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Could Intel's new Moblin 2.1 OS make a dent against Windows in the mobile and desktop markets?

At this week's Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, the chipmaker debuted a beta version of its Moblin 2.1 open-source operating system targeted to run on a variety of devices, including smartphones, Netbooks, nettops, Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs), and in-car systems.

Moblin 2.1 will compete with other open-source operating systems like Google's Android and bump up against Microsoft in the burgeoning nettop arena.

Originally developed for Netbooks, Moblin 2.1 (short for mobile Linux) will come in three flavors--one for handhelds, another for Netbooks, and a third for nettops.

In the market for handheld gadgets such as smartphones and MIDs, Moblin 2.1 will run on Atom chip-based devices. The beta demoed by Intel at IDF showed off capabilities for touch-screen and gesture input. The new interface will also let users switch among different open applications and will provide shortcuts to social-networking apps.

The Moblin 2.1 Web browser will also support Flash and Microsoft's Silverlight 3 technology to run interactive Web-based apps.

Dell is developing a pocket-size Internet device using Google's Android operating system that could take on Apple's iPod Touch, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal on Monday.

Two people who have seen early prototypes of the device told the newspaper it looks like Apple's iPod Touch but slightly larger. And like the iPod Touch, the device isn't expected to include a cellular phone. The device is considered part of a new category of gadgets called mobile Internet devices, or MIDs, which are designed to fit into the market between a mobile phone and a laptop or Netbook computer.

The device could go on sale as early as the second half of 2009, according to the Wall Street Journal's sources.

Dell supposedly started working on the new device about a year ago as a way to compete against Apple's iPod business. The Journal also cited an unnamed source who said that Dell has considered selling the new Internet device through a cell phone carrier. Dell and other computer makers such as Hewlett-Packard already sell their Netbooks through cell phone operators.

Dell has long been rumored to be making a smartphone. And the company has also been rumored to be testing the Android software for its smartphone and possible for its Netbooks. With these developments in the works, it probably wouldn't take much to also develop a portable Internet device using the same operating system without the phone. That's what Apple did with the iPod Touch.

With so much attention paid to Netbooks lately, the MID category has been largely ignored as a portable device that basically exists for accessing the Internet. But not by Acer, which looks to be readying a device for the category.

Drawing of a potential mobile Internet device from Acer.

(Credit: US PTO)

An application filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office shows a small, rectangular device whose front is taken up entirely by screen except for a thin bezel. Besides what appears to be a 3.5-millimeter headphone jack and dock connector for PCs, there's not much else in the way of distinguishing features revealed in the drawing.

It's designed by one Arif Maskatia on behalf of Acer, and the file date was more than a year ago, although the application just recently started gathering attention on tech blogs.

Mobile Internet devices are basically expensive oversized smartphones. They haven't sold all that well because of their "in-betweenness," but things have changed in the past few years. With the increasing ubiquity of touch interfaces and the ability to accomplish more productivity tasks directly in a Web browser, perhaps MIDs could make a push for broader popularity.

Acer proved to be a beast when it comes to selling lots of Netbooks (outselling even global PC leader Hewlett-Packard in Europe) on the strength of aggressive pricing and the option of bundling wireless broadband service. Could it do the same with an MID? Perhaps, but first it would have to actually make the thing. Right now, there's no word on when or if this is going to be available.

Nvidia is doubling down on its budding processor business for the next generation of mobile computers.

This week at Computex, Nvidia plans to show off its new Tegra brand for mobile application processors. Earlier this year, the company unveiled its first processor for smartphones, the APX 2500. It's now adding two processors to its Tegra brand, with plans to target the emerging Mobile Internet Device category, according to Mike Rayfield, general manager of the company's mobile business.

Nvidia is best known for its graphics processors, of course, but has been taking steps toward a mobile future since its purchase of PortalPlayer in 2006. The company is a member of the ARM universe, with an ARM11 processor core at the heart of the Tegra processors.

The ARM community, companies like Texas Instruments, Samsung, and Marvell, dominates the market for smartphone processors. But they are formulating plans for challenging Intel in the MID category, which by Nvidia's reckoning is loosely defined as everything from a 4-inch minitablet to a subnotebook like the Eee PC.

Intel has huge plans for this market with its Atom lineup of processors, but Nvidia thinks it can carve out a niche by promoting the power consumption of its Tegra processors, Rayfield said. Nvidia says the Tegra 600 series processors won't consume more than a watt of power running at either 600MHz or 800MHz, while Atom is capable of exceeding that limit.

The difference, according to Rayfield, is that Nvidia's design spreads the work out over several different hardware accelerators, rather than just one main processor like Atom. Texas Instruments made a similar argument earlier this year regarding its ability to move up from smartphones into more powerful computers.

The company plans to demostrate this Tegra development platform at Computex.

