The big five in the LCD industry based on 2011 revenues are Samsung, LG, CMI, AUO and Sharp. It costs upwards of $1B to build a TV-class LCD factory in Asia. A state of the art Gen 10 LCD factory might cost upwards of $3B if built today. In the past few years, the industry has been more in the red than in the black. Margins in the display business tend to be razor thin, particularly in consumer applications.

So what makes LCDs rule? There is one spec that LCD has that beats every other technology, and when I mention this to a room full of engineers, they think I have crossed over to the dark side. This spec is called “price,” which is the most important spec for displays.

Take your favorite TV or mobile phone, the display is what catches your attention. A significant portion of the purchase decision for a TV, Monitor or GPS unit is based on the impression created by the display, yet the average consumer has no idea who made the display. Being an ingredient display brand in the consumer electronics industry is very tough, I can tell you this from personal experience.

Read the full interview at Forbes.com

Something to do with FXI adding USB host to the design causing some of the delay. Hopefully they start shipping in Scandinavia this month, and to all other pre-orders during the summer. I’d like to see this form factor mass manufactured and sold for around $69 retail and not $199. See the TI OMAP4 powered Always Innovating HDMI stick alternative where it’s said the BOM cost for such a platform may be as low as $30.

Source: booredatwork.com

Here’s my video of the FXI Tech HDMI stick:

Here’s my quick concept image for an MHL LapDock accessory that I’d like to see accessory makers sell on the market at $99-$149 depending on the quality/size, it should be similar to the Motorola LapDock 500 Pro but designed for MHL phones:

MHL enables a new market for LapDocks similar to the Motorola Atrix series, where you dock your smartphone and it powers your ARM Powered Chrome OS Ultrabook, Google TV Set-top-box and Home Console.

I think it is important to notice the huge leap in performance year/year of these latest and upcoming new ARM Processors. The new Exynos 4412 is nearly 2x more powerful than last year’s Exnoys 4210. Not just by the doubling of cores, that doesn’t actually double performance but more like increases it by 50% (at same frequency, and only for very multi-threaded tasks), the main thing is the smaller process node design, the increased memory bandwidth, cleverer memory bandwidth architecture also enabling a faster higher clock speed Mali-400 GPU. Basically what you are getting is 2x more performance for less power consumption, that’s pretty exciting and pretty kick-ass in my book. And we are not even yet arrived at the ARM Cortex-A15 which then again upgrades the performance even more!

Now all that is needed is for Google and the industry to merge Android, Chrome OS and Google TV. When you dock it in a Laptop Dock or Desktop Dock, it should switch to a full Chrome OS mode (or Ubuntu, not to forget Microsoft is welcome to add the Windows 8 app for $29.99 in the Google Play store. Or somewhat pre-install “Windows 8 mode” as a secured dual-boot when partnering with the smartphone maker). When you dock it to a Multimedia Dock it should switch to a full Google TV mode, maybe even with HDMI input and IR blaster if the Dock supports that, and also the new GPU is now near XboX 360 power even though it’s not yet the Mali-T604 and Mali-T658 which increases graphics even further next year.

The issue is Samsung and some others are maybe afraid to disrupt their own existing markets of selling Laptops, Chromebooks, Set-top-boxes and new 3DTVs with built-in Google TV, so maybe, just maybe, at the corporate headquarters of Samsung they fear the inevitable convergence. But if Samsung doesn’t want to promote the convergence that these new post-PC ARM processors enable, then competitors have a wide open door to use that for marketing. One little pocketable soon enough wearable device can now power all your productivity, content consumption and entertainment. The performance has arrived, it’s only a matter of someone deciding to start making, selling and marketing the new user interfaces that enable the full convergence.

