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As announced already, we combined various blogs into the company blog at Debasis & Associates. Please continue to visit us, we shall strive to keep current with the technical spaces we observe on a regular basis.

CES 2011: Lenovo Announces IdeaCentre All-in-Ones

The fact that Lenovo introduced these new set of all-in-one desktops for this year at the CES is not the news. I would think , the news is, the kind of features are being added even to the workhorse desktops. OK, you had some home theater PCs in the past and all that. But just look at the features these machines sport!


The models introduced were IdeaCenter B500, A320 and the B320. Some of these notable features are 23 inch display,  Core- i7 processor, support for Nvidia's 3D Vision, for 3D gaming, or watching movies on the Blu-Ray drive on the B500 for example. This one is 3D ready too, one f the few in the market now. 


The 21.5-inch A320 comes with second generation Core-i5 Sandy Bridge processor. HDMI, 802.11n Wifi, and an integrated TV tuner, pair of USB 3.0 ports would likely make it a nice entertainment machine. Lower down the ladder, the B320 comes with second-generation Intel Core-i5 processor and up to 8GB of RAM, and 2TB of storage. Its 1080p display has multi-touch support. Touch screens are moving into these products too then!


As we get these more capable processors, you are going to see devices gearing up for the full HD, MPEG4 (H.264) video/movie and the convenience features like the touch screen.
CES 2011: Lenovo Announces IdeaCentre All-in-Ones

New Android Tablets May Require Dual-Core Processors

By the very architecture of Android, it will operate better for real time functions if a RTOS is running on a dedicated second processor. The reason being Android services may carry a little baggage as they operate through Linux processes. That would put a limit to what a single processor can accomplish by itself.  For either reason then a second processor would be helpful. Looks like the next version of Android, the version 3.0 and otherwise known as the Honeycomb is going to impose a minimum hardware requirement of a 2 core processor. 


It is also being discussed around that the new OS will possibly impose a minimum display resolution of 1280x 720 pixels. Motorola's Xoom tablet, that uses the Honeycomb is, based on reports, a pretty powerful machine!
New Android tablets may require dual-core processors and high-res screens

Combining Blogs Tech Space, Open Space, CAD Space into the Debasis & Associates Blog

I am going to combine the Tech Space, Cad Space and Open Space into the "collective musing" blog after the currently pending posts in these three blogs. It becomes easier to manage. I'll eventually remove these blogs that are getting combined.The topics covered in these blogs will be covered in the umbrella blog now.

Half-terabyte Laptop SSDs are Here!

SSDs are doing a fast catch up! The capacity was one disadvantage it suffered from. Looks like the gap is being closed very fast. Micron announced this 500 GB device in the laptop hard drive format recently. They have announced the C400 family that does 415 MB/sec throughput. As soon as prices become comparable, there is no other barrier for SSDs to take over the mass storage market! today that metric for SSDs stand at $1.20 per GB.
Micron releases half-terabyte laptop SSDs - Computerworld

Intel’s Second-Gen Core CPUs, The Sandy Bridge

A set of processors have come out of the Intel stable recently. These are being hailed as the second generation multi core processors and are based on the Sandy bridge micro architecture. Tom's hardware reviews the offerings in the following article in detail. These are the Core i7-2600K, Core i5-2500K, Core i5-2400, And Core i3-2100 processors. 4 core versions are being offered first, the 2 core versions would be coming out a little later. detailed performance is discussed in the article. Quite a few manufacturers have already announced desktop and laptop products in the last week's CES exhibition.


Intel’s Second-Gen Core CPUs: The Sandy Bridge Review : Core i7-2600K, Core i5-2500K, Core i5-2400, And Core i3-2100 Reviewed

iPhone 5 and iPad 2are Coming

Rumors are very strong in the blogosphere that the iPad next version will have a 2 core processor. Projections are that this will be soon too. Similar rumors are in the air about the next iPhone version, the iPhone 5. It is not difficult to grasp. Both these devices will be called for to carry heavier workloads and any extra smartness in a processor is going to be useful in both the cases.


iPhone 5 and iPad 2: Specs Update – Dual-Core Processor? 

Smartphone Hardware Trends

According to several studies, mobile phone growth will be actually pushed by growth of smartphones, rather than the plain vanilla ones. That apps is a big deal on the software side is already amply evident. But, what's likely to happen on the hardware front! One of trends is already evident. Android version 3.0 (Honeycomb) is going to need at least a dual core processor. With the increasing processing being demanded of these devices, particularly for video processing, dual core/multi core trends is certainly the most visible of the trends.


We talked of video above already. Add to that the demands of HD and then factor in the demand for 3D movies then a 3D display requirement is another likely trend.  Once again looking at the push from software NFC or near field communication, or radio communication in a range of few inches seems to be a likely one. Android 2.3, Gingerbread includes this technology already. Upgrade to Full HD or 1080p resolution support will become a necessity. As of last year there has already been a move to 720p. 


Dual SIm cards are already popular in the cheaper phones. Smartphones are likely to use them more. It offers customers flexibility. This could then act as inducement for people to move up to the smartphones.
Five smartphone hardware trends in 2011 

The Android Platform and Mobile Applications

Android is big! It has already overtaken other platforms in mobile smartphones.There are all kinds of mobile devices out in the market! Android based tablets are slated to overtake iPad and all the other platforms in use today! So it is good to get feel of what is it like! The following article from Mentor(1) has a good look at the platforms. The article at 2 is a year old look at the same OS when it has just started getting popular.


Android is a free source but with a license that does not make it necessary for the application code developed on the platform to be open source. That removes one of the reservation of developers working with open source platforms. I suspect, it definitely has contributed to the popularity.


Android is built over Linux kernel. The sequence of layers are somewhat as follows.


1. Hardware + board support package + Linux kernel provides memory and process management, , security, networking and an array of relevant device  drivers.

2. layer 1+ Libraries:   libc+ Google's version of libc, called bionic+media and graphics libraries+lightweight database  SQLite.


The layer 2 also includes the Android runtime that includes the Dalvik VM.  Specific to Android and is register based to conserve memory and maximize performance this executes Java code. A separate instance of the Dalvik VM is used to execute an Android application. The underlying OS does memory management and multi-threading.


3. Layer 2+ Application framework. The framework includes services providing views, content providers and resource, notification and activity managers. These are Java classes. Applications can "publish" capabilities for use by other applications.


4. Layer 3+ Some applications are distributed with Android, typically email, SMS, calendar, contacts, and Web browser. This is where applications occur. Applications are generally written in Java, processed with standard Java tools and converted to the Dalvik VM bytecodes.


5. This is the development layer: Typically an Eclipse-based development environment (from Google). This can used with the Android emulator or a real device (connected via USB). 

Android application has resources bundled into an archive, an Android package.Programs are generally written in Java and run on Dalvik VM. This uses non-standard, memory-efficient bytecodes. These programs then use an independent Linux processes. That takes care of the protection between each other.

These details are from the second article mainly. Details of porting Android and the use of multiple core, some running true RTOS are discussed in the first article. No wonder there is a strong rumor that the version 3.0 of Android (Honeycomb) requires at least 2 cores to run!

1. Porting the Android Platform Beyond Mobile Phone Applications - Mentor Graphics
2. http://www.eetimes.com/design/embedded/4008876/Android-Linux--Real-time-Development-for-Embedded-Systems