Intel Confirms That Android 3.0 Is Coming To x86 Tablets 152
timothy writes "Considering that x86 and ARM have been playing leapfrog in at least their future *promised* efficiencies, and that there are a ton of x86 tablets in the works, it's good to see cross-platform OS choices. The most popular Linux distro (Ubuntu) as well as several other conventional Linux options, Windows (even if so far confined to tech demos), and Android — interesting mix."
What about Meego? (Score:2, Interesting)
Meego is really dead, then.
Re:What about Meego? (Score:3, Interesting)
Intel still holds a full ARM license. They sold the XScale to Marvell, but retained a license. Why couldn't they build ARM again?
Re:What about Meego? (Score:4, Interesting)
That is a short-sighted perspective. There are some "real world" considerations to be think through.
Open Source, the way we know and love it today, is filled with projects that struggle with direction. GNOME, KDE and other extremely well known projects suffer from having too many people in charge. Meanwhile, commercial projects have the advantage of having stronger direction which is great from a perspective of getting a project planned, built and "completed."
(I know, I will catch hell even for talking about this but go ahead... say what you're gonna say.)
Google is attempting to keep the project as open as it can while still maintaining its direction. As has been said, Honeycomb was designed for a higher resolution display and offers functionality intended for a specific set of capabilities. So in addition to being an OS, it is also an "experience" that needs to be consistent and reliable. It WILL be released. Of that I am certain, but I believe Google is trying to maintain a strong direction element in the project so that this open source project will have the same advantages as Windows and Mac OS X.
And keep in mind that this tablet computing is a new format of computing. It is one in which Microsoft cannot successfully participate at this time. Therefore, this time is crucial for the development of this OS platform and for the tablet market in general. If ever there was a way to take Microsoft down, it is through a market in which they cannot compete and interfere. They can't do tablets and they can't do phones (tiny tablets).
I think Google is doing the right thing at the moment. But I guess time will tell.
Re:What about Meego? (Score:5, Interesting)
I guess it comes down to can intel beat a dual core 2 Ghz ARM?
Yes, easily. Can they beat them in the same power budget? Will the ARM do as much per clock cycle as the Intel? Those are better questions. ARM has a lot to learn about high performance chips. Intel has a lot to learn about low power chips. I wouldn't be so quick to wager ARM can learn Intel's tricks faster than Intel can learn ARM's tricks.
The Atom wasn't targeting ARM, it was more about choking AMD by creating a very low cost, low power chip that'd steal a lot of the "value" market from AMD with battery life AMD couldn't match. In that I would argue it was a success and has been a thorn in AMDs side until the Brazos platform launched this year. It is of course a stepping stone on the way to competing with ARM, but it's hardly the best Intel can do.