ARM Community: Smart Connected Devices - ARM Community

Now that Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2012 has wound down, here are a few more videos and insights I captured from a few of the ARM Partners: Texas Instruments, ST-Ericsson, ZTE and last but not least Proxama.

Texas Instruments
At the Texas Instruments (TI) stand I got to demo the recently released ARM Cortex-A9 based Samsung Galaxy Beam smartphone which features the built in TI DLP Pico Projector technology. This gives you the ability to project the screen of your smartphone onto the wall which could come in handy for displaying slides in an impromptu meeting or a college student who wants to show off their ga...

It’s looking like Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2012 will be a great week for ARM and the ARM Connected Community. I got a firsthand look at the new multicore LG devices, the latest in augmented reality, and remarkable demonstrations of ARM TrustZone technology. I then learned about Morpho’s collaboration with ARM Mali in GPU computing and discussed the latest Texas Instruments OMAP product offering.

LG Mobile Multicore Devices
I caught up Henry Nho from LG Mobile where he showed me the Optimus 3D MAX and the Optimus 4X HD, both based on the ...

It’s been a whirlwind week at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES). Throughout the week I had the chance to test drive some of the latest and greatest ARM based technologies that are on their way to making techies across the world very happy! On Day 1, tablets, smartphones and the BiggiFi software platform caught my eye first. On Day 2, my adventures spanned from the coolest Tesla electric car media console to tablets bringing computing to those that normally do not have access to technology via OLPC. On Day 3, I was styling with Wimm Lab’s Wearable Platform and found ‘Tagg – the pet tracker,’ so when my pup runs off I will always know where to find him…maybe I should find out if it works on teenagers too! And now on Day 4, I bring you Nufront and the Droid Angel.

At the ...

The onslaught on my poor feet continues from day 1 and day 2 at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) this week– my feet felt tired before I even got into the elevator this morning but it was all worth it to spend a few more hours looking at the technology crème de la crème at the show.

One thing that really caught my attention this week is how ARM based products are becoming more and more available in almost all the products that we use on a daily basis. Now there is even one for your pet, and I don’t mean a cell phone for your dog that can let the dog woof at you to say he’ll be home late… it’s more of a cell phone like product that can tell you where he is when he’s lost. This cool product called ‘Tagg – the pet tracker’ was awarded a Design and Engineering Showcase Award as part of Innovations 2012 at CES. We met with Christine Jorgensen who gave...

This is my first visit to the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Las Vegas and it’s amazing to see just how big this show is. There’ve been lots of news releases coming out over the last few days and even during the show itself, with many introductions of new and sometimes updated products based on ARM technology and migrating to ARM technology. Stay tuned to ARM’s Smart Connected Devices blog and follow our ARMflix YouTube playlist to catch all of the hot gadgets and interviews at CES 2012.

My scoop today was getting my hands on two of the new products from Samsung, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 and the Galaxy Note. These new devices are really nice to get to grips with and show how technology is moving swiftly in the...

我们的一些合作伙伴在今年12月之前就已经把支持AndroidTM 4.0的产品介绍给市场了。下面介绍了几个基于Android 4.0的产品。
PR Newswire首先报道了瑞芯微基于Android 4.0的产品。随后，众多媒体相继报道了瑞芯微和原道，酷比魔方及纽曼等基于瑞芯微芯片的产品。例如，酷比魔方携手瑞芯微（Rockchip）推出基于安卓4.0的U9GT 2平板电脑产品。



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Strolling into the ARM Powered Lounge at this year’s ARM TechCon gives one a real insight into the breadth of devices ARM appears in – and the prototypes on the horizon that will quite literally change the way people live.

First up, a prototype of ‘smart glasses’ that have been developed by Australian neuroscientist Dr. Stephen Hicks, Department of Clinical Neurology at Oxford University, and his team, to help people with visual impairment regain their independence. If all goes according to plan they will be commercially available by 2014.

Hicks and his team have used a Texas Instruments (TI) OMAP 3530 system-on-a-chip for the original prototype, featuring an ...

With the announcement of ARM Cortex-A7 processor and big.LITTLE processing the ARM partnership remain committed to innovative solutions that will continue the mobile evolution.

