2824327
story
DeviceGuru writes
"Roku has announced two free updates to its Internet-enabled Netflix movie-streaming set-top box. The initial update adds advanced compression capable of streaming HD video over average consumer broadband connections, while the second (expected during the first quarter of 2009) will add A/V streaming from sources other than Netflix (e.g. YouTube, Hulu, Comedy Central, MSNBC, etc.). Roku faces growing competition from other providers of Internet-based video-on-demand STBs, such as Blockbuster's STB, Syabas's Popcorn Hour (aka NMT), AppleTV, and others. Roku hasn't said anything specific, but perhaps it'll partner with Boxee, which already provides a popular AppleTV hack."
2825547
submission
nerdyH writes:
Novell's recent openSUSE 11.1 release includes a new end-user license agreement modeled after Fedora's EULA, says Community Manager Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier in this detailed interview. Zonker says distributions should apply the "open source principle" and standardize trademark agreements and EULA, similar to how the OSI sought to reduce open source license proliferation a few years back. But with Fedora and openSUSE being so different, can one size really fit all? And, will open source licenses ever finally get translated into languages besides English?
2683119
submission
nerdyH writes:
The all-volunteer FREDNET science project vying for Google's Lunar X PRIZE competition will use a Linux camera from Elphel, the same company that supplied Google with imaging gear for its StreetView and Book Library projects. All of Elphel's cameras are completely open source, a good fit for collaborative scientific research projects like Team FREDNET, a FREDNET volunteer writes, because there's no chance for patent NDAs to obstruct innovation. The question is, will the Man in the Moon express privacy concerns, when his cat appears in Google MoonView?
790593
submission
nerdyH writes:
The Debian project's maintainer, Luke Claes, announced in an email Saturday that he will freeze the "testing" or "Lenny" tree, in preparation for a new stable release of Debian Linux in.... September! The freeze means that open source software developers have only a couple more days to package any applications that they want to be included in the next release of Debian — and by extension, in the inner sanctum source lists of distributions such as Ubuntu that are based on it. After the freeze starts next week, Debian maintainers will turn their attention to 364 release-critical bugs, and half-a-dozen high-priority goals. Given the work to be done, is Sept. really feasible? Lenny always was a little slow getting back to his right place...
432586
submission
nerdyH writes:
Corsoft's "Warden" software lets mobile phones sound a pre-recorded alarm message, such as "Where's my Daddy?" in a little girl's voice, when lost or stolen. The alarm is triggered by the phone losing Bluetooth pairing with another device, such as a headset or watch. The software also lets users disable the phone remotely via a web interface — assuming that no one silenced the bleating thing with a sledgehammer first.
428476
submission
nerdyH writes:
Intel describes its new 2GB to 16GB SSDs (solid state disks) as "smaller than a penny, and weighing less than a drop of water." The parts are "400 times smaller in volume than a 1.8-inch hard drive," Intel boasts, "and at 0.6 grams, 75 times lighter." Sampling now, with mass production set for Q1, the Z-P140 is described as an "optional" part of Intel's Menlow chipset, built in turn as part of Intel's vision for Linux-based Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs).
425600
submission
nerdyH writes:
Recent market research shows Linux to be just as good an embedded OS as traditional RTOSes (real-time OSes), with MontaVista emerging over Wind River as the best commercial vendor of embedded Linux OS stacks and development tools. Another finding: commercial embedded Linux is much more effective than DIY, in-house, roll-your-own Linux at getting products out the door. Juicily, the report is from EMF, which as recently as four years ago maintained that Windows Embedded OSes had much lower "total cost of development" than Linux.
418543
submission
nerdyH writes:
The Asus EEE has competition. FIC/Everex has confirmed plans to ship in January a "Cloudbook" UMPC with 7-inch display. Optionally available in a Developer edition that adds a touchscreen and software tools, the Cloudbook will run the Google Apps-oriented "gOS" Linux distribution, the same that powers Wal*Mart's $200 PC (story) and Everex's gOS dev board story.
416039
submission
nerdyH writes:
Weeks after Google revealed aspirations of creating a de facto standard operating system for mobile phones, via Android and the Open Handset Alliance, a lesser known, broad-based consortium has published what it hopes can serve as the first actual standard for Linux-based phones.
412109
submission
nerdyH writes:
Embedded Market Forecasters has issued a report claiming that embedded Linux is just as dependable as other RTOSes (real time operating systems). The independently funded report appears to recant EMF's controversial Microsoft-funded report in 2003 that claimed that embedded Windows OSes were far faster and cheaper than embedded Linux. ...
408435
submission
nerdyH writes:
An Asian PC manufacturer is readying what it claims will be the world's smallest XP system. The Icop eBox-4300 measures 4.5 x 4.5 x 1.4 inches, has a 500MHz x86-compatible Via processor, and supports up to 1GB or RAM. In fairness, the recently updated OQO appears to be a smidge-let teensier in volume and heft — but costs up to 10 times more, depending on spec.
390071
submission
nerdyH writes:
Amazon today launched its $400 "Kindle" electronic book reader, a lightweight tablet that connects readers to Amazon's electronic bookstore via a CDMA cellular data modem. Produced by Amazon's "Lab126" skunkworks team, and codenamed "Fiona" during development, the Kindle boasts a claimed 30 hours of battery life, thanks to a 2.6.10 XIP (execute-in-place) Linux kernel with "fpow" power saving architecture, and an E-ink "electronic paper" display, a kind of electrical Etch-a-Sketch that consumes no electrons once an image has been "printed" to it.
388745
submission
__aajbyc7391 writes:
LinuxDevices has just published the proceedings from the Ninth Real-Time Linux Workshop. The 28 papers, all available for free public download without registration, span a broad range of topics, ranging from fundamental real-time technologies to applications, hardware, and tools. As usual, the conference was organized by the Real-Time Linux Foundation. This year, the conference was held at the Johannes Kepler University (JKU) in Linz, Austria.