While ARM TrustZone has been talked about for a while, it being supported in many ARM Processors, as far as I know it hasn’t been activated on any of those processors yet, the full Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) ecosystem has not yet been implemented in a mass market phone. The idea is to provide a 100% secure system for mobile payment, enterprise productivity, mobile banking applications, online commerce and premium content services. I believe ARM TrustZone can even be used for a fast and easy 100% secure authentication on your phone every time you log-in to your Google Account, and I believe that you may even set it up to 100% securely authenticate you when you log-in to any Open ID or other username/password protected websites on the Internet, Facebook, Twitter and any others included.

Basically consider these usage scenarios:
1. E-commerce: You click to buy something online, no need to type in credit card infos. Your phone automatically turns on in safe mode (identifiable by secure LED light lighting up on the side of the phone), you type your 4 digit pin code, payment 100% secure activated, the web page automatically updates, no click needed, and says thanks for your payment.

2. NFC or Online Payments/Money transfers: Tap your phone with the person you want to give some money to, or click on payment link in email or elsewhere online. Your phone automatically turns on in safe mode (identifiable by secure LED light lighting up on the side of the phone), you type your 4 digit pin code, payment or money transfer 100% secure activated. Both receiver and sender automatically get confirmation payment or money transfer has happened instantly.

3. Securely log-in to your Google or other web account. Click to login. Instead of using Google’s current 2-step verification (code being sent by SMS or Android app), a new easier, better and more secure 2-step verification system is established using ARM TrustZone TEE. As soon as you click to login, you don’t even need to type your password in the web browser, your phone automatically turns on in safe mode (identifiable by secure LED light lighting up on the side of the phone), you type your 4 digit pin code, you are 100% securely logged into your Google account.

Etc. Same system for 100% securely logging on to corporate networks and applications. You can also setup different pin codes depending on the different class of applications. For example your important payment systems may have a different pin code than basic website logons.

The idea of the ARM TrustZone Trusted Execution Environment is that once that security LED light is turned on on your phone, you can be assured that what you see on the screen is the encrypted alternative OS environment to authenticate you and authorize actions that it then encrypts and sends back through the Android OS to the Internet. For example it displays “Paying $20 to X” as you enter your pin code and click OK or you click cancel if you don’t agree. Again using encryption. Using systems of 128bit encryption, in theory this system should be 100% secure. As long as users always make sure to check that the security LED light is on on their phone when they enter their pin codes and click for authorizations.

If implemented correctly, ARM TrustZone will not only much improve security online, it will also make authentication and authorization processes easier and faster online. With the Galaxy S3 and the correct implementation of ETT support throughout the Internet, the Chrome browser, Android, you may never need to remember usernames and passwords for all websites again, you just use the same few PIN codes on your phone to do all your authentications, authorizations and every type of secure authenticated activities on the Internet.

I am very excited about the upcoming mass adoption of ARM TrustZone, because I believe we are going to see an explosion of awesomely advanced applications for secure authentication, online payments, mobile payments and the feeling for users is going to be that they are soon going to trust using their phones to replace their wallets, passports, credit cards, and that people are going to have a tool to be able to trust any and every website, as those will never be able to see your passwords as consumers will always be protected by the normal set of consumer protections and that online scams, online security breaches will be a thing of the past. ARM TrustZone Trusted Execution Environment means the end of paper money, it means the end of ticketing, it means the end of credit cards, it means the end of membership cards, it means the end of usernames and passwords online.

Here is the press release:

G&D announces MobiCore® integrated security platform to support Samsung GALAXY S III in Europe

Munich, May 4, 2012 – Giesecke & Devrient (G&D) today announced that its MobiCore security platform will be integrated in Samsung GALAXY S III smartphones distributed in Europe. Thanks to MobiCore, the NFC-capable smartphone from Samsung will be the first mobile device to boast a protected area on its application processor in which security-sensitive applications can be securely run and downloaded dynamically. The MobiCore platform will provide a secure execution environment for mobile payments authentication, emails or corporate VPN access.

