We are entering into a new era, ladies and gentlemen. Well, “era” may not be the right word considering how quickly things change in these here mobile parts, but the fact remains the same: Quad-core mobile processors are here. And the ones that aren’t quite here yet are coming.

While many of our brilliantly geeky readers need no tutorial on the advantages of four processing cores, some of you may be thinking “Uh… OK, why do I care?” So I took it upon myself to place a few calls and get some of the big guns — Qualcomm, Nvidia, and TI — to explain why exactly you should care (or shouldn’t), and what kind of differences technology like this can make in the average user’s daily phone usage.

Right off the bat, there are a few myths we need to squash, the most prominent being the misguided belief that doubling cores automatically doubles processing performance. That’s not so true. According to Qualcomm vice president of product management Alex Katouzian, upgrading from a single-core CPU to a dual-core processor yields 50 percent better performance, while upgrading from dual-core to quad-core increases performance by just 25 percent. The second commonly held but utterly untrue belief is that all mobile processors are created equally. These companies actually work extra hard to differentiate themselves, which is difficult when the end-user has little say over which processors get stuck in which devices.

Generally speaking (as in, with no particular brand or model in mind), a quad-core CPU should most noticeably do two things. The first is to improve performance during multi-tasking or use of multi-threaded applications. Web browsing, for example, is a multi-threaded process, as are many advanced gaming applications. Android is also natively multi-threaded. The second noticeable improvement quad-core should yield is an increase in battery life. Now, your average CPU usually only consumes about 15 percent of your battery life during regularly daily usage, so the improvements won’t usually be that staggering. Still, battery life is a big problem right now in mobile and any improvement is a worthwhile one.

Nvidia has been the first to bring quad-core processing to mobile, in the form of its Tegra 3 Kal-El SoC. Aside from the general benefits afforded by four cores, Nvidia specifically differentiates itself with what it calls a Companion core. The Companion core is a patented fifth core that maxes out at speeds of 500MHz. It uses patented technology known as variable symmetry multiprocessing (vSMP), which allows the processor to power cores on and off based on the device’s workload.

The Companion core handles just about everything during low performance tasks and in stand-by mode, like email and monitoring the network for incoming calls. When you start on something more performance-intensive, like web browsing, facial recognition or photo stitching, other cores are powered on to handle the task. This is Nvidia’s way of improving performance while saving battery life, while others have found different ways to make quad-core stand out.

Qualcomm, for example, is about to release its APQ8064 SoC, which has a special trick. Most multicore processors clock up and down at the same time. Qualcomm’s processor, on the other hand, is able to clock one core at the max while clocking the second needed core only to the speed it needs to complete the task.

In other words, since Qualcomm’s processor cores can be clocked individually, a task that overflows on the first core may only need the second core spinning at 60 percent of its max speed. So just like Nvidia’s Companion core hooks you up on the battery life front, so will Qualcomm’s individual clocking technology.

Texas Instruments, however, has yet to outline plans for their quad-core offerings and seems to be sticking with dual-core OMAP SoCs for the time being. That said, TI maintains that its OMAP 5 SoC equipped with a dual-core Cortex A15 processor (and two Cortex M4 cores) is a mature system that is more efficient at handling instructions. Some even refer to it as a quad-core system, though TI itself still calls this a dual-core SoC. And they believe it’ll compete. The company went so far as to say that its smart multi-core architecture actually takes 50 percent more instructions than the Cortex-A9 MPCore’s four processing cores as seen in Nvidia’s Tegra 3.

The truth is this is just the beginning when it comes to the migration toward four cores, and there’ll be plenty more to learn in the coming months.

TI retaliated by immediately adding an encryption check to ensure that any third-party programs won’t work with OS 3.0.2. The company has asked sites offering version 1.1 to remove it from public download in the past, but this time the company has even targeted those linking to sites with OS 1.1.

Here’s the text sent to Make for merely linking to a forum post that outlines a potential way to run other OSes without additional software on the TI-83:

Re: Illegal Offering of Material to Circumvent TI Copyright Protections

It has come to our attention that the web site http://blog.makezine.com contains material and/or links to material that violate the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”). This letter is to notify you, in accordance with the provisions of the DMCA, of these unlawful activities. Pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA, we request that you remove any whole or partial reproductions of and/or disable links to the following:

The discussion entitled “ Fun Number Theory Facts ” located at the following URL http://www.unitedti.org/index.php?showtopic=8888 and the link to the personal website of “brandonw” at http://brandonw.net/.

Texas Instruments Incorporated (“TI”) owns the copyright in the TI-83 Plus operating system software. The TI-83 Plus operating system uses encryption to effectively control access to the operating system code and to protect its rights as a copyright owner in that code. Any unauthorized use of these files is strictly prohibited.

http://blog.makezine.com is distributing or providing links to information (http://www.unitedti.org/index.php?showtopic=8888 and http://brandonw.net/ found at http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/08/ti-83_plus_os_signing_key_cracked.html) that bypasses TI’s anti-circumvention technology. By providing copies of or offering links to such information, http://blog.makezine.com has violated the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA at 17 U.S.C. §§ 1201(a)(2) and 1201(b)(1).

Please confirm to the undersigned in writing no later than noon on **/**/**** that you have complied with these demands. You may reach the undersigned by telephone at ***-***-**** or by email at **********@ti.com. TI reserves all further rights and remedies with respect to this matter.

[Make via /.]

The EFF is getting in on the action, claiming that TI’s threats are baseless.

