IITians Develop Linux-Based Cell Phone Tracking Software, Dec 31, 2004

Did you ever wish that you could track the location of a mobile user? Well, this could very well be a reality largely thanks to the efforts of three young Mumbai-based IITians, who have developed a Linux-based software application that tracks the location of mobile phones.

If you received a TiVo (www.tivo.com) DVR or a Linksys (www.linksys.com) router for Christmas, the open source people should sing praises to your name. Linux is appearing in households around the world in millions of nice devices and is so well-hidden under GUIs and web interfaces that the average user doesn't even know it is there.

Japan's largest mobile phone carrier, NTT DoCoMo, has taken a $3 million equity stake in embedded Linux tools and support company MontaVista.

Just in time for the holidays, Trolltech has contributed the most recent version of its development framework and application stack for PDAs to the open source community. Qtopia 2.1 PDA Edition is available for download now under the open source GNU GPL

Desktop Linux options are lighter with the launch of Sub300.com's Ultralite Laptop. The Linux-only retailer is selling the world's lightest computer notebook at well under $1000, featuring the easy-to-use and capable Linspire operating system.

BargainPDA has reviewed the Sharp Zaurus SL-C3000, a Linux-based PDA introduced in October. The SL-C3000 is the first Zaurus model equipped with a hard drive. It is officially available in Japan, although several distributors resell internationalized English versions.

WIN Enterprises has squeezed a Pentium 4 processor along with three gigabit and two 10/100 megabit Ethernet ports into a 1U high rack-mountable embedded platform available with Linux.

Analysts are overplaying the Linux angle in PalmSource's acquisition of China MobileSoft, wrote eWEEK's David Coursey today in his blog

Flash is making a splash in the device market, says an engineering services firm deputized by Macromedia to resell embedded Flash technology to low-volume licensees.

Today we at PalmSource announced we're going to extend Palm OS to run on top of Linux. We've written this letter to explain what we're doing and not doing, why we're doing it, and how we're doing it. We'll also answer some likely questions.

Torbert showed me around the GestureStorm system on my visit to his studio. The machine is a standard AMD desktop box running Red Hat and GNOME. Video comes into the capture card (typically a Matrox Meteor) from the green-screen-facing studio camera. A little box with the Cybernet name on it functions as the remote clicker receiver. I think the clicker was an actual garage door remote. The whole thing fit right in with the dozen or so other PCs and monitors that filled the control room.

Chassis Plans is shipping a small PC intended for use in computerized voting systems, kiosks, and other embedded Linux applications.

An outspoken open source detractor has paid Linux a back-handed compliment. Green Hills Software (GHS), known for diatribes against Linux in military/aerospace applications, is shipping "Padded Cell technology" (PCT) intended to enable the company's proprietary real-time operating system (RTOS) to take advantage of the wealth of Linux application software.

Linux slowly but surely is making its presence known in the mobile communications market and has a chance to gain a following as OEMs and operators roll out their advanced voice and data networks.

D-Link has released source code, under the GNU GPL license, for a MIPS-based ADSL router with a built-in four-port switch and wireless 802.11g/b radio

After launching two of the world's first Linux smart phones, China's E28 is now offering handset manufacturers the opportunity to license its software and hardware designs based on the increasingly popular open-source operating system.

One of Japan's largest IT providers will resell and support Trolltech's application stack and development platform for Linux phones and PDAs.

A Chinese Linux smartphone company has won a prestigious industry award in Hong Kong. E28 received a Technological Achievement Award in the 2004 Hong Kong Awards for Industry, for a Linux-based smartphone reference design expected in January.

Kontron is offering a new Pentium M CPU module for its ruggedized in-vehicle computer. The fanless 1.4GHz Pentium M module offers a much more powerful CPU for the CV Server, previously limited to 400MHz and 700MHz Pentium III CPU modules. The CV Server supports Linux.

Sharp is not pulling out of the US PDA market after all, the company has revealed, at least not to the extent that it had previously indicated.

Linux could be the “universal” operating system, running real-time code in handheld equipment and complex networking protocols in basestations.

After launching two of the world's first Linux smart phones, China's E28 is now offering handset manufacturers the opportunity to license its software and hardware designs based on the increasingly popular open-source operating system.

The TomTom Go is a Linux-based in-car GPS navigation system available with or without preloaded maps.

Empower plans to ship a $200 Linux-based PDA with a color display by December.

Two MIT students relaunched MIT's believed-legal music sharing network today, using a Linux-based consumer audio device that also launches today as a commercial product.

Last week on watch this Wednesday we slapped our wrists with the onHand PC watch and, it felt oh so good. This week we ask, where’s our Linux watch?

InfoSync is reporting that Sharp will no longer sell Linux-based PDAs in the US, and has end-of-lifed a US model introduced here less than a year ago.

Automotive Grade Linux (AGL) is Metrowerks's term for a strategic investment the company is making around improving Linux for use in automotive telematics.

Sharp has announced that the next verison of its Linux-based Zaurus PDA will boast a 4GB hard disk drive.

The Medaillon also come with an embedded Linux distribution called Shinux, and can be used as a boot device on PCs with BIOSes that support booting from USB storage devices.

The iRiver PMP-120 is a Linux-based portable media player aimed in part at the in-car entertainment device market. iRiver plans to pursue the in-car entertainment device market aggressively, and is building a large factory in China, according to the DigiTimes.

MontaVista Software has begun work to endow Linux with a feature currently possessed only by proprietary rivals: a guaranteed fast response time useful in everything from automotive control computers to video players.

