| News Archive (1999-2012) | | | 2013-current at LinuxGizmos | | | Current Tech News Portal | | | About |
Actel Corporation announced the addition of Red Hat Linux and Windows 7 support to its Libero IDE (integrated design environment) for FPGAs (field programmable gate arrays). The SmartFusion FPGAs are also being treated to a tiny “Unison” Linux, capable of running in as little as 1KB of RAM, the company says.
ViewSonic says it will introduce two new tablet computers next week at a Berlin tradeshow. An unnamed ten-inch model will boot into either Android or Windows, while the seven-inch ViewPad 7 will offer Android, 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity, GPS, plus front- and rear-facing cameras, the company says.
Intel announced a dual-core Atom CPU for netbooks and says devices based on it will begin shipping this week. The 1.5GHz N550 will offer a “more responsive experience” in products from Acer, Asus, Fujitsu, Lenovo, LG, Samsung, MSI, and Toshiba, the chipmaker says.
Hewlett-Packard confirmed during its Aug. 19 earnings call that a device running its recently acquired Palm WebOS operating system will ship sometime in early 2011. Although the company executive who confirmed the “product” offered no other details, the general assumption is that HP will load WebOS onto a tablet-like device.
Just desserts? Motorola has posted a timeline for when users of its Android-running smartphones can expect an OS upgrade. While all eyes are on “Froyo,” or Android version 2.2, some users will have to be happy with 2.0 and 2.1 — also known as “Éclair.”
MIT spinoff Lyric Semiconductor is introducing new processor circuitry that is claimed to calculate probabilities at a faster rate and at a fraction of the cost of x86 chips from Intel and AMD. The debut Lyric product — LEC (Lyric Error Correction) chip — is aimed at alleviating the ECC bottleneck in flash memory for smartphones, cameras, and other devices.
After two years of inflated prices, NAND flash memory will return to $1-per-gigabyte pricing by the end of the year, giving SSDs a fighting chance against HDDs, says iSuppli. Meanwhile, the DRAM industry had its best quarter since 1995, with revenues rising 14.4 percent since the previous quarter to $10.8 billion, says another iSuppli report.
Dell shipped a lighter new Insipiron Mini 10 netbook in Europe on Aug. 19, and it may cross the pond this fall. The Dell Inspiron Mini 1018 is equipped with an Intel Atom N455 processor, 1GB of DDR3 memory, a 10.1-inch WSVGA display, 802.11 b/g/n, and a webcam, and weighs under three pounds.
Strategy Analytics is projecting that the Connected Convergent Devices (CCDs) market, ranging from MIDs to netbooks, will achieve a global installed base of over 400 million units by 2014. In a separate report, firm estimates that consumer electronics devices with embedded Wi-Fi will reach 570 million units in 2010, representing 42 percent growth over 2009.
Shuttle says it's now shipping a mini PC that comes with a dual-core Intel Atom D510 CPU and is available with Nvidia Ion 2 graphics. The XS35 includes an Ethernet port, five USB ports, plus both HDMI and VGA video outputs, the company says.
Motorola's Droid 2 has received mostly positive reviews from a variety of sources including the ones summed up here, more or less in order of their approval: Ars Technica, eWEEK, PC Mag, PC World, and Engadget. Reviewers generally loved the new keyboard and disliked the camera and MotoBlur UI, while Engadget encountered connectivity problems.
Worldwide PC microprocessor units and revenue showed uncharacteristic growth during the second quarter of 2010, according to IDC. Mobile units rose while desktops fell, and Intel dominated all categories.
ChipWrights announced a Linux application development kit (ADK) for its CW5631 SoC, aimed at low-cost IPTV STBs and IP cameras. Like ChipWrights' Linux-based CW5631 SDK announced earlier this year, the H264-ready ADK supports the CW5631, which combines a 400MHz ARM9 core, a DSP, and a RISC core.
Paving the way for embedded devices to include more built-in security features, Intel announced it will acquire McAfee for $7.68 billion in cash. Separately, Odyssey Software and Wavelink Corporation both released upgrades to their management frameworks for mobile devices.
Freescale Semiconductor announced a new series of PowerPC-based PowerQUICC II Pro processors touted for sub-$10 pricing, exceptional power/performance ratios, and improved interconnect technology options. Aimed at entry-level networking applications, the MPC830x portfolio includes the 400MHz, gigabit Ethernet equipped MPC8308, the 400MHz MPC8309, and the 266MHz MPC8306/8306S, says the company.