As a German company defends the "Smartbook" trademark, its actions underscore what happens when companies gratuitously heap new category monikers on top of existing--and perfectly adequate--naming schemes.
Smartbook's Heaven Puro is, in fact, a Netbook.
(Credit: Smartbook)Question: what do Netbooks and smartbooks have in common? Besides looking pretty much the same to consumers (small, lightweight clamshell laptops), both terms have been the object of legal wrangling by companies claiming trademark infringement.
First, the term Netbook came under attack from Psion Teklogix. That dispute with Intel was settled in June. Now Germany-based Smartbook is claiming that Qualcomm's use of the term smartbook infringes on the eponymous company's trademark. "Smartbook AG sets a high value on its protected trademarks, which are being used as company symbols and product marks for years," the company said in a statement sent to CNET.
The San Diego, Calif.-based cell phone chip giant had this to say in response: "Qualcomm is surprised by the claims being made by Smartbook AG...given that Qualcomm does not claim, and has never claimed, to own the term 'smartbook,' which it believes is a descriptive and generic term. The term is used by a number of companies, consumers, and industry commentators to describe a class of devices that combine attributes of smartphones and Netbooks that will be enabled by various technology companies, including Qualcomm."
Qualcomm has been promoting smartbooks for months on its Web site, and Freescale Semiconductor has been doing the same, though on a smaller scale. Both companies make, in effect, the silicon engines that power these devices.
And Qualcomm is now starting to crank up its promotion of the smartbook, as Lenovo prepares to roll out one of the first smartbooks at the Consumer Electronics Show in January.
So the question arises: why call them smartbooks at all? Qualcomm believes that the devices it is promoting are different enough--as described above--from Netbooks that the moniker is warranted. But the reality is that by the time smartbooks hit the market in force (if they indeed do), there will be little really to set them apart from Netbooks.
For proof, look no further than the local Verizon or AT&T store. Verizon now carries Windows-Intel-based Netbooks from Hewlett-Packard with 3G modems built in. The sales pitch: connect to the Internet anywhere at 3G speeds--similar to what Qualcomm is preaching for smartbooks. Yes, smartbooks will have a different operating system (Android/Linux), but to consumers, this won't mean that they are different. At a Verizon store, it's just another Netbook.
And the Smartbook case is a microcosm of this whole problem. The German company offers a line of laptops that, in the United States, are called Netbooks. The systems promoted on its Web site offer the usual fare of Intel Atom processors and Windows software--except that the company calls them Smartbooks.
Confused? Well, the confusion may go away on its own when everyone just keeps it simple, calling a spade a spade: a Netbook is a Netbook is a Netbook.
The "smartbook" aspires to put the smartphone into the laptop. Will it be able to elevate an Apple iPhone or Motorola Droid-like experience to a larger device, or is it just more marketing mumbo-jumbo?
Two companies are hoping that the smartbook will turn out to be more than just another quickly-forgotten device sales pitch. Qualcomm and Freescale, which are both supplying key silicon technology for the devices, are pushing to make smartbooks different enough from laptops--and Netbooks--that consumers will take notice.
Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs holds the Lenovo smartbook, which will appear at CES in January.
(Credit: Qualcomm)The first tangible evidence of smartbooks to come will be seen at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, where Lenovo, among others, is expected to show, if not roll out, smartbook designs.
One pesky question won't go away, however. Why go out of the way to call it a smartbook? Doesn't Netbook suffice? (And it can potentially be very confusing for consumers since both terms have "book" in them.) On one level, the nomenclature choice is simply to counter the Microsoft-Intel Netbook juggernaut: Another Netbook among dozens already on the market won't draw much attention.
But at a deeper level, the two companies are trying to make the smartbook substantively different from a Netbook. Qualcomm sees it, in essence, as a large smartphone, which leaves the outdated Windows desktop experience in the dust. "A Netbook in our view is just a cheap laptop that runs Windows. We see the smartbook cannibalizing the Netbook. ... Read more
Lenovo smartbook: Smaller than a Netbook, or a smartphone in a different body?
(Credit: techtickerblog.com)Remember how we said new Netbooks were coming for CES? We might as well expand that statement to include smartbooks. The new terminology, coined to describe laptop-style devices running sub-Atom processors (Snapdragon from Qualcomm being one of them), is rapidly gaining in fashion lately, especially in relation to cell phone carriers. Packaging these types of extremely small and cheap smart devices in with cellular data plans seems like a match made in gadget heaven.
