Intel Genuino 101

Well there seems to be a bit of a battle going on in Arduino land, so some of the boards are now known as Genuino (outside of the USA). This board, the 101, is produced by Intel and has a Curie processor (Quark architecture) and a 32bit ARC CPU (not ARM, this is a CPU based on the Argonaut Risc Core - remember Argonaut Software and Jez San), they're both clocked at 32MHz and are 32bit.

Though the board will act like a 'standard' Arduino and can be completely driven through the Arduino IDE, it actually runs an Intel Real Time Operating System (RTOS) that Intel has open sourced and is available through their download centre. When the IDE compiles the code it will do the right things and put the right bits on the correct core.

The 101 should support most UNO and Zero shields, though it's a 3.3V board (though Intel say it will tolerate 5V boards). It's powered either through a dedicated 5V socket or through the USB port. It's NOT microUSB but the older chunky USB B socket.

As well as the 2 cores, there's also a 3 axis accelerometer and 3 axis gyroscope so the board can sense it's spacial direction and movement and it also supports Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) meaning it can do things like become a beacon or talk to your phone.

The tech specs are

Operating Voltage	3.3V (5V tolerant I/O)
Digital I/O Pins	14 (of which 4 provide PWM output)
PWM Digital I/O Pins	4
Analog Input Pins	6
DC Current per I/O Pin	20 mA
Flash Memory	196 kB (though on-board 384KB rest for RTOS)
SRAM	24 kB (80KB on-board again rest for RTOS)
Clock Speed	32MHz
LED_BUILTIN	pin 13
Features	Bluetooth LE, 6-axis accelerometer/gyroscope

So altogether a nice little Arduino (sorry Genduino) which is pretty fast and pretty compatible.

Pricing varies considerably on-line and it's available from around £16 all the way up to £35, and its available in a variety of kits.

Intel Edison, jack of all trades, but maybe master of none

The Intel Edison is a small system-on-chip (SoC) that measures about 35.5 × 25.0 × 3.9 mm (on its carrier PCB) which has a connector on it allowing it to be plugged into other things (it is possible to get the SoC on just the PCB without the edge connector).

The SoC board can then be plugged on to various boards from Intel, one is a breakout board which exposes various pins and has some USB sockets, there's also an Arduino compatible PCB allowing Arduino shields to be used.

The Edison tries to be everything to everyone, but doesn't always succeed. It actually has two processors inside, a dual thread dual core Atom running at 500MHz and a Quark 32 bit micro-controller running at 100MHz. The Atom runs Yocto Linux and the Quark a Real-time Operating System (RTOS).

It has 1GB of RAM and 4GB of Flash, 802.11 a/b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0

There's a total of 40 I/O pins that can be configured to be: -

• SD card - 1 interface
• UART - 2 controllers, 1 with full flow control
• I2C - 2 controllers
• SPI - 1 controller with 2 chip selects
• I2S - 1 controller
• GPIO - 12 with 4 capable of PWM
• USB 2.0 - 1 OTG controller
• Clock output - 32 kHz, 19.2 MHz

Intel provide multiple ways of programming the system: -

• Arduino IDE (v1.6+, no longer requires an Intel specific build)
• Eclipse supporting: C, C++, and Python
• Intel XDK supporting: Node.JS and HTML5

There are other environments that also support Edison (in Arduino or direct mode) such as the node.js Johnny-Five system. Node-red can also be installed directly on the Edison and accessed through its web server. Google's Brillo is also an option now.

Running Linux does have benefits if you're into Linux environments as there's lots of packages that can be downloaded for it or indeed built as required.

You'll either love or hate Intel's development environment (XDK).

Integrating Edison into your own projects does give you a lot of flexibility, though the power requirements aren't as low as some other Arduino types (but by the time shields have been added to give the same functionality, power requirements increase with them). In theory it is possible to put the Atom to sleep and have the Quark micro controller do background non CPU intensive tasks and then it can wake the Atom up to do some hard processing or data transfers through WiFi say, but it's not meant to be 'easy' to actually implement.

The basic Edison (just the board) is around £42, on the small breakout board it's about £72 and on the Arduino base it's £96 though on-line pricing varies.

