Category: News

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Chipmaker Marvell today debuted a new processor in its Armada family, designed for plug computing, for home, small business and industrial automation, and applications demanding ultra low power consumption.

The Armada 310 system-on-a-chip is built with an ARMv5 processor between 500MHz and 1GHz that consumes less than 1 watt of power. Fixed on a 15 x 15mm FCBGA (Flip Chip Ball Grid Array), the Armada 310 offers tons of i/o options, such as two Gigabit Ethernet MACs, two SATA 2.0 ports, two PCIe ports, USB 2.0, and DDR2/3.

Early last year, Marvell debuted its Plug Computing initiative with the release of its SheevaPlug development platform. The idea behind the initiative is that low-cost, low-power CPUs can be embedded all over the place to help manage and connect devices with each other. Marvell’s SheevaPlug wiki describes the plug computer as “a cross between an embedded platform, typically found in smaller devices like mobile phones, and larger notebook computer.”

A popular consumer solution that works with Marvell’s design is the Pogoplug, a tiny server that connects to any USB storage device and makes their contents available on the Web. The little pink box can do this with just 5 Watts of power.

But now, the Armada 310 can do this sort of computing with just a single Watt of power, and though it’s ideally suited for plug computers, it can be employed in any number of smaller form factors, such as routers, microservers, dongles, PC cards, industrial, and medical systems.

“By integrating extensive connectivity capabilities into a highly scalable ARM-based SoC, the ARMADA 310 offers designers the opportunity to create small-form factor, high-performance, devices that easily link to other systems and outside networks,” Tony Massimini, Chief of Technology at Semico Research Corp. said in a statement.

The Armada 310 system on a chip is selling to manufacturers right now for less than $15 when purchased in bulk quantities. Marvell told us that we will begin to see solutions running on the chip in the second half of this year.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010

Thursday, April 29th
7:00-9:00pm
FREE
Gowen Hall Room 201 at the University of Washington, just north of Suzzallo Library

Josphat Ngonyo Executive Director of African Network for Animal Welfare, a lead organization in the Kenya Biodiversity Coalition, is coming to Seattle!  Kenya is currently at a crossroads between burgeoning organic movements, and its participation in the “New Green Revolution” for Africa, financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and their partners. As a representative of farmer organizations in Kenya, Mr. Ngonyo will discuss the social, economic, and environmental consequences of the new green revolution agricultural model. He will also share stories with us of resistance to this approach and information about actual alternative agricultural practices.

Josphat Ngonyo is Founder and Executive Director of African Network for Animal Welfare, a lead organization in the Kenya Biodiversity Coalition (KBioC). CAGJ’s Director, Heather Day, recently met with Josphat and many of his colleagues in KBioC, who are taking the lead in resisting the introduction of GMOs into Kenya, and promoting agroecological alternatives.

Other ways to catch Mr. Ngonyo:

April 29^th Tune in to hear Mr. Ngonyo on KUOW’s The Conversation 12 – 1pm

Join Brown-Bag luncheon with African Studies Program, UW Thomson Hall Rm 317, 1:30 – 2:30

Questions?  Contact 206-405-4600 or email AGRA Watch

Sponsored by Community Environment and Planning, Anthropology, African Studies Program, UW Bothell, and Community Alliance for Global Justice

David Jaffe’s been known to speak out his mind about… well, anything but his super secret project. After calling the game sharing feature of the PSN “horse sh*t”, the famed game director is now giving his two

Noah’s full review of what may be the coolest phone-as-object out there right now: The Android-powered HTC Legend.

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Today, April 22, marks the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. In honor of this occasion, OMB Watch is conducting a special environmental right-to-know fundraising campaign to support our Creating a 21st Century Environmental Right-to-Know Agenda project. Please take a few moments to contribute to the campaign, learn more about the project, take our environmental right-to-know survey, read other OMB Watch materials about the environment and public health, and do your part for our planet.