We've seen prototype smartbooks from Nvidia featuring the Tegra processor (the same that's in the Zune HD), but the Lenovo smartbook unveiled ever-so-briefly at a Qualcomm event Thursday is new and intriguing, and is the first smartbook to feature Qualcomm's Snapdragon. Reports say that it runs a variation of a Linux OS (Windows 7 stops at Netbooks) and has an HD-supporting screen, although it's not clear whether HD video can actually be played.
On Tegra smartbooks, we know that the answer to that question is yes, since the Zune HD can easily handle HD video. Our other question--one we've asked before--is: if this essentially has a smartphone processor in a laptop's body, would you simply prefer a smartphone instead? The picture's fuzzy, but which would you want most, a smartbook, Netbook, or smartphone?
More details should be forthcoming at CES, which is only two months away.
(Via Liliputing)
Qualcomm will offer its FLO TV on a handheld television, putting this existing service on a dedicated device for the first time.
Qualcomm's FLO TV Personal Television
(Credit: Qualcomm)FLO TV, the Qualcomm-owned provider of a live mobile TV service, unveiled the FLO TV Personal Television on Tuesday, with availability slated for holiday season at retailers.
FLO, or "forward link only" technology, is designed for multicasting a large volume of rich multimedia content cost effectively to wireless subscribers. AT&T and Verizon already offer FLO TV on mobile phones in the U.S.
Qualcomm says the FLO TV Personal Television is "created with the single focus of delivering high-quality TV." The device receives live and time-shifted content with no buffering, downloading or waiting to view content, according to Qualcomm.
Content includes CNBC, Comedy Central, ESPN, ESPNews, Fox, Fox News, Fox Sports, MSNBC, MTV, NBC2Go, NBC, NBC News, NBC Sports, Nickelodeon, CBS, CBS College Sports, and CBS News. (Editors' note: CBS College Sports and CBS News are offerings of CBS, which is also the parent company of CNET News.)
Though handheld TV is still somewhat of an unknown quantity, viewership--like that of more traditional big-screen TV-- tends to spike during major national events, according to Qualcomm. Its service saw a surge in viewers, for example, during March Madness--the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship.
Qualcomm cited market research from TeleAnalytics that projects a broadcast mobile TV market of $2.8 billion and 50 million users in North American by 2013.
FLO TV Personal Television subscription service starts at $8.99 per month and the device will sell for $249.99. Specifications include a 3.5-inch diagonal screen and weight of of just over 5 ounces. Its battery supports more than 5 hours of active FLO TV viewing or 300 hours standby.
The television uses a capacitive touch-screen allowing channel surfing with a finger swipe. It also includes a built-in stand and stereo speakers.
The 1GHz smartphone has arrived. A Japanese telecommunications carrier is the first to launch a device based on Qualcomm's much-anticipated Snapdragon processor.
The Toshiba-Docomo T-01A uses Qualcomm's 1GHz Snapdragon chip.
(Credit: Docomo)Docomo is now offering the T-01A in Japan, while Microsoft is pitching the phone on its Japanese Web site.
This would mark the first commercially available product using the Snapdragon chip, a Qualcomm spokeswoman confirmed Monday. The chip's claim to fame is that it's an ARM design running at 1GHz. Typical ARM architecture chips used in mobile phones, such as the iPhone 3G S, peak at about 600MHz.
A legion of other chip suppliers offer ARM-based chips for mobile devices, including Texas Instruments, Freescale Semiconductor, Samsung, Nvidia, STMicroelectronics, and Broadcom.
The Toshiba-Docomo T-01A--which will be offered outside of Japan as the TG01--runs Windows Mobile 6.1 and is designed to take on the iPhone. Only 9.9mm thick, it uses a 4.1-inch WVGA 800x480 384k pixel resistive touch screen and comes with support for 3G HSPA, Wi-Fi, GPS and assisted-GPS.
The TG01 is also slated to be available in Europe this summer.
The Qualcomm Snapdragon silicon supports high-definition (720p) video decode, 3D graphics (up to 22M triangles/sec), XGA display support, a 12-megapixel camera, and mobile broadcast TV.
