Crave

It's been a big week for small systems.

On May 29, VIA formally announced (here) its "Nano" family of low-power x86 processors. These chips will be especially valuable in small laptops, UMPCs, and so-called mobile Internet devices (MIDs).

Then on June 2, NVIDIA announced (here) its Tegra 600 family, which is also being marketed for MIDs. But Tegra is a very different animal. It's based on an ARM11 processor core, which can run Windows Mobile or Linux but not Windows XP or Vista.

VIA's Nano processor. The chip itself, the silver rectangle in the center, is about 7.7mm x 8.3mm.

(Credit: Courtesy of VIA Technologies, Inc.)

VIA's Nano processors are based on a new microarchitecture that is a giant step beyond previous VIA products and not far behind that of competing parts from AMD and Intel. Unfortunately, in this business, third place isn't a good place to be. VIA's older processors sold in relatively small quantities for low prices. Fortunately, they were very small and thus economical to make and sell.

The new Nano family offers much higher performance, with clock speeds from 1.0 to 1.8 GHz... but it's difficult to know what these clock speeds mean by comparison with AMD's or Intel's, and VIA isn't telling us, at least not directly. In this white paper on the Nano family, VIA only compares the performance of the new chips to its older C7 series.

But VIA does publish some numbers, so I was able to make some comparisons.

Take, for example, the Nano L2100 at 1.8 GHz vs. AMD's 2005-vintage Turion 64 ML-34 at the same speed, as found in the famous Acer Ferrari 4000 (reviewed here by PC World). The single-core ML-34 was much faster despite the clock-speed parity:

Of course, the ML-34 consumes much more power than VIA's processor; the ML-34 has a 35W TDP (thermal design power) specification, whereas the L2100 has a 25W TDP. The L2100 idles at a mere 500mW, but the ML-34 probably consumes at least ten times as much when idle.

To be fair, I'm not sure these are entirely fair comparisons, since VIA didn't publish the details of their system configuration. Also, VIA's performance position probably looks better on simple productivity applications, but I prefer to look at multimedia performance since that's what we usually find ourselves waiting on. It's been a while since we had to worry about out-typing our word processor...

I'm looking forward to seeing some good performance and power figures for Intel's Atom; I think the VIA chips will turn out to be effectively faster but run a little hotter. When I get more data, I'll post a comparison.

But considering that the Nano is generally 60% to 200% faster than the C7 and much more power-efficient than competing products from AMD and Intel, the new product family will likely improve VIA's market position significantly over the next year.

NVIDIA's Tegra, a high-integration processor for handheld gizmos such as mobile Internet devices.

(Credit: Courtesy NVIDIA Corporation)

NVIDIA's Tegra, on the other hand, offers no compatibility with existing PC systems or software, and its performance isn't even in the same class. The Tegra 600 family's ARM11 processor core runs at a maximum speed of 800MHz and, because it's a much simpler design, it offers a fraction of the effective performance of VIA's Nano.

So how can it possibly compete with Nano in mobile Internet devices?

Well, one answer is that Tegra is meant to deliver a much more complete solution with much lower power consumption. Instead of being just a core on a chip, like the Nano family, the Tegra 600 and 650 consist of a CPU core, a GeForce GPU, special-purpose hardware for accelerating digital video decoding and camera functions, and a dual-display controller that supports HDMI, LCDs, CRTs, and NTSC/PAL video. All of that on a chip the size of a dime, as you can see in the photo.

But the real answer is that what NVIDIA means by "mobile Internet devices" is different than what Intel (which coined the phrase), AMD, and VIA mean by it.

What NVIDIA means is basically any device with a size somewhere between that of a smartphone and a laptop, which can be used to access the Internet. But this doesn't strike me as a very useful definition; it boils down to encompassing anything like a smartphone with a larger screen. It's one thing to claim the Tegra 600 family supports a "full Internet experience" as NVIDIA did in advance briefings last month, but with the wide variety of sophisticated Web 2.0 websites out there, it really takes a PC-compatible system to deliver that experience.

