RT @EuAndroid: [Novo]: Tegra 3 é oficial, vídeos comparativos e de demonstração http://t.co/8FJSeb2T #Android
MWC2011: Day 3
Just a few links, not too exiting - apparently the major things of MWC have happened already.
Devices:
NEC LifeTouch Note, Android laptop, Japan only, 1GHz nVIDIA Tegra2 dual core, 7” WVGA touch screen, Android 2.2 (Froyo): JKKmobile, CrunchGear (What´s really stupid about this thing: This device has a back-facing 2 MP camera - would have been much more useful if it was front facing (think of video chat))
Platforms:
nVIDIA Tegra “Kal El” (Tegra3), Quad Core 1,5GHz “ARM madness”, said to be about as fast as the (first) Core2Duo - first products shall be out at the end of this year (engadget).
If you are interested in other ARM SoC solutions, that are in par with solutions already on the market, head over to ARMdevices.net
That´s about it, I guess - Intel AppUp Developer Day took place today and it was all about MeeGo from what I hear, and it was completely full - so there are still people interested in MeeGo (or they just wanted to grab ExoPC Hardware..) - it might be more than a dead duck in a swampy pond, e.g. a rising star.
Besides that, it leaked out that Microsoft won´t allow any GPLv3 (or compatible licenses) licensed software on Windows Phone 7.
OUYA CEO sings the praises of NVIDIA, says OUYA will be 'best Tegra 3 device on the market' - published on: Technology Companies List
OUYA and NVIDIA have a kind of love thing going on right now. The $99 Android-powered game console designed by Yves Béhar’s fuseproject is powered by NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 — this much we already know. What we didn’t know is that the folks at OUYA are working directly with a team of folks at NVIDIA on the project, and that NVIDIA is helping the company to max out its Tegra 3 processor for use on a console rather than a mobile (no battery dependency means the little chip can go much further than usual). “The partner …
Visit link -
OUYA CEO sings the praises of NVIDIA, says OUYA will be ‘best Tegra 3 device on the market’
You can see the Listing Profile on: http://technologycompanieslist.com/ouya-ceo-sings-the-praises-of-nvidia-says-ouya-will-be-best-tegra-3-device-on-the-market/
OUYA CEO sings the praises of NVIDIA, says OUYA will be ‘best Tegra 3 device on the market’
Nexus 7 2GHz overclock delivers benchmark-crushing tablet
Google’s Nexus 7 may run NVIDIA’s cheaper Tegra 3 KAI chipset, but that doesn’t mean the 7-inch tablet isn’t capable of impressive speeds once carefully overclocked. Thanks to a new 2.0GHz ROM for the tablet cooked up by xda-developers, the Nexus 7 burned through Android Community‘s benchmarks and scored a whopping 8,082 in Quadrant testing. That’s double what HTC’s capable One X smartphone could manage.
The ROM itself uses an experimental kernel, not yet publicly available, to drive the Nexus 7 up to 2.0GHz rather than the 1.8GHz overclock we’ve seen in recent weeks. Even that slightly lower speed is enough for impressive performance, however, cracking the 7k mark in Quadrant.
Stability is described as having “a few issues” hence the absence of a public release, and according to Cory over at Android Community the Nexus 7 itself got somewhat warm during the tests. Still, the “Elite Kernel” is showing more than a little promise.
Out of the box, the Nexus 7 runs at 1.3GHz, ASUS and NVIDIA opting to prolong battery life rather than chase outright power. Thanks to the KAI chip, ASUS can use cheaper DDR3L memory for the tablet’s 1GB of RAM, helping Google hit its sub-$200 starting price goal.
Why do I care about consoles, but not their specs
Tech Analysis: How Powerful is Tegra 3? by Eurogamer was provoking enough for me to write some stuff on games and consoles today.
Tech:Yep, it’s common to get cool games from cool platforms. But it’s not always about numbers in specs. Actually it has nothing to do with them, IMHO.
Games are not about graphics, but picture.
FEZ, Pokemon, Dragon Quest (on DS) all look great. Do they need super-pro-ultra hardware? No! They need developers to create them. Yes, there are games with high demands, but why nobody cares that they work on pretty old consoles (and both ps3 and xbox are old already) but everyone still have to care about videocards on pc?
Consoles are not about specs, but about comfort and easiness for user to understand and play.
Do you know what processor is used in your blu-ray player? Or washing machine? Probably no. And as users we don’t even have to care, since we interact with device itself, not his internals. While everything is fast, comfortable and nice looking (as mentioned above) I don’t care how they do it. I want comfortable gamepad, good picture (as in above) and the most important - good game.
Consoles are not so much about hardware, but software.
