Nokia details Linux tablet WiMAX plans

clipped from www.linuxdevices.com Nokia details Linux tablet WiMAX plans — Nokia plans to ship WiMAX-enabled Internet tablets next year. The as-yet unnamed model or models in Nokia's Linux-powered "N-series" Internet Tablet line will use Intel "Baxter Peak" WiMAX chips and will support Sprint's "Xohm" WiMAX service, the top phone-maker has revealed. ...

Summit chats up smartphones

clipped from www.linuxdevices.com Summit chats up smartphones — An annual conference devoted to smartphones of every type, including Linux-based devices, is set for Oct. 22 in San Francisco. The Smartphone Summit is co-located with the CTIA Wireless I.T. & Entertainment 2007 show, Oct. 23-25, but requires separate registration. ...

500 million touch-phones to ship by 2012

clipped from www.linuxdevices.com 500 million touch-phones to ship by 2012 — More than 100 million handsets with touch screens will be shipped in 2008, and more than 500 million will ship by 2012, according to a new study by ABI Research. Citing recent product introductions, the research firm says intuitive user interfaces are now becoming a critical ingredient in smartphones. ...

MontaVista readies new Linux mobile phone OS

clipped from www.linuxdevices.com MontaVista readies new Linux mobile phone OS — MontaVista will ship a "fifth-generation" Linux-based operating system for mobile phones in mid-November. The company says Mobilinux 5.0 will offer new security, power, networking, and quick-boot capabilities, along with footprint reductions, real-time improvements, and lower build costs for vendors of handsets and other mobile consumer devices. ...

Opinion: Mobile Linux is not about free software

clipped from www.linuxdevices.com Opinion: Mobile Linux is not about free software — This guest column posits six causes for Linux's meteoric rise in popularity among handset manufacturers. Author Andreas Constantinou, founder of a market research firm, discounts widely accepted truisms like customizability and developer preference for source code access, instead fingering pragmatic factors he says are unrelated to Linux's "free" qualities. ...

Linux phone specialist nets $14.5M investment

clipped from www.linuxdevices.com Linux phone specialist nets $14.5M investment — A design center in the South of France specializing in Linux mobile phone development has raised $14.5 million (10.5 Euros) in an initial funding round. The Series A round reportedly will enable Purple Labs to expand into a "one-stop" hardware/software Linux device design center. ...

IP phone design runs Linux

clipped from www.linuxdevices.com IP phone design runs Linux — A large embedded consulting house in Japan has started shipping a hardware reference design for handheld IP (Internet protocol) phones. Based on a Marvell PXA310 ("Monahans-LV") processor clocked at 624MHz, Sophia Systems's Sandgate 3-P design runs Linux, including Trolltech's Qtopia Phone Edition, or Windows CE/Mobile 6. ...

Inch-square DSP module runs Linux

clipped from www.linuxdevices.com Inch-square DSP module runs Linux — Cambridge Signal Processing (Camsig) is shipping a 1-inch-square "system-on-module" powered by an Analog Devices (ADI) Blackfin DSP (digital signal processor). The Minotaur BF537 and its simple two-layer break out board support uClinux, and target network cameras, network audio players, DVRs, PDAs, industrial automation, and robotics applications. ...   clipped from www.linuxdevices.com The Minotaur is based on an ADI Blackfin BF537 DSP, a 600MHz part with a 1.2GHz MAC (multiply-accumulate unit). The BF537 gained mainline Linux kernel support just a couple of months ago. Other Blackfin family DSPs can be special-ordered, Camsig says, for example by Stamp customers wishing to stick with the BF533 part while streamlining manufacturing.

GPL'd Linux stack supports touchscreen phones

clipped from www.linuxdevices.com GPL'd Linux stack supports touchscreen phones — [Updated Sept. 18] -- Trolltech will release its entire application development framework for Linux-based mobile phones under the GPL license, it announced on Sept. 18. Additionally, the development tools and software stack vendor plans to support FIC's iPhone-like GTA01 ("Neo1973") as an open phone development platform. ...

Mobile RDBMS gains features

clipped from www.linuxdevices.com Mobile RDBMS gains features — Hitachi America's Embedded Business Group has updated its C/C++/Java RDBMS (relational database management system) for embedded and mobile applications like mobile phones, GPS gadgets, televisions, and set-top boxes. Entier 2.2 adds features aimed at helping developers more easily implement consumer-friendly search capabilities under multitasking operating systems such as embedded Linux. ...

Broadcom aims advanced comm chips at Linux handsets

clipped from www.linuxdevices.com Broadcom aims advanced comm chips at Linux handsets — Communications chip giant Broadcom has joined the LiMo (Linux Mobile) Foundation, an industry group building a shared Linux stack for mobile phones. The company said it hopes to work with the Foundation to reduce Linux's power requirements, size, and cost, in order to "achieve widespread adoption of Linux-based handsets." ...