Tossing and turning at night because your one-armed, lumpy-felt-breasted girlfriend left town? Or just feeling extra creepy? Never fear, sad lonely person: the Deluxe Comfort Girlfriend Body Pillow is here. And it is just awful. More »

Please join my colleague Alan Pelz-Sharpe next Tuesday, 27 April at 11am EDT for a free webinar, "Why ECM and WCM Projects Fail: Best Practices to Prevent Your Project From Failing"

Technology: CDMA
Rumored Carrier: Sprint
Rumored Release Date: June 6, 2010

The Samsung Seek offers a 2.6″ QVGA touchscreen plus full QWERTY keyboard that slides out.  Other features include 3.5mm headset jack, 1.3MP camera, Bluetooth, and GPS technology.  We will update specs and additional details when information becomes readily available.

The Dell Streak 5 (previously known as the Mini 5) has been on our radar for awhile, but we have yet to get an official announcement or launch date. Some new leaked slides posted on Engadget suggest the Android tablet/phone will appear around September this year.

The Streak is expected to ship with Android 1.6, but an OTA update to Android 2.1 should be available near launch. We expect to see the device on AT&T and possibly T-Mobile. The leaked slides also confirm an optional WiFi only version will be available.

Users will have many accessories to choose from.

A full suite of accessories will be available at launch. The Dell Streak 5 supports HDMI out, but it requires an optional dock for $69. It also appears the Streak lacks a micro USB port as it uses a special 30 pin to USB cable for syncing and charging.

Potential customers will have a wide selection of casing options to personalize their device. A full gallery of custom designs will also be available, similar to what is offered on the Dell laptops.

The Streak WiFi only version should match up nicely with Apple’s iPod Touch. The Streak will have a Kindle book reader application, Amazon MP3 and Video on demand store, and a possible Hulu service (which has been spotted on other new Dell Android devices).

The Dell Streak will come in numerous colors.

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• Dell Flash, Smoke, and Thunder appear on Android’s radar

It has certainly been a huge leak day dealing with new Dell products!  The latest deals with their new tablet, called the Looking Glass which is pictured to the left. In a report on Engadget, the new Dell tablet is described as a bigger version of the Streak 5 that is due out in November.  The unit is geared to be pretty slick at launch, with Android 2.1 running  on a Tegra 2 processor.  There is reportedly also an optional TV tuner you can connect to the unit to watch ATSC programming, which is a nice touch.

An interesting tidbit that may go along with this option is the fact if you look closely at the screen shot to the left, you will see an AT&T U-Verse button on the top of the shot.  There is no additional info on this but it certainly is interesting.  It will be cool to see if and how this would be implemented and rolled out to users.

The memory on the unit is listed at 4gb, with another 4gb of flash memory for storage.  There is a SDHC slot which will allow up to another 32gb of expansion room.  The camera on the unit is only 1.3 MP, which seems a bit low for a unit like this. But overall, it could be an exciting unit, and another option in the tablet category.

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There’s been a lot of attention paid to Pierre Omidyar’s attempt to build a new kind of local news organization in Hawaii. Omidyar, of course, was the founder of eBay, and many of the early comments about the project made it sound like a “new” type of news organization that really was very much about making the community a part of the process — something that we’ve pointed out makes a lot of sense. Omidyar also brought in John Temple, the former editor, president and publisher of the (failed) Rocky Mountain News — who had been quite introspective in recognizing why RMN failed. So it seemed like the new project, originally called Peer News, had a good basis.

But the details are coming out, and they seem… odd. Apparently, the newly named “Honolulu Civil Beat,” which is supposed to be more like the discussion found in a “civic square” thinks it can charge people $19.99 per month to take part. That’s quite a steep entrance fee to a “civic square.” I thought part of the value of the civic square was its openness.

Even worse, Temple (who clearly knows better) is trotting out the old school media’s most tired excuse for why paywalls will work: claiming that because the WSJ has done it, others can as well:

“People are paying on the Web for (publications such as) The Wall Street Journal; it has established value. … We believe people will pay for content and experience that they value.”

But that ignores why people pay for the Wall Street Journal, which is not just that “it has value,” but that it has scarce value that helps people make money now. I don’t recall similar information being covered in the normal civic square. In the meantime, I’m sure there are plenty of local community sites for Honolulu already. Why would people want to pay extra to join just one of them?