Do I need extremely advanced cool videoconsole without games? Nope. Actually, I don’t see the difference between 30fps and 60fps. Why? Cuz I’m concentrated on the game, not some weird numbers. I want to get good games with easiness and play them with comfort. And I don’t care where it comes from while those demands are fulfilled: it could be ps3, xbox, pc, toaster - the main point that I don’t want and should not care about all those preparations as disks, accounts, passwords, security checks etc while I just want play game.
Yep, no creators - no games. But why nobody talks about how good their consoles are for developers, giving some numbers instead of that? There were only two exceptions I can easily remember: Xbox and OUYA. And Microsoft got a lot of indie games thanks to their claims of how it is easy to develop for them.
Comfort.
Why nobody talks about support from platform owners to developers? Or advances of dev-kits and availability of frameworks? Freaking weird :/ AFAIK now PC is the best for simple and fast development of the game, same for distribution and sales. Apple put a lot into developers and got a ton of apps (great included). But what about next-get consoles? I don’t know.
Price.
I don’t really believe that OUYA’s ‘almost zero price for dev-kit’ is important. Developers’ time could be way more expensive than dev-kits. I remember price-of-development comparisons from the last console generation shift. Why is it becoming more and more expensive and takes ages? Why don’t platform owners try to make it cheaper to make a good game? Yes, there are some movements from MS, but is it enough?
Profit
The most important (great products apart) thing for professional - get paid. It’s about developers works (promotion, game quality, hype etc), but at the same time platform should provide the most essential part - store (or any other way for ppl to send money to developer). And as for now most of the stores are crappy (xbox marketplace was good, but they ruined it with all those new updates, imho) - or ppl cannot find your game or you have to wait a lot for some promotion from platform owner. While it’s like that - nobody wins.
Again. OUYA, Tegra, whatsoever.
As user, I want to get game:
- With comfortable gamepad/input interface
- On platform I own/could easily buy
- Having good picture (2d, 2.5d, 3d - I don’t care)
- That is easy (both in price and store-accessibility) to get
- With next-good-game (sequel or not I don’t care) release in less than 1 year from same developers
OUYA: A $99 Android Powered Console
kickstarter.comSo, someone brought this to my attention today. I Hadn’t heard of it, so I decided to check it out. I have to say, I’m interested in this. Not only because it’s shiny (images below), but because of the $99 price tag. So what do you get for this price?:
Specifications:
- Tegra3 quad-core processor
- 1GB RAM
- 8GB of internal flash storage
- HDMI connection to the TV, with support for up to 1080p HD
- WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
- Bluetooth LE 4.0
- USB 2.0 (one)
- Wireless controller with standard controls (two analog sticks, d-pad, eight action buttons, a system button), a touchpad
- Android 4.0
Oh, I know, I know- these specs can’t compete with console “x”. Well, its offering to do something other consoles don’t. Go on, check out the kickstarter page.
Nexus 7. Or why I won’t buy it.
The Nexus 7 came out as leaked, and while I must say that I like the improvements Google managed to put into Android 4.1 (“Jelly Bean”), I won’t get the first tablet to run it (officially).
Not that I wasn’t in the market for a 7” tablet – the 6” Barnes & Noble Nook Simple Touch really makes me long for a nice 7” tablet – just because you can carry it with you, wherever you go without needing to carry some kind of a bag – wearing a jacket is just enough.
However, the Nexus 7 not only runs on NVidia’s Tegra 3, it does not support any kind of a video out. Seriously, this makes the Tegra 3’s USP (its immense video power, if we are to believe NVidia’s marketing department) not worth much. And there are other shortcomings. There is no way to add extra storage (in default mode, I am sure that there will be some decent hacks), you are limited to 8 or 16 Gigabytes, which in reality is even less, as the OS and apps are placed on this scarce storage too.
Let’s come to a few good points. The price is pretty good, considering that this is real 2012 hardware and not some old stuff, and the way they axed features in order to make this price is actually pretty well done: The display (1280x800px; IPS) is decent. There is one camera, for video chat – which is the most useful camera purpose on a tablet, imho. Android 4.1 is even better than the already awesome Android 4.0. Google is finally building its own content eco system – and there we are back at the cons. Much like Amazons $199 tablet (Kindle Fire), this device is mostly a frontend to some kind of content store – only slightly less locked down.
Yeah, I must admit that I am picky. I don’t want a Tegra 3 because of nVidia being “not so good” to “horrible” at supplying Linux drivers. I say “nope” because there is no video output - I would love a 7” tablet to power a dumb Lapdock, like the one Motorola supplied with the Atrix 4G, or the Clambook – just for the use cases where you need to do some work, but wouldn’t necessarily need your real, full-fledged notebook.
But then, after all, the Nexus 7 is definitely not the worst choice for an affordable, 7” inch Android tablet for Android enthusiasts. It’s much rather among the best choices you can make, if you can live with its shortcomings (storage, connectivity) – I can’t.