Have you observed that over the last few years people are spending less time talking on their phones, but are increasingly spending the majority of the time reading content or accessing media on their smartphones? Gone are the days when the only time the content you read on the phones was an incoming text messaging, now your typical smartphone is constantly fetching and caching all the digital content we live by from emails, facebook updates, news feeds, etc. The modern smartphone is taking us to a new form of computing, beyond personal computing into an intimate computing era where you access the right content at the right ti...

Last week it was reported that Linus Torvalds described the ARM SoC (System on Chip) ecosystem as a “Hodgepodge, ” with the article then going on to imply that the diversity and innovation in how an ARM SoC is implemented makes it very difficult to implement Linux on ARM. I have a slightly different take on it.

Proof is in Production
Quite simply Linux is a hit on ARM, there are almost 600,000 ARM powered Linux devices shipped every day in the form of Android tablets and phones using many different SoC’s from ARM’s Partners, and using different ARM cores from ARM7 to dual core ...

Microsoft发布Windows8为推动未来移动互联计算的发展又注入了一股强大力量：在昨日的Computex上，微软发布了可应用于ARM架构设备（例如应用基于ARM架构的高通，英伟达，德州仪器等系统级芯片的设备）的Windows系统，并展示了这一系统在ARM架构的平板电脑，超薄笔记本等一系列移动终端上的应用。这一最新发布充分展示了微软将功能强大的Windows软件应用于任何形�...

在上一篇博客中，我们提及了许多今年Computex上展出的基于ARM的创新产品。而事实上，ARM的成功与发展并不仅仅归功于ARM公司自身，还要归功于另一重要因素，那就是我们一直致力于搭建的创新且不断壮大的ARM合作伙伴生态系统。ARM与这一生态系统中的850多家合作伙伴公司都有紧密的合作，而更值得骄傲的是，这一生态系统也为我们的合作伙伴之间广泛的合作提供了良好的平台，使得我们的合作伙伴能够更好的联合起来为终端客户提供最新最好的解决方案。

来看看应用于未来的移动设备上的最新Netflix Security解决方案吧！德州仪器为我们展示了他们最新的M-Shield 安全系统demo，（该安全系统使用了微软...

We talk a lot about innovation at ARM, but the truth is we can’t take all the credit. ARM sits at the center of a thriving, innovative ecosystem of partners. Of course ARM works closely with our partners, but what is really great to note is how broadly our partners are working with each other to drive innovation for next generation devices.

Are you ready for your Netflix content on your next mobile device? Texas Instruments shared with us a demo of their M-Shield security system using Microsoft PlayReady DRM enabled by ARM Partner Trusted Logic running on an ...

As I get ready for Computex next week, I am thinking about what I expect to see there. There are lots of opinions about what might come out or be shown, but what I really wonder is what will stand out about the show this year. Thinking how things have evolved over the last few years, I keep coming back to the 3rd era of computing. ARM, like many, have used this concept over the years. But what does it really mean to us as consumers. And what might I see at Computex this year to show how the 3rd Era will develop over the next 20 years?

Most would agree that we are now deep in the 3rd era of computing, but what does this really mean? Some look at the 1st era as being defined by the mainframes and minis of the 1950’s thru to the early 80’s, the 2nd era being defined by the desktop PC generation starting in the 1980’s, and now this 3rd era that is driven by the innovation in ...

Last year when I attended MWC, I blogged about feeling like a teenager because of the social media explosion that I saw.

Perhaps this year I should have titled my blog..”Feeling like a kindergartner”, due to me attending the event without my laptop, my presentation security blanket. Let me explain. At every trade show, being the consummate marketing professional I have felt compelled to carry my laptop with me to have all my presentations at my disposal and the ability to edit them on the fly. But thanks to my handy iPhone I would spend most of my time on that device to stay connected on email etc. and my back and shoulders would feel the brunt of carrying around the heavy laptop, not to mention the anxiety of making sure it was charged, just in case I needed to whip out a presentation.

This MWC, I thought that I would a take a leap and live the mobile dream by living on the road with my iPad alone.

With the aid and advice of our two IT guys at the office, I set up a remote client on my iPad that would allow me to log in to my laptop connected to our work network and modify presentations and access data when needed, then downloaded ...

