Whether or not Barnes and Noble liked it enough to copy it, Spring Design’s Alex prototype dual-display ebook reader is certainly nifty enough to capture our interest. MaximumPC had a chance to go hands-on with the Alex, which has a 6-inch e-ink screen up top and a 3.5-inch color capacitive touchscreen underneath for control and navigation, as part of a Marvell demonstration for the company’s new ARMADA 166E SoC.
OLPC chairman Nicholas Negroponte has revealed that the twin-display OLPC XO-2 2.0 project has been scrapped, in favor of an updated – but cosmetically identical – revamp of the existing 1.0 XO-1 model and a new, model 3.0 that has “totally different industrial design, more like a sheet of paper”. Speaking to Xconomy, the outspoken exec also sought to redefine the initial, well-publicized aim of “the $100 laptop” in terms of total cost of ownership: $1 per child per week to buy, maintain and connect the machine.
More OLPC model 3.0 details after the cut
The ST-Ericsson partnership between STMicroelectronics and Ericsson may only be young – the two firms founded the wireless semiconductor development project in February 2009 – but they’re already showing off some interesting wares. The ST-Ericsson U8500 uses an ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore SMP dual-core processor paired with the ARM Mali-400 OpenGL ES2.0 and OpenVG1.1 GPU; together, they’re capable of outputting 1080p HD video in a smartphone form-factor.
Video demo after the cut
ARM makes processors that are found and a wide range of the gadgets and consumer electronics devices that we use. Today ARM has announced the official launch of its Cortex-A5 MPCore processor. ARM claims that the new processor is the smallest and lowest power ARM multicore processor that can deliver the Internet to a range of devices.
The Nokia N900 was the stand-out device from Nokia World back in September, and we’ve been tracking the Maemo 5 smartphone ever since. Imagine our surprise, then, when a pre-release N900 dropped onto the SlashGear test bench today; the hardware is final, so the 5-megapixel autofocus Carl Zeiss camera is onboard, together with HSPA, WiFi b/g, a 3.5-inch 800 x 480 touchscreen and slide-out QWERTY keyboard, and you can check out our video unboxing and gallery after the cut.
Sharp’s NetWalker PC-Z1 may not be the device for everyone – after all, a 5-inch touchscreen clamshell MID with a tiny QWERTY keyboard and 800MHz ARM Cortex A8 processor makes it a pretty niche handheld – but most people can appreciate a mini-laptop so we’re pleased to see the first unboxing over at Pocketables. Jenn of course is no stranger to MIDs, in fact she has a UMID mbook M1 on hand to compare the PC-Z1 with.
Broadcom is set to start to integrate the new ARM Coretex-A9 MPCore multicore processor into next generation mobile wireless and other consumer electronic products. Broadcom and ARM have announced that they have entered into a license agreement that will allow the use of the Cortex-A9 processor in Broadcom products.
Oh, how we laughed at Kopin’s Golden-i wearable computer when the company showed us renders earlier in the year; even though they promised it was heading to production, we were still dubious. The joke is on us, it seems, as Kopin have announced that the Golden-i Gen 2 will be entering field trials in December this year, with production kicking off in earnest next year. Units are expected to have a Bluetooth headset, 15-inch virtual PC display, head-gesture recognition and voice-control.
ARM processors have found their way inside all sorts of electronic devices that we know and love today from Smartphones to MIDs. ARM announced a new version of its Cortex-A9 processor today with dual cores capable of running at 2GHz and built from the TSMC 40nm-G process.
While Archos’ event this week was predominantly about their Archos 5 Android-based Internet Tablet, they couldn’t help but tease with another upcoming device building on Google’s open-source platform. The Archos Phone Tablet is, as the name suggests, a 3.5G-enabled version of the Archos 5, adding HSDPA/HSUPA connectivity to the PMP’s existing WiFi b/g/n and Bluetooth.
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