NVIDIA Tegra

NVIDIA have snuggled up tightly with Microsoft and expressed that they will be working on optimizing Windows CE for Tegra-based “smartbooks” (something between a smarphone and a netbook), as opposed to Android. According to an article over at ComputerWorld, Mike Rayfield from NVIDIA was quite clear and specific about the differences between Android and Windows Mobile, and has clearly taken ‘sides’ – at least for now. We say this because there is also news that NVIDIA is working with Google to accelerate Android when running on Tegra hardware. The downside being that it will take about a year before anything good comes of it due to “Android limitations”. According to Mr. Rayfield,

“[Windows CE] is a rock-solid operating system that has been shipped billions of times. [It also has a] low memory footprint and a good collection of apps.”

NVIDIA’s main hang up appears to be that “There’s no hardware acceleration. It’s all software…” coupled with the fact that video and graphics rendering in Android is done specifically through Java. Rayfield believes that this technique is too slow for HD video. Although NVIDIA clearly haven’t put all their eggs in one basket, they may be surprised to find that not everyone jumps at Windows CE in just the way they think. Google declined to comment on the matter.