The first application installed in the Mobicore-protected area on the Samsung GALAXY S III is a digital rights management (DRM) application which provides digital content with effective protection against misuse. In addition, G&D’s Trusted Service Management (TSM) solution will enable organizations such as network operators and banks to install and customize additional security-critical apps in the protected area of the smartphone. Samsung GALAXY S III, with integrated MobiCore security platform, will be made commercially available first in Europe and will then be rolled out globally.

Related articles

• ARM Forms Trusted Environment Venture for Mobile Devices(pcmag.com)

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• Google Wallet should use ARM TrustZone for 100% security (armdevices.net)
• ARM, Gemalto and G&D form joint-venture to secure mobile devices, improve privacy (thenextweb.com)

Hong Kong Trade Development Council

- Shenzhen Electronics Fair (April 10-11th): 21 videos

- China Sourcing Fair (April 12, 15th): 32 videos

- HKTDC Electronics Fair (April 13, 14, 16th): 36 videos

- Canton Fair (April 18th): 11 videos

- Videos filmed at the Shenzhen Electronics Market, at Shenzhen company headquarters and at Shenzhen Factories: 22 videos

Here are the trends from these conferences looking at the number of videos that I filmed in each trending chip provider category:

1. Boxchip AllWinner A10 and A13 ARM Cortex-A8 with Mali-400 GPU. 24 new videos filmed. Before this trip, I only had 3 Boxchip related videos on my site, Boxchip has now exploded in popularity among Chinese device makers. It offers a beautifully smooth Ice Cream Sandwich experience for a really low cost. This cheap ARM Cortex-A8 SoC with Mali-400 GPU acceleration for Android 4 ICS might be key to make this solution now very popular: $63 no-name from Shenzhen Market, $47 capacitive Boxchip A13, Aipad Wacom, $120 9.7″ iPad-like, $79 1024×600 7″ IPS from Daza Electronics, FirstView, $85 10.1″ Laptops from Sunlike, $80 1024×600 7″ and $57 WVGA from Bmorn, Boxchip in Game players by Yinlips, $59 A13 from T Link, 1024×600 compact 7″ from Avaid, $49 resistive, Ochang, Yones Toptech, GDB, $60 Apical, $64 Eken, Rocat, Sanxo, 10″ Laptop by Kinstone, 7″ Laptop by Kinstone, 4upad, Yamay.

2. Rockchip RK3066 Dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 with Quad-core Mali-400 GPU. My Interview with Rockchip about RK3066. The initial benchmarks I’ve heard about on RK3066 place its performance very high. There are already a range of prototypes with RK3066 inside being shown by a whole range of Rockchip partners. Here are my first RK3066 videos: $128 10.1″ 1280×800 by Alldocube, Pipo 10.1″ and 9.7″. Expect lots new RK3066 devices to be released quickly. The SoC and price difference between this and ARM Cortex-A8 solutions may make this one very popular even for cheap/affordable implementations out of China.

3. MediaTek MT6575 ARM Cortex-A9 with SGX531 GPU. MediaTek looks to dominate the low-cost Android smartphone market out of China. Last year, it was the ARM9 based MT6516 (as in my FG8 phone that I used as my main phone for 9 months until I upgraded to a Galaxy Nexus this February) that only supported 2G Dual-sim, which they then upgraded to the ARM11 based MT6573 with 3G dual-sim about 6 months ago, but now the MT6575 is a single-core ARM Cortex-A9 with full Android 4 Ice Cream Sandwich support. The MT6575 is likely going to have a huge influence on the new higher performance yet still cheap Android phones to come in the next weeks and months out of China. ICS on sub-$150 5″ WVGA MT6575 Dolphin A80 phone (2), ICS on 5.2″ Hyundai H950 MT6575, $142 Galaxy Nexus clone with MT6575, Zopo ZP100 with MT6575 selling now for $174 street price in Shenzhen (I bought one, I’m waiting for the ICS release within days/weeks), Amoi dual-battery MT6575, sub-$140 5.2″ MT6575 by Daza Electronics, Quality Industrial MT6575, $75 3.5″ MT6575 by Orient and a bunch of companies showing MT6573 solutions: Yooe/Runtong MT6573 7″ Tablet, Long Ten Jie, Sharing, Begin, Dynamax, Vinus, Pusite, Zivi, J8000 and X20i, Zhongyi, Goal, LGTD, Migo, Zhenai waterproof.

