Re: The noBounds Project
 

N810 may be cheap, but you need real hardware to the other end doing the actual work(playing video etc)

Re: The noBounds Project
 

A cheap add-on device, you mean? If so, any release of code from the noBounds research project isn't going to be very helpful. There's also no after-sales accessories market for the tablets, so it'd have to be homebrew building or Nokai developing and selling it.

But as is pointed out by mikkov, this is using a PC. Just plug the Nokia in as a USB Mass Storage Device and play it on the PC. noBounds doesn't seem to redirect the tablet's video output any better than VNC would, and other acceleration solely comes from using specialised software. So for video, you can already play it back using the external device.

In fact, I can sell that external device to you *right now* for only £150 ($299 or less!): it's an Asus Eee PC 701.

Re: The noBounds Project
 

Yes, I get the distinct impression this is like VNC or X-forwarding on steroids; it looks like you need a device with a CPU and GPU at the display side that is capable of running an xserver with things like OpenGL. So the noBounds hardware will probably be at least $250, like the toy that sjgadsby stumbled across. Am I allowed to say what that device is?

Re: The noBounds Project
 

Yes, something like (based on?) Chromium, but also some compressed video support.

And indeed I'm quite interested in that little box; what is it?

Re: The noBounds Project
 

Hmm, why all the talk? VNC has to do bi-directional mouse/keyboard input for one thing and is designed for low encoding overhead (of the tiles). IMO this will result in low framerate. The scheme demonstrated on that N8x0 appears (or rather we were told this is how the transfer is done) to use rather high overhead mpeg4 encoding (which is ok if you have hw assist) then the decode is also very cheap assuming you have mpeg4 hw decoding. I.e. you can do high framerates assuming all the bits are in place.

That picture of a device on Flickr looks to have a usb input and a VGA output - USB-VGA adaptor? Like the thing the N8x0 has kernel drivers for?

Re: The noBounds Project
 

In fact it was already discussed that they were talking about using the mpeg2/4 hw decoders that all modern HD TVs have...

VNC is very slow for that task anyway.

Re: The noBounds Project
 

So they use a high-compression lossy video codec? And what HW assist?!

I don't know if it is just a video stream; the OpenGL demos showed different displays (different numbers of fish and buildings), and they explained that by saying that the N810 doesn't have HW GL, but the noBounds project does. The Quiver demo also showed a different display on the big screen (more thumbnails than on the tablet). That suggests that they are not sending video at all, but pre-rendered data that is simultaneously rendered on the tablet and the display side. This is more like X-Forwarding, except they are displaying the data on two displays.

Re: The noBounds Project
 

Okay, that little box is an Impatica ShowMate, actually made by Colorgraphic. The device is small, about the size of a pack of playing cards, and has two USB ports, one HD-15 VGA port, and Bluetooth. It lets BlackBerry, Palm, Sony Ericsson, and Windows Mobile smart phone owners wirelessly project specially prepared PowerPoint presentations from their phones. Recent versions of the ShowMate firmware and software will also allow for the mirroring of a smart phone's screen.

I've wondered for some time how difficult it would be to write software for Internet Tablets to let them talk to ShowMates and posted several such musings here in the fora. None of the clever hackers and coders here jumped on the project though, so I bought one myself.

Before anyone thinks the ShowMate will give us PC-less noBounds, the device only takes video input via Bluetooth or USB 1. The bandwidth for HD isn't there, and even if someone found a patent-free compression scheme that would fit HD into the available bandwidth without overwhelming a tablet and/or the ShowMate, the ShowMate can only output at 800x600. Also, audio would need to be handled separately as the ShowMate does video only.

That said, there's plenty of folks here who have expressed a desire to leave the laptop behind and project (even prepared ahead of time) PowerPoint presentations from their tablets. Additionally, low frame rate screen mirroring might be sufficient for some uses. I'm interested in exploring possibilities along these lines.

The ShowMate itself runs Linux 2.6 on a little endian ARM processor. Specifically, the processor is an Atmel AT91RM9200, and graphics are handled by an Epson S1D13506F00A chip.

