ThingMagic is shipping a Linux-powered RFID reader based on a software-defined radio (SDR). The company says the Mercury4 can read any RFID tag format, including those not yet invented, and can be adapted to meet regional regulations. (more…)

Via is shipping a northbridge that supports both Intel's mobile chips and its own new “Pentium M killer” mobile chip. The Via VN800 northbridge supports Pentium Ms, as well as Via's C7-M, in order to give laptop manufacturers “maximum design flexibility,” the company says. The VN800 features “high-definition audio/visual” features. (more…)

By 2010, almost a quarter of global UMTS (universal mobile telecommunications system) shipments will be based on ATCA, according to ABI Research. Yet, ATCA is “in its infancy,” a new ABI report says, with greater adoption pending the arrival of MicroTCA and other related specifications aimed at smaller, cost-conscious vendors. (more…)

ThingMagic is shipping a Linux-powered RFID reader based on a software-defined radio (SDR). The company says the Mercury4 can read any RFID tag format, including those not yet invented, and can be adapted to meet regional regulations. (more…)

Sigma Designs is sampling a media processor chip for IPTV set-top boxes and high-definition DVD players. The SMP8634 supports Linux, and is claimed to be the first system-on-chip processor to support multi-stream decoding of any format, including up to two simultaneous high-definition streams, along with full-screen graphics. (more…)

A Chinese mobile phone hardware vendor and a Singaporean smartphone and PDA phone designer will jointly develop a Linux “PDA phone.” Longcheer Technology and Oswin Technology have additionally agreed to jointly market each other's products, which include “knock-down” phones, and smartphones and PDA phone designs. (more…)

The Open Source Business Conference, set for Nov. 1-2, 2005 in Boston, will explore Linux- and open source-related business topics, including emerging trends, intellectual property, and other issues. The second annual event targets IT business executives, venture capitalists, attorneys, and others using open source software in enterprise or embedded systems. (more…)

The Seventh Real-Time Linux Workshop, one of the most popular embedded Linux events of the year, will be held Nov. 2-4, 2005 in Lille, France. The event is hosted by the University for Science and Technology and its Computer Science Laboratory. (more…)

A non-profit agency devoted to higher learning has launched an initiative to provide free phone calls between universities worldwide. The Robertson Education Empowerment Foundation's (REEF's) Global University Phone System (GUPS) will distribute secure PCs running Linux and Asterisk, in order to enable free VoIP (voice-over-IP) calls between and to university numbers. (more…)

The annual eastern US Embedded Systems Conference (ESC) will take place Sept. 12-15 at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston. The event is the East Coast's largest forum for the “creators of technology” — design engineers and engineering management, according to event organizer CMP Media. (more…)

Real-Time Logic has ported its innovative embedded webserver stack to Linux. The Barracuda stack allows embedded applications to update HTTP clients as needed, without requiring polling by the client. It supports dynamic programming in C/C++, is available with a tiny embedded SSL stack, and targets industrial monitoring and control. (more…)

Digital Rights Management (DRM) is of critical importance for manufacturers of digital playback devices, according to Tony Walters, a director at security software vendor Certicom. In this detailed, technical whitepaper, Walters argues the case for building DRM-enabled devices on “trusted platforms” that provide security from the boot process upward. (more…)

Avocent has added IPMI (intelligent platform management interface) and SoL (serial-over-LAN) capabilities to its Linux-based console management appliances, enabling users of Avocent's CCM-series appliances to administer IPMI-enabled servers over a LAN connection. (more…)

Nine companies selling commercial distributions based on Debian GNU/Linux have formed an alliance chartered with maintaining a common set of packages. The Debian Common Core (DCC) Alliance launched at LinuxWorld San Francisco last week, and aims to make Debian-based distributions easier to support. (more…)

German board-maker Lippert is offering a limited number of single-board computers (SBCs) to students and researchers it judges as doing innovative work on advanced outdoor technology projects. The boards are based on 200MHz to 2.0GHz x86 processors and are implemented in a variety of embedded form-factors. (more…)