Now, there's no doubt that the Tegra 600 and 650 will enable fun and interesting gizmos for people who buy lots of gizmos. (And honestly, I'm exactly that kind of person.) But I believe most people are not going to be interested in them. Anything larger than a cellphone is too big to carry around all the time. Anything with a screen smaller than about 7" to 9" isn't big enough for comfortable web browsing and movie watching. Anything with a screen that large might as well be a full Windows-compatible system.

Now, over time, these segments will inevitably blur together. Moore's Law will let us squeeze more performance into handheld devices. Software technologies like Adobe's Flash and Microsoft's Silverlight will allow more websites to work on simpler systems. Hardware like high-resolution LCDs and OLEDs and tiny projection displays will help solve size problems too.

But for now, I believe the Tegra 600 family is aimed at a market segment that isn't ready to develop, whereas VIA's Nano has a big market ready and waiting for it. The Nano won't sell as well as competing PC processors from AMD and Intel, but it should help raise awareness of VIA among PC buyers and encourage PC makers to keep pushing more functionality into smaller packages.

This post was updated at 10:15 a.m. PDT to correct the spelling on Anup Murarka's name.

Even though it has plans to release a competing technology, Microsoft has agreed to license Adobe's Flash Lite technology for its Windows Mobile operating system and browser.

The two companies early on Monday announced that Microsoft has signed a license to use Flash Lite and Reader LE in future Windows Mobile handsets as plug-ins for Internet Explorer Mobile. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, such as what the companies plan to do when Microsoft releases Silverlight for Mobile, a competing technology.

Flash Lite is a stripped-down version of the ubiquitous Flash video player that allows mobile handsets to view Web sites created with the Flash technology. Think of Flash Lite as a slightly older version of Flash; the most current version of Flash Lite can't properly display Web sites created with the newest version of Flash, Flash 9, but it works with sites created using older versions of the technology.

As smartphones become more and more common, people are starting to get fed up with the basic Web surfing experience offered by many phones. They want something that looks more like a PC experience, with rich graphics and video. But that's hard to duplicate on a device with a smaller screen, less memory, a slower processor, and battery life requirements.

Enter Flash Lite. "Past technologies have failed trying to get into mobile by cramming a desktop experience into a mobile device," said Anup Murarka, director of technical marketing for mobile and devices at Adobe. "The technology has to bend to the use cases, rather than the use cases bending to the technology."

Microsoft's Derek Snyder agreed. "One of the hallmark experiences on any smartphone is the Web browsing experience," said Snyder, a product manager with Microsoft's mobile-communications business. Strengthening that experience, as well as adding support for PDF documents through the Reader LE license, was the motivation for Microsoft to make the deal, he said.

Flash Lite has several limitations compared with regular Flash, beyond the inability to support much of Flash 9. Apple CEO Steve Jobs rather emphatically declared his disdain for Flash Lite at Apple's annual shareholder meeting, saying Flash Lite was "not capable of being used with the Web." Murarka declined to comment specifically on Jobs' put-down, but noted that Flash Lite ships on 500 million mobile devices.

He did acknowledge that developers using Adobe's Flex tools can't build Flash Lite Web pages, although the newer CS3 suite of tools does support Flash Lite.

But one huge advantage of Flash Lite is that it's currently available for mobile devices. Microsoft's Silverlight for Mobile is not.

Silverlight is Microsoft's attempt to rein in on Adobe's position in the Web development market with Flash. Microsoft is fighting an uphill battle, though, in trying to get Web developers to build sites using its technology as opposed to Adobe's.

Earlier this month Microsoft said it wouldn't have a mobile version of Silverlight out until later this year. A technical preview is expected to arrive in the second quarter, but no other details have been released. Snyder declined to elaborate on the time frame for a production version of Silverlight for Mobile.

With Microsoft's Windows Mobile team now having to meet a surge in demand for Web-friendly mobile phones, led by the iPhone, licensing Flash Lite makes sense as a "for now" solution, at least until the company's own dog food is ready. The iPhone has been able to capture mobile Web surfers without any support for Flash technologies, something that other mobile devices running IE Mobile or Opera's mobile browser will likely try to exploit later this year.

