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One Laptop per Child (OLPC) and Marvell have agreed to develop next-generation OLPC XO-3 tablets based on the Marvell Moby reference design and the Armada 610 SoC. Aimed at the worldwide educational market, the Moby-based XO devices will support 1080p video encode and decode, 3D graphics, Flash 10-enabled web access, and teleconferencing, and consume only a single Watt, say the partners.
Wind River announced a new version of its Linux-ready, multicore oriented Simics virtualization and simulation software for embedded hardware development. Wind River Simics 4.4 adds a GUI-enabled “Analyzer” application for evaluating a virtual representation of the target hardware, as well as an extension builder that exposes Simics APIs for customization and plugin development, says the company.
Google released version 5.0 of its Chrome web browser — including the first stable builds for Linux and Mac platforms — promising faster performance plus new multi-machine sync and HTML5 utilities. Meanwhile, tech pundit Om Malik suggests that Google's Linux- and Chrome-based Chrome OS should step aside to let the fast-growing Android evolve.
Intel has, “at least in the short term,” canceled its plans to bring a discrete GPU (graphics processing unit) to market. The move follows the company's having missed “key product milestones” for a planned product codenamed Larrabee, spokesperson Bill Kircos wrote in a blog entry yesterday.
Aaeon announced a PC/104 CPU module equipped with the Intel Atom N450 processor. The PFM-LNP supports simultaneous dual-view displays, has an 18-bit single channel LVDS interface, provides PCI/104 and Mini-PCIe expansion, and offers gigabit Ethernet, USB 2.0, and serial connectivity, says the company.
The Intel- and Nokia-backed MeeGo project released version 1.0 of an open source operating system optimized for Intel Atom-based netbooks. MeeGo v1.0 for Netbooks — which we found to be speedy — comprises Google's Chrome browser, Nokia's Qt 4.6, plus a variety of other tools, and will be followed next month by a handset version, says the project.
Shenzhen, China-based Aoson is now shipping a mobile Internet device (MID) that ships with Android, and can also run Linux 2.4, Mac 9.1, and various flavors of Windows, reports Qianlong.com. The Aoson M500 mini-tablet runs on a 624MHz Marvell PXA303 processor, and offers a five-inch resistive touchscreen, plus 3G, WiFi, and GPS wireless capabilities, says the story.
Digital photo frame (DPF) maker Pandigital announced an Android-based tablet that offers integrated access to Barnes & Noble's eBookstore. The $200 Pandigital Novel 7-inch Color Multimedia eReader is equipped with an ARM11 processor, 1GB RAM, a 7-inch, 800 x 600 touchscreen, as well as 802.11n and SD expansion.
eWEEK evaluated a Nexus One running Android 2.2 and a beta Flash Player 10.1, and found Flash to be slow loading, but surprisingly smooth and power efficient. Meanwhile, HTC vows that most of its Android phones will move to version 2.2 later this year, and a 4Q release for Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) has been tipped.
Dell says its Streak mini-tablet — featuring a five-inch touchscreen, voice telephony, the Android operating system, and a Snapdragon processor — will begin shipping next month. Meanwhile, Opera Software announced an Android-ready, “touch-optimized” tablet version of its Opera Mobile 10 browser.
The Puppy Linux project has released version 5.0 of its fast, small-footprint Linux distro, basing it on Ubuntu for the first time. Puppy Linux 5.0 is built from Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx binary packages, offers a new “Quickpet” application suite, introduces a choice of web browsers, and can now boot to the desktop, say the developers.
Intel announced six new 32nm processors intended for ultra-thin laptops. Topped by the Core i7-660UM, with a clock speed of 1.33GHz and “TurboBoost” frequency of 2.4GHz, the CPUs will be available next month in devices from Acer, Asus, Gateway, and Lenovo, the chipmaker says.
Seagate announced what it's calling the “world's fastest 2.5-inch laptop PC hard drive,” combining 7200rpm rotating platters with 4GB of solid-state memory. The OS-independent Momentus XT boots up to 100 percent faster than traditional laptop drives, but costs much less than SSDs (solid state disks), the company claims.
Atmel announced a microcontroller for capacitive touchscreens that allows operation via gloved hands or styluses, supporting screens up to 15.6 inches. The maXTouch technology uses under 1.8mW in a “touch-ready” state and performs “three times better” than competitive products, the company says.
A startup called TheCorpora is readying an open source Linux robot based on a Mini-ITX board with an Intel Atom and an Nvidia Ion GPU. The foot-and-a-half tall Qbo lacks arms or legs, but is mobile, can be controlled via WiFi, and offers stereoscopic face, object, and gesture recognition, plus speech synthesis and voice recognition.