A close look at the new BlackBerry tablet OS
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Prepare to put your geeky hats on, as we summarize the technical details behind the new BlackBerry tablet OS, as found in the PlayBook tablet. The operating system is developed by QNX Software Systems, an Ontario-based company, which RIM acquired this year. At first, the thought was that the acquisition was meant to help integrate BlackBerry devices in cars, as that is where QNX shines, but now we see RIM has had deeper plans for the software.
The QNX Neutrino real time operating system is based on POSIX, like Linux. Its main advantage is how slim and optimized the kernel is. The first edition was in 1982, and it has been polished and ironed out ever since. The source code is just 100 000 lines, compared to, say, Linux's 9 million, or Windows's 70 million lines of code. This means extreme reliability with very little chances to crash.
No wonder it is used in nuclear plants, defense networks and medical applications. The core supports most modern processors, and multi-threading on up to 32-core processors. Alternatively, it can talk simultaneously to different chips over a network, and they won't know they are on different devices, such as when using your BlackBerry GPS for the PlayBook tablet.
Drivers and applications sit in their own isolated memory address, and operate independently. This way when something gives up the ghost, it doesn't drag the whole system down with it. Neutrino supports Adobe Air and Flash, Java, OpenGL, POSIX and WebKit, among others, so developers will have an easy time programming in any of the language of their choosing, instead of being locked down to one environment. All programming languages are equal objects for the platform, and you can have both Adobe Air and Javascript in one and the same app, working in tandem. It is also a real time operating system, which, in its car reincarnation, means it constantly monitors the car's speed, tire pressure or engine temperature, and an app can be built to take action when the values change.
Another advantage of QNX's Neutrino is that it can address larger memory pages than other operating systems, which boosts performance, especially on ARM-based chipsets, like the Tegra 2 in the PlayBook tablet. This advanced memory management can improve their performance up to 30%, so with a 1GHz CPU, the user will feel as if using 1.3GHz chipset, just because this functionality is built into Neutrino.
But talk is cheap without a video nowadays, right? We are embedding one review for a project called the "LTE connected car", which brings together a 4G equipment manufacturer, Toyota, and QNX, to present you the next level of car infotainment systems. The QNX part of it is called the "Flash Motor" and the fun starts past the 0:40 mark. Well, looks like RIM might have a winner on its hands - at least we are positive now that BlackBerry's PlayBook tablet OS will be finger-touch optimized, unlike some other tablets we know of.
source: BerryReview & QNX
The QNX Neutrino real time operating system is based on POSIX, like Linux. Its main advantage is how slim and optimized the kernel is. The first edition was in 1982, and it has been polished and ironed out ever since. The source code is just 100 000 lines, compared to, say, Linux's 9 million, or Windows's 70 million lines of code. This means extreme reliability with very little chances to crash.
No wonder it is used in nuclear plants, defense networks and medical applications. The core supports most modern processors, and multi-threading on up to 32-core processors. Alternatively, it can talk simultaneously to different chips over a network, and they won't know they are on different devices, such as when using your BlackBerry GPS for the PlayBook tablet.
Drivers and applications sit in their own isolated memory address, and operate independently. This way when something gives up the ghost, it doesn't drag the whole system down with it. Neutrino supports Adobe Air and Flash, Java, OpenGL, POSIX and WebKit, among others, so developers will have an easy time programming in any of the language of their choosing, instead of being locked down to one environment. All programming languages are equal objects for the platform, and you can have both Adobe Air and Javascript in one and the same app, working in tandem. It is also a real time operating system, which, in its car reincarnation, means it constantly monitors the car's speed, tire pressure or engine temperature, and an app can be built to take action when the values change.
Another advantage of QNX's Neutrino is that it can address larger memory pages than other operating systems, which boosts performance, especially on ARM-based chipsets, like the Tegra 2 in the PlayBook tablet. This advanced memory management can improve their performance up to 30%, so with a 1GHz CPU, the user will feel as if using 1.3GHz chipset, just because this functionality is built into Neutrino.
But talk is cheap without a video nowadays, right? We are embedding one review for a project called the "LTE connected car", which brings together a 4G equipment manufacturer, Toyota, and QNX, to present you the next level of car infotainment systems. The QNX part of it is called the "Flash Motor" and the fun starts past the 0:40 mark. Well, looks like RIM might have a winner on its hands - at least we are positive now that BlackBerry's PlayBook tablet OS will be finger-touch optimized, unlike some other tablets we know of.
source: BerryReview & QNX