Qualcomm has been talking up the Snapdragon (aka QSD8250) since November 2007, when the company announced initial sample shipments of the chipset.
And Qualcomm won't stop at 1GHz. The San Diego-based company has demonstrated Netbooks running a 1.3GHz Snapdragon processor and will eventually push the chip to 1.5GHz.
The future Qualcomm QSD8672 will be a dual-core Snapdragon that features two CPU computing cores and will include HSPA+, up to 28Mbps download speeds, 1080p high-definition video, Wi-Fi, mobile TV, and GPS. The graphics core is based on Advanced Micro Devices' ATI unit's technology.
Pricing is not immediately available.
(Via Engadget)
Smartbooks: a different beast than Netbooks? (conceptual design from Freescale)
(Credit: Freescale Semiconductor)While many eyes are on E3, Taiwan's Computex conference is more quietly generating some interesting news on the future of Netbooks and laptops that will eventually make their way stateside. For a peek into the crystal ball of mobile computing, let's take a look at what's been announced in Taipei, Taiwan, this week.
Mobile-phone-based Netbooks are growing: "Smartbooks," as they're being called by companies like Qualcomm, seem to be this year's Netbook. It's mostly a naming convention shift: ARM processors based on smartphone chips, like Qualcomm's Snapdragon, were demoed on Asus Eee PC Netbooks--running Android, no less. While Snapdragon competitor Freescale Semiconductor, who makes an ARM-based iMX515 processor, predicts hybrid Smartbooks that will look like tablets, others see them being even more portable Netbooks.
Regardless of the processor, companies are finally announcing the release of honest-to-goodness Android Netbooks, running a laptop-based version of the Google-created smartphone OS, later this year. Acer took the leap by confirming their release of Android Netbooks by the third quarter of this year, suddenly accelerating the "Android on Netbooks" argument we've been having on CNET. Is Android really a better OS solution? The point may be moot for laptop manufacturers such as Acer who are also entering the smartphone space, and are mostly likely interested in targeting Google for an across-the-board mobile OS option on their future devices. According to Acer, "a majority" of their Netbooks will run Android as an alternative to Windows. ... Read more
An Eee PC Netbook based on a Qualcomm processor that runs Google's Android operating system looks promising as an alternative to the millions of Netbooks out there tethered to Intel Atom processors and Microsoft Windows.
An Asus Qualcomm-based smart-book is a promising alternative to Windows-Intel Netbooks
(Credit: Asus)Asus was showing a Netbook at the Computex conference in Taipei running the Android OS on top of Qualcomm's Snapdragon processor, according to this TweakTown video.
When Asus plans to ship a Netbook based on Qualcomm's Snapdragon processor isn't clear and Asus is not disclosing its plans (later this year?), but it becomes even less clear when you add Google's Android operating system to the mix. Michael Rayfield, an Nvidia executive, doesn't expect Android Netbooks to appear commercially until next year.
What is clear, however, is that these Netbooks are different from the Windows-Intel variety. Qualcomm is calling them "smartbooks" rather than Netbooks to draw attention to the fact that they will operate more like smartphones: standard 3G connectivity, always-on, and all-day battery life.
And what makes this Asus demonstration at Computex interesting is that all Asus Netbooks to date have run on Intel processors. Obviously, Asus thinks the Snapdragon technology is different enough to warrant a separate design.
Other specification for the Netbook include a 10-inch screen, a built-in Webcam, and a universal 3G radio that supports UMTS and CDMA networks on all frequencies used globally, according to an IDG News report.
The G-Core is a GPS gadget for golfers that uses the daylight-readable Mirasol technology.
(Credit: Rafe Needleman / CNET)PALM DESERT, Calif.--Qualcomm's MEMS Technologies group at Demo 09 is showing off its evolving Mirasol display technology, which is based on micro-mechanical control of a reflective material (for a real explanation, see the Mirasol site).
The pitch is that Mirasol displays take much less power than standard backlit LCDs, and are also readable in daylight. At the moment, screens on the s Mirasol-based devices look like black-and-white watch LCDs. Yes, they're visible in sunlight, but they're not very interesting. Qualcomm says faster refresh is coming, allowing video, as well as color displays.