Connect my (old stock, un-updated) ShowMate to a Linux computer via the ShowMate's mini-USB port*, and the Linux box will recognize the ShowMate as a Linux 2.6.12-csb637 gadget serial device. Fire up Miniterm on the cdc-acm port Linux created, and the ShowMate will prompt you for a password. Enter "probridge", and you'll be presented with a menu allowing you to check and upgrade the firmware in the ShowMate.

* Officially, this mini-USB port is the power port for the ShowMate.

The USB-A male to USB-A male I purchased to investigate the ShowMate's data USB port has just finally arrived, so I haven't had an opportunity to check that out yet. I expect it to be a host port rather than gadget serial.

Probing the ShowMate via BTScanner doesn't reveal anything, but then, Impatica says they use their own application layer protocol. In most versions of the firmware, it's also encrypted.

The latest firmware for the ShowMate is available as a free download from Impatica. Poke around inside the ZIP file, and you'll find a Linux kernel image, a filesystem image, and some other odds and ends. If you mount the filesystem image via loopback, you'll be able to find BusyBox, BlueZ, assorted GNU utilities, some GNU & gcc headers, etc.

What you won't find in the ZIP file is a copy of the GPL, and I've been holding off on posting this for that reason. Rather than include a copy of the GPL with software & firmware releases, Impatica includes an "acknowledgements.txt" file that mentions some of the code used in their product is GPLed. Don't look for the "acknowledgments.txt" file in the firmware download on the Impatica web site though. I'm told they forgot to include it this time.

According to the Impatica employee with whom I've corresponded, they will provide complete corresponding source upon request via postal mail (and payment for media cost). I have not yet mailed my request, but I will be doing so.

Though Impatica does freely provide GPLed binaries on their web site, they do not provide any source code there. As they see it, they do not use FTP, but HTTP, so they don't need to.

Please, don't go all Slashdot-stupid on Impatica. I've held off posting information on the ShowMate before now because I don't want them attacked. I'm hoping with some polite encouragement, they'll fully comply with the GPL. Email threats and insults will not help matters.

Re: The noBounds Project
 

Thanks for all that: very interesting stuff.

As for the GPL compliance, their reading of it (apart from not providing the necessary declarations along with the binaries) is perfectly within the letter of the licence, AIUI (I wasn't even aware of the AnonFTP "clarification" until now). It's fairly similar to Nokia's handling of the GPL (certainly in earlier OS releases) and, as long as they do send you the sources, perfectly fine.

Once you've got the sources, they can't stop you republishing them, of course.

Hear hear!

Re: The noBounds Project
 

sjgadsby; thanks for that info. And that's something that I'd certainely be interested in and have a near immediate need for. Very cool.

Re: The noBounds Project
 

sjgadsby: Sounds cool :)

qole: After a closer examination of the video, I see what you mean. I still stand by the general transfer method of using mpeg2/4 (probably using the IVA to encode it, as it's supposed to be able to do this).

I saw at least 3 options on the GUI they showed - Compressed AV (which I guess would be mpeg2/4 compression, or perhaps does direct output - like the video), OpenGL (as you say, there are fewer objects on the N8x0, but yes, what hw does OpenGL for the display?) and X-proxy (the drawing and photo apps).

My fault, I should have looked harder.

Re: The noBounds Project
 

Maybe they have an external usb box (with a CPU and GPU) that communicates with the tablet using a method similar to what I'm talking about (the dual-display X-Forwarding-like method), renders the display, and then encodes the rendered output into mpeg4 for sending to a mpeg-capable display. Then everyone's happy :D It just means there's some serious GPU horsepower in this box.

Re: The noBounds Project
 

There's speculation that noBounds was a hoax. Anyone know if this is true? Was noBounds a ruse? Or, a response by frustrated employees at Bochum to the potential the ITT's had, but they couldn't talk about and Nokia wouldn't support? Does the capability actually exist to have video out on the n8XX? Would anyone at the Maemo Summit have answers to these questions?

