Hello, and thanks for all the questions to our regular ‘Ask the CEO’ blog. Now, onto the answers…
Q: Is MHL in QuickLogic’s product plans, as it appears to be the only standard not supported by QuickLogic today? (shortened for brevity)
A: MHL is an impressive technology as it allows HDMI audio and video over a micro-USB. MHL is a standard that deals with external displays being supported by mobile phones and tablets. QuickLogic’s VEE and DPO technologies are designed to support embedded displays and pico projectors, which you can see in the block diagrams of our parts provided in a number of different publicly-available presentations.
With an non-native display, DPO could not be used, as there is no direct way to control brightness of that display in today’s ecosystem. VEE can certainly be used to adapt the display content for viewing experience—however, VEE relies on ambient light data as part of its process. While some external displays do have embedded ambient light sensors, there is no way for that data to be transmitted back to the host system. Accordingly, VEE would not know what the true ambient light environment is facing the user, and could over or under-compensate, giving a less-than-ideal user experience.
Accordingly, it is not in our product plans right now.
Q: Andy, Congratulations on the recently announced joint venture with CertiVox. When do you anticipate the products will reach the marketplace.
At this time, we aren’t prepared to discuss the specifics of when products are going to be in the marketplace. As we announce more details, you’ll be able to read about them here at QuickLogic HotSpots, and at www.QuickLogic.com
Q: Is the new product that you and CertiVox created effected by Obama’s “Consumers Bill of Rights” Plan? (shortened for brevity)
Not in any negative way. The plan, as the press has reported it, deals with the tracking of consumer movement, usage of consumer data amongst different purposes, and accountability for mis-use of data. CertiVox deals specially with cloud-based encryption of data. If anything, we believe the CertiVox technology is helped by bills such as this which mandate greater consumer data and tracking security.
