Google, Qualcomm and cloud gaming services. Integration of success?
Compromise Story
Last year, we presented plans for Google to launch laptops based on Qualcomm’s ARM solutions with the Windows operating system. Most met this
decision quite cool. And besides, information has recently been revealed that it will be quite truncated in the functionality of the system, which was generally clear before.
Microsoft didn’t talk about any support; it takes a lot of time to fully implement an architecture alien to Win. Probably seditious thought crept in every person who understands this. Why would they even release it, if it's all half measures and compromises? Unless for a narrow circle of people, perhaps even for education - in general, why not. But all this is very far from moving from a full platform seriously, and not for episodic use, to such solutions.
And how seriously even top ARM solutions can be considered even in the same laptops? The technical specifications of the GPU, which last year Snapdragon 835 (Adreno 540) produced at the peak a little more than 560Gflops, are not credible (flops is a unit of measurement of computing power of computers in floating point operations). Yes, and the latest SoC, only just presented at the Mobile World Congress in a particular device - the Samsung Galaxy S9 / S9 Plus, and in the near future in all Android flagships this year, according to estimates, it will increase by 30%. For mobile solutions, this is definitely a lot to the extent of a number of features, but with an increase in the screen, a different philosophy of work ...
But all this is solvable. After all, it’s so good when the processor occupies the minimum area, it has a great many built-in modules that stand out as separate devices in many ordinary processors. Of course, they may not be so powerful. But as a manufacturer, you get the highest degree of integration on an extremely small site. Why talk about TDP? He is predictably small. And then there’s a great opportunity for almost complete, close to perfect heat dissipation.
The reason is simple - you have more options as a manufacturer for this compared to the same smartphones. No, coolers are certainly not needed here. But passive dispersion can be brought to incredible rates. Consequently, there is no need for a large number of elementary bases. Yes, and the motherboard will clearly dry out. But we understand certain disadvantages in this regard. But what if they can be eliminated?
Indeed, there is such an opportunity. And it is represented by cloud gaming services. They have been working for many years, there are not so many of them, but at the moment there are still problems
. The main ones are in a consistently high Internet connection, which is not yet within the framework of not just the world, but of specific countries and cities. Yes, and certainly not the most
debugged schemes for the presentation of the video stream. The Russian company Playkey, one of the leaders in this industry, does not work as perfectly as it wanted. On the other hand, this is explained by the processes of implementing decentralized control systems when using the same blockchain.
How to arrange everyone?
Foreign services that provide such services also often “fall”. But this is not the point. First of all, these services provide a video stream of games, and that’s all. Of course, games are one of the important articles of demand for the average user. And what about the other? Suppose you have a laptop with an ARM solution, but it cannot work in specialized programs. And that’s it - this is a complete cross. You will have to keep a laptop only for unnecessarily trivial work, and it will gradually turn into a “tablet” for you. Yes, this is a hint towards the very boring trends in the market for these devices.
But what if the person responsible for all this, Google, having incredible resources, would have implemented the same service, only taking into account improvements and all proprietary software? Then everything would have healed with new colors. In fact, it would have turned out the following - for $ 200-370 (An approximately such price-list will be for upcoming laptops with SoC Snapdragon (the most successful platform on the processor market for smartphones, the only one that can fully compete with Series A chips from a company from Cupertino) you have an expanded terminal in terms of hardware features for working with almost any serious software for a monthly fee of several dollars. Yes, without the possibility of working offline. But is offline now that could be a serious obstacle?
- Such systems have 3G / 4G modems. Top crystals that will be introduced into laptops must be equipped with separate SIM cards to receive Internet traffic. Another source of profit for mobile operators. If previously you paid for mobile Internet only on a smartphone, now you can also use a laptop.