(Just wanted to say this is the first reply I've posted. I really like my n800! Thanks to everyone who has made this thing as usable as it is! And thanks Reggie, for the original post on this topic)

Re: The noBounds Project
 

Well, since they've been planning to have tablets rigged with video out at the Maemo Summit, for doing big-screen presentations, I'd say the capability actually exists to have video out; this may or may not be the same as noBounds. When people get back, I'm sure they'll be posting all over, and that will be covered. (They seem to be busy enough right now to reduce coverage from the levels I'd like, anyway, but I wouldn't be surprised if we hear about those displays this afternoon.)

Community-side, with no real funding, we've had some success with SIS USB-VGA adapters; you can run an X server and display apps, but the framerate is poor, largely because we're doing a fairly lame dump of framebuffer data; we can't put our own software, speaking whatever seems good, on the other end like noBounds is said to do.

I think "hoax" is rather strong, as the specific allegation made there was that the remote end was running Windows XP, and even the generalized allegation there was merely that it was "smoke and mirrors", which is essentially the point of noBounds. While that XP-based system is obviously not practical (because of license expense, if nothing else), using a different OS than the final product means that it's a POC, not that it's a hoax.

Re: The noBounds Project
 

Busy, yes, but "reduce", "coverage", and "levels" are also good words. So is "WiFi".

And Nokia's developers have had even better success. Qole's the one to ask about this topic.

Re: The noBounds Project
 

Well, they had something at the Summit, it wasn't noBounds, it was closer to Graham Cobb's USB2VGA proof-of-concept. It was better than Cobbs' version, in that it could clone the tablet screen fairly accurately, but it still had a fairly crappy frame rate.

I think I was the only one to actually use the system. I had to install my stuff onto a Nokia-provided tablet. That went pretty smoothly. To make it work, we had to connect the tablet to the USB2VGA device, then run "sudo modprobe sisusbvga" (or something like that). Up popped the tablet screen on the projector! Not bad. But most of the animations in my presentation showed on the tablet screen, but not on the projected screen. Wouldn't be any good for watching video or playing arcade games.

I got Graham Cobb and the Nokia guy together, and they talked a bit; supposedly the Nokia IT guys are trying to get official permission to release their video out hacks, which include some kind of kernel patches. Pester these guys if you want it.

Re: The noBounds Project
 

I would be extremely interested if I could somehow run my presentations (just slides) directly from my N800 instead of using the laptop. It would be even better if I could just connect a (tiny) device to the projector and do the rest via wi-fi (then I could move around a bit too). Was that what the nobounds project was up to?

Re: The noBounds Project
 

There's a channel I can use to make this request; I've just been waiting for the right moment. :D

No guarantees though. I'm just one tiny voice...

Re: The noBounds Project
 

The guys in question look like the same secret-squirrel project you couldn't tell us about; nice that they have a public site, even if it's not the same content as you guys have in your in-house bundle. (And if it is the same content, and you're able to confirm it, that'd be cool too; but I'm left to speculate that at least the video-out might be freely circulating inside Nokia as part of the bundle...)

It's actually rather unsurprising that they're using the same SIS chipset, since Diablo strangely included the kernel module. And that incantation sounds much like what I did with the USB2VGA2 adapter, back when I was playing with it. I was gonna get back on that one of these days (like later this week or early next, I hoped), but maybe I'll put it off for awhile in hopes of their release... there's always plenty of projects to work on.

Re: The noBounds Project
 

When thinking about it, it should work and is doable only on kernel side. When display device is slow (like VNC over network or this adapter) the trick is to not to update whole display periodically but send only changes in smallest possible rectangles when they are actually drawn. Problem with this in general is to find out where on the screen something changed. Good news is that we already have this problem solved because of external videochip in our tablets. It already works like this so this kernel hack can just hook into omap framebuffer update commands and send same rectangles sent to Epson chip over USB too. Or better just record rectangle coordinates and send relevant rectangle data asynchronously with some clever skipping/merging when it becomes too fast. I hope they will make the source public. If not, this is possible to reimplement as opensource (with enough time and motivation).

Re: The noBounds Project
 

Morning guys.

passeridae, not a hoax, just not quite what was offered.
It was not video out but was still VERY cool and got people talking :)

Read my comment on the posting you put.

Re: The noBounds Project
 

The other thing to look at is upping the USB transfer speed. Anyone know the limitation here?