Mirasol displays are "bi-stable," which means they retain their image with the power off. Readers may thus be forgiven for thinking Mirasol displays are a form of electronic ink, of the type found in e-book readers like the Kindle. But Qualcomm takes pains to say that the color and refresh capabilities of the technology have yet to be fully revealed, and will blow past e-ink in those areas.
Qualcomm has Snapdragon. Intel has Atom and Moorestown. Which of these chips is (will be) a more viable, compelling chip for the fit-in-your-pocket device and ultralight computer market? I'll let the reader decide.
Qualcomm's Snapdragon is a highly integrated chip that is shipping now. Products are due in Q1 2009.
(Credit: Qualcomm)All of these chips are targeted at mobile Internet devices, like the Apple iPhone, and ultralight (less than 3 pounds) notebooks, like the Asus Eee PC. Two (Snapdragon and Moorestown) are aimed at high-end smartphones.
Here's a very quick overview of the silicon. You decide which seem more compelling.
Atom is here now. For Intel, it is a very-low-power chip (but not considered low-power in the cell phone world), boasting a thermal envelope of about two watts, compared to 35 watts for a typical Intel Core 2 chip for laptops.
Atom, however, is not highly integrated. Graphics, audio, memory controller, and communications silicon are all on a separate chipset.
Importantly, Atom runs the same software and Web applications as any other x86 architecture Intel chip in a typical PC. This is a big selling point for Atom (or any Intel chip for that matter), according to Intel.
But Atom isn't fast. High-end Atom processors (1.6GHz) benchmark more or less on par with a low-end Celeron processor. (Celeron is Intel's low-end line of processors.) And Intel is on the record saying that Atom is similar in performance to circa 2003-2004 Pentium mobile chips.
Less is known about Intel's Moorestown (see graphic below), due in 2009 or 2010. This much is known: it will integrate additional logic, bringing it more in line with silicon designs in the smartphone market--at which Moorestown is targeted. For example, the SOC (system-on-a-chip) will integrate components like the memory controller and graphics, boosting communication speeds between these crucial devices. And, like Atom, it will run all the popular software on PCs today.
Enter Qualcomm and Snapdragon (aka Qualcomm QSD8250 and QSD8650), which is targeted at high-end smartphones and mobile Internet devices.
The key difference between Snapdragon and Atom (Intel's only well-documented processor for ultrasmall devices) is power and integration. Qualcomm--because of its background in the cell phone market where integration and low-power are the name of the game--has packed a lot of features onto one piece of silicon that is short on power consumption and long on battery life. By comparison, delivering integration and long battery life in a tiny device are not things Intel has focused on in the past.
(Qualcomm has been involved in the market for cell phone silicon since the early 1990s. Intel isn't even a player yet.)
Another salient point: Qualcomm isn't licensing the technology from ARM in the traditional sense. The company has licensed the instruction set only and then built its own processor, allowing it to boost the clock speed to 1GHz and beyond while keeping the power low. Snapdragon, however, is not a speed demon. It will offer relatively good performance within the targeted power envelope.
Key features: Snapdragon operates below 0.5 watts, is based on the newest ARM v7 instruction set, runs as fast as 1GHz, and integrates almost everything including the processor, GPS, an ATI graphics core, multimedia (digital signal processor), and 3G modem, all on one 15mm X 15mm piece of silicon (see graphic).
Qualcomm is claiming cell phone-like battery life.
The San Diego-based company is shipping Snapdragon to customers who will ship products in the first quarter of 2009. HTC and Samsung have announced that they will bring out products based on Snapdragon.
Moorestown silicon due in 2009-2010 is the closest thing Intel has to Qualcomm's Snapdragon
(Credit: Intel)
(Credit:
Crave Asia)
Qualcomm has introduced a mini-notebook made by Taiwan-based Inventec that costs around $299 and is equipped with 3G connectivity, according to IDG News Service.
Unlike the ASUS Eee PC, which comes in both Linux and Windows XP operating systems, Qualcomm's mini-notebook will initially run on Linux, though the company is also looking at using Windows Mobile 7 with its Snapdragon chipsets.
All these are still on the drawing board, but "similar products could be out by the end of this year," said Luis Pineda, senior vice president at Qualcomm. The company hopes to make a big bang with Snapdragon-based devices at next year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
(Source: Crave Asia)
