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  • deadmeats - Wednesday, November 9, 2011 - link

    "This statement was taken by many to assume that Intel had somehow done some optimization to Ice Cream Sandwich, however that can't be true as it flies in the face of what we know about how Google operates."

    Just because you have an idea of how something/someone operates doesn't mean it is the absolute truth. Exceptions and exemptions happen.

    However, granting without accepting, just because Intel mentioned that it includes optimization doesn't mean it is confusing. I guess it is indeed pretty slow in the tech world, to see this kind of post...
  • Abix - Wednesday, November 9, 2011 - link

    Relax nerd.
  • StevoLincolnite - Wednesday, November 9, 2011 - link

    Calling someone a nerd on a tech website? Pot meet Kettle.
  • ciparis - Thursday, November 10, 2011 - link

    I didn't think it was a derogatory reference.
  • Iketh - Thursday, November 10, 2011 - link

    What is the purpose of your post?
  • JumpingJack - Wednesday, November 9, 2011 - link

    At the last IDF, Intel announced a strategic collaboration with Google as I recall. It is likely Google is about to pull a Microsoft and ensure support for both major ISAs.
  • jjj - Thursday, November 10, 2011 - link

    That's in theory,in practice Intel could have convinced Google to help a bit more just like they "convinced" Google to use Intel in Chromebooks and Google TV.
  • Guspaz - Thursday, November 10, 2011 - link

    tl;dr: It wasn't Intel convincing them. ARM wasn't ready for ChromeOS at the time, and if ChromeOS had happened a year later, ARM would have been a viable option for google.

    I don't think it was as much that Intel convinced them to use x86 in the Chromebook, more that the software stack for desktop Linux on ARM (including Chrome itself) wasn't quite ready, and the hardware side meant that performance wasn't quite up to par with the Atom yet.

    Modern day ARM chips are similar to Atom in performance. The Cortex A9 is clock-for-clock a bit faster than an Atom, so today's fastest ARM chips are on-par with the best Atoms, and stuff that's about to come out (like Tegra 3 in the Transformer Prime next month) is significantly faster than any Atom.

    Problem is, when the first chromebook came out a year ago, there weren't even any dual-core ARM SoCs available; the LG Optimus 2X was the first, and it came out after the Google CR-48.

    ChromeOS does still support ARM, and they've continued working on it. You can run Chromium OS on a Pandaboard or other ARM dev board right now. I expect we'll probably see some ARM Chromebooks in the not-so-distant future, if Chromebooks do well.
  • ssnkumar - Monday, June 16, 2014 - link

    Hi,

    Can you please let me know, how to build ChromiumOs for PandaBoard?

    Regards,
    Narendra
  • danwat12345 - Sunday, November 13, 2011 - link

    What are x86 optimizations? Doesn't android have to be completely re-compiled into x86 instructions in order to work on an x86 processor? I don't think you can just patch a ARM compiled Android Operating System with bits of x86 code amidst the ARM instructions! Unless your talking about an emulation layer?
  • dmgantech - Sunday, November 13, 2011 - link

    The article may be referring to the Android-x86 project (http://www.android-x86.org/) although it is not clear what is actually the relationship of this project and Intel. Intel has a video of installing Android 1.6 on an Intel board, and it uses the ISO downloaded from the said project's website.

    A question to the article author:

    This paragraph -

    > Intel has been contributing x86 patches to the AOSP and Google's internal developer
    > branch for the past two years. Today if you're to download Android, you can build a
    > version that should run on x86 just fine. All of Intel's x86 support should be included as
    > of Android 2.3.7.

    does it specifically refer to the Android-x86 project from where Android can be "downloaded", or to anything else coming officially from Intel?
  • danwat12345 - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link

    thanks

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