Overall the Edison really does tries to be everything to everyone and it's a pretty powerful computer (well 2), but it may be too generic for lots of things and the variety of programming modes etc can be confusing.

ARM Mali now has DRM on-chip

ARM the company that designs microprocessors and micro-controllers that are used in high-end smartphones down to dishwashers has announced a new range of graphics co-coprocessor with digital rights management (DRM) built-in.

ARM has been forging relationships with bodies to support its TrustedZone security implementations in its ARM cores, now it is extending this with DRM backed into its video processing hardware (Mali) and it has just announced the Mali-V500 which supports 1080p/60 encoding and can decode up to 120 frames per second with a resolution of 4K. This should make the chips appealing to video companies like Netflix who want modern hardware, but also want to appease Hollywood with native DRM support.

ARM have also released new CPU cores, the Cortex-A12 (mid-range smartphone, faster than current Cortex-A9 technology). ARM also boast the performance of the Cortex-A15 supersedes Intel's low power core technology, even though it's based on their new 3D transistor at 22nm.

Newer ARM chips will migrate to 20nm technologies and even 16/14nm designs and they say that will keep them ahead of Intel for the foreseeable future.

MeeGo is dead, Long Live Tizen

Intel has decided to drop Meego (the combined efforts of its own Moblin efforts and Nokia's Maemo) in favour of a new Linux mobile OS known as Tizen which comes out of the Linux Foundation and LiMo Foundation.

Tizen will support smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, netbooks and in-vehicle infotainment systems and though Linux based will make use of HTML5 web apps. It will be jointly technically led by Intel and Samsung. Intel will help developers migrate from MeeGo to Tizen.

Samsung has already stated it will open source its BADA operating system in 2012, though it could now sit on top of Tizen.

Both companies hope that it will open up the market to another Linux like operating system that isn't Android thus reduce Google's dominance in the smartphone marketplace.

Intel's Museum of Me

Though it's been around for a while, Intel have developed an application called the Museum of Me which takes your social graph (by logging in with Facebook Connect) and then uses data from your feed and places it on the "wall" of the virtual museum.

It's almost creepy as it's as though you're looking at your life in the past, but it's visually very impressive.

Here's an intro video

Viral video by ebuzzing

This also shows how much information is available to applications when utilising Facebook Connect, that's more scary.

Nokia releases MeeGo v1.1

Nokia has released version 1.1 of the MeeGo Operating System (OS) which contains Linux Kernel 2.6.35, X.org server 1.9.0, Web Runtime, Qt 4.7, and Qt Mobility 1.0.2. It's available in several versions optimised for the devices that they run on i.e. MeeGo for Handsets, MeeGo for Netbooks, MeeGo for In-Vehicle Entertainment.

The Netbook version is actually 2 versions, one with the completely open source Google Chromium browser and the other with Google's Chrome browser which requires the suer to agree to Google's EULA.

Though the handset version supports Nokia's N900, they say it works but it's not really for end-users yet and the the user interface (UI) isn't ready for prime-time.

The IVE release supports text-to-speech using the open source Festival speech engine and speech recognition using PocketSphynx (which is based on the open source Sphynx speech-to-text system).

Though Nokia are developing MeeGo (which is the combination of Nokia Maemo OS and Intel's Moblin OS) it may be another dead-end OS as Android is starting to dominate the smart-phone market and Google will release their ChromeOS for Netbooks (though Android is already being used on tablets).

Qt (the cross-platform toolset that Nokia acquired with Trolltech) is the key technology that Nokia want to push (it sits on top of MeeGo and Symbian as well as MacOS and Windows) and MeeGo may just be a way to ensure they have an in-house development platform that's use don live devices, but that cant be a long-term strategy (MeeGo is only officially supported on the N900 and Aava devices in terms of handsets).

MeeGo version 1.2 can be expected in 6 months i.e. April and will include a more polished UI and other new features.

Atoms go faster (from Intel)

Intel has announced the new Atom N470 which operates at 1.83GHz (up from 1.66GHz) and is based on the Pine Trail architecture. The chip incorporates a CPU, memory controller and graphics core which as well as saving power increases the overall speed.

The chip is designed for Netbooks and could be available as early as next week.