Eventually, Microsoft expects to support both Flash Lite and Silverlight on its Windows Mobile handsets. "Flash is, for a lot of people, something they've already invested in," Snyder said. Having support for the incumbent while it tries to get Web developers on the Silverlight team makes sense; "it's good to have both," he said.

Microsoft's Silverlight browser plug-in will be bringing videos and other rich media to Nokia smartphones later this year.

The two companies on Tuesday at Microsoft's Mix '08 conference are scheduled to announce that Microsoft will write a version of Silverlight for Nokia's Series 60 (S60) smartphone software that runs on Symbian OS. The software, which will be available later this year, will also run on Series 40 devices and Nokia Internet tablets.

Silverlight videos are coming to Nokia's N96 smartphone.

(Credit: Nokia)

For people with compatible devices, it means they will be able to see content, notably video, written for Silverlight, which Microsoft is pushing as an alternative to Adobe's Flash Player. Microsoft has been signing on content partners to use Silverlight for media streaming, including MLB.com and online Olympic games broadcasting with NBC.

For Microsoft, the deal with Nokia is a step in its pledge to make Silverlight "ubiquitous," that is, capable of running on multiple operating systems.

The software giant is trying to lure Web developers toward Silverlight--and away from Flash--to build rich Internet applications or media-oriented Web sites.

The strategy, which Microsoft detailed at last year's Mix conference, hinges on creating tools that let traditional Microsoft developers write Silverlight Web applications with familiar products like Visual Studio and ASP.Net.

Silverlight now runs on Windows and Mac OS, and it has a deal with Novell to build a distribution on Linux.

A version of Silverlight for Windows Mobile will be available later this year, said John Case, a general manager in Microsoft's developer division. "The whole Silverlight strategy is to provide one programming model and ubiquity," he said.

Microsoft chose to work with Nokia because it has the largest market share of mobile phones, but it will sign on with other handset makers to create ports of Silverlight, Case said.

All the main features of Silverlight, including video and interactive Web application development, will be included in all mobile versions.

But there will be some device-specific restraints, which means Microsoft will create editions of Silverlight for different mobile platforms, he said.

SAN FRANCISCO--One area where Sun Microsystems' Java caught on was in mobile phones, but a leader of the project is working to eventually replace the mobile-specific version of the software.

Sun Vice President James Gosling speaks in May at the JavaOne conference in San Francisco.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET News.com)

Java Standard Edition (SE), geared for desktop computers, will gradually supplant Java Micro Edition (ME) as technology improvements let more computing power be packed into smaller devices, said James Gosling, the Sun vice president often called the father of Java.

"We're trying to converge everything to the Java SE specification. Cell phones and TV set-top boxes are growing up," Gosling said at a Java media event here Wednesday. "That convergence is going to take years."

The prime example of the trend is Sun's own JavaFX Mobile, software Sun got through its SavaJe acquisition and which the company hopes mobile phone makers will embrace. JavaFX Mobile includes almost all of Java SE, though it's missing a few pieces such as CORBA (brace yourself: Common Object Request Broker Architecture) for getting software to work with other programs across a network.

Sun's Java expectation dovetails with recent trends, most notably Apple's iPhone, which architecturally is much more an Apple computer writ small than a mobile phone writ large. In particular, Apple uses a version of its regular Safari Web browser so users will have as much of the desktop Internet experience as possible.

At the same time, Intel is working to bring x86 processors that run PCs into mobile gadgets. It's in cohoots with open-source efforts including Ubuntu Mobile and Mobile Firefox .

The move to Java SE won't happen overnight. Rich Green, Sun's executive vide president of software, said he expects smart phones using various pared-down versions of Java to stay in the market for at least a decade.

But the shift already was under way. "All the work in Java ME had been pushing it closer and closer to Java SE," Gosling said.

Defragmenting mobile Java
Moving to Java SE could help fix one nagging problem with Java ME: fragmentation.