4. Rockchip RK2906 ARM Cortex-A8 without HDMI for cheap. As with the Boxchip A13 without HDMI, Rockchip now also releases a new lower cost ARM Cortex-A8 skew without HDMI called the RK2906. The thinking might be that many people in China and worldwide do not have a HDMI or do not need the HDMI output, so they may as well design the SoC without HDMI to save another $2-$5 on the bill of material for the device. I’ve found it in the $49 Rk2906 7″ capacitive tablet by Sawink. Rockchip also launched the RK2908 (also featured in my Rockchip interview video) for cheaper ARM Cortex-A8 Set-top-boxes only.

Processors that I have not yet seen or noticed a lot of on this trip but who may have imminent devices that may quickly gain significant market share out of Shenzhen based device makers:

AmLogic announced their AML8726-MX Dual-Core ARM Cortex-A9 design. I think I’ve been hearing about a Dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 coming from Telechips. But those can not yet be sighted at the fairs as far as I know.

A bit can be seen featuring the ST-Ericsson U8500 and low-cost skew U8410, I expect several more devices to be shown soon out of China featuring these. Also offering potentially great value Dual-Core ARM Cortex-A9 for smartphones and connected tablets. I think ST-Ericsson wants to position their Dual-core Cortex-A9 to compete with Single-core Cortex-A9 solutions.

Broadcom can be found just a bit. Sprodcom was showing some.

I hear rumoring of impending Freescale i.MX6 devices, up to quad-core but I guess possibly also great value lower priced Single and Dual-core devices to come.

Renesas announced their MP5232 1.5Ghz Dual-core Cortex-A9 with integrated LTE modem back at Mobile World Congress. But I have not yet found devices featuring that. I wonder if they plan to regain Chinese makers interest with a faster low-cost successor to last year’s EV2 533Mhz Dual-core ARM Cortex-A9.

Qualcomm seems to have upgraded the MSM7227 with skews that use the new faster ARM Cortex-A5 instead of the previous year’s ARM11. I am not sure if I have noticed that on this trip. I get a bit confused as they still call it MSM7227 or MSM7225, they add a T or an A at the end, I forget which is the new Cortex-A5 design.

Telechips also has a new Cortex-A5 processor which I first saw in March at CeBIT in the Valueplus Tizzbird HDMI stick, but I am also not sure if I have seen any other devices on this trip using that yet.

In the part 1 of this Shenzhen Factory Tour, I enter the Shenzhen Factory, walk around the lobby and meeting rooms before walking over to a part of the assembly line.

There are lots of boats in Hong Kong. Here we’re on one that goes from the HKTDC Electronics Fair on Hong Kong Island to Tsim Sha Shui where there are more choices for restaurants.

My opinion and suggestion for Google:
I’d like to see Google invest heavily in Pixel Qi for a 7″ 1024×600 screen to be mass produced for the rumored upcoming Nexus Tablet, providing it 20 hours battery life on an ultra slim form factor, with a very small bezel if they can make it have a plastics based screen, suitable for reading Google Books, suitable for outdoor use. Google should invest the money needed in bringing Pixel Qi to the mass consumer market. And then also Google can help bring the 2048×1536 9.7″ Pixel Qi screen to the mass Android tablet market.