(Credit: Nvidia)

One interesting part of Nvidia's strategy, however, is that the company's products are designed to work exclusively with Microsoft's Windows Mobile software. Unlike the PC world, there are several operating system options for mobile computers, and that number will continue to grow with the release of Google's Android and Palm's Nova over the next year and a half.

Rayfield acknowledges that Windows Mobile users of the past haven't had the best experience with their smartphones, but thinks that the most recent version of the operating system, and the forthcoming Windows Mobile 7, give device makers much more freedom to put catchy user interfaces on top of Windows Mobile. Microsoft's software also gives Nvidia's customers a fast route to the marketplace at an affordable price, he said.

Rayfield expects devices using the Tegra processors to arrive by the fourth-quarter holiday season. Nvidia has created its own reference design for a MID using the chips that it will show off at Computex this week.

1999 Psion Revo Plus PDA looks a lot like MIDs today.

(Credit: Miha Ulanov)

The iPhone is a mobile Internet device. Just in case you forgot, ARM wants to remind you that before the Intel Atom processor there was the iPhone and its handful of ARM processors. Yeah, it's a MID too.

Listening to Intel, a casual observer might believe that the world's largest chipmaker is single-handedly creating the class of tiny devices called mobile Internet devices or MIDs.

But ARM processors have been powering small, low-power devices since 1985. There was the Psion series of handhelds, the Apple Newton, Nintendo DS, and, today, products like the Microsoft Zune. All used or use ARM architecture chips.

On a Web page titled Mobile Internet Devices, ARM now posts this marketing message: "It is clear that the future of mobile computing rests in devices that are truly mobile, always connected and providing a rich Internet browsing experience--ARM calls these devices Mobile Internet Devices (MID)." Intel does too.

The Apple iPhone is full of ARM silicon and technically a MID

(Credit: ARM)

ARM lists other devices like the Nokia N95, the BlackBerry 8700g, and the Motorola Q. All powered by ARM silicon.

The Web page continues: "ARM licenses the intellectual property that powers MIDs. This includes all the technology required by the chips at the heart of these devices: the microprocessor, digital signal processing, embedded memory, graphics acceleration, (and) fabric interconnect."

And ARM is not exaggerating. If anything ARM is understating the case. As one of the most understated chip architectures today, few consumers know the name. And almost no one listening to their Zune or iPod or talking on their Nokia phone knows that there is ARM silicon inside. But consumers can hardly miss the flashy Intel, AMD, ATI, or Nvidia branding on their PCs.

And this conspicuous PC-style branding strategy will carry over to Intel MIDs and Netbooks too. Lest consumers forget, maybe ARM should do a little more in-your-face branding.

(Credit: Intel)

Imagine us saying (in our best Jan Brady voice): "Intel, Intel, Intel!" The chipmaker managed to dominate laptop news this week thanks to the Intel Developer Forum in Shanghai, where the company heavily hyped all things small, especially its next-generation Classmate PC (see our exclusive full review) and mobile Internet devices running on the new Atom chip.

For visual learners, we've got a photo gallery of mobile Internet devices from the show, and Intel has posted a video of one of these bad boys being cracked open. For the more technical types, we've also got the specifications on all five of the Atom processors that are part of the launch. For the gadget freaks, we've got more information on the Lenovo IdeaPad U8.

The only thing missing from the IDF small-device love-fest? Microsoft. Oh, and Dell, whose executives said that Intel's smoking crack if it thinks the little guys will be as popular as laptops. (Fine, what they really said was that mobile Internet devices will represent a much smaller piece of the market than Intel projects.)

Other news from the show: an impossibly tiny motherboard, preproduction solid-state drives, wireless display connections, and a new antitheft technology for laptops.

But hey, this week wasn't all about Intel. Toshiba unleashed a boatload of Satellites decked out in pinstripes; CTL announced the official availability of the 2go PC (based on Intel's Classmate PC design); and rumors flew that Best Buy would soon be selling a Windows XP version of the Eee PC. We were also intrigued by both a bag that cools your laptop without a fan and a project that uses your laptop's built-in accelerometer to gather data on seismic activity.

Finally, following in the esteemed footsteps of the MacBook Air, a Vista-based laptop fell to hackers in the PWN2OWN contest at CanSecWest. By the end of the conference, only a Sony VAIO laptop running Ubuntu remained unscathed. Which begs the question: Is open source that secure, or is it just that no one wanted the VAIO?

Have a great weekend!

(Credit: Intel)

You can't buy these little gadgets yet, but Intel certainly hopes that starting this summer, you'll buy them in droves.

The gadgets in question are what Intel calls "mobile Internet devices," built upon the diminutive Atom processor that was the star of the chipmaker's IDF Shanghai event this week. Pictured here is a prototype MID from Asus, best known these days for its Eee PC.