Consumers love THEIR mobile devices. That is a fact. I highlight “THEIR” because today’s cell phones, and smartphones, and super phones and tablets really have become an extension of the individual consumer. There are so many choices in devices that the each consumer is able to find what suits his or her needs that best. Today you can choose between screen sizes, cost, platforms (operating systems + apps), form factors, and performance, not to forget things like battery life, color, and even operators. What ultimately makes all of this possible is an ecosystem that delivers scalable choice to the consumer and the ARM ecosystem is uniquely positioned to just that. If it wasn’t obvious, this fact has been made even clearer from CES th...

It’s good to see new multi-persona, multi-OS smart mobile devices coming through now, and as we’ve been saying, virtualization in your SoC is what you need to make this happen efficiently.

A few weeks ago, Darron Antill of AppSense was saying that 2011 will be a huge year for smart-phones and tablets. I was also talking to one of ARM’s Senior Software Solutions Architects the other day around Mobile virtualization regarding a whitepaper ARM published recently. He‘s great for picking out news on technology advances through the...

It’s actually quite difficult to just categorise this blog entry under the Smart Mobile Devices name because I want to talk about the recently announced Cortex™-R5 and Cortex-R7 real time products, but these products are not limited to Smart Mobile Devices, and to be honest, over the next few years, these may well be everywhere, ‘under-the-hood’ of many things that you take for granted but probably didn’t even know were ARM Powered®.

Let me explain a little more - you probably don’t realise it but there is a good chance that you’ve already used ARM® Cortex-R technology hundreds of times today, from accessing the data on your hard drive, downloading emails on your smartphone right through to safely making your journey to work this morning. All of this is because ARM Cortex-R4 processors are shipping in volume in a broad range of market segments inc...

It was easy to get caught up in the tablet buzz at CES this year. There were an unbelievable number of ARM Powered tablets on display to demonstrate that we are really at the beginning of the innovation cycle in this emerging market. If you missed CES this year, I was able to catch a few of these devices and the partners behind them in my Day 1 and Day 2 CES blogs and Charbax has some great videos hosted on his site. But while tablets generally captured the headlines at CES, I was more interested in the technology that was powering this new generation of devices.
...

It’s only when preparing for my US Visa interview that I realised how much technology I was using and abusing daily
With a look back on my experience, you might see that you too are nearly as much of a geek as I am

First, I needed to submit my application online (DS-160) so I used the ARM Cortex-A8 based Toshiba AC-100 to fill-in the form (of course). The webcam came in handy to submit the picture and an ARM Powered® HP Photosmart C309n gave me all printouts needed for the interview.
Having to go to London, I thought the train journey would be a great occasion to organise emails and catch up...

It’s been an interesting few weeks since the launch of the Cortex-A15. But since I’m here at ARM Technology Conference (ARM Techcon) to share some additional technical insight on the Cortex-A15 with our Partners, I thought I would share a detail or two on what Cortex-A15 will offer mobile devices of the future.

Looking Back to the Future
First looking back, the Cortex-A15 launch event itself was eye-opening in terms of the level of interest in ARM’s low-power technology and the variety of discussions that have ensued on what’s possible with upcoming ARM Products. It more than validated the conclusion of my previous blog that the on...

How will tomorrow’s cars change the driving experience? To find the answer, here’s what you need to do: First, book your trip to ARM Technology Conference 2010 (Techcon). When you arrive, go straight to the exhibit hall and look for a silver Chevrolet Corvette. Found it? Good. Slip into the driver’s seat, where you will immediately notice that this is no ordinary Corvette. Within seconds, you’ll experience two ARM Powered® systems that show how driving is about to become more informative, more convenient, and, above all, more connected.



The two demo systems, a digital instrument cluster and a multimedia head unit, are the creations of QNX Software Systems . Techcon is still weeks away, so let's take a quick virtual tour to see what these systems can do.

Simplify your driving with smart instrument cluster
QNX’s digital instrument cluster demonstrates how automakers can replace physical speedometers and gauges wit...

At the Cortex™-A15 launch event earlier this month I was asked a number of times why ARM was going public about technology that we don't expect to see in devices until sometime in 2012. I suppose this is an obvious question but it struck me as funny because after 10 years at ARM I can't imagine doing processors any other way and here is why.

Most industry insiders know that ARM develops processor and SoC technology that we license to semi-conductor partners who in turn create advanced SoCs for devices in every market from toys and appliances to TV's and tablets. But what even the insiders don't fully appreciate is how this style of engagement changes the design process.

