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Google announced that the Android Market for smartphone and tablet applications reached the 100,000 application mark on Oct. 25, one week after the Apple iOS App Store topped 300,000. Meanwhile, ABI Research lists both operating systems as driving an “exploding” global smartphone market that grew 50 percent year-over-year in the second quarter.
Barnes & Noble announced a $249, all-color version of its Android-based Nook e-reader that adds full web browsing and video viewing capabilities. The Nook Color offers 8GB of internal storage, a microSD slot, and a seven-inch, backlit 1024 x 600 color touchscreen, but while it offers 802.11n Wi-Fi, there is no 3G option.
Digi-key is shipping a 1080p-ready development board based on Texas Instruments' Cortex-A9-based, dual-core, 1GHz OMAP4430 system-on-chip (SoC). The $174 “PandaBoard” offers 1GB of DRAM, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB, DVI, and HDMI connections, and targets smartphone and mobile device development using open source Linux distributions such as Android, Angstrom, Chrome, MeeGo, and Ubuntu.
Amazon.com has enabled a 14-day e-book lending feature on its Linux-based Kindle e-reader device, matching a similar Barnes & Noble feature and escalating the e-reader wars. Meanwhile, Amazon's Android-ready Kindle app has added the ability to receive newspapers and other periodicals, says the company.
The Wi-Fi Alliance announced a new wireless networking specification that will allow devices to connect to one another without the aid of an access point (AP). To be available later this year, “Wi-Fi Direct” will allow “direct connection groups” for tasks such as printing, syncing, and sharing content, the industry group says.
Cavium Networks announced the next generation of its Nitrox security processors, supported by a Linux software development kit (SDK). The four new Nitrox III security processors integrate 16 to 64 security RISC cores with compression engines, virtualization hardware, and a PCI-Express Gen 2 interface, and are said to be scalable from 5Gbps to 40Gbps.
The mobile processor market is set to reach four billion units by 2014, market research firm In-Stat has reported. The pronounced growth is expected to create room for a number of processor architectures to flourish
Axiomtek announced a 1U network appliance that uses Intel Atom D410 or D510 processors and provides six gigabit Ethernet ports. The NA-320 includes both hard disk and CompactFlash storage, accepts up to 2GB of RAM, and has a PCI Express Mini Card expansion slot, the company says.
The “Unity” user interface that debuted in Ubuntu 10.10's Netbook Edition will be standard on the next version of the Ubuntu Desktop Edition as well. Ubuntu Desktop 11.04 will replace the Linux distribution's default GNOME desktop environment in favor of the multitouch-enabled Unity interface, says Ubuntu sponsor Canonical.
Asustek and Garmin announced they have made their last Garmin-Asus smartphones, which include several Linux- and Android-based Nuvifone and Garminfone models. Asus will instead offer its own phones, and Garmin will develop apps, say the partners.
French online retailer Material.net has begun taking pre-orders for an Android portable media player (PMP) spinoff of Samsung's Galaxy S phones. Aiming to compete head-on with Apple's iPod Touch, the Samsung Galaxy Player 50 offers a 3.2-inch 400 x 240 pixel display, a two-megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0, and GPS.
Samsung is readying a 4.3-inch “i9200” update to its Galaxy S phones that runs Android 3.0 on a 2GHz processor, says an industry report. Other rumored Android phones include an Acer Liquid Metal phone, an HTC device that may be called the Knight or the Speedy, an LTE-ready LG model, a high-end Motorola Olympus, and a Motorola Quench XT3, say reports.
MontaVista Software announced the availability of an Android reference platform for the Econa CNS3xxx ARM11-based processors manufactured by its parent company Cavium Networks. The reference platform offers support for on-chip hardware acceleration blocks, and integrates drivers for peripherals including Bluetooth, 802.11n, and touchscreens, says MontaVista.
Adobe launched version 2.5 of its Adobe AIR rich-media development platform, extending support to TVs, smartphones, and tablets, and also launched a cross-platform app distribution service called Adobe InMarket. Adobe AIR 2.5 adds support for accelerometer, camera, video, microphone, multitouch, and geolocation functions, supporting Android, iOS, and BlackBerry Tablet OS, as well as desktops including Windows, Macintosh, and Linux.
Wind River has upgraded its embedded virtualization software to support two major multicore processor platforms. Wind River Hypervisor 1.2 adds support for the Intel Xeon 5600 series and Freescale's QorIQ P2 and P4 system-on-chips (SoCs), including the P4080 model, and offers a new device management layer and automated software upgrades, says the company.