TI-83+ calculators are going for less then $50 on eBay. They’ve been out for over a decade. If they’re not doing what their owners want them to do, maybe TI should look at how to provide continued value to their customers.

TICalc.org brings us word that the key used to sign the TI-83+ OS has been factored, which means that any third-party OS can be signed similar to the original OS and loaded onto the calculator without resorting to tricks or helper programs.

FloppusMaximus shares some details about the factorization process he used to obtain the key:

Some fun statistics:
- The factorization took, in total, about 1745 hours, or a bit less than 73 days, of computation. (I’ve actually been working on this since early March; I had a couple of false starts and haven’t been able to run the software continously.)
- My CPU, for reference, is a dual-core Athlon64 at 1900 MHz.
- The sieving database was 4.9 gigabytes and contained just over 51 million relations.
- During the “filtering” phase, Msieve was using about 2.5 gigabytes of RAM.
- The final processing involved finding the null space of a 5.4 million x 5.4 million matrix.

This is an exciting day for calculator geeks, to be sure.

Wanna know something about laptops? No matter how small and portable you make ‘em, the AC adapter’s always going to be the size of a ham sandwich. Well that gravy train is about to crash into a brick wall of ingenuity thanks to Texas Instruments. The company has apparently developed a 90-watt AC adapter that measures 85x60x11 millimeters or, as the above photo shows, about the size of a wallet.

The adapter is being shown off at a trade show in Japan and TI has already started shipping the adapters to Chinese manufacturers (no release date for Japan yet). It’ll sure be nice to see these tiny things start to make their way into netbook and ultraportable notebook kits.

[via Tech-On!]

What’d I tell you last night? Didn’t I say TI’s DLP pico projectors would make a splash at CES this year?

The MBP200 can be connected to your phone, laptop or even gaming system and is capable of throwing up a 50-inch viewing screen or an image as small as a sheet of paper. But it’s not just a companion doodad as the SD card slot enables it to work as a standalone entertainment center. Or you can show a PPT presentation.

The MBP200 features touchpad controls and a 2.2-inch QVGA LCD screen. The projector comes along with a small screen holder that has a hidden telescoping arm so that you can make a screen out of a sheet of paper if you need to.

No details on price, but Samsung says it will be available later this year.

Anyhoo, TI claims that this new technology will eliminate the need to replace projector bulbs and filters, so that oughta save everyone a nice chunk o’ change. Units containing the new awesomely-named PhlatLight technology will be shipping “in late 2008,” according to the company.

Texas Instruments also announced “the world’s first DLP 3-D front projector product,” which has a 120Hz refresh rate and 1,400 x 1,050 resolution. It’ll be used “for the demanding scientific visualisation, simulation and entertainment environments.”

Finally, those Pico-Projectors we’ve all been waiting for will finally be made into actual products. They’ll start to show up in Europe and Asia later this year, with the rest of the world to get them early next year.

Here’s something that excites me greatly. It’s a prototype of a tiny projector that fits inside of a cell phone. Jim Hallas of Texas Instruments’ DLP group gave me a brief overview of the chipset and here’s some brief information along with my thoughts;

The chipset is ready to go. It’s up to device manufacturers to integrate it into their products. I’d think that we’d see these things popping up pretty soon. The chipset is designed to be very low power but TI can’t comment on how much extra power you’d need because it’ll vary depending on which types of devices are used.

In a well lit room, the projected images and videos can be blown up to about the size of an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper. In a darkened room, it can do between 30 and 60 inches. The implications of this type of chipset extend far beyond cell phones. I lustfully imagine a “headless” laptop that projects the screen onto your wall. Very nice.

Remember those microprojector chips TI was working on? The ones that could potentially implant tiny DLP picoprojectors into mobile phones? They’ve entered production and should “hit the street”, as we bloggers say, sometime in the middle of this year. That means they might — just might — make it into production models in time for the Xmas season.

You know you want to project video from your iPhone. I know I do.

Texas Instruments’ Pico chipsets go into production – projection coming to mobile phones in 2008? [Tech Digest]

Texas Instruments is getting hardcore about supporting next-gen cellphone video, unveiling a duo of chips that could allow cellphones to record and project high-def content.

Microprojecting is the next logical step for portable digital video. Sure, the Nokia 810s and iPod Touches of the world look great, but they’re personal players. Microprojecting would all a small group of people to watch simultaneously, and, in theory, it would make for smaller devices.

TI’s second chip allows for HD recording from cellphone cameras. Typically, the best cellphone cams produce VGA or worse video. But with faster chips inside, users of the future will be able to capture and play back HD video on the go, making the “phone” part of a cellphone more and more irrelevant.

TI unveils chips for cell projector, HD recording [Reuters]

Vertu Ascent Ti hitting stores next month [LuxuryLaunches]

I’ll admit, when I first saw the TI Navigator, I couldn’t help but think why someone would need wireless connectivity on a calculator. According to Texas Instruments, the TI Navigator is more of a device for the classroom than the individual student. It allows the teacher or professor to view the student’s calculator in real-time so they can see where people are getting stuck on math problems. Teachers can also use it to have students hand in problems and show their work via beaming it through their TI calculator.

Just make sure you don’t start playing an insanely crude version of Super Mario Brothers with a TI Navigator hooked up, or your teacher is gonna see that you can’t make it past World 1-3. Better work on those hot TI-84+ skills.

TI Navigator calculator is wireless [Ubergizmo]