In a vertically integrated processor company the process is straight forward: Capture requirements from your customers, add in some market research, tap your internal technology teams for technology selection and design drivers (manufacturing technology to pipeline architecture), engage the device and software ecosystem, develop the product and move to market....efficient yes, innovative...

This year has been an exciting and transformative year in mobile. I can’t believe it was just a few years ago when we first introduced the Cortex-A8 and this year the Cortex-A8 has been featured from some of the most innovative smartphones, tablets, and connected DTVs. Software and hardware have come together to deliver a fully connected experience across multiple device platforms. The Cortex-A9 is already headed mainstream into mobile and smart connected devices, enabling multicore performance and flexibility. So here we are today celebrating the arrival of the Cortex-A15 MPcore processor. So ...

From 3x3x3 to 4x4x4 LEGO Rubik’s Cube Solver
About 18 months ago I was inspired to design and build my first LEGO robot (video) controlled by a Nokia N95 mobile phone that could solve a regular 3x3x3 Rubik's Cube. While demonstrating this robot to a few colleagues at ARM, I had some other puzzles lying on the desk including 4x4x4 and 5x5x5 Rubik's Cubes. A number of...

I’ve always wanted a Smartphone that can be an abstraction of me. This is driven by my belief that there are people who like writing diaries and those who do not. I’ve been waiting for a device for the latter group, where new personal situations can be recorded and analyzed automatically. Mobile technology has been changing rapidly where operating systems are more sophisticated (i.e. Apple iPhone OS, Palm WebOS, and Google Android) and hardware more capable (i.e. Cortex-A9). These rapid advancements have created the possibility of a truly personal Smartphone or what I call a meta-self.

As an engineer I’ve worked and observed the mobile world for over 18 years. The first mobile product I worked on was called the AT&T EO 440 Personal Communicator. The EO 440 could be called the original Smartphone. It was based on a Hobbit processor from AT&T and it used a standard analog mobile phone to provide the wireless co...

Smartphones continue to be one of the fastest growing and most attractive segments of the mobile device market. The desire for high performance handset giving access to an apparently infinite (estimation of 5 Billion apps in 2014) number of web services and applications drives the high end, while increasing demand from emerging markets for access to mobile internet at a lower price point expands the market in the high volume segments. For many people in the emerging countries, a smartphone will be the primary and only terminal to access the internet services.

Hardly a day goes by without some major announcement of a new innovation, product or service in this area. Smartphones seem set for a stellar ascension with analysts predicting an installed base of 1.7 billion devices in 2014 (Analysys Mason).

However, in order for these projections to be fulfilled a number of things need to happen. Two major trends, which may seem to contradict one another are driving in this directionThe growing expectations for an eve...

Coming back from CES and MWC, I found that Android is not a handset OS any more; I have seen Android in so many different form factors: handset , eReader, tablet, smartbook , STB etc. Since Android is an open source platform, anyone can customize it based on their own needs. Some of our software partners are providing Android customization service to the device manufacturers.

ThunderSoft spoke with me at MWC about their work with an Android tablet:

...

CES has always been where future ideas are tested and the impact of well placed bets becoming a reality. At 2006, people starting talking about HDTVs connected to the internet, ARM realized that to become a leader in these devices we must support the internet. This kicked-off internal discussions that were initially focused on getting ARM into computing, but very quickly it boiled down to “it’s the internet stupid” and that the internet would be critical for ARM’s success in the future. This initiated engineering efforts by ARM and our Partners to make this a reality. Fast forward four years and I can say the bet paid off in spades and in ways, we did not imagine. Let me show you what impressed me …

eBooks/Readers explosion … this was the year of the eBook/eReader at CES, they were everywhere and a couple received best of show in their categories. The Barnes and Noble nook, Alex by Spring Design, and Entourage edge; all integrated a second screen and Google’s ...

As a student of physics, I have always been drawn to the fundamental truths. However, after a career of marketing it took a true scientist to remind me to go back to my roots and look for the simple truths that hide within complex problems.

It happened when I was giving a recent talk to a large group of ARM engineers and technical fellows at our internal global engineering conference. The subject of my talk was an inside look at the much talked about ARM vs X86 battle. I naturally highlighted many of the power differences between two very different approaches to processor design including the fact that the ARM architecture was designed from the start for mobile.