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The worst part about leaking handsets to the internet is the seemingly endless waiting period until actual launch.  Take for instance the Dell Smoke.  Not due until second quarter of 2011, we’re now forced to sit on our hands for a year.  A year!?  Thanks for nothing Engadget!

So take a look at that picture to the left. The stretched out BlackBerry/Palm Pixi looking phone is said to have a 2.8-inch QVGA screen, 5-megapixel camera, and a “non-conforming” style aimed at enterprise and business users. The Smoke is expected to have the Froyo flavor of Android powering an 800MHz Qualcomm MSM7230 processor with HSPA, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, and dual-mic noise canceling, and more! Between now and the expected launch next year there’s plenty of time for things to change. Be sure to head to Engadget for the original post and additional pictures!

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  That picture you are staring above this paragraph… it’s a Dell phone. Yep, that sleek beauty is called the Flash and it’s yet another Android phone to begin pining over. Engadget has scored what…

Hello! The mandatory PS3 3.30 update will apparently be available “shortly” and bring some minor updates while preparing your console for 3D stereoscopic gaming. [Playstation—Thanks, Jess!] More »

Netflix had what could be its best quarter ever, and by all accounts it appears to be a direct result of the company’s Watch Instantly streaming service. Based on the company’s actual results, as well as comments from Netflix CEO Reed Hastings on the company’s first-quarter earnings call, it seems clear that the online video service is contributing positively on a number of fronts, including lower churn and lower subscriber acquisition costs.

Hastings said on the call that Netflix attributes this quarter’s record low churn to an increase in streaming. Moreover, the company’s investment in streaming titles, as well as the availability of the service across multiple devices and an improved user interface, is driving more subscriber additions through word of mouth, therefore lowering Netflix’s cost of adding new subscribers.

Over the last several months, Netflix has been striking deals with Hollywood studios like Warner Bros., Fox, Universal and now HBO, in which it agrees to a 28-day window before it can rent DVD releases by mail, and in return receives discounts on DVDs. The company then pours those savings into licensing more content for its streaming service. Some subscribers have complained about the lack of new releases, but on a whole the strategy appears to be working for the company, as it continues to add new subscribers at record levels.

More tidbits from the earnings call:

• The biggest competitor Netflix sees isn’t Redbox kiosks or on-demand services from Amazon, Vudu or other, but comes from improved service offerings from traditional pay TV distributors. “There are a lot of competitive threats… But cable, satellite, and telcos improving their products is probably the biggest threat,” Hastings said.
• Based on rumors that Hulu could enter the market with a subscription service offering, Hastings said it too could pose competition to Netflix’s streaming service. However, it’s too early to tell how much of a threat Hulu might be. “We’ll see what they do,” Hasting said.
• Netflix isn’t concerned about Redbox potentially entering the streaming market at a much lower price point than its own entry-level $9 a month subscription service: “Redbox does many things incredibly well, but we’re not worried about them as a streaming competitor,” Hastings said.
• The reduction in average revenue per user (ARPU) generally doesn’t come from existing subscriber trading down to lower-priced subscription plans, but rather from the increase of new subscribers that are signing up to Netflix’s $9 a month plan. In fact, Netflix had more existing subscribers trade up during the quarter than it saw trade down, according to Netflix CFO Barry McCarthy.
• For now, Netflix doesn’t see the Apple iPad as a significant contributor to subscriber additions. “In the long term the iPad is a great device that has a lot of potential,” Hastings said. “But in the short term, when you compare it to the 30 million users that have a Wii, it’s not a huge contributor.”
• Despite record additions and an increase in the number of users tuning in to its streaming service, Netflix is still seeing growth in its DVD-by-mail service. “Our DVD shipments continue to increase,” Hastings said. “DVD’s got a lot of legs.”

Related content on GigaOM Pro: Slow and Steady, Netflix Pulls Ahead in Streaming Video (subscription required)

Super Street Fighter IV is still a week away from its release but Capcom is also ready prepping for a DLC of the game. More after the jump.