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24 March 2014

The logic of mobile co-processors

I have always had a fascination about how much a device can become a part of our lives and after so many years of wandering through the technology reviews, user reviews, spec-war and heavy apps, I have found a kind of holy grail of mobiles that will soon emerge as the top feature in every phone that will come up: The mobile co-processor.
A mobile co-processor, as the name itself suggests is a processor that handles sensory data or contexual data that is fed to it from multiple sensors of a mobile.
Why not have all done by the quad-core or octa-core processors coming up in the mobiles these days? The main advantage of this system over the normal setup is that it consumes very low power and keeps the main processor in hibernation mode as it takes care of the continuous monitoring of activities like voice, movement, proximity sensor, etc. The uses are innumerable and Moto X was just a beginning. Others that followed suit are:
iPhone 5s(With its M7 motion co-processor)
Sony Xperia Z Ultra, Z1, Z1 Compact and the upcoming Z2(With Sony's sensor co-processor)

Of course all the above had different ways of integrating co-processors with their main processor, but the way Moto X integrated the hardware and software is amazing to say the least.
Soon we may see similar features from others like samsung, htc, lenovo, etc..

With love.. Anil