After my talk I was approached by one of the most famous (internal to ARM) original architects of the ARM instruction set. As a marketer at an engineering conference, it was an honor to finally meet him in person and I was surprised that he took the time to talk to me. He complimented me on my talk but then very gently pointed out that I had a bit of the ARM history wrong – ugh!

You see, the original ARM instruction set was designed f...

For ARM this is very exciting news, here is how we see the impact:

It levels the playing field. Fo...

In the mind boggling large mobile market a lot of time is spent talking about the smartphones which represent less than 20% of the market today. It is a market which is in transition from ARM11 to Cortex-A8 processors and will move to dual core Cortex-A9 processors next year. These SoCs typically have a GPU such as a Mali400 for impressive user interfaces and accelerating Flash10.1 graphics and a video block for DVC functions that can push out to an HD display. There is a lot of software being optimised for these Cortex-A family cores (If you are a software engineer you will know this as our v7A architecture). Backwards compatibility comes as standard with these application processors, you can run code from an ARM7 or ...

One question that is continually asked of me since I have been at ARM is if product X, operating system Y, or form factor Z is going to “win” the handset market. My response to this is always no, and then I provide the following explanation. The mobile phone market is around 1.3 billion units a year, and there are over 3 billion mobile individual subscribers. No one handset, form factor, or operating system can dominate a market that size. Also, the mobile phone is the most personal electronic device that allows people to reflect their individuality (or not).

What does this phone say about its owner?

Different Needs, Different Devices
Originally, when mobile phones were just phones the diversity in the form factor and capabilities were quite small. The big differentiators were color of the case, talk time and whether it was a flip or candy bar phone.

Did you want your phone in Candybar or Flip?

Today mobile phones have morphed into so many form factors and capabilities depending on the needs of the individual co...

ARM processor-based mobile computing platforms have been drawing more eyes in China in the past several months. Many companies both in the handset industry and the PC industry are interested in this “new” market. Moreover, the chipset vendors have become key partners in this market because they have the chips and reference designs. High-performance ARM mobile computing platforms, such as Cortex-A8 based platforms, are more intricate than previous platforms. So direct support from the chipset vendors is very important to the ODM/OEMs so that they can finish their first design. I have had several calls each week from these companies asking for an update on this market, including any partners whom they can work with. Some of the calls are very interesting because they are from some companies which I never heard of in Shenzhen area where the most gray market players are located. Gray market refers to the small manufacturers in China spinning out devices with little to no branding or marketing. They say they want to do ARM based smart mobile devices....

China has a huge gray market now..hundreds of small and medium-sized companies who are struggling in this market. They are very flexible and want to do any device that...

Having seen the ads on YouTube and read the PR I’m looking forward to getting my hands on a N900.


The jump to our latest Cortex-A8 processor in the form of TI’s OMAP3 chip means that users can enjoy greater responsiveness for widgets, browsing and everyday use. A second important feature of the N900 that you will see widely adopted over the next year or two is the take up of OpenGL ES 2.0and the accelerated graphics that lies beneath. This combination of Cortex-A8 or dual core Cortex-A9 together with capable GPU’s like our Mali400 will become the mainstream solution for handheld computing over the next couple of years. OEMs are demand...

There have been a number of items in the press over recent weeks about video technology and so I am going to explore why this is important for Smart Mobile Devices. One of the interesting news items was about the inclusion of standard video codecs in the HTML 5 specification. It seems that a lack of agreement between interested parties means that a standard is currently not possible. Another news item was the Google announcement of the acquisition of On2 Technologies - a company noted for providing the video compression technology used by the likes of Adobe Flash and Skype.

So why is the specification and control of video codecs so important?

Digital video signals from a video or TV camera have very high data rates in their raw format, but fortunately also contain large amounts of redundant information. Video codecs exploit this redundancy to compress the digital signal and reduce the amount of storage required to hold a particular video and hence reduce the amount of data required to transfer the video to an end user. When you want to view the video, the decoder uncompresses the data and regenerates the original video....

