http://android.wonderhowto.com/how-to/theres-hidden-feature-nougat-gives-your...



Google said nothing about Android phone PC during their last major product introduction this past week, not wanting to dilute their big Pixel announcements with other stuff.

This LACK OF INFORMATION caused a lot of people to ask questions about what they were really doing and when they were really going to release it.

The answer to that was that they had already released it in Nougat 7.1. They just didn't make a big deal about it. They split the implementation up into two pieces -- one which was released integral to the Android 7.1 Nougat system release and the other part which is a item in the Play Store which has to be loaded by you.

This may be being done this way on purpose, so you don't have to burden a standard cell phone installation with bits and pieces it will never use.   The down play on the introduction may also reflect that Jide Remix and Andromium Superphone both have a more mature, more complete implementation of "Android as a PC" than Google does right now.

So now you, personally, can go choose to play beta tester on resizable movable big screen Android whatzit, with windows, keyboard access, mouse and all the other bits and pieces necessary to make up an Android phone PC and you can do it early, very early and you can do it as part of beta or pre-beta (if you prefer those terms) and you can have a hand in fixing what needs fixing.

Or not .... if you chose not to.    Jide RemixOS is a mighty soft fall back if you are stuck between a rock and a soft place .....  and Remix will support older, weaker phone processors and older graphic systems and older plug styles like mini-usb.


The MickySoft Win10 folks did not get these choices they were ALL forced to be Beta Testers and every single update was a glorious crapshoot for them for over a YEAR because of the MickySoft Method of "Forced Upgrade" beta testing.

Here is a hard fact -- an old leftover phone will be able to do this duty off the Andromeda it ships with once another year or so rolls past.   I always seem to have an old phone laying around to put on my handlebars or whatever.

https://liliputing.com/2016/10/amazon-pulling-plug-kindle-app-windows-store.html


Amazon is pulling the plug on its Kindle app for the Windows Store




Amazon’s been offering a version of its Kindle app through the Windows Store since Windows 8 was released. But now the company is scrapping that version of its app and instead recommending Windows users install the Kindle for PC desktop app, which is compatible with Windows 7 or later.


Another set of programmers abandons the shrinking Walled Garden OS system.   Hey, you can still use the old obsolete stuff you paid us to write .....


......  That is if you still actually support it all the way through this current month, you old sweetie MickySoft, you.                    

That 0.4% of total market share is certainly compelling to us outside programmers, in a very negative sense that is.        

2017 Predictions


Whoooohoooo ..... time to put it out there a bit and see if we can predict next year correctly or not.

What you see in the current very top of the line phones will become mid-range next year.   25-30% improvements in processor speed WITH NO NOTICEABLE THERMAL THROTTLING will be widespread, along with 40-50% IMPROVEMENT IN GRAPHICS SPEED AND VERY GOOD VR DETAIL RENDERING CHARACTERISTICS.

Look to see your VR googles start to become the place where you put your phone when you get home at night, with it running a big screen as a PC at the same time along with being your VR source when you put the googles on.   Since movies and other VR content become more common, you will need to have you a system if you want to watch current released VR movies.  If you are not a VR head, then a docking station with larger speakers might be where your phone rests during the evening hours allowing you to screen normal movies, run your PC screen, etc. etc.

Why?   Phones are all quite powerful now and a good one doesn't get hot and slow down any more.   Android OS begins to morph into Andromeda, which was built intentionally from the ground up to support this kind of world.

Industry will begin to report "computing devices" since phones and PCs are melding together functionally.   When this happens, MS will be shown at slightly less than 11% of the total market share initially but will shrink year on year on year as the whole pie expands.   Desktop sales will drop to just about zero, but laptops and Chromebooks will continue to sell at slightly less than current levels as the laptop format is good for education and for work uses.

People will begin to centralize their phones and PC uses to use the same ecosystems.   This is not new, Apple and MS have been doing it to each other for decades now, but there will be a new major player in Google, who will be swinging unified phone and laptop and desktop spaces which will be fully embraced by the opening markets in China, India, etc.  

