Blockbuster announced a branded version of a IP set-top box and media player from 2Wire that runs Linux on a MIPS-based Broadcom chipset. The Blockbuster version of the 2Wire MediaPoint digital media player is used to download videos from Blockbuster OnDemand via broadband, says Blockbuster. (more…)

Access has achieved a third beta release of its Garnet virtual machine (VM) for Nokia's Linux-based Internet tablets. The releases brings improvements to the included Palm Pilot PDA applications, while adding more complete support for the approximately 30,000 extant Palm Pilot applications, Access… (more…)

Palm will restructure its worldwide operations and lay off an unspecified percentage of its 1,050-person staff, reports say. The one-time leader of the smartphone market cited the “time it is taking to ramp up our new Windows Mobile products” among the causes behind the cuts. (more…)

A new Tim Jones tutorial overviews GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) extensions to ANSI C that may be of special interest to Linux kernel and driver developers. Meanwhile, the GCC development team is readying a new 4.4.0 release with stricter preprocessor checks, among other new features. (more…)

CaptiveWorks has announced a Linux IP set-top box (STB) and digital video broadcast receiver that offers FTA satellite HD video reception, and media center features. The CW-4000HD Linux Media Center is based on Gentoo Linux and other open source projects, says the company. (more…)

Linux professional services and consulting firm Embedded Alley (EA) announced it has hired MontaVista's Ken Keller as VP of engineering. A pioneer in Carrier Grade Linux (CGL) development, Keller (pictured) will lead the EA technical team, and focus on communications infrastructure products, says the company. (more…)

[Updated Nov. 25] — Zurich, Switzerland-based Neuronics has released an open-source embedded Linux version of its “Katana” robot.” The Katana Robotic Arm runs Linux with Xenomai hard real time extensions on a Freescale MPC5200-based control board, and is aimed at industry, production, and research… (more…)

[Updated Dec. 3] — Binary-only drivers will never work for the majority of Linux users, Harald Welte told hardware developers at a Taipei conference. The Linux kernel's lack of a binary interface and ever-changing programming interface make binary drivers impractical purely for technical reasons, he suggests. (more…)

WinSystems announced a Linux-friendly SBC (single board computer) using the venerable STD bus. Offered as a migration path for “key industrial customers,” the fanless LPM-LX800 offers an AMD Geode LX800, up to 1GB of RAM, up to 16GB of CompactFlash, and four serial ports, says WinSystems. (more…)

Wyse Technology announced its first Linux thin clients based on Wyse Enhanced SUSE Linux Enterprise and its first mobile thin client to use Linux. It also announced improved virtualization add-ons, and a new release of ThinOS, its BSD-based thin client implementation. (more…)

A Tokyo-based vendor of embedded security technology has partnered with MontaVista to develop DRM (digital rights management) technology for mobile Linux devices. The Discretix Content Protection for Recordable Media (CPRM) Client will be ported to MontaVista Mobilinux 5.0, says Discretix. (more…)

An interesting free download aims to let users of heterogeneous mobile devices effectively Xhost Linux applications and desktops, without installing anything. The “NX Web Player” from Italian network computing specialist NoMachine is due early next year, with the 4.0 release of its NX network computing suite. (more…)

Eurotech subsidiary Parvus announced a more powerful version of its rugged tactical mission computer. The Parvus DuraCor 810-Duo runs Linux on a 1.5GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 2GB of DDR2 RAM, and targets “high reliability” military and homeland defense applications, says the company. (more…)

VirtualLogix is touting its virtualization firmware's ability to support multicore ARM processors. The company is demonstrating VLX on quad-core ARM11 chips, and says the product is ready for Cortex-A9 or any other multicore ARM processors that use ARM's five-year-old MPCore interconnect technology. (more…)

DMP Electronics announced a 32-bit x86-compatible SoC (system on chip) claimed to run Linux using under two Watts. The Vortex86DX targets home gateways, thin clients, and industrial controllers, and offers an “embedded redundancy” feature that can link two boards, says DMP. (more…)