http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/next-vers...rm-based-systems-2011015/

Microsoft made it official at CES 2011 that the next version of Windows will support System on a Chip (SoC) architectures, including ARM-based systems.

Will WCG?

Yeah, Sony's new PSP will use a quad core ARM processor, with a Quad core GPU. But such ARM processors will also get into palmtops, slates/tablets, desktops, notebooks and even servers.

While I would prefer WCG created an app for ARM based systems; a typically worthwhile project to crunch for, before some maths project pushes one out, it might be the case that we would need someone like Sony to build and run such a project.

Although ARM is a different sort of processor, Android (and others) can run on it, an open source operating system (a bit like Linux to x86/x64 processors) and with Microsoft now promising to facilitate ARM processors with their next Windows operating system, it's inevitable that these processors will make strong headway into more powerful processor sectors.

My guess is that it might take some OpenCL and OpenGL facilitation and standardisation before programmers write science apps, but if these CPU'€™s are going to make their way into the said IT sectors these are requirements anyway.

According to this blog you can actually write in C or C++ for an HTC Eris and call it from Java functions. If you use the NDK you get access to OpenGL ES 2.0, on supported devices. This is only a 528MHz CPU, so would be of little use for science apps, but if it can be done on that CPU in a few months time it should be doable on quad core 2.5GHz ARM cpus, about twenty times as powerful and much more useful to science.

Within a few years there are likely to be hundreds of millions of such powerful processors in all sorts of devices -€“ a great potential to tap into.