Re: The noBounds Project
 

HI TA-t3, I saw some posts from you here in the "internettabletalk forum" talking about use N8x0 for the connection with a projector to use just for slide presentations. I just bought today a N800 and my first interest for the internet tablet is also to replace the laptop connection w/ projector during my classes. Did you find some solution for that?

Thanks in advance.

Re: The noBounds Project
 

Graham Cobb and some others worked on a USB2VGA adapter solution. Here is the link.

http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...hlight=usb2vga

From the thread, the solution seems to work well for slideshows, but that's about it.

Re: The noBounds Project
 

After noBounds! is cooking up again and again with a lot of wrong speculation...

First: IT'S REAL! :D But some introducing words:

noBounds! is not delivering earlier, since all my Teammembers and myself were required to seek a different company and/or to relocate after whole Nokia Bochum (>2300 people: Production and R&D) has been closed down in 2008.
I can understand your disappointment. I'm very sorry about that delay, but I hope you can understand, too why this was a significant blow!

FYI, my old noBounds! publication was:
http://www.internettablettalk.com/20...ounds-project/

Liquid-HD by Silicon Image, my new Employer in Hannover, has handled all even more closed in the beginning, unfortunatly. Exceptions are a few publications as e.g. on youtube. The source-device in the Video can be an N900 over WiFi, too.

The bad fate is: My new Employer has recently decided to close all European R&D locations... But there is again hope, I can't publish now, sorry! I'm getting used to this :-(


Referring to qole:
The "big-sized demo" was using a very old and intentionally limited Laptop (instead of N900 at that time) as source-device to speed up our Implementation work. I had to start from scratch! Additonally, I've received the N900 not before that day.

The very first sink-side box has about CD-area, but is very empty:
http://ces.cnet.com/8301-19167_1-10137194-100.html

Above devel-device additionally includes debug-hardware, legacy etc. As a product it can be battery powered and much smaller, e.g like a phone.

Afterwards, the low-cost chip ($10) of the sink-box would be integrated into the TV or Projector:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2338367,00.asp


noBounds! can be understood as an external Smartphone-companion GPU. It's expanding N900's capabilities and can relieve the local N900-CPU, too. This enables Desktop-like behaviour (e.g. with 1920x1080p GUI) of the N900 without any PC!
Only needed are: N900 with driver SW, WiFi and our remote-GPU connected to a TV or Projector.
You can compare that situation very well to e.g. ATI or nVidea Graphic-cards in a PC, but the CPU (i.e. N900) is connected to the LiquidGPU over build-in USB or WiFi, instead of a PCI-bus.

Sorry, I still have to be a little diffident :mad: , as competition is reading here, too!

Anyway, in the meantime noBounds works well on N900, too! :cool:

For HD-video streaming (e.g. 1280x720p, more than N900 current capture capabilities) our executable & python GUI takes <10% of N900, but the N900 Mass-storage driver and WiFi driver take a little more. Anyway, there is still a lot of headroom free.

For FullHD GUI (1920x1080p), the ARM CPU is used only in short peaks, seldom more than 10%. Mostly 0..1% CPU time. RAM usage is also quite neglectable, while reaction time is still immediatly.

So, I hope you can keep your patience :rolleyes: ....

Re: The noBounds Project
 

Doesn't this technology need usb host mode support in the tablet? Am I wrong?

If so, how is it working on N900 as it does not have the necessary support for usb host mode? Or does it mean that it indeed supports the mode and we all in this forum have been fooled?

Thanks in advance.

Re: The noBounds Project
 

Belng;
How does your scaling resolve with the different UI of the maemo 5 platofrm (finger-friendly does not scale nicely on higher resolutions) and there needs to be some mouse/keyboard, wireless accessory support to make this work best - does noBounds address this aspect of the Mamemo 5 platform?

Nevertheless, I'm quite excited to read that its still going on. Especially considering my personal use of mobile devices.

Re: The noBounds Project
 

I am very intrigued. Exactly what I was looking for. Estimated time till availability please?

Re: The noBounds Project
 

The USB mode host/peripheral/OTG is not relevant for noBounds as long as any link is established.

