Android will surge to a dominant 39.5 percent share of the fast-growing global smartphone market this year, then further climb slowly to a 45.4 percent share by 2015, says IDC. Meanwhile, Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 will see the fastest growth as it supplants Symbian to reach a second-place 20.9 percent share by 2015, the research firm projects.

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Microsoft researchers have come up with a way to better utilize “white space” networks, which would tap into unused TV spectrum to deliver broadband services. “SpecNet” would create a network of spectrum analyzers, allowing remote detection of frequencies that could be used for transmission, according to a paper that will be presented next week.

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The Linux Foundation announced the Top Five 2011 Linux Gurus — the members who contributed the most to the Linux.com community over the last year. This year's winner is Matthew Fillpot, who will receive a “Dream Linux Machine” and, like the other winners, an invitation to next week's Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit.

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Mechanical hard disk drives took another step toward obsolescence via Intel's announcement of its “third-generation” solid state disks (SSDs). Now offered in capacities as high as 300 or 600GB, the SSD320 series offers lower pricing, sequential write speeds that have doubled in speed, plus new encryption and data protection features, the company says.

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The Foresight Linux project released Foresight Linux 2.5, the first major release of this rolling-release Linux distro in two years, featuring Linux 2.6.35, GNOME 2.32.1, KDE 4.6.1, and Xfce 4.8. Meanwhile, rPath released rPath X6, a specialized Linux distro and appliance-building system that, like Foresight, is based on the Conary package manager.

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Google is working with MasterCard and Citigroup on a mobile payment service designed for NFC-enabled Android phones like the Nexus S, says an industry report. Meanwhile, Google is planning a Nexus-branded reference tablet built by LG, and might block tablets equipped with Android 2.x from upgrading to Android 3.0, says another report.

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Partly thanks to Verizon Wireless' 4G LTE network, HTC's Thunderbolt is the fastest phone eWEEK has tested. The $250 price for the Android 2.2 phone is high, and HTC and Verizon need to work on extending battery life, but users who have access to Verizon's 4G network will be sorely tempted by the Thunderbolt's speed, big screen, and nicely tuned eight-megapixel camera, says this eWEEK review.

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Sparkpad has begun selling customizable display computers at sizes ranging from eight to 15 inches, complete with a touch-ready, Lua-based Linux SDK and promised Android support. Sparkpad's Wi-Fi enabled tablets and panel PCs run on ARM11-based Telechips 8902 processors, and are touted as enabling customers to develop and deploy their own touch panels, digital signage systems, and tablets quickly.

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Google said it will delay the release of open source code for its tablet-oriented Android 3.0 “Honeycomb” OS due to concerns that developers will try to port it to smartphones and other devices prematurely. The revelation, which has already riled up the open source community, might be a tacit admission that Honeycomb was released too soon.

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Research in Motion will release two app players this summer that allow running Android 2.3 and Blackberry Java apps on its upcoming PlayBook tablet. The 1GHz, seven-inch tablet will run the apps in a secure virtual “sandbox,” giving PlayBook users access to a potentially huge number of applications.

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Foremay is shipping a NAND solid state drive (SSD) claimed to be the world's smallest SSD “disk-on-chip.” Its OC177 DOC chip measures only 0.87 x 0.87 x 0.07 inches (22 x 22 x 1.8mm), supports standard IDE or SATA host interfaces, and is available in 32GB capacities, with a read/write speed of up to 70/40MB/sec, says the company.

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Kontron announced two fanless box PCs that offer a range of industrial interfaces. The CB 511 includes a 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor, CompactFlash storage, and a Mini PCI Express expansion slot, while the CB 753 offers a 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, two 2.5-inch drive bays, plus both a Mini PCI Express slot and another slot that can support either PCI Express x16 or PCI slots, according to the company.

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Inflight telephony vendor Aircell announced its first Android-based phone, designed specifically for business aircraft. Due later this year, the Aircell Smartphone offers a 3.8-inch screen, said to be the largest available in the aviation telephony market.

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The Linux Foundation has announced keynote speakers for the Embedded Linux Conference (ELC) 2011, running April 11-13 in San Francisco, and the co-located Android Builders Summit on April 13-14. The Android Builders Summit features a keynote from Motorola's Christy Wyatt, who will no doubt be grilled about the rumor that Motorola is building its own mobile operating system.

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Axiomtek announced a 3.5-inch single board computer equipped with a 1.1GHz Intel Atom Z510PT processor and an operating range of -40 to 185 deg. F. The SBC84826 can use up to 2GB DDR2 memory, and offers Mini PCI Express expansion, gigabit and fast Ethernet, four USB 2.0 ports, and four serial ports, says the company.

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