Motorola announced that its LiMo-compliant Moto U9 phone is now available unlocked for GSM networks in the U.S. Available in gray, pink, or purple, the music-oriented U9 has a rounded, contemporary flip-phone form factor, highlighted by a seemingly borderless OLED (organic light-emitting… (more…)

Gateworks Corp. announced a new line of power-sipping networking boards called the Cambria Network Platform. The first Cambria device is the GW2358-4, which ships with an OpenWrt Linux-based board support package (BSP) and optional dev kit, and is primarily designed for wireless applications, says Gateworks. (more…)

Xilinx is shipping a development kit for its Virtex-5 FXT FPGA (field-programmable gate array). The Embedded Development HW/SW Kit — Virtex-5 FX70T PowerPC and MicroBlaze Processor Edition targets communications, military, and aerospace applications, and is available with a Linux BSP (board support… (more…)

Digital Gadgets has announced an 8.9-inch netbook computer that will sell under the Sylvania brand name. Offered in four different colors, the Linux-compatible “g netbook MESO” includes a 1.6GHz Atom processor, 80GB hard drive, four-cell battery, webcam, and 802.11b/g wireless networking, according to the company. (more…)

Two LiMo-member mobile phone stack firms followed through on partnership deals in separate announcements this week. Purple Labs announced a joint testing commitment with Openwave Systems, and Access announced it had concluded a joint development agreement on FOMA phones with NTT… (more…)

Janz Automation Systems of Germany has announced two Linux-compatible panel PCs, targeting HMI (human-machine interface) applications. The 6.5-inch emVIEW-6/A400 and 8.4-inch emVIEW-8/A400 feature Intel IXP42x processors, fanless operation, dual 10/100 Ethernet connectors, plus RS232 and CAN (controller area network)… (more…)

Unicon Systems announced a MID-capable “system-on-display” board that won the LinuxWorld 2008 “Best Mobility solution” Product Excellence Award this week. Unicon's Hermes incorporates a Samsung 533MHz dual-core ARM11 processor and a 4.3-inch touchscreen, and can be bought as a larger-format Linux-based reference platform… (more…)

The fifth annual ARM Developers' Conference will be held in Santa Clara, Calif. on October 7-9. ARM expects some 2,500 “engineers and industry leaders” to attend the event, which features presentations from organizations including ARM, Atmel, Khronos, MontaVista, NXP, Open Kernel Labs, Trango, and Texas Instruments. (more…)

New Zealand company Aceeca International has announced a ruggedized handheld computer that runs Linux. The Meazura MEZ1500 has a Marvell PXA270 processor, and a proprietary “MZIO” expansion slot that carries SPI (serial peripheral interface) signals, allowing the attachment of custom A/D (analog/digital) converter… (more…)

Toshiba has announced new NAND flash memory devices said to offer the highest densities ever. The 32GB devices use chips built on 43 nanometer process technology, integrate controllers for standard interfaces, and target mobile phones, handhelds, and PNDs (personal navigation devices). (more…)

E-con Systems has announced nine different add-ons, all with Linux drivers, for its Marvell PXA270-based reference platform. The new “Sirius” modules offer a two megapixel camera, quad UARTs, GSM/GPRS/GPS, thermal printer, fingerprint scanner, 802.11b, Bluetooth, smart-card reader, and 1D/2D barcode reader, says… (more…)

A tiny embedded development startup called Linuxstamp is shipping a tiny open-source computer comprised of only six integrated circuits (ICs). Demonstrated this week at LinuxWorld's “Linux Garage” exposition on a Linux- and Lego-based robot, the Atmel/ARM9-based Linuxstamp offers freely downloadable kit… (more…)

A fast, fast-booting, implementation of GNOME aimed at netbooks and older hardware has emerged, and shows “a lot of promise.” LXDE has already stacked up a heap of commercial partners, including gOS, a distribution favored by leading systems integrator FIC. (more…)

Wind River has updated its Linux-compatible ICE 2 (in-circuit emulator) to better support multicore debugging on 32- and 64-bit SoCs, it says. Additionally, the vendor's tools division has promised a Trace 2 add-on module aimed at improving “visibility” into device/software interactions. (more…)

Motorola yesterday made the first-ever release of native development tools for its Linux-based mobile phones. MotoDev Studio for Linux 0.3 is a freely downloadable, Eclipse-based toolsuite aimed at helping third-party and community Linux developers create, test, and certify apps for the newest Motorola… (more…)