LinuxDevices.com will not publish our weekly newsletters for the next two weeks, in recognition of the end-of-year holidays. We therefore want to take this opportunity to wish all of our readers a peaceful, healthy, happy, and prosperous New Year, and to thank you for your support during the past year. The next newsletter will be published Thursday, January 8, 2004.
China launches Linux-based smartphone -- E28 launched a new Linux-based smartphone this week in China. The device, called the E2800, sells for about $600, and targets business users, offering PDA functions, touch-screen, handwriting recognition, a camera, and memory expansion to 512MB through an SD memory card. The E2800 is a 900/1800MHz, GSM/GPRS class 10 device based on dual ARM9 processors, running embedded Linux with a 2.4-series kernel.
Samsung debuts Linux-powered smartphone in China -- Samsung has also introduced a Linux-based smartphone in China. The Samsung SCH-i519 smartphone supports both Chinese and English, and works with the CDMA2000 1x network of China's #2 wireless provider, Unicom. The device features voice control, a powerful 400MHz XScale PXA255 processor, and a software suite from Mizi Research.
Java-powered home audio device frees music files from computers -- A new Java-powered home entertainment audio device design promises to simplify sharing computer music files among computers and stereos in connected homes. Gloolabs's Gloo is Java middleware that puts an iPod-like interface on music files it "discovers" around the network. Gloo, which will be licensed to multiple device makers, is available now on one device that runs embedded Linux, and Gloolabs is currently bootstrapping a Gloo developer community. Gloolabs is currently taking orders for the $250 MacSense HomePod, the first Gloo-based device, which will ship in January 2004. A limited quantity of the $350 Developer Edition is available now.
CEO Interview: Victor Yodaiken of FSMLabs -- This interview with FSMLabs CEO Victor Yodaiken is the first in LinuxDevices.com's new "CEO/CTO Interview Series." Yodaiken addresses general trends in the embedded market, as well as specific projects his company is involved with. Topics include robots that play catch, Tom Cruise's horse, jet engine construction, software patents, the international embedded Linux picture, BSD, development tools, the GPL, RTAI and ADEOS, Linux 2.6, and more.
Linux-powered industrial switchbox manages eight power mains -- The Utronix IP-SwitchBox800 uses embedded Linux to provide remote control of power mains and a serial device. The IP-SwitchBox800 can switch up to eight 230-Volt mains, with maximum combined current of 16 amps, and attach to and control one machine through a serial port. It features simple, open control interfaces, and several configuration options, including the capacity to itself be controlled through its serial interface. Find out more details about this embedded Linux success story in our full Device Profile.
GNUStep clone delivers fat binaries for Zaurus, OS X -- A GNUStep clone, "mySTEP", has been released for the Sharp Zaurus Linux-based PDA, according to several NetNews posts, along with a runtime environment for the Zaurus called "myPDA" and a GCC cross compiler hosted on Mac OS X 10.3. The mySTEP project remains in its infancy, according to reports, but already supports compiling Cocoa applications into "fat binaries" that can run on either a Mac OS X system or a Sharp Zaurus.
Free OpenML SDK beta available -- The Khronos Group announced the first beta release of the Software Development Kit (SDK) for OpenML 1.0. OpenML is an API for capturing, processing, synchronizing, and playing digital media content that, if widely adopted, would enable digital content authoring application developers to easily integrate video, audio and graphics capabilities into their application suites, and also makes these applications portable over multiple operating systems, CPU architectures and add-in hardware devices, according to Khronos. The beta release is available for both the Windows and Linux platforms.
Article series on porting drivers to the 2.6 Linux kernel -- LWN.net has published an extensive series of articles on porting device drivers to the 2.6 Linux kernel. The LWN.net Driver Porting Series consists of almost 40 highly technical, detailed articles describing how the kernel programming interface has changed between the 2.4 and soon-to-be-released 2.6 kernels.
Other noteworthy news items and announcements from the past week . . .
. . . and that's not all. Click here for the latest breaking news.
You can access 2003's newsletters here: Dec. 11, Dec. 4, Nov. 27, Nov. 20, Nov. 13, Nov. 6, Oct. 30, Oct. 23, Oct. 16, Oct. 9, Oct. 2, Sep. 25, Sep. 18, Sep. 11, Sep. 4, Aug. 21, Aug. 14, Aug. 7, Jul. 31, Jul. 24, Jul. 17, Jul. 10, Jul. 3, Jun. 26, Jun. 19, Jun. 12, Jun. 5, May 29, May 22, May 15, May 8, May 1, Apr. 24, Apr. 17, Apr. 10, Apr. 3, Mar. 27, Mar. 20, Mar. 13, Mar. 6, Feb. 27, Feb. 20, Feb. 13, Feb. 6, Jan. 30, Jan. 23, Jan. 16, Jan. 9, Jan. 2
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