| News Archive (1999-2012) | | | 2013-current at LinuxGizmos | | | Current Tech News Portal | | | About |
Creative Technology announced 10-inch and seven-inch tablet computers along with a 3.2-inch portable media player (PMP) — all offering Android 2.1, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1, and “Pure Wireless Entertainment” branding. The Creative Ziio 10″ and Ziio 7″ each offer Creative's 1GHz, Cortex-A8-based ZMS-08 processor, while the Zen Touch 2 Wireless Entertainment Device features a two-megapixel camera.
Verizon Wireless and Samsung Mobile announced a new Galaxy S smartphone called the Samsung Continuum, offering Android 2.1 and a secondary 1.8-inch “Ticker Display” in addition to the main 3.4-inch screen. Verizon also started taking orders for the previously announced, business-focused Motorola Droid Pro.
Android 2.3, or “Gingerbread,” is headed to Nexus One smartphones in “the next few days,” according to a tweet from an Open Handset Alliance member. The release is rumored to offer an overhauled UI and new video chat functionality.
Toshiba announced a new line of SSDs (solid state drives) it claims are the industry's thinnest. The Blade X-gale devices are available in 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB capacities, according to the company.
Roku has begun licensing the hardware and software for its popular, Linux-based set-top boxes (STB), including the recently announced Roku HD ($60) along with the 1080p-enabled Roku XD ($80) and Roku XDS ($100). Netgear will be the first Roku licensee, and will soon offer a version of the Roku XD at Best Buy, Fry's, and Radio Shack stores, says Roku.
Adafruit Industries, a company that sells DIY open source electronic kits and parts, announced a bounty for the first person to create open source drivers for the Microsoft Kinect 3D game controller add-on for the Xbox 360. After Microsoft publicly disapproved of Adafruit's “Open Kinect” project, the company boosted the bounty from $1,000 to $2,000.
Trinity Audio Group demonstrated a prototype of a tablet running a MeeGo-based version 5.0 of its Transmission audio platform for musicians. Now open for beta testing, the Indamixx 2 tablet runs on an Intel Atom processor with 2GB of RAM, and offers a multitouch display, 160GB of storage, and the Renoise tracking and sampling application.
Some 81.1 million smartphones shipped worldwide in the third quarter, up 89.5 percent from 3Q 2009, says IDC. Nokia, Apple, and RIM took the top three spots in vendor share, but fourth and fifth place Samsung and HTC showed the fastest growth, based largely on their Android phones.
Phoronix has published the results of benchmarks performed on 26 Linux kernels dating back five years, from Linux 2.6.12 to a pre-release version of the upcoming Linux 2.6.37. Despite the addition of numerous features over the years, the results show remarkable consistency.
Portwell announced an industrial ATX motherboard that supports Intel Core i3/i5/i7 or Celeron P4500 processors. The Ruby-M710VG2AR offers up to 8GB DDR3 SDRAM, dual gigabit Ethernet ports, six SATA 300 ports, HDMI, DVI, and VGA video outputs, and six powered serial ports, says the company.
The Google Instant predictive search technology has launched in an Android version. In other Android app news, Twitter and Facebook have each released updated apps, Verizon is prepping its V Cast Android Store for the Droid Incredible next week, and the U.S. Defense Department unveiled a T2 Mood Tracker app allowing veterans to monitor their emotional health, says eWEEK
Lanner announced a 1U serial communications platform designed for SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition), especially in environments prone to electrical surges. The LEC-3100 includes Intel's Atom N270 processor, 10 isolated serial ports, five gigabit Ethernet ports, eight digital I/Os, four USB 2.0 ports, a PCI-104 expansion slot, and a DVI-D video output, according to the company.
Intel's Light Peak optical connectivity technology could begin appearing in products in early 2011, according to reports. The technology could offer bidirectional data transfers at twice the speed of USB 3.0.
Samsung is predicting it will sell one million Galaxy Tab Android tablets and 20 million Galaxy S smartphones in 2010, adding that more tablets are on the way. Meanwhile, comScore says Samsung has become the leading U.S. handset maker, and iSuppli reveals that the Galaxy Tab parts cost a mere $205.22 — almost $60 less than those of the market-leading iPad.
Fabless semiconductor firm Conexant and Taiwan-based system-on-chip (SoC) design company Grain Media announced a Linux-based hardware/software platform for video, image processing, and surveillance applications. Intended for creation of 16-channel digital video recorders (DVRs), the reference design combines Conexant's CX25838 multichannel video decoders and Grain Media's ARM-based GM8186/GM8187 SoC, which specializes in H.264 compression.