Open source phone goes mass-market, Jun 25, 2008

Openmoko has begun shipping its Linux-based, open source Neo Freerunner phone to five newly announced distributors, in Germany, France, and India, says the company. The Neo Freerunner features an open hardware design, and a Linux-based operating system that users are free to modify.

Enea has upgraded its Linux-compatible interprocess communications (IPC) services software for distributed telecom systems. Linx now incorporates features that improve service availability, says Enea, including protocol/feature negotiation, priority messaging, and support for the new in-service upgrade capability in Enea's carrier-grade Element middleware.

A Hong Kong-based manufacturer is shipping a Linux-based ultra-mini PC (UMPC) laptop for only $250 ($180 in volume), which appears to give it the lowest price yet for a Linux laptop. Bestlink's Alpha 400 offers a 400MHz CPU and a 7-inch, truecolor display.

A vendor of power-efficient multicore PowerPC processors that run Linux and other embedded OSes will be acquired by Apple. Its purchase of P.A. Semi could signal Apple plans to migrate its desktops, servers, and embedded consumer products back to PowerPC.

The Firebird Project has ported its lightweight, open-source database to the ARM architecture. The project is looking for help testing a new Firebird 2.1 RC2 release, which in addition to ARM support, adds database triggers, temporary and monitoring tables, common table expressions, and recursive queries.

The "Podzilla" open source application suite was ported to a relatively inexpensive line of flash-based mp3 players. Originally developed by the iPod Linux project, the software now runs on SanDisk's $100-$150 Sansa e200 devices, reports Sebastian Duell, chief SansaLinux project developer.

Firmware company General Software announced that it is selling customized, quick-booting versions of its Linux-compatible BIOS firmware to the medical device industry. The company says its "Embedded BIOS with StrongFrame Technology" can boot to lilo (Linux loader) in less than a second.

Wind River's 4Q 2008 earnings results showed expected revenue growth to $84.3 million and a net loss of $2 million. However, Linux bookings were up 66 percent, with Linux expected to deliver $150 million in revenue for fiscal 2009, about 41 percent of the company's projected $365 million total.

Nokia promised to support Microsoft's cross-platform multimedia plugin across its major mobile device products. The Finnish mobile-phone giant will add Silverlight support to Symbian S60 smartphones, Series 40 devices, and Linux-based Nokia Internet tablets, it said.

Novell has updated its Linux distribution for administrators wishing to manage and customize point-of-sales/service (POS) systems. SUSE Linux Enterprise Point of Service (SLEPS) supports Linux-compatible equipment such as NCR's RealPOS 80XRT terminal, and can be used in large, "multi-tier" POS environments such as major retail chains, Novell said.

Texas Instruments (TI) will join the Linux Foundation in order to "collaborate with industry leaders who define both technical and operational best practices around open source software," it announced. TI's open source strategic marketing manager, Eric Thomas, will join the Foundation's board alongside new members Larry Augustin and Chris Schlaeger.

Berlin-based VoIP phone vendor Snom will show off its new line of Linux-based cordless VoIP phones at this week's CeBIT 2008 Conference in Hannover, Germany. Snom will also launch its Snom Hacker Shootout program to encourage hacker community involvement in addressing VoIP security issues.

Igel Techology has announced the incorporation of Philips SpeechMagic voice recognition technology into its thin client devices. Operable with or without training, the technology supports 25 different languages, allows dictation directly into templates, and permits switching between client- and server-based recognition, according to the company.

Nuvation has introduced two Linux-based reference designs that run on Texas Instruments (TI) DaVinci processors, and support power-over-Ethernet (PoE).

Chumby Industries announced volume shipments of its Chumby "consumer Internet device" at a price of $180 apiece. Chumby also announced a slate of content providers for the Chumby Network, including CBS, MTV Networks, MySpace, The Weather Channel Interactive, AOL's SHOUTcast and Scripps Networks.

Bologna, Italy-based TBE has announced a Linux-based panel PC aimed at HMI (human-machine interface) applications. Available with an integrated 6.4-inch touchscreen display or as a processor module, the GNU-Linux-based Terminale Grafico ARM-Linux is based on a 200MHz Cirrus Logic EP9315 SoC.

Worldwide Linux mobile device market share remained flat at five percent in 4Q 2007, says a Canalys report on mobile phones. Yet the study also says that signs point to future growth for Linux phones.

Finland-based Navicron has introduced Linux-based hardware and software reference designs for smart wireless devices. Navicron's FusionSoftware stack and Freescale-MX31-based FusionPlatform reference hardware are said to be designed for smartphones, Internet tablets, automotive computers, and machine-to-machine (M2M) equipment.

MontaVista's Mobilinux 5.0 Linux implementation for mobile phones was named a finalist in EDN Magazine's 2008 "Innovation Awards" for the semiconductor business. One of four finalists in the software category, Mobilinux is joined by Linux-compatible hardware finalists from Altera, Tilera, and Xilinx, among others.

A Research and Markets study says that the market share for mobile Linux in Asia will increase in 2008. The study also predicts that smartphones will continue to grab mobile-phone market share, and will represent 22 percent of the Asian mobile market this year.