If you really need to, you can leave the GPRS voice calling functions in. In large cities, LTE works stably, and the X18 / X21 modems in the top Snapdragon in theory allow you to receive up to 1.2 Gb / s. We don’t have such speeds, but it has touched the future. And if demand goes, modernization and even greater heights in data transfer speeds cannot be avoided. Smartphones that consume not so much are one thing, and cloud services for providing software that do not “pull” these systems are another thing. Why not? A couple of years and 5G solutions will drive up. Although they have already been announced by the same Qualcomm, Samsung. This is already for the future, in five years it will be possible to forget about the problem of mobile Internet.
- Do not forget about Wi-Fi. Especially about the plans of Elon Mask and the worldwide Wi-Fi over the whole world. Sounds damn ambitious, but skepticism is enough
- No one refuses a wired connection. Stable, inflexible, good. The topic of today, srednestaticheski provides already familiar 100MB / s in the CIS countries.
- Now about the “monthly fee” and pitfalls in the provision of services in the cloud. We make an assumption - say, Google has implemented such a system. To the extent of attracting a client base - and such a service can, and most likely, unless they make it a privilege for the owners of these mobile PCs, it is available for owners of all devices. There are many outdated systems in the world. The necessary, or rather, a sufficient level of Internet is in most densely populated regions.
Therefore, for many users, paying a few cu for using heavy software solutions that were previously inaccessible to him will be more attractive than updating PC components in whole or in part, taking into account the latest trends in price increases and shortages for some components. And the best part for software creators is that all users in these conditions must purchase a license. How exactly - immediately or monthly, or this cost will be integrated with the subscription fee to the cloud access provider - this will be decided later.
- Regarding data storage. Everything is prosaic here. Storage devices such as EMMC (deprecated), UFS (2.0 / 2.1) will be implemented and will serve with not very strong use.
years before they degrade. Smartphone manufacturers this year will begin to use drives even at 512GB, and 256/128/64 have long been tested. And the cost of such drives is not very large. In the future, the basic data in theory can be stored in the clouds of the same Google, paying for the volume, and only the system itself and the software that runs on its own will be located on physical memory.
- And what about saving space? The motherboard in the form factor will be clearly less than in conventional laptops, but then where can I use the free space? As a trivial example for installing ultra-high batteries. And so as not to charge them later, there are different standards (the same Quick Charge), and we are on the verge of widespread use of graphene batteries. In this case, a 15.6-inch laptop of a new type can have incredible indicators of autonomy. And all modern SoC
consume at a peak of no more than 2.1-1.3A / hour, and in an average mode, no more than 0.5-0.7 Amperes (information about Snapdragom 835, made using 10Nm technology). This is for smartphones. It should be assumed that consumption on laptops will be closer to peak. But this is well compensated by the ability to install ultra-high batteries. I won’t go into other aspects, because once this was announced, then it’s possible. The only thing that can be done is to release devices with this architecture on Chrome OS. There are obvious preferences - this is their project, so the more “their” - the better for them. The market for Khrombukov is not so large, there are no more than 20 million copies.
Why not?
As a result, we can say about the indisputable advantages of integrating the above three components, if it is implemented under the wing of Google. It is
not possible for me personally to introduce another implementer. Well, Microsoft will not do this?
+ Increase in the production of mobile chipsets, their cheaper. Going beyond the mobile market. A new round of competition from manufacturers of ARM-solutions: Qualcomm, Mediatek,
Samsung, Huawei.
+ Inexpensive, lightweight, standalone mobile computers based on the familiar Windows OS with resources sufficient for normal use)
+ New rethinking of loyalty programs.
+ Profit for mobile Internet providers, the possibility of GSM-telephony from a workstation.
+ The huge development of cloud technology.
+ Proprietary software distribution, developers profit - you won’t buy a product temporarily / forever, you won’t be able to use it.
+ Google / any other company that will be the first in this will receive a huge and monthly profitable market in the future.
+ The growing number of data centers around the world, the development of wireless / wired data transfer standards.
+ New life for owners of old computers and the poor.
+ Unloading the main market for personal computers.
But there are dark sides to this concept. But until this goes beyond theory, there is nothing to talk specifically about. It was my vision of how you can arrange everything - from the buyer to the companies that provide commercial software.