Tag: Chromebooks

Business

MediaTek to Unveil Products for Chromebooks, Smart TVs and Displays at COMPUTEX 2024

May 31, 2024 by Sujata Muguda 0 Comments #AI processor, #Chromebooks, #DDR4 and LPDDR4X, #Displays at COMPUTEX 2024, #Dr. Rick Tsai, #HSINCHU, #ISP, #Joe Chen, #John Solomon, #MediaTek, #OEM requirements, #smart TVs, #Taiwan

HSINCHU, Taiwan – May 31, 2024 – At COMPUTEX 2024, MediaTek will showcase new products and technology demonstrations, featuring highlights in AI, Smart TVs, Chromebooks, IoT and more, in addition to a keynote by Vice Chairman and CEO Dr. Rick Tsai about how MediaTek can enable ubiquitous AI.

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At this year’s show, MediaTek will debut two new chipsets with powerful performance and support for the latest AI enhancements across multiple verticals: the Kompanio 838 SoC for premium Chromebooks, and the Pentonic 800 SoC for 4K premium smart TVs and displays.

Additionally, MediaTek Vice Chairman and CEO Dr. Rick Tsai will be giving a keynote at COMPUTEX 2024 to explore how AI will continue to transform mobility, transportation, the smart home, enterprises, and industrial environments. Dr. Tsai will deliver his keynote speech on Tuesday, June 4 at 13:30 Taiwan time at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center Hall 2 in Taipei, Taiwan.

“At this year’s COMPUTEX, we are highlighting our expanding leadership in exciting product categories, such as AI, automotive, IoT, TVs, Chromebooks, and wireless connectivity, among many others,” said Joe Chen, President and COO of MediaTek. “Through upgrading user experiences in our latest chipsets, this is a wonderful opportunity to show our growth in these critical segments of technology.”

MediaTek Kompanio 838: Amplifying productive working, learning and creativity

The octa-core Kompanio 838 packs outstanding performance and multitasking capabilities into a highly efficient SoC that enables all-day battery life for thin and light Chromebooks. This new chipset supports DDR4 and LPDDR4X to meet a wider range of OEM requirements, and doubles memory bandwidth compared to previous generations to provide considerably more data throughput.

To support the latest AI enhancements, Kompanio 838 enables a dedicated AI processor, the MediaTek NPU 650, to offer more interactive and higher quality multimedia with unparalleled power efficiency. MediaTek NPUs are designed for efficient image data processing, capable of quickly executing complex computations.

The built-in next-generation MediaTek Imagiq 7 series ISP upgrades professional quality HDR imaging, dual camera support, and low-light capture, improving photo and video quality even in challenging lighting conditions.

With hardware accelerated AV1 video decoding, the Kompanio 838 lets users seamlessly stream 4K content, while also enhancing picture quality. It supports up to two 4K displays simultaneously to give users more display real estate. The Kompanio 838 also supports MediaTek Filogic Wi-Fi 6 and 6E technology to offer dual-band and tri-band connectivity options to Chromebooks with speeds up to 1.9Gbps, while also offering more reliable connectivity thanks to the 2×2 antenna and enhanced security with WPA3 support.

“The finely tuned balance of power and efficiency the Kompanio 838 brings to Chromebook is a key point of innovation in our portfolio as we seek to bring powerful, affordable and accessible computing to more users around the globe,” said John Solomon, VP and GM, ChromeOS and Google for Education. “Together, we’re bringing thin and light Chromebooks with helpful AI features to even more customers.”

“The need for energy efficient devices capable of multitasking continues to grow and we are committed to empowering students and teachers with tech devices and solutions that enhance learning in the classroom and beyond,” said Benny Zhang, Executive Director and General Manager of Chromebooks in Lenovo’s Global Innovation Center, Intelligent Devices Group. “Lenovo and MediaTek have a long-standing partnership focused on delivering performance and value, and we look forward to bringing the Kompanio series chips to our upcoming Lenovo Chromebooks.”