Java ME is a collection of abilities--basic ones and higher-level options layered on top--each defined by a detailed description called a Java specification request. For Java ME, there are a large number of these JSRs for various features. That posed a challenge to Java's original tagline, "write once, run anywhere."

The tagline came about because a program written in Java could in principle run on any computer that had a Java virtual machine. The JVM is a software foundation that lets a generic Java program run on a particular computer. But with the multiplicity of Java ME extensions, there was often little guarantee that a program written for one mobile phone would work on another.

Java SE has a much richer basic set of abilities, so using it instead of Java ME could at least in principle restore some of Java's promise of software portability.

JavaFX mobile is one component of a multipronged effort called JavaFX that Sun announced in May at its JavaOne conference.

"JavaFX is probably the largest and most complex software engineering effort Sun has ever done," Gosling said. Here's a quick tour of the JavaFX components:

Tour de Java FX jargon
Unless you're a serious Java nerd, and maybe even if you are, Sun's latest nomenclature is a crazy hodge-podge of terms. Java SE--OK, that's been around for nearly a decade, we can handle it. Though there was some numbering madness a few years ago, Sun seems to have settled on the current version being Java SE 6. But let's work outward from there.

First comes Java 6 Update N, formerly called the Consumer Java Runtime Environment (JRE). This is an attempt to make Java SE easier on the average computer user, chiefly through improvements to the plug-in that Web browsers use to deal with Web pages using Java.

Among the Update N features: It preloads Java when the computer boots to avoid the excruciating delay when you encounter a Java Web page. It installs faster by loading only a bare-minimum kernel--typically less than 4MB--that gets things started and then updates itself with the full 12MB Java software collection. It takes advantage of Windows' Direct3D graphics abilities. And it includes a more graphically modern user interface that gives a unified look across multiple operating system.

Update N should go into beta testing in December and be available a few months later, said Chet Haase, Sun's Java SE client architect.

Atop Update N comes JavaFX Script. This is a new scripting language geared specifically for fancy user interface actions such as transparency and other effects that are difficult with the prevailing Web browser scripting language, JavaScript (which contrary to what its name may imply isn't based on Java). JavaFX Script is geared toward use more by design types than engineers, Gosling said.

Of course, you can't have a script without something to understand it. Thus there's JavaFX compiler to translate people's code into instructions the computer can execute.

Last is the aforementioned Java FX Mobile. This software is in part a reaction to gripes by Java ME developers who wanted a more unified foundation, Gosling said. Another difference compared to Java ME is that Sun will deliver it as a prewritten binary program; Java ME typically comes as source code that programmers must compile into something useful.

Potshots at the competition
Gosling and Java have been at the vanguard of an idea that in a way is just coming back into vogue: rich Internet applications, which is software that runs in a Web browser but comes with a lot more pizzazz and capability than bland Web pages.

Java caught on as a way to run server software and to run games on mobile phones, but one original promise of Java was turning a Web browser into a foundation for sophisticated software. (If you're having flashbacks to Netscape taking on Microsoft Windows and the resulting federal antitrust case, just breathe deeply for a moment to settle down.)

But much of the rich Internet application action is happening with software such as Ajax, the Adobe Integrated Runtime (nee Apollo) and Microsoft's Silverlight and Google Gears.

Gosling thinks JavaFX has a chance, too, though, listing several advantages he believes it has: a richer user interface, faster performance, a robust and well accepted language and better abilities when a computer is disconnected from a network.

And security, he adds. Adobe's AIR is designed to let programs work like regular PC software, but Gosling thinks the approach unwise. "It's a petri dish for viruses. Security is really hard to implement well."

Baseball fans will want to keep an eye on this promise. Microsoft's Silverlight could be used to bring live Major League Baseball to your mobile phone. The MLB folks were on stage at MIX in Las Vegas, showing off the next generation of baseball video services. Their capper was a live game on a Windows-enabled cell phone. We've embedded MLB's presentation to the left.

Related:
This is Netflix on Silverlight
Live at Mix '07: Ray Ozzie