IP Telephony systems based on open source technology will eclipse revenues from Linux over the next two years, a leading open source guru predicted today.

A company called "Node" has come out with a rugged handheld computer and GPS unit intended for location-aware interactive exploration of indoor and outdoor spaces. The Explorer v2 is based on a 400MHz XScale processor, and reportedly supports both embedded Linux and Microsoft Pocket PC.

A Chinese ODM (original device manufacturer) will ship a mobile phone based on Linux and Qtopia in Q1 of 2005. Yuhua TelTech's "Normandy" phone will use Qtopia Phone Edition (QPE), an application stack for mobile phones that includes a PIMS and other PDA-like features.

Amstrad has used embedded Linux to build an inexpensive videophone. The £100 (about $180) Amstrad E3 enables users to send email and SMS/MMS messages, surf the Web, and videoconference with other E3 users over a 56K modem connection to a UK service provider.

Although Linux has captured the imagination of embedded-device designers worldwide, commercial operating systems continue to dominate real-time applications. With a multiuser architecture, a non-pre-emptable kernel, and a scheduler based on fairness instead of priority, Linux forced developers to rewrite portions of it or install a second kernel to gain real-time features. Responding to these deficiencies, a dedicated Linux support community has recently delivered an updated kernel that incorporates many time-sensitive features and makes Linux suitable for a larger range of real-time applications.

Retail and manufacturing workers will soon wield RFID wands that support end-to-end Linux, through a new two-vendor pact rolled out this week. In a separate partnership, another vendor will team up with two integrators on an RFID job for Beaver Street Fisheries, a big frozen foods supplier that's quite willingly joining in on Wal-Mart's controversial RFID trials.

A Motorola smartphone scheduled for US distribution before the year-end holiday season will include embedded Linux software from MontaVista and embedded database software from Sleepycat, the companies announced today.

The PC Reviver from Asterisk is an inexpensive device that intended to turn aging x86-based PCs into thin clients by replacing their hard-drive with a solid-state flash memory device that boots an embedded Linux OS. The "revived" computer can then be used as a network appliance for Citrix, Windows, Linux, and/or browser-based server-centric computing networks.

i3 has announced that its Linux based customer premises equipment (CPEs) and newly updated, Linux based XoIP central management server will be used in iDTV and IP-TV test networks, respectively, in Belgium and Sweden. Additionally, i3 says its CPEs support extra-high speed ADSL2+ networks.

The first Linux-based mobile phone for the US market is now available through Dobson/Cellular One, according to Wildseed Ltd. Wildseed's Linux-based fashion phone is available now to Dobson/Cellular One's GSM/GPRS subscribers, Wildseed says, along with 23 "SmartSkins" that bring unique, interchangable personalities to the device.

While it’s definitely not the first penguin-based cellphone out there, it’s nice to see Samsung finally getting some of their previously mulled-about Linux phones to market (though it’d be nicer if it was our market).

The latest embedded market research data from Venture Development Corp. shows that Linux is now firmly in first place as the operating system of choice for smart gadgets and embedded systems. VDC's latest data indicates that Linux now accounts for 15.5 percent of embedded projects, beating out Microsoft's WinCE (6 percent) and XPe (5 percent), and Wind River's VxWorks (10.3 percent).

Orion Multisystems, a new company founded by former Transmeta executives, debuted a family of workstations Monday that think and act like a cluster of servers.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company introduced two Linux systems based on Transmeta's Efficeon processors -- a desktop and a mini tower. Officials said its desktop model is a single-system board consisting of 12 nodes that can scale up to 96 nodes using eight interconnected boards. Unlike traditional backroom clusters that require setting up huge banks of servers, minimal configuration is required to immediately run all cluster applications.

Thin-client vendor Neoware ranked eighth in Fortune Magazine's 100 fastest growing US companies list, published in the September issue. The list is based on performance over the previous three years. Neoware mainly sells thin clients that run Linux and other embedded OSes on VIA embedded processors.

LinuxDevices presents this exclusive interview with Roger Kung, Chairman and CEO of E28, a Linux smartphone startup in Shanghai, China. E28 was the first company to ship a Linux smartphone, and could unveil a Linux smartphone for the US as early as the Boston LinuxWorld Expo.

Via Technologies has released a version of the open-source Xine media player that is designed to take advantage of hardware digital video acceleration capabilities in two of the company's PC chipsets, the CN400 and CLE266.

The Via-enhanced Xine Player version 3.0 (VeXP 3.0) was developed for Linux-based personal electronics devices that rely on the MPEG-4 and MPEG-2 acceleration functions of the Via chipsets, company representatives say.

MEN Mikro Elektronik claims to be one of the first European embedded computer suppliers to join the MontaVista Linux software certification program.

This will allow the German board supplier to develop MontaVista Linux support packages for its ESM embedded system modules, VMEbus and CompactPCI single board computers.

Security appliance vendor CyberGuard has begun migrating its operating environment (OE) from SCO Unixware to embedded Linux, rebranding its entire line of firewall/VPN appliances with the new Linux-based V6 OE and encouraging existing customers to upgrade. It also plans to harden its appliances with high-availability features from Carrier Grade Linux.

According to CyberGuard product manager Andy Tate, CyberGuard will continue to support its Unixware-based V5 operating system for several years. "We're going to continue to maintain that platform for at least two years. We encourage [customers] to move to the new platform, but we will not leave any customer behind."

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