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Kontron announced two COMs (computer on modules) sporting recently introduced Intel CPUs. The 95 x 95mm microETXexpress-PV offers Intel's “Pineview” Atom N450, D410, or D510, while the 125 x 95mm ETXexpress-AI comes with 32nm Core i5 or i7 CPUs clocked at up to 2.53GHz, the company says.
Diamond Systems announced an embedded-ready subsystem combining a choice of COM Express modules with a versatile I/O board. The Magellan comes with either a 1.1GHz Atom or a 1.6GHz Core 2 Duo, and includes FeaturePak, PCI-104, and SUMIT expansion interfaces, according to the company.
ADI Engineering announced a line of 3.46 x 4.33-inch single board computers (SBCs) with PoE+, multimedia, and DVI/VGA video expansion daughtercards. The Cinnamon Bay SBCs are built around Intel's Z5xxP- and -PT Atom processors and offer Arium's microSD-bootable AE Linux distro.
Asus has reportedly used the CeBit show in Germany to launch five netbooks, some of which employ Intel's Atom N455 and N475 CPUs, previously unannounced processors that support DDR3. Meanwhile, Intel added the previous N450, D410, and D510 to its embedded roadmap, touting seven-year availability.
The Small Form Factor Special Interest Group (SFF-SIG) has adopted Lippert's CoreExpress specification for computer-on-modules (COMs). The group says version 2.1 of the 2.6 x 2.3 inch (65 x 58mm) format adds DisplayPort support, plus reserve pins to enable future support for USB 3.0.
Freescale Semiconductor announced an ARM Cortex-A8 system-on-chip aimed at e-readers, along with a Linux- and Android-compatible reference design. The i.MX508 integrates an 800MHz Cortex-A8 core with a display controller from E Ink, improving performance, screen resolution, and battery life, while halving cost compared to earlier i.MX-based e-reader designs, says the company.
ARM has released a tool-suite meant to simplify the development of Linux and Android native applications for systems based on ARM Cortex-A cores. Keil Development Studio 5 (DS-5) Application Edition comprises an Eclipse IDE, plus a compiler, debugger, and simulator, and offers support for TI's OMAX35x-based Evaluation Module and BeagleBoard.
Sprint and Verizon Wireless have released Palm's upgraded 1.4 version of the Linux-based WebOS for Palm Pre and Palm Pixi smartphones. Offering much-anticipated video capture and editing functionality plus improved messaging features, WebOS 1.4 arrives shortly after Palm announced lowered investment guidance due to disappointing smartphone sales.
Intel announced the fastest in its “Pineview” series of Atoms, the 1.83GHz N470. Intended for use in high-end netbooks, the CPU has already been adopted in HP's Linux-ready Mini 5102/2102 netbooks.
WindSpring, Inc. announced a data analysis, compression, and data tuning tool-suite for mobile devices. DMTools 5.0 is designed to optimize application data on Android, iPhone, Windows CE, and Symbian-based devices, and runs on Linux, Mac OSX, and Windows desktops, says the company.
All Android phones sold in the U.S. will be eligible for an Android 2.1 update, although some older phones may need to be wiped first, says an industry report. Meanwhile another report says Google's Nexus One is heading to Verizon on Mar. 23, and an AdMob study explores Android users.
Diamond Systems and seven other companies announced a new expansion standard that employs a single low-cost connector and expansion modules “three-fifths the size of a credit card.” Supporting any host form factor and processor, FeaturePak is intended mainly for SBCs (single board computer), COMs (computer on modules), and other embedded products, but could come to future netbooks and notebooks, too.
STMicroelectronics says it is now shipping four Linux-ready SoCs (system on chips), based on similar ARM926EJ-S cores but targeting different market segments. The SPEAr300, 310, 320, and 600 have single or dual cores, run at up to 400MHz, and sell for as little as $7 in production quantities, the company says.
Dell announced an “Performance Plus” version of its Inspiron Mini 10 netbook, including a 1366 x 768 display, a Broadcom “Crystal HD” media accelerator, and a six-cell battery. The Ubuntu-ready Mini 10 also gets up to 9.5 hours of battery life, the company says.
Adobe's upcoming Flash Player 10.1 may bypass devices running Android versions prior to 2.0. The software will also require that phones have ARM Cortex-A8 processors, according to recent posts by Antonio Flores, identified as a Flash product manager on Adobe online forums.