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Reprieved from its financial troubles with fresh investments, Mandriva released the final version of Mandriva Linux 2010 Spring. The latest stable release is touted for offering faster boot times, enhanced “Smart Desktop” file-organization technology, easier printer and wireless configuration, new scientific apps, plus updates including GNOME 2.30.1, KDE 4.4.3, and the new Go-OO branch of OpenOffice.
Emerson Network Power is shipping what it claims are the first COM Express modules based on Freescale Semiconductor's multicore, PowerPC-based QorIQ processors. The COMX-P2020 and COMX-P4080 employ dual-core QorIQ P2020 and eight-core QorIQ P4080 system-on-chips, respectively, offering both a wide variety of interfaces and Linux BSPs, says the company.
Blue Water Embedded announced a royalty-free graphical user interface (GUI) development framework for embedded devices, including those running Linux. The Prism Runtime Framework is a cross-platform GUI toolkit that incorporates Prism Micro, a GUI toolkit for constrained color-depth targets, and Prism Insight, a Linux-compatible desktop GUI design and resource editing tool, says the company.
NetLogic Microsystems announced a Linux-based hardware/software development kit it says is the first fully deterministic networking solution that concurrently processes Layers 2-7 at 40Gbps wire-speed. The NLX321103A solution combines the MIPS-based XLP832 eight-core, 32-threaded system-on-chip with the NL11k and NETL7 Layer 7 “knowledge-based” processors, the company says.
Sprint announced a Samsung handset running Android 2.1 that sells for $100 with a two-year contract. The Samsung Intercept is equipped with a 3.2-inch touchscreen display, a 3.2-megapixel camera, a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, and an optical joystick, says the company.
eWEEK has run two favorable reviews of the Motorola Droid X, praising the phone's multimedia performance, call quality, battery life, and camera, but criticizing its Wi-Fi performance and MotoBlur interface. A Wired review, meanwhile, calls the Droid X “one of the finest Android devices available” — if one can handle the size.
Android has continued to gain smartphone OS market share this spring, gaining four percentage points from February through May to take 13 percent of the market, says ComScore. Meanwhile, a recent Pew report shows that 40 percent of Americans are now using mobile phone Internet services, up from 32 percent in 2009.
A Nexus One smartphone running Android 2.2 offers JavaScript performance that's two to three times faster than that of Apple's iPhone 4, says an ArsTechnica review. Android 2.2's Javascript performance is also almost three times faster than Android 2.1, beating Google's own estimates, but Flash performance is choppy, says the review.
Motorola announced a low-end Android 2.1 phone for T-Mobile equipped with a new version of its MotoBlur UI layer. The Motorola Charm is equipped with a 2.8-inch, 320 x 240 touchscreen, 802.11b/g/n, a three-megapixel camera, a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, and a “Backtrack” touchpanel on the back of the device.
Mozilla announced version 1.1 of Firefox Mobile “Fennec,” debuting on Maemo Linux, while also releasing a beta of the Firefox 4.0 desktop browser. Meanwhile, Intel and Aava Mobile released images of the Aava phone reference design running an early version of MeeGo 1.1 for Handsets, and Movial announced Flash 10.1 integration services for MeeGo and Android.
LG announced an LG Optimus Series of mobile devices, including two Android 2.2 smartphones — the Optimus One and Optumus Chic — and promised an Android-based Optimus tablet. Meanwhile, a rumor about an Android 3.0 “Gingerbread” platform split-up has been squelched, and a photo of the Android-based “HTC Vision” emerged as the device's manufacturer announced robust 2Q financials.
Pixel Qi has begun shipping its power-saving, transflective LCDs to do-it-yourselfers, who can install them in 10.1-inch netbooks. The displays work in both color and monochrome e-paper modes, and are said to require up to 80 percent less power of an ordinary display.
Having completed its acquisition of Palm late last week, Hewlett-Packard (HP) is now laying off Palm staff “in the double digits,” says All Things Digital. Meanwhile, HP is giving away free Palm Pre and Palm Pixi phones with a two-year contract on AT&T and Verizon, says eWEEK.
The Bluetooth SIG (special interest group) announced “formal adoption” of Bluetooth 4.0, which includes a new LE (low-energy) mode. Allowing devices to operate for more than a year on button batteries, the spec will let controllers wake host devices within three milliseconds and transfer data at 1Mbps, the organization says.
Norco announced a fanless, Linux-ready mini PC with support for 1080p video. The 4.7 x 4.7 x 1.6-inch BIS-6620III incorporates the Intel Atom Z510 CPU and Intel SCH US15W chipset, and offers an HDMI port, SD and CF slots, a gigabit Ethernet port, five USB 2.0 ports, and extended temperature support, says the company.