Shipments of smartphones with open source operating systems (OSes) will jump from 106 million this year to 223 million by 2014, according to a Juniper Research report. Meanwhile, Research and Markets has released its own study on mobile open source OSes. (more…)

Nokia's Maemo.org announced that with the upcoming “Harmattan” version of its Linux-based distribution, it will switch from the Gnome/GTK+ application framework to Qt, enabling both the use of KDE desktops and cross-platform development for Maemo and Symbian. Meanwhile, Nokia has dismissed a rumor that it's developing an Android-based netbook. (more…)

Denx Software Engineering is shipping an industrial-focused computer module based on Freescale's new ARM9-based i.MX257 system-on-chip. The SODIMM-based TX25 module is equipped with a 400MHz i.MX257, 64MB SDRAM, 128MB flash, and an LCD controller, and is available with a Linux-ready starter kit. (more…)

Empower Technologies announced two single-board computers (SBCs), along with a Linux SDK based on the company's LEOs (Linux Embedded Operating System) distribution. The EMP3503 and EMP3530 SBCs are equipped with Texas Instruments OMAP35xx SoCs, and are aimed primarily at digital signage and interactive kiosk applications. (more…)

Blue Chip Technology introduced a small SBC (single board computer) aimed at embedded HMI (human machine interface) applications. The “RE1” has 64MB of RAM and 32MB of flash on board, offers five USB ports and three serial ports, and uses under 1.5 Watts, the company says. (more…)

Vobis Computers is readying what it bills as the first Russian-market Android phone. The Highscreen PP5420 appears to be an Android-converted version of the Windows Mobile-based Mobinnova ICE smartphone, and includes a 528MHz Qualcomm processor, HSDPA support, and a secondary OLED touchscreen, says the company. (more…)

Andrew Tridgell has published a patch that could make the Linux implementation of the FAT filesystem impervious to Microsoft patent claims of the kind that forced a settlement from TomTom. The patch alters the VFAT code so that it does not generate both short and long filenames, says Tridgell. (more…)

The Myka media-center IP set-top box (STB and BitTorrent receiver is finally shipping in volume — and it has received a rave review. The Linux-based Myka box, which offloads BitTorrent peer-to-peer duties from a PC, was praised as a “great home theater PC for lazy people.” (more…)

IBM Research and the European Union have jointly released what they bill as the world's first open source machine learning compiler. The “Milepost GCC” compiler is particularly adept at speeding mobile phone development, and offers an 18 percent performance improvement on embedded-application benchmarks, claims IBM. (more…)

MosChip Semiconductor Technology and IdealBT Technology are jointly shipping a Linux-based network-attached storage (NAS) reference design. The design combines MosChip's ARM9-based, 550MHz MCS814x networking system-on-chip (SoC) with IdealBT's embedded Linux NAS software, which offers a wide variety of services, including BitTorrect, iTunes, Samba, and UPnP, says MosChip. (more…)

As the Debian project releases a second update of its Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 (“Lenny”) distribution, a controversy has broken out over the next version, “Squeeze.” GNU guru Richard Stallman has warned that by including a Mono-based note-taking application called Tomboy, Debian runs the risk of Microsoft litigation over C# patents. (more…)

Updated: Jul. 1 — Some exciting new changes have come to LinuxDevices as we transition to a new publishing system. Meanwhile, please bear with our temporary lack of a search function, as the spiders work their way through a decade of stories on embedded Linux. (more…)