The success of the iPhone and iPad is due to ARM Technology, but also to the investments Apple has made in using new screen technologies, Apple basically financed exclusivity for the 3.5″ capacitive screen when launching the iPhone and they bought an exclusive on the 9.7″ IPS screen for the iPad. Now also Apple invested the $2+ Billion getting an exclusive on the 9.7″ Retina screen. Google should do the same, not only invest heavily to optimize Android on all the ARM Processors, Google should also invest the money needed in new screen technologies such as Pixel Qi LCD and use that for their “Google Hardware” Nexus devices but then also instantly allow access to the new screen technologies to every other Android hardware maker.

Source: pixelqi.com/blog1

Related articles

• Pixel Qi teases ultra-frugal Retina Display rival (slashgear.com)
• Pixel Qi: our new screen better, lower-power than new iPad (electronista.com)
• Pixel Qi promises retina-quality low power displays (liliputing.com)
• Next generation Pixel Qi screen said to have Retina display-like resolution, significant power savings (theverge.com)
• Pixel Qi promises tablet displays that meet iPad 3 quality – and draw much less power (venturebeat.com)
• Pixel Qi Says Next-Gen Displays Meet or Beat iPad 3 Screen Quality (hardware.slashdot.org)

AML8726-MX Family Combines 1.5 GHz ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore™ processor and Multi-Core Mali^TM-400 MP GPU to Provide Industry-Leading Performance, Low Power and Reduced System Cost.

SANTA CLARA, Calif.-April.09, 2012-Amlogic, a leading fabless semiconductor company providing solutions for advanced consumer products, today announced the availability of its newest high-performance system on chip (SoC) family, the AML8726-MX. These new SoCs are powered by a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore processor, a multi-core ARM Mali-400 MP GPU, Amlogic’s industry proven HD video engine, and advanced security technology. The AML8726-MX family supports a wide variety of open-source environments and provides processing power for state-of-the-art gaming, Over The Top (OTT) video playback, new app stores that are increasingly providing content and applications, and can be used at the heart of any connected display device.

Amlogic has been a leading supplier to the advanced application processor market for many years; the AML8726-MX reconfirms the company’s position. This new family of dual-core products includes advanced technology, such as ARM TrustZone® security technology and NEON™ SIMD technology to provide enhanced security, gaming, image and audio processing. During their development, a close cooperation with its partners allowed Amlogic’s engineers to design a hardened Cortex-A9 processor-based SoC operating at speeds above 1.5GHz while using a 40nm low power process. The AML8726-MX family provides Amlogic’s customers with one of the industry’s most cost effective yet highest performance solutions.

“We are pleased to introduce our 3^rd generation Cortex-A9 processor-based devices and deliver a solution to the dual-core segment that would require many of our competitors to use a tri-core design.” said John Zhong, CEO of Amlogic. “Our new AML8726-MX family of processors sets the standard that others have to follow; yet again Amlogic has established itself as a market leader not only from an integration and power perspective, but also raw CPU and graphics performance. We are confident that the AML8726-MX family will maintain our leading supplier position to the connected display segment.”

“Amlogic has already established a reputation as an innovative supplier of ARM technology-based solutions,” said Mike Inglis, chief commercial officer, ARM. “The combination of the energy-efficient ARM Cortex-A9 processors and Mali-400 GPUs alongside Amlogic’s own IP and system design expertise has resulted in a SoC that enables a rich media experience. This is particularly suitable for Over The Top (OTT) delivery, 3D Gaming and other Internet applications, all of which are key to the future growth of the tablet, set-top-box and smart-TV markets.”

Amlogic’s new AML8726-MX chips are available now for sampling and Android^TM 4.0.3 ICS OS-based reference development platforms will be available in late April 2012.
Highlights of the AML 8726-MX family include:

◆A dual-core Cortex-A9 processor achieving over 7500 DMIPS of performance

◆Direct to panel connection with advanced scaling, de-interlacing and picture quality enhancement

◆Industry leading power management technology to extend battery life in mobile applications

◆The ability to run Android 4.0 (ICS), Linux 3.X, OpenGL ES 2.0

Connectivity options provided by the AML8726-MX include 10/100/1000 Ethernet, two USB interfaces, 3-in-1 Card Reader, Analog and digital video outputs, LVDS and TCON with backlight control, digital video and camera interfaces, software driver support for popular external WiFi chipsets.