And Google Andromeda will likely become the 800 pound gorilla in this new world .....

And when market share is correctly reported (not as it is now, with Mickysoft ignoring what they don't want you to know about) the real structure of the PC market will become clearer and clearer to the purchasing public.

The thought of buying a Windows phone will be unthinkable, as there are no apps for it and functionally Win 10 Mobile is still pre-beta software and never will be anything else as Micksoft won't leave it alone for two weeks running.

The needs of India and China completely dominate what ARM and the major phone makers spend their time and money on as USA/Europe are seen as saturated markets with no real growth potential.

I think my next phone will be "called for" by some new technology that I really want to use that hasn't even been cooked up yet.

When I buy in, I will get a bit of extra in systems memory, etc to try to make it last longer, but only if it is reasonably priced to do so.   Trying to get tech (which reinvents itself completely every 2-3 years lately) to "last longer" gets to be sorta futile after a bit.

When a piece of old tech goes and dies on me, then that may also prompt a buy in decision that once again gets rolled as far forward as possible.

Example, the big Motorola 6" Nexus phone that was the very first Google Fi phone -- my daughter bought in at this point and is still satisfied with her existing phone, but admits the next one will be required by "something she wants to do" before her existing hardware gets old or dies or becomes too slow to use.

http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1330657

TSMC, GF/Samsung Battle at 7nm

SAN JOSE, Calif. — TSMC will go head-to-head with the partnership of IBM, Globalfoundries and Samsung to publicly detail rival 7nm processes at a technical conference in December. The trio’s process will use extreme ultraviolet lithography to achieve impressive gains, but TSMC likely will get to market first due to challenges getting EUV into production.

The process will deliver “more than three times the gate density and either a speed gain (35-40%) or power reduction (>65%) versus the companies’ existing commercial 16nm FinFET processes-es,” the abstract said.

On Monday when Samsung announced its 10nm process, it said it would skip a version of 7nm using today’s immersion lithography. Instead it said it will roll out 7nm with EUV targeting production before the end of 2018. For its part, TSMC said it will have at least limited production in 2017 for its 7nm process with immersion steppers.

The net result is in the course of 18 months chip designers will see at least three variants of 7nm -- separate immersion variants from TSMC and Globalfoundries and the EUV version from GF/Samsung. Intel has yet to detail its 7nm node, but said it expects density to rise and cost per transistor to fall.

To speed signaling, the GF/Samsung 7nm process will use “dual-strained channels on a thick strain-relaxed buffer virtual substrate to combine tensile-strained NMOS and compressively strained SiGe PMOS for enhancement of drive current by 11% and 20%, respectively,” its abstract said.

Both Global Foundry and Samsung are in limited real production on video memory at 7nm, during a low production high cost EUV based final development phase of the NON-silicon extra low voltage full production lithography (hey, it's something you can do with what you just built in try out mode, in other words).

What does it all mean ???   TSMC and Samsung have announced they are finished developing any 5 volt 10nm stuff as Apple is done with it now, with Apple getting ready to swing into 1.7 to 2.2 volt 7nm land for all products to be sold in 2019.    Apple's production quantities of 10nm chips are already completely built, with one 7nm line already operational at TSMC making an early 7nm lithography type on just the one line for just one Apple premium phone product which is to be sold early next year.   Qualcomm is still at 10nm but is sniffing after 7nm from TSMC just as soon as they convert another line at TSMC.

Key stuff is this, reduced general voltage for 2019 means retooling all the bits and pieces of a phone from 5 volts to the new much lower required non-silicon voltages.  New lower general voltage, higher efficiency batteries need to be developed too .....  preferably new battery stuff that doesn't spontaneously burst into flames in people's pockets.      Qualcomm has to build new radios, Sammy has to build new displays, etc etc etc.



This new tech divide will separate the have from the have-nots for the next 2 years running --  defining a short term future that does not include Intel at all at this point in time.