中国是全球最大的 PC、移动电话和消费性电子产品市场之一，同时也是业界所有公司展开竞争的战场前沿。目前，这里也是基于 ARM 的移动计算设备的重要市场之一。我们正与合作伙伴（包括芯片供应商、操作系统供应商、软件服务公司以及 OEM/ODM）携手，共同推动在华市场发展。

业界的融合现象随处可见：固定线路与无线、嵌入式与 PC，特别是移动与互联网。在中国，人人都在谈论移动互联网（如运营商、互联网公司、无线服务提供商等）。截止到 2008 年底，中国互联网用户已达 2.98 亿，其中 1.176 亿用户同时还通过移动电话上网；与 2007 年相比，增加了 133%（信息来源：中国互联网络信息中心 (CNNIC)）。我预测，中国接下来的 1 亿互联网用户将通过移动设备而不是 PC 访问互联网。

中国人是我见过的最狂热、最能忍耐的用户群之一。很多年轻人会花费 2 到 3 个月的薪水，只是为了购买一款最新的“酷炫”Nokia 手机，而后会在半年的时间内再更换为另一款。他们喜欢尝试新的设备和服务，同时也是互联网用户...

We just took a delivery of 15 netbooks and distributed them around ARM; I am excited to take mine on the road with me this week to show the press and here is a little about my experience with this smart mobile device so far.

A little about the device … it is 10.1 “netbook” powered by two cell battery and an ARM Cortex-A8 running about 800MHz. They are extremely light and are made thin because they don’t generate much heat. These are not production units and are considered engineer samples; cases are “soft tooled” so the fit is not solid like production units but it gives a good a feeling on where the products are going. Electronics wise the device is close to full function complete, but from software prospective more work is needed … but too not much. What’s missing is from the software side includes power management, 2D/3D driver optimization, and some video codecs.

That said, this device rocks and I can definitely see a bright future. The installed OS is Canonical’s Ubuntu 9.04. WiFi...

I‘ve been thinking recently about the different trade-offs needed when designing ARM powered smartbooks* and netbooks and how they are different from traditional x86 PCs. So whilst sitting in my car at the lights yesterday, some analogies sprang to mind.

Over the past few years, the desktop seems to have evolved like a drag racer – It’s all about peak performance – Maximum throughput and maximum clock frequency is what matters. This might be necessary if you’re an out-and-out gamer, but is it really required for the majority of users? The problem with this approach is that the quest for performance pushes all other design criteria out the window - The way to get more and more performance is to throw more and more power at the problem. You end up with the equivalent of a 7000hp drag racer that can run a quarter mile in sub 5sec. Great for bragging rights, but not much use in the real world.

When you want a mobile device that can be used all day, then you need more than just performance - you need power efficiency as well. This isn’t some aftermarket add-on or some minor changes to the periphery of the system. It’s a fundamental cornerstone of the design. We’ve seen the approach of squeezing a PC design into a UMPC or MID and give a wry smile whenever battery life is mentioned. The power consumption is simply too high and battery life ...

Today I received a Palm Pre to evaluate as one of the first phones to employ the ARM Cortex-A8 processor core (Breakdown showing the Cortex-A8 based TI OMAP3430 in the Palm Pre). The Pre is a very exciting device for a number of reasons, including its WebOS and also because it is Cortex-A8 based.

ARM Cortex-A8 delivering performance never seen in your hand before.

So why is the Cortex-A8 such a leap forward for the mobile handset? If you want full details, you can refer to in-depth technical manuals for the Cortex-A8 and the TI OMAP3430. But in one simple sentence the Cortex-A8 delivers over 2x the performance that you have seen in a cell phone before, while not sacrificing battery life. When designing the Cortex-A8 we had to adhere to the Golden design rule of not exceeding 300mW, almost 10x lower than what you see from other mainstream processor architectures t...

The immediate future of mobile devices is visible at industry shows like CES, MWC and CTIA. I want to share my pick of the smart mobile device technology that is going to revolutionise the user experience of Smartphones over the next year. As it happens, on the last day of Mobile World Congress my mobile phone disappeared which means I’m back using my battered and bruised old cell phone for a while and on the lookout for something new and shiny.

If you looked carefully at some of the devices on show at CES in Las Vegas and MWC in Barcelona you would have witnessed the start of what will turn out to be a profound change for the mobile industry. In the thousands of devices on show there were a handful that represented the next generation, with high-performance processors, high-definition video capability and stunning screens. They were generally slim, cool, high-performance, web-centric mobile devices powered by the ARM Cortex-A8 processor or Qualcomm Snapdragon (both ARM v7 architecture). The applications processor represents the brains of the Smartphone, MID or netbook and having a Cortex-A8 typically provides a 3- to 5x jump...