Let me know in the comments or to my email charbax@gmail.com if you know of any awesome exhibitors and devices at the Canton Fair that you think that I should video-blog! Do you have any suggestions for things to do in the Guangzhou Canton Fair area? The name of a really good/cheap hotel in that area? You can also call me to my Zopo ZP100 MT6575 Dual-sim phone:

Chinese number: +86 755 7969 2 (April 17-19th)
Hong Kong number: +852 9555 7482 (April 19-20th)

I’m not using 32GB class10 Patriot SDHC cards bought in Fry’s Electronics again, and I am going to look at upgrading to a newer camcorder with a function to record to 2 SDXC cards at the same time.

Trying to restore the video files very slowly (it seems to take over 12 hours per video) using GetDataBack for FAT (on Windows 7), I will try to follow the suggestions posted in the comments in this thread (thanks a lot for your suggestions for how I should proceed to try to recover these video files!) in the next few days to try to see if the video files can somehow be recovered. I’m hoping that the data is not physically damaged but that the SD card just has some kind of temporary file system corruption going on with it. This makes me want to upgrade to a more professional camcorder that can record to 2 SD cards simultaneously for redundancy.

Here you can see the resulting video trying to restore each video (a process that seems to take something like 12 hours per 400mb video file using GetDataBack for FAT):

This is terrible if I cannot find a way to recover these files, it’s a whole days worth of video-blogging that would be nearly unusable. I understand that an eventual physical damage of the SD card would be impossible to recover from. But I have thus far video-blogged about 30 videos from the HKTDC Electronics Fair (more to be video-blogged there tomorrow), over 30 videos have been filmed at the China Sourcing Fair and nearly 30 videos were filmed at the Shenzhen Electronics Fair.

Please let me know if you can recognize a possible bug in the way I am trying to recover the file looking at that file on YouTube or analysing it here as I’ve uploaded a copy of this original recovered video sample to Google Docs. (my airbnb appartment in Hong Kong seem to have more than 20mbitps upload connections on their free WiFi access points which is awesome to upload videos overnight. Even uploading HD videos over HSPA+ is fast enough to be done on the unlimited $78hkd 7-day SIM cards one2free and other Hong Kong 3G carriers offer).

Please let me know if you have a good idea for a way to recover the video files (I filmed about 20-30 videos today!) from a corrupted Patriot 32GB Class10 SD card. When I insert it to my PC it says that I have to format it before it can be used. I am worried to try to format it from Windows 7 or from my Sanyo HD1000 camcorder menu and restore the files after that.

I just paid $29 for http://www.wondershare.com/disk-utility/sd-card-recovery.html

“Photo Recovery 2012-04-14 at 16.47.02″ is now full with 106 m4a audio files, 9 Jpg (those work fine!), 135 3g2 video files, 124 3gp video files, 166 m4v video files, 124 mov video files, 166 mp4 video files. All of them taking up 149GB (my SD card is only 32GB!). How do I identify which of these files can be recovered?

My camera is a Sanyo HD1000 which records 720p 30fps mp4 files using the H264 format.

I’m now trying a scan 40-minute scan of the SD card using GetDataBack for FAT from http://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm (I don’t know if it also is some trialware thing).

It might have happened as the battery on the camera ran out while recording a video. Or it may be due to using a cheap 1rmb SD card adapter that I bought in Shenzhen onto the media-rooms secured Windows desktop. Or I may have shaken the camera around too much, or the Patriot cards (that I think I bought at Fry’s Electronics in Las Vegas about a year ago).

Thanks for your help if you know how to recover this card!