Intel's main hope out there right now is industrial espionage, or else gracefully becoming mostly irrelevant if they choose to stick with the current "I don't wanna play this game anymore" mindset they are using right now.    

Or .... they can simply pay the big bucks to license the new tech from whomever winds up with the best process.

If Intel rolls with espionage instead of simply paying the big bucks for licensing the tech, then Intel should expect to get their asses handed to them with some heavy duty lawsuits combined with "stop all production" type clauses.

It is more likely that Intel goes to 10nm in about a year (starting a year late to everybody else) and just hangs there for a bit as there is no guarantee their massive PC designs will actually do anything better or cheaper at 10nm than at 14nm.

(Which for Intel is a very bad thing as Intel 22nm to 14nm was eat up with the exact same problems -- no real speed advancement, no real payback to Intel for paying the billions to make the move).

http://www.phonearena.com/news/Best-display-for-outdoor-use-comparison-Samsun...

Looking at the pictures, I'd say a Samsung Amoled display is your likely best bet -- but I'd check the reviews of the phone you plan to buy before you buy it, or arrange to carry it outside the store to test it before you buy it.  

Sammy does sell their displays to other players, so check to see what display being used on the phone you think you want.

Also note, NONE of them are really very good in the direct sunlight, really.  

Kindle type black & white book readers do well in the direct sunlight, just saying -- you got one of them already.

And while Intel spends its time inventing new lies to tell the Walled Garden people, AMD is cuddling in close with Global Foundries (their old off-shoot), IBM and Samsung in their big push to go to Germanium laced 7nm, skipping over 10nm silicon completely as a wrong voltage half step.

http://www.pcgamesn.com/amd/globalfoundaries-7nm-node

The thinking seems to be that GlobalFoundaries sees the expense of researching and tooling up their manufacturing for 10nm not worth it for the limited performance and efficiency improvements the small change in process could offer in the short term. The 7nm process node is likely to be one which hangs around as ensuring stable silicon sub-7nm is going to take a lot of research effort and time. If indeed silicon is what continues to be used.

“The industry is converging on 7nm FinFET as the next long-lived node, which represents a unique opportunity for GlobalFoundaries to compete at the leading edge,” said GlobalFoundaries’ CEO Sanjay Jha. “We are well positioned to deliver a differentiated 7nm FinFET technology.”

GlobalFoundaries are estimating the 7nm node will be able to deliver more than double the transistor density and a potential 30% performance boost over the current leading edge 16/14nm designs on the market.

Unless Intel can get over it's pride filled ways VERY quickly they are looking to get techno-lapped by AMD, which will be completely unbearable in Intel's self-imagined "tech leader of the world" ego picture.



AMD is working on a family of APUs code named “Gray Hawk” to debut in 2019 on Globalfoundries’ recently announced 7nm FinFET process. This next generation family of high performance Accelerated Processing Units will feature up to four Zen+ cores and eight threads with a thermal and power footprint as low as 10 watts. Powering the graphics side of these chips will be an integrated “Navi” GPU with substantial performance and power efficiency advancements.

The foundation of all of these will be Globalfoundries’ upcoming 7nm. The company is pouring several billion dollars into its Fab 8 in Saratoga, New York to bring the process up to speed. Which is expected to enter risk production within the next couple of years thanks to extensive re-use of existing 14nm FinFET tools and techniques.

GLOBALFOUNDRIES CEO Sanjay Jha :

“The industry is converging on 7nm FinFET as the next long-lived node, which represents a unique opportunity for GLOBALFOUNDRIES to compete at the leading edge. We are well positioned to deliver a differentiated 7nm FinFET technology by tapping our years of experience manufacturing high-performance chips, the talent and know-how of our former IBM Microelectronics colleagues and the world-class R&D pipeline from our research alliance. No other foundry can match this legacy of manufacturing high-performance chips.”

