CEO Steve Ballmer reportedly fired a FUD missile at Microsoft's greatest rival today, suggesting that Linux violates 228 patents. Ballmer's alleged remarks badly misrepresent statements made in August by a Linux startup offering insurance against patent lawsuits. Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) CEO Stuart Cohen prepared a statement in response. (more…)

NEC Corporation (NEC) and Panasonic Mobile Communications have developed a Linux-based software platform for 3G (third-generation) mobile phones. The platform has already shipped in one phone, with two more pending. The platform works with a 3G network in Japan, but will be licensed globally, the companies (more…)

A software product that implements IP-PBX functions on Linux/Unix servers was among 27 “Best of Show” winners at the Fall 2004 Internet Telephony Conference and Expo. FaceCorp's FacetPhone aims to replace traditional business phone systems with standards-based software that can run on commodity hardware. (more…)

MontaVista is broadening its presence in Japan to serve increasing demand for its embedded Linux operating systems and tools, it says. The company's Japanese partners will now include NEC System Technologies and Toshiba Information Systems, in addition to long-time partner ELT. (more…)

Texas Instruments (TI) says it has signed up two new customers in China who will use OMAP SoCs (systems-on-chip) in mobile telephone handsets. Additionally, TI says its will expand its Asian Linux strategy, putting more emphasis on providing local Linux support to OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) in China. (more…)

Agitar Software has updated its developer testing tools, which aim to help programmers using Eclipse to test and validate code as they create it. Agitator 2.0 and the Agitar Management Dashboard 2.0 integrate more tightly with Eclipse, Agitar says, and include code pattern detection for code policy enforcement. (more…)

The worldwide market for digital cable set-top boxes (STBs) is bouncing back in 2004, fueled by demand in North America for STBs with PVR (personal video recorder) and HD (high-definition) features, according to market research firm In-Stat/MDR. Global shipments will reach 10.87 million units this (more…)

[Updated Nov. 17, 2004] — TimeSys has added several 2.6-based Linux BSPs (board support packages) to its line of freely downloadable BSPs. TimeSys BSPs provide a kernel, device drivers, and over a hundred root filesystem packages in a single downloadable image. TimeSys now offers BSPs with tools for 90 targets. (more…)

A vendor of Linux set-top box designs has hired a former Microsoft employee as CTO. Nathaniel S. Brown will join CAC Media after ten years at Microsoft, where he helped the company evolve its application message-passing architecture and get its gaming strategy off the ground. (more…)

Philips Software has ported its multimedia libraries for mobile phones to Trolltech's development platform and application stack for Linux devices. LifeVibes Multimedia for Qtopia aims to bring lightweight video-processing capabilities to camera-phone level hardware. Philips Software is an autonomous business group within consumer electronics (CE) giant Royal Philips Electronics. (more…)

O'Reilly has published a book about using gadgets such as X10 devices (partially supported under Linux) to build automated home security, convenience, and entertainment systems. Smart Home Hacks, by Gordon Meyer, looks at relatively inexpensive ways to make your home the envy of the Jetsons. (more…)

Matsushita Electric Industrial, best known for Panasonic-brand products, has selected Linux as one of its preferred system platforms, and has signed a deal with MontaVista that will allow it to use all three editions of MontaVista Linux for future electronic products. MontaVista has made similar deals with NEC and Samsung. (more…)

One of Japan's largest IT providers will resell and support Trolltech's application stack and development platform for Linux phones and PDAs. Toshiba Information Systems, the IT branch of Toshiba, will market and support Qtopia, the companies announced today. (more…)

McObject's in-memory, high-availability (HA) database has been certified for a MontaVista Linux distribution aimed at telecommunications equipment. eXtremeDB High Availability (HA) for Carrier Grade Edition (CGE) comes with a versatile master/slave communications framework said to be unique among embedded databases. It targets fault-tolerant telecom and networking equipment. (more…)

Microcross has updated its commercially supported GNU toolchains for embedded Linux development. GNU X-Tools 3.40 includes tested, modified, commercially supported toolchains based on stable releases of GNU compilers, linkers, and other tools. It is available for 15 architectures — optionally with a visual development environment. (more…)