Re: The noBounds Project
 

We don't scale a ready GUI-output at all, as this would lead to reduced quality! It's matter of any Application to read the information there is e.g. a FullHD display connected and re-arrange properly on it's own. This still is the case with most Apps ported form PC to N900. Btw, that's the same situation as with vertical- vs. horizontal display support: The App needs to have the right designed GUI support, which takes time.
noBounds is mostly part of the System level (X.org...), not necessarily the application level. It can be a nested X-Server like Xephyr on App-level, or an additional screen like in Xinerama and XDMX on lower level.

Re: The noBounds Project
 

Excuse me for my ignorance, then, but as you were talking about the N900 Mass-storage driver, I assumed it was using some kind of usb host mode in the inners.

My mistake came from reading the guide about usb mass-storage found here: http://www.lvr.com/mass_storage.htm

And specially the following paragraph:

"The mass-storage bulk-only protocol defines how a USB host can send commands and receive responses using the bulk transfers defined by the USB specification."

Re: The noBounds Project
 

Hi iamNarada,

thanks for your positive words!
Unfortunately, as you can imagine from my post, this I can not answer now.

Re: The noBounds Project
 

Very interesting. And thanks for the feedback.

May I suggest that you create some type of documentation/banner than Maemo developers can use which would certify that they've been tested and are ready for noBounds. Nothing major, but something of a checklist for those kinds of applications which would be used in such a scenario. In this way you not only get ot deploy a solid solution, but also create yourselves as an agent of mobile computing change of the fun kind.

Thanks for continuing the work.

Re: The noBounds Project
 

Ok, than we had a misunderstanding.
I menat in your quotation the high-datarate access to the build-in 32GB mass-storage flash-chip for reading the to be streamed video-file.

Re: The noBounds Project
 

Belng, This is VERY exciting news! So you connected it to your N900 and it worked? If you can make them by hand (and still look nice and smallish) I would definitely buy one. I'm sure many others would too. Maybe you could fund it yourself?

Re: The noBounds Project
 

Excellent hint! Thank you very much. I'll keep that in my mind.

Re: The noBounds Project
 

dalonso: this doesn't work over USB, it works over WiFi.

I'm still not sure of the use-cases for this project.

If I want a network-connected HD media streaming device, I'd use something like the WD TV Live (Canadian store listing). It is relatively inexpensive and handles all sorts of media over the network...

If I want a high-resolution workstation, I probably wouldn't start with a Maemo 5 device. I would set up a small Atom-based PC running the current Ubuntu from an 8GB USB pen drive (I have two such machines in my home already), and install the productivity software that I want to use on that machine. If I need access to it from my mobile, I'd use VNC or BlueMaemo or some such thing to control the PC from my handheld.

What are some other use-cases where this technology would be better?

Re: The noBounds Project
 

But if all you had were people who are field workers who spend little time at their desks, leaving a monitor and keyboard at their desk, with the N900 playing the role of PC works there.

But as you say, you could start with a small Atom-based PC, or you could start from the N900, and take the 8GB pen drives and push those funds into either extra internal storage, or even network storage.

EDIT: Though they'd not do this, I would make it a requirement for the entire Maemo dept within Nokia to use this setup daily. Beside getting many of the usage kinks worked out because of day to day use, it would allow for more functional applications and processes to be explored by the very group trying to kick mobile computing up a notch.

Re: The noBounds Project
 

Hi Qole,

when the noBounds project was first advertised in maemo.org (http://www.internettablettalk.com/20...ounds-project/) the following could be read:

"The project aims to output video at FullHD (1920×1080p) at 30 frames per second (faster on partial display changes) via USB or WLAN"

Join this "USB" with that "mass-storage" and that other "working on N900" ..... and I thought it was some kind of "Displaylink" technology.

Well, I suppose I'm not understanding how it really works.

I will wait, then.

But anyway, an interesting and innovative project.

Re: The noBounds Project
 

Personally, I'd find it pretty cool if I could utilise my pocket computer (read N900) on a big screen when I'm away from my desktop (say in a hotel or...). This kind of setup potentially negates the need to carry a laptop while enabling all of the benefits of large screen computing. The streaming media thing is also desirable but not the end-game as I see it.