Mobile standards bodies LiPS, OMA align

clipped from www.linuxdevices.com Mobile standards bodies LiPS, OMA align — Two industry groups working to standardize mobile device software have announced an alliance. The Linux Phone Standards (LiPS) Forum and the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) say their partnership will increase interoperability among Linux-based phones, and between Linux- and non-Linux based phones and devices. ...

STB SoC does real-time HD encode/transcode

clipped from www.linuxdevices.com STB SoC does real-time HD encode/transcode — Horizon Semiconductors has announced a system-on-chip (SoC) that integrates multi-standard, dual-channel HD decoder, MPEG2/4 decoder, audio processor, and graphics accelerator functions. Aimed at STB (set-top box) and DVR (digital video recorder) applications, the Hz3120 and Hz4120 also include a "high performance" application processor. ...

Walt Mossberg gives Ubuntu the cold-shoulder

clipped from www.engadget.com Captain Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal Brigade delivered a pounding frontal attack to the good folks in the Ubuntu bunker today, sounding off about the Linux OS distribution that's been taking a lot of people (but not old Mossy) by storm. Apparently, after testing on a stock Dell system with the software pre-installed, Walt argued that the lack of codecs for playing some audio and video formats, trouble connecting iPods, and a trackpad which can't be adjusted, are just a few of the problems that most people will find intolerable in the open-source OS. Mossberg talks about users who, "...simply want their digital products to operate as promised, with as little maintenance and hassle as possible," and feels the answer for them is Windows or OS X, not the new, untested, and unpolished Ubuntu. While we don't agree on every point, perhaps this will push Canonical to tighten up its OS and really target the mainstream.

Getting Started with the Trolltech Greenphone SDK

clipped from www.linuxjournal.com Trolltech recently released many smartphone developers' dream combination-the Linux-based Greenphone and its open-source Qtopia Phone SDK. The Trolltech Greenphone is a full-featured tri-band GSM (900/1800/1900MHz) mobile phone with a built-in 1.3 megapixel camera. Like many other modern smartphones, it features a QVGA touchscreen, Bluetooth, client USB, mini-SD Flash and stereo audio connectors. Under the hood, it is built around a Marvell 312MHz PXA270(ARM) processor, runs with 64M of RAM, and has 128M of built-in Flash storage. It also uses the same field-proven Broadcom BCM2121 GSM/GPRS baseband processor module as the Palm Treo. The Greenphone almost could be described as a sporty, Linux version of the Palm Treo. It is much lighter, more compact and comes in any color you want-as long as it's green!

Sony, Sharp, and Hitachi out to cut your LCD power bill

clipped from www.engadget.com Sony, Sharp, and Hitachi have joined forces with the goal of developing LCD television tech that will have displays sipping less than half the current juice by 2011. A recent CNET study shows that a typical plasma television uses 328 watts of power, whereas the average LCD uses 193 watts. By researching LED backlighting -- which also helps with expanded-range color reproduction -- and other energy-saving technologies, the companies hope to keep the costs of operating an LCD down as the sizes go up. And let there be no mistake, sizes will go up. Tags: energy, hitachi, lcd, led, power, research, sharp, sony

Source rules among embedded developers

clipped from www.linuxdevices.com Source rules among embedded developers — Access to source code is the "primary motivating factor" in Linux adoption among embedded systems developers, suggests Evans Data Corp. The research firm found that two-thirds of developers surveyed deem source access "very" or "extremely" important, while only five percent thought it "not" important. ...

"Real-time" Linux to support new PowerPC SoCs

clipped from www.linuxdevices.com "Real-time" Linux to support new PowerPC SoCs — MontaVista plans to offer its commercially supported "real-time" Linux distribution for a pair of forthcoming AMCC SoCs (system-on-chip processors). The PPC405EX and PPC460EX respectively target WLAN and printing/imaging/networking applications, and will be the 22nd and 23rd AMCC chips supported by MontaVista Linux. ...

KDE ported to Nokia's Linux-powered Web tablets

clipped from www.linuxdevices.com KDE ported to Nokia's Linux-powered Web tablets — A community developer has ported Linux's KDE desktop environment to Nokia's Internet tablets. The port appears to run on both the N800 and -- with the addition of an RS-MMC card upgrade -- the older 770 tablet. ...

Linux tablet delivers IP-TV, other services over WiFi

clipped from www.linuxdevices.com Linux tablet delivers IP-TV, other services over WiFi — A European vendor of multi-service broadband gateways has used Linux and a handful of Texas Instruments (TI) silicon to build a neat-looking WiFi tablet capable of delivering IP-TV wirelessly throughout the home. Thomson's "WiFi Tablet" can deliver a range of other advanced services, too. ...