American Industrial Systems (AIS) announced a pair of Linux-ready panel PCs designed for HMI (human machine interface) applications. Respectively including 5.7- or seven-inch touchscreens, the IPW07SA20-A2 and IPO5SA20-D1 both feature 533MHz Samsung S3C6410 processors, 128MB of RAM and 256MB of flash storage, 10/100 ports with Power over Ethernet (PoE), and SD slots, according to the company.

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Linus Torvalds announced the release of the 2.6.38 Linux kernel, featuring both an overhaul of the Virtual File System and an “automatic process grouping” patch touted as greatly improving performance. Other Linux 2.6.38 changes include support for AMD Fusion processors, AMD and Nvidia GPUs, and additional Wi-Fi chips, plus Btrfs file-system enhancements and “transparent huge-page” support for speeding database and virtualization applications.

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Via announced a rugged, fanless box PC that targets fleet management applications with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and 3G connectivity. The ART-5450 has a 1.0GHz Nano E series processor, up to 2GB of RAM, CompactFlash storage, three video outputs, and multiple serial ports, according to the company.

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Verizon Wireless will begin selling the HTC ThunderBolt, the first smartphone to exploit its 4G LTE (long-term evolution) network, starting March 17. The ThunderBolt offers a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, 8GB of internal memory and a 32GB data card, a 4.3-inch touchscreen, eight-megapixel and 1.3-megapixel cameras, and a mobile hotspot, says the carrier.

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A leaked Staples training guide suggests HTC and Dell are each prepping 10-inch tablets, and Samsung is readying an 8.9-inch tablet, all running Android 3.0 “Honeycomb”, while HP will offer a seven-inch WebOS tablet. Meanwhile, an analyst says early sales of the Motorola Xoom tablet have been disappointing, in large part due to the bugs and complex UI of Honeycomb.

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T-Mobile unveiled a new version of its Sidekick messaging phone featuring Android 2.2 instead of the old “Danger” operating system. The Samsung-built T-Mobile Sidekick 4G offers a 1GHz Hummingbird processor, a 3.5-inch touchscreen, HSPA+ support, a front-facing video camera, and the Sidekick-signature pop-tilt hinge for its slide out, five-row QWERTY keyboard.

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Winamp announced its Winamp for Android 1.0 app, offering a redesigned interface, wireless sync over Wi-Fi, iTunes import, and Shoutcast radio streaming. Meanwhile, Hulu tipped the upcoming availability of its media player on selected Android phones, starting with the Samsung Nexus S.

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Amplicon announced two fanless embedded systems that offer an operating range from 23 to 122 deg. F and include dual expansion slots. The Impact-E 72 has two PCI slots, while the Impact-E 73 has PCI and PCI Express, and both are available with Celeron, Core i5, or Core i7 CPUs, according to the company.

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Bug Labs and Pitney Bowes announced a mobile device development platform featuring hardware-level security and security life-cycle management services. Based on Bug Labs' Linux-and Android-ready, OMAP3530-based BugBase 2.0 platform, BugSecure integrates a tamper-responding security chip from Pitney Bowes.

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Early versions of Calxeda's ARM-based server chips will be reaching OEMs later this year, and systems sporting the quad-core, ARM Cortex-A9 SoCs (systems on chip) could appear on the market soon after, executives add. Meanwhile, Microsoft has told Intel and AMD they need to catch up by cramming more x86 cores onto their CPUs, and one vendor has stuffed 256 Atoms into a single server

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The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has introduced a compression standard for XML designed to bring the web data exchange standard to more smartphones and other mobile and embedded devices. Efficient XML Interchange (EXI) Format 1.0 improves the performance and power consumption of XML-enabled apps on device and device networks, says the consortium.

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IEI announced a 5.25-inch single board computer (SBC) equipped with Intel Atom D425 or D525 processors. The Nova-PV-D4251/D5251 offers up to 4GB of DDR3 memory and CompactFlash storage, expansion via PCI, PCI-104 and PCIe expansion, plus I/O including two or four Ethernet ports and eight USB 2.0 ports, says the company.

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Attachmate's bid to acquire enterprise software and Linux distribution firm Novell for $2.2 billion has been delayed, due to questions about the sale of 882 patents to a Microsoft-led consortium of vendors. The U.S. Department of Justice is taking longer than expected on due diligence regarding the patents, leading to investor frustration.

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While Apple CEO Steve Jobs and his retinue of media followers are claiming we live in a “post-PC world,” that's far from the case, according to IHS iSuppli. In fact, global PC shipments were up 14 percent last year, hitting a record level of 345.4 million units, the research firm says.

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iVeia announced what appears to be the first computer-on-module (COM) based on Xilinx' FPGA-enabled Cortex-A9 system-on-chip. Featuring a Zynq-7020 with dual cores clocked to 800MHz, the Atlas-I-Z7e offers 512MB of LPDDR2 memory, microSD and USB 2.0 expansion, Linux and Android support, “extremely low power” sleep modes, and measures just 3.37 x 1.25 x 0.25 inches, says the company.

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