flash in the OS's core?
The biggest name that's missing is Dell, although smaller PC makers like Sony and Toshiba are also AWOL. We're not sure what Dell is doing to leave them out of the equation: They make pretty popular netbooks and Chrome OS could be as big a boon for them as anyone else. We'll keep you updated on future Chrome OS developments. [Chrome Blog via Engadget]