MediaTek Pentonic 800: Powerful AI Engine with Industry-leading Image Enhancement

The MediaTek Pentonic 800 delivers best-in-class video, audio, and cloud gaming experiences. The SoC is ideal for a variety of 4K displays, including smart TVs, smart monitors, commercial displays, and embedded large displays. Compared to the previous generation chip, MediaTek’s AI processor offers 50% faster AI processing performance and reduces up to 60% bandwidth usage. The powerful NPU supports a variety of MediaTek AI-powered display technologies, including AI-Super Resolution 3.0, AI-Contrast 2.0, AI-Picture Quality Scene Recognition 2.0+, and AI-Picture Quality Object Recognition 2.5+. These technologies significantly improve upscaling, enhance picture quality, and eliminate noise, among many other enhancements for streaming and gaming. To further optimize gaming, Pentonic 800 supports variable refresh rate (VRR) up to 4K2K 165Hz.

Also, the Pentonic 800’s hardware video decoding engine supports popular key codecs such as HEVC, AV1, AVS3 High Profile, and VVC (H.266) for high quality 4K video playback. The chip also supports MEMC, TCON, and high-resolution audio. OEMs have the flexibility to add MediaTek’s Filogic Wi-Fi connectivity solutions to provide reliable high-speed connectivity with low latency. Additionally, MediaTek’s Filogic Wi-Fi/Bluetooth combo solutions provide seamless connectivity between screens and peripherals, such as game controllers and wireless headsets.

During Computex, MediaTek will be exhibiting at a private booth, demonstrating how the company is bringing intelligence everywhere from Chromebooks to IoT devices, smartphones, smart TVs, routers, tablets, vehicles, and beyond.

Business World

Microsoft Education Edition Now Available for Chromebooks

Aug 21, 2020 by Gouri Achary 0 Comments #Chromebooks, #Microsoft Education Edition

On Monday, Microsoft announced that the Minecraft: Education Edition is now available for the Chromebooks.

The development took place after Microsoft partnered with Google Education team to let the educators and learners access Minecraft Education Edition on Chromebooks.

“Minecraft: Education Edition is a game-based learning platform that helps build key 21st-century skills like coding and creative problem solving,” Microsoft explains in the announcement.

“Hundreds of free standards-aligned lessons, design challenges, and STEM curriculum are available in-game and online, along with flexible templates for teachers to design their own learning activities. In a time when staying connected to the classroom is of extra importance, Minecraft supports collaboration and meaningful student-led learning.”

Since 2013, Google for Education has been running a large scale classroom-learning programme in different countries including India. Under this programme, schools and institutions are provided Chromebooks to smartly deepen the education process. As of 2019, there were more than 30 million Chromebooks actively working at schools globally.

On a similar track, Minecraft: Education Edition was launched in 2016 with an aim to provide a fun and creative learning environment for school kids. The Education edition is available in 115 countries and boasts of 250 educator-created lesson plans. It has a total user base of more than 2 million.

It was a long-standing request by educators around the world to bring Minecraft Education Edition to the Chromebooks.

Now, using both the programmes, the educators can create an interesting learning experience with lessons on maths, science, language arts, history and visual arts for kids in schools with Minecraft: Education Edition on Chromebooks.

Using these creative activities and lessons, kids can learn coding skills, decision making, working in collaborative environments and cognitive abilities.

Teachers can also use tools like click speed test, spacebar test built upon Minecraft to add the competitiveness to the learning process.

To access the Education Edition on the Chromebook, a Microsoft 365 for Education license is required. With the correct license, the educators and learners will be able to enjoy the same features of Education Edition for Windows, Mac and iOS on their Chromebooks itself.

If your school already has an A3 or A5 license of Education Edition, you need not to worry about purchasing a new license because the company is adding the Chrome OS support to all A3 and A5 licenses automatically.

In future, the students will also be able to login to the game using their Google accounts instead of the Microsoft accounts.

All educators can download the Education Edition on their Chromebooks through the Google Play Store right away and start with an all-new learning experience for their students.

Also, this is not to be confused with the standard Minecraft. Even after the clear warning by Microsoft, many people have given one-star reviews to the game on Google Play Store just because they expected it to be the Standard version of the game.

Although the standard version of the game is not available on non-school Chromebooks this could be the first steps towards that as well.