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The Motorola Droid X2 went on sale today in Verizon Wireless stores for $200 plus contract. Although the Android 2.2 smartphone adds an improved 4.3-inch qHD display and a dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 to the original Droid X design, that's not enough to cut it considering today's high-end, 4G competition, especially when the performance boost appears to be surprisingly negligible, says this review.
Skype has terminated its partnership with Digium, effectively killing Skype for Asterisk, which integrated Skype's VOIP service with the open source PBX/telephony platform. While some analysts see Microsoft's impending acquisition of Skype as the source of the schism, others argue that Skype has never been an open source supporter, and had already been backing away from the Asterisk product.
Verizon Wireless has begun selling a new LG smartphone for $250 plus contract, preloaded with the first-ever Netflix app for Android. The LG Revolution runs Android 2.2 on a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon, and offers a 4.3-inch display, 4G LTE (Long-Term Evolution), HDMI. and both five-megapixel and 1.3-megapixel cameras, says the carrier.
Dell announced two fanless thin clients claimed to be the smallest OptiPlex systems yet. The Dell OptiPlex FX170 and OptiPlex FX130 thin clients offer a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 and Via Eden ULV processor respectively, and include 1GB of RAM, 1GB or 2GB of flash, a gigabit Ethernet port, four USB 2.0 ports, and a DVI-I port with optional dual display support, says the company.
Cray's latest supercomputer will run Cray's modified version of SUSE Linux on AMD's upcoming 16-core “Interlagos” Opteron chip and Nvidia's Tesla 20-Series GPU (graphics processing unit). The XK6 system should deliver up to 50 petaflops of performance when it ships later this year, claims Cray.
A new startup says it will soon offer software allowing Windows devices to run Android software. The eponymous “BlueStacks” — to be offered first on a ViewSonic tablet — permits launching Android apps directly from the Windows desktop, the company says.
The Fedora Project announced the final release of Fedora 15 “Lovelock,” the first Linux distro to feature the new GNOME 3 desktop. Other Fedora 15 features include Linux 2.6.38, a dynamic firewall, the SystemD configuration utility, and new applications including LibreOffice and Firefox 4.
On May 26, Google will introduce a widely anticipated near field communication (NFC) mobile payment system for Android 2.3x phones with Sprint, Mastercard, Citibank, and VeriFone Systems, say multiple reports. Meanwhile, Motorola says its Droid X, Droid 2, Droid 2 Global, and Droid Pro phones are all getting Android 2.3 (“Gingerbread”) updates this year.
Barnes & Noble announced a Kindle-like six-inch monochrome touchscreen version of its Nook e-reader, featuring an E Ink Pearl display. The Android 2.1-based “All-New Nook” offers 2GB of RAM, a microSD slot, Wi-Fi, and that's about it — but it weighs only 7.48 ounces, lasts up to a claimed two months per battery charge, and costs just $139, says the company.
MEN Micro announced a 3U CompactPCI PlusIO single board computer (SBC) that supports both legacy CompactPCI and high-speed CompactPCI Serial connections. The F21P is equipped with the quad-core “Sandy Bridge” 2.1GHz Intel Core i7 processor and QM67 chipset, and it offers up to 8GB of RAM, three gigabit Ethernet ports, six USB 2.0 ports, four SATA ports, and numerous expansion options.
Four vendors have promised support for the latest low-power 1GHz T40E (dual-core, 6.4 Watt TDP) and T40R (single-core, 5.5 Watt TDP) AMD G-Series processors announced yesterday. Products based on the chips will include DataKamp's Q7bd-GT40N Qseven module, Axiomtek's Pico100 Pico-ITX single board computer (SBC), a revamp of Ibase's SI-18 signage computer, and an unnamed industrial tablet from Amtek, says AMD.
Clearwire COO Erik Prusch revealed that the ailing company behind Sprint's 4G service will eventually switch its 4G offering from WiMAX to LTE technology, according to an industry report. Meanwhile, Verizon execs said that the carrier might leverage its LTE investment to offer data pooling on family plans, and will also invest more in Wi-Fi, according to two other reports.
As the World IPv6 Day approaches, recent research reports show that a majority of organizations are still postponing migration to the IPv6 networking protocol. Despite the growing scarcity of IPv4 addresses, due in large part to the growth of mobile and embedded devices, a British Telecom Diamond IP survey says that only 35 percent of respondents considered IPv6 a “huge concern.”
[Updated, May 24] — AMD announced two Embedded G-Series processors for fanless, multimedia-ready devices, with TDP ratings of 5.5 and 6.4 Watts. The dual-core T40E and single-core T40R, both clocked at 1GHz, are said to be up to 39 percent more power efficient than an earlier 1.2GHz G-Series processor, but still offer DirectX 11-capable graphics and a 64-bit memory controller.
Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 is a remarkable media-chomping tablet with Android 3.0, a crisp, 10.1-inch touchscreen, 10-hour battery life, and a slim, lightweight design, says this eWEEK review. Despite the modest three-megapixel camera and lack of ports — or even an SD slot — the tablet is said to best the Motorola Xoom for straightforward media consumption purposes.