LG Optimus 3D's OMAP 4 benchmarked, pulling ahead of Exynos and Tegra 2

Which dual-core 1GHz ARM Cortex A9 system-on-a-chip rules the roost? It's probably too early to tell, but if you're looking for a preliminary verdict, AnandTech has benchmarked all three of them now. Texas Instruments' OMAP 4430, NVIDIA's Tegra 2 and Samsung's Exynos 4210 went head to head in a gauntlet of browser and graphical benchmarks, and it looks like the LG Optimus 3D's OMAP 4 came out on top, boasting minor but significant improvements practically across the board. Good news for the BlackBerry PlayBook, no? Oh, and if you're wondering why the iPhone 4 and Atrix 4G fall behind their older brethren in the image above, remember that they both have to render images at a higher screen resolution. More graphs at our source link below.

Ittiam showing off four-way 720p HD video conferencing using Android, OMAP 4

Being Mobile World Congress, quite a few software vendors found themselves tucked into corners of bigger booths, eager and willing to showcase their latest work. Ittiam is one of those companies, relying on Texas Instruments' OMAP 4 platform to power its new HD video conferencing system. The demo shown here at MWC involved a foursome of TI development boxes, but the underlying platform was most certainly Android 2.2. Anil Kumar, the manager of Ittiam's video communications division, noted that the system would work just fine on Gingerbread and Honeycomb, enabling up to four devices (smartphones, tablets, whatever) to link up and enjoy a multi-faced call over a standard 3G network. 

Of course, the demonstration that we were shown used an Ethernet network for maximum stability, but the low-bitrate technology would allow bearable results on 3G networks (and better-than-average results on a 4G network). We were told that the company is in talks with "numerous" phone makers, in hopes of getting their VCS software integrated onto Android devices by the year's end -- think Qik, but for video conferencing -- but he couldn't hand out any specifics. Head on past the jump if you'd like to see a demo (and hear an awful lot more). 

TI Announces New OMAP 5 Processors that Could Charge Tablets a Lot

Texas Instruments (TI) has announced a powerful new platform that they claim will make mobile computing devices (i.e. smartphones and tablets) as capable as PCs. TI's OMAP 5 processors will not be publicly available for at least a year and a half, but it already has some pretty high standards to meet.

The larger chip, and the one that will most likely be found in tablets, is the OMAP5432. It will feature a total of four processors; two ARM Cortex-A15 MPCore processors capable of speeds up to 2 GHz each, and two ARM Cortex-M4 processors. The M4s will be used to handle background applications, allowing the A15 processors to be that much faster.

The OMAP5432 will be able to support three cameras and up to four displays simultaneously, and capture video with 20 megapixel recording (or 12 megapixels for 3D recording). This would allow 3D video conferencing, or open up the possibility of 3-D gaming on tablets.

The OMAP5432 has a lengthy list of features, and if you're interested in this new technology, check out the full list that TI has posted. 

Both the OMAP5432, as well as the smartphone variant 5430, will begin sampling during the second half of 2011, with devices using the chips available during the second half of 2012.

For more information on the OMAP5430 smartphone processor, and what these chips could mean for mobile computing, check out the write-up at our sister site,shoppingkoo.