Nokia and Intel to go Mee (or MeeGo)

Intel who drove the Moblin initiative (as in MOBile LINux) have joined forces with Nokia's Maemo Linux OS and come up with MeeGo a combined effort taking parts of both.

The system is expected to run on multiple architectures and not just Intel processors (many mobile devices are based on ARM chips).

Moblin hasn't really gone anywhere yet, while Maemo is used on Nokia N700/800/810 tablets and the recently released N900 smartphone.

The combined effort seems more of a defensive move against Android which is making headway in the smartphone arena (and Google giving away Nexus One phones to pretty well any conference it is involved with doesn't hurt it's popularity).

MeeGo does pose interesting questions about the future of Symbian (which is still the most popular phone operating system with an installed base of about 330m phones). The Symbian Foundation recently put all of the OS into the public domain as Symbian^3 with promises for Symbian^4 later this year. There were similar worries when Nokia said Maemo would be used for high end smartphones, so it's likely that this strategy will continue, Symbian for lower end phones and MeeGo for high end ones.

Though MeeGo might be a good OS it will have a struggle with Android, though the biggest loser might well be Windows Mobile 7 which is also due to be announced at Mobile World Congress taking place in Barcelona this week.

Qualcomm Snapdragons to snap ever faster

In an interview with Hexus by Luis Pineda, SVP of product management for Qualcomm CDMA Technologies, Qualcomm have indicated new versions of the Snapdragon processor (used in mobile devces like the HTC Touch HD2 and Google Nexus One).

Initially the Snapdragon 8X50A will come out which is a more compact version of the chip and lower power, but its speed increases to 1.3GHz, later the8X72 will be introduced which has two cores (ARM Scorpion) and runs at 1.5GHz.

The faster speed CPU's will allow decoding of HD video in 1080p format which will become prevalent on new tablet and slate devices (and high-end mobile phones).

Intel of course are also in the game with new versions of the Atom CPU on the table and it's use in a smartphone. Marvell has announced 4 core ARM chips and NVidia is also boasting multi-core mobile chips, Samsung are also offering their own CPUs.

The mobile market is likely to see more and more powerful 'superphones' (to use a phrase from Google) as computing power will no longer be the issue, now all they need to do is increase the battery life so these super fast devices actually stay alive all day.

WiGIG Alliance beams 7Gb/s at 60GHz

The WiGIG alliance (made up of around 30 companies including Intel and Broadcom etc) have announced that WiGIG will transmit at speeds of around 7Gb/s using the 60GHz band.

This band is either unlicensed or license exempt in many parts of the world (including the US and next year the UK and many parts of Europe).

Initially WiGIG said they'd support up to 6Gb/s, but this has since been bettered. 60GHz does not propagate well and it was envisaged that it would only be suitable for in-room use (under 10m), but new 'beam' technologies will allow greater distances to be achieved allowing for in-building use.

Though there is a WiFi specification for higher speeds (802.11AD) the technologies are seen to be complimentary and since companies like Intel sit in both camps it's likely both technologies will be integrated into WiFi chipsets.

WiFi using 802.11n is expected to support around 600Mb/s so WiGIG offers a magnitude better speeds.

Apple gets more of an Imagination

Apple has followed on Intel's heals and taken a 9.5% stake in UK graphics chip designer Imagination (Intel have a 14% stake).

Intel are keen on leading the Mobile Internet Device (MID) market and have recently made public announcements with Nokia. Apple meanwhile are utilising Imagination's PowerVR chips on the new i{Phone 3GS (they used their older chips in the iPhone 3G and iTouch models). This with their purchase of PA Semi means they could well be developing low power ARM chips and PowerVR cores for new ranges of iPhones/iTouch's coming out next year. They could also utilise the chips in their rumoured tablet which is also expected next year.

If Apple do release a tablet, it looks like they'll ignore the notebook market.

Apple launches quad core MacPros

Apple have released new MacPro desktop machines with quad core CPUs allowing up to 8 cores per machines.

They cost about £4,000 but they are bound to attract interest from the high end creatives.

Since Adobe have now launched CS3 (in various flavours) with native Mac/Intel support, the new machines will make a match in heaven for people using Photoshop and other applications that have a high pixel count etc.

Please find me one.