Other hardware makers that marched to the beat of Intel's marketing drum at IDF included Lenovo, LG, BenQ, and Panasonic. What they're getting their hands on is a low-cost, low-power processor that might in turn produce some relatively inexpensive gadgets for surfing the Web.

The Atom chip--which is smaller than a penny and ranges in power from 800MHz to 1.8GHz--is due to be officially released in June. Will it turn out to be "as important to Intel as the launch of the Pentium," as Intel's CEO Paul Otellini crowed this week?

It depends, in part, on whether you decide that your notebook PC is already enough of a mobile Internet device for you. Take a look at News.com's gallery to see if something grabs your fancy: "Photos: Atom chip breeds wee gadgets."

Intel senior VP Anand Chandrasekher touts Linux for MIDs.

(Credit: Intel)

At the Intel Developer Forum in Shanghai this week, the buzz was about the Atom processor, mobile Internet devices, and Linux. What wasn't buzzing? Microsoft.

Welcome to the brave new world of computing sans Redmond.

At IDF, there was little media focus on Intel's next-generation Nehalem chip and even less on the Centrino 2 processor--both of which will run Microsoft software.

The focus was on devices that won't necessarily or exclusively run Microsoft software: Handheld-size MIDs--shorthand for mobile Internet devices--and Netbooks. Netbooks will run both Microsoft Windows and the Linux operating systems, but the MID category appears to be shaping up as a non-Microsoft enclave. MID makers, who are expected to begin shipping devices later this quarter, include Lenovo, Toshiba, Panasonic, and LG Electronics.

Asianux distributes Mobile Midinux.

(Credit: Intel)

Anand Chandrasekher, Intel senior vice president and general manager of the Ultra Mobility Group, said in his IDF keynote: "As always, we partner with Microsoft." Then he proceeded to not mention Microsoft again--and mentioned Linux a lot. "We announced an initiative last year. A Linux-based initiative. In order to get the form factor down, to get the cost down, and to even get lower power levels beyond what was achievable. We have an entire ecosystem behind it. Ubuntu and Red Flag. The initiative is called Moblin," Chandrasekher said.

Aptly enough, the Moblin Web site is entitled: "mobile and internet linux project." That's pretty self-descriptive.

Whether MIDs succeed or not, only time will tell. But if they do succeed, it won't be on Microsoft Windows--at least not in the foreseeable future. Microsoft has recently hired Len Kawell, originally the CEO at Pepper Computer, a start-up focused on MID software, to scale Windows from smartphones (some of which run Windows Mobile) to MID-type devices with "larger screens and faster processors," according to a representative at Weber Shandwick, the P.R. firm that represents Microsoft's Mobile business.

Scott Rockfeld, Group Product Manager for Microsoft's Mobile Communications Business, said this in an e-mail Thursday: "Windows Mobile is constantly innovating the platform to meet the expanding mobile needs of our customers. MIDs are an exciting class of devices that address many of those needs, and we're focused on ensuring that Windows Mobile is a great platform for partners to build MIDs."

But that's probably news to a lot of the attendees in Shanghai listening to Renee James, vice president general manager of the Software and Solutions Group at Intel.

"This new category requires a new software environment. There isn't a built-in ecosystem of developers who have been doing MIDs," she said, describing the incipient market. "For MIDS, we, Intel, are establishing that ecosystem. We launched it in September. It's called Moblin.org. It's an open-source project. Intel has contributed the foundational stack. More than 500 member companies are contributing code into Moblin. And it's particularly strong in Asia."

If MIDs catch on--and that's still a big if (though Apple's popular iPhone is arguably a MID)--it will be refreshing to see a PC platform develop without Microsoft participation, or at least see a platform unfold in which Linux distributors may have an advantage over the software giant.

Intel is working on technology that would allow handheld Internet devices to wirelessly use big screens.

Intel Mobile Internet Device could connect wirelessly to a big screen.

All technology is a problem looking for a solution (or the converse). Intel is working on technology that would mitigate one of the inherent problems with ultra-small devices: ultra-small screens. Vic Lortz, a research scientist and senior architect at Intel's Communications Technology Lab in Hillsboro, Ore., discussed a technology that would include a wireless display feature on big-screen digital TVs allowing Mobile Internet Devices, or MIDs, to wirelessly use the display on a big screen.

"Imagine if digital TVs included a wireless display feature (either integrated or through an external adapter) so that a MID could easily use that large display instead of or in addition to the integrated screen of the MID," he writes. "Intel is working on this and other similar problems...As we identify the necessary set of technologies and standards to support, we will integrate them into our next-generation mobile devices (both laptops and MIDs)."

Lortz says the success of the MID may ride on whether technologies like this come to fruition. "If we succeed, the MID may confound its detractors and become the next big thing after all."