Dr. Lisa Su, president and CEO, AMD :

“Leading-edge technologies like GLOBALFOUNDRIES 7nm FinFET are an important part of how we deliver our long-term roadmap of computing and graphics products that are capable of powering the next generation of computing experiences,” said . “We look forward to continuing our close collaboration with GLOBALFOUNDRIES as they extend the solid execution and technology foundation they are building at 14nm to deploy high-performance, low-power 7nm technology in the coming years.”

OK, you have seen the back of everybody's cards for the next one to two years.  

Intel has folded already, saying they don't really want to play in next year's hand and they'll simply keep what they got and play some renaming games within themself.  Intel is seeking new directions as their future business model.  

Same thing for Microsoft, they are playing team poker with Intel and the Walled Garden Boys so they will strive to lock up whomever they can for customers inside the castle walls as their food source and carry themselves through the siege on stored food and well water until they develop something else to pursue as their future business model.  

Can you say "cannibalism inside 6 months" three times fast ????    Blood bowl does count as cannibalism, right ??

Apple is moving forward very rapidly, pushing TSMC to make generational progress inside a 1 year time frame.  Samsung and the others were comfortably ahead on the 7nm thing, now suddenly Apple and TSMC are right on their butts, making up a second generation of 10nm stuff RIGHT NOW and starting 7nm up RIGHT NOW and have a second generation of lower wattage Germanium laced 7nm planned to start up early next year.   Build a new generation line, run it, build another better generational line, run it, and go as fast as you can towards 5nm germanium laced as that is where the real advantages lie.  

And yes, once you get into EUV and germanium, you can possibly build a 3nm chipset.

Samsung, Global and IBM are suddenly playing catch up instead of being comfortably ahead.   Intel is suddenly two (2) generations behind the pace and the innovation pace has now accelerated to a full generation PER line and nobody is moving all their lines over per generation any more.    

Apple has fully embraced an incremental "per line" progress model and is building a new generation of chips over a period of a year then building up the phones and tablets after the production fact so to speak.   Multiple generations of Apple products are in production at all times now, and this is the new Apple normal method. Right now Apple has two generations cooking in full production, with a third coming on the first part of next year.

Intel could not keep up with a two year TICK TOCK cycle, so this split progress inside a year stuff will drive them completely out of consideration very quickly.   AMD can ride this wave as long as they can keep their new designs rolling out of the CAD terminals on a one year or less basis, since they don't have to worry about making the physical chips.  Global will do that for them and Global itself may choose to skip generations as well.   Or they can use TSMC, as AMD has used both foundries in the recent past.

Look to see Samsung use other players chipsets as needed and to begin to phase back on being their own foundry, only investing in leap frog stages where they can get a real "bang for the bucks" return on the very heavy costs of building the new lines.

Look to see MediaTek progress forward, as they can now buy "as good as anybody" since Samsung isn't holding the tech progress cards any more.

AMD has just shown us all something neat, that you can build full server and desktop chipsets using 7nm ARM based cores, you just have to use more of them.   Yes, ARM 7nm cores are really that good now.   They are so durn small now that you can put 48 of them on a server chip die and easily fit 8 of them on a small desktop die.   At only 10 watts for an 8 core 7nm lithography laptop/desktop processor, you got yourself instant full power laptop/desktop chipsets .....   It is using the exact same tech stuff you are using in your standard phone production.

Apple isn't stupid, they realize they don't need Intel any more as Intel brings nothing to the party that the A11 chipset doesn't already have.   And that the A12 chipset will further improve upon.  While Intel stubbornly stays totally stuck in place at 14nm ......  eh, mebbe dropping down to 10nm next year later on if they can figure out how to get CISC based x86 chipsets to show any sort of improvement by doing so.   

Intel being completely "technically obsolete" isn't too harsh a term to use at the end of the next two years, and Apple is currently producing RISC based chipsets to use two years out into the future right now.   Remember, by the end of the next two years, 5nm will be in full production with 3nm warming up in pre-production.

Apple isn't going to have to dump Intel, Intel is going to do it to themselves by not keeping up.

And yes, Virginia, there are processes to build even smaller generations of ARM chipsets now that EUV lithography is finally working well ....