Adlink announced a rugged, extended-temperature PC/104-Plus single board computer (SBC) with an Intel Atom E600 clocked at up to 1.6GHz. The CoreModule 720 includes up to 2GB of soldered DDR2 RAM and an optional solid state drive up to 16GB, an SDIO/MMC socket, SATA connectors, plus gigabit Ethernet, USB 2.0, serial, DVI, LVDS, and CAN connectivity.

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Datasound Laboratories Ltd. (DSL) announced seven- and 15-inch panel PCs that employ Intel Atom N270 processors and offer optional CAN (controller area networking) connectivity. The FAS700-A16B and FAS150-A16B each include IP65-rated front bezels, three USB 2.0 ports and a serial port, VGA outputs, plus optional Wi-Fi, the company says.

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McObject has upgraded its ExtremeDB in-memory, embedded database, adding a Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) driver. ExtremeDB 4.5 improves performance in several areas, adds more efficient and scalable versions of popular database indexes, improves SQL and High Availability (HA) interfaces, and optimizes the HA edition for a Solace Message Router device to improve performance, claims the company.

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PandaBoard.org's community-driven PandaBoard is the first device to run Android 4.0, according to Texas Instruments (TI) and the Android Open-Source Project (AOSP). Based on TI's dual-core, 1GHz OMAP4430 processor — similar to the OMAP4460 available in the soon-to-ship Samsung Galaxy Nexus — the PandaBoard has been demonstrated on YouTube running an experimental build of “Ice Cream Sandwich.”

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Amazon's Kindle Fire is the world's smallest vending machine disguised as a tablet. In other words, according to this eWEEK review, it's really a dedicated media device, not something you should expect to use for work.

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The OpenSUSE project released version 12.1 of its enterprise-focused Linux distribution, featuring Linux 3.1, GNOME 3.2 and support for KDE's “OwnCloud” cloud platform. OpenSUSE 12.1 introduces the SystemD configuration utility and Google's Go programming language, and further integrates the Btrfs file-system with a “Snapper” tool for rolling back system updates and configuration changes.

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Google released Android 4.0.1 (“Ice Cream Sandwich”) code to open source, along with the Android 3.x (“Honeycomb”) code that it has kept under wraps since it arrived on Android tablets earlier this year. The release follows the Nov. 11 introduction of Android native development kit (NDK) v7, which has been upgraded for Android 4.0 with two new multimedia API sets.

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Lightweight, compact and speedy, Samsung's Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus is a seven-inch Android 3.2 “Honeycomb” tablet with few minuses. Unfortunately, this eWEEK review adds, it's saddled with a price twice that of Amazon's new Kindle Fire.

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Freescale Semiconductor announced a Linux-ready medical reference platform for devices that can collect and securely share health data. The Freescale home health hub (HHH) reference platform is built around Freescale's ARM9-based i.MX28 processor, integrating ZigBee and sub-1GHz transceivers as well as Ethernet, USB, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Bluetooth Low Energy connectivity, says the company.

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Kontron announced a PC/104-Plus board designed for headless devices, featuring a 1.0GHz AMD T24L processor. The Microspace MSM-eO-N accepts up to 4GB of DDR3 memory, has two onboard SATA ports, includes gigabit Ethernet, has a bootable microSD slot, and offers both PCI and ISA expansion, the company says.

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Axiomtek announced a 3.5-inch single board computer with a choice of 1.0GHz AMD G-Series processors: either the single-core T40R or the dual-core T40E. The Capa111 accepts up to 4GB of DDR3 memory, includes LVDS and VGA video outputs, and sports dual gigabit Ethernet ports, according to the company.

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VDC says the global COM (computer on module) market will grow from $380 million in 2010 to $883 million by 2015. The market for associated carrier boards will explode from 52.6 million to $212.5 million during the same time period, the research firm adds.

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DigitalPersona is shipping Linux- and Android-ready fingerprint recognition software for biometric and mobile device manufacturers. FingerJet OEM provides fingerprint extraction, identification, and verification, runs in just 192KB of code space, and is compliant with NIST's MINEX Ongoing Test standard — and the extractor function is available separately as a free, open source FingerJetFX OSE product.

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Wind River announced a pre-validated stack built on Wind River Linux 4.2, aimed at development of home gateway systems for automation and multimedia. Wind River Platform for Gateways supports two ARM11-based processors — the Mindspeed Comcerto 1000 and the Cavium Econa CNS3xxx — and features software from DigiOn (DLNA), Makewave and ProSyst (OSGi for Java), Works Systems (remote management), and Skelmir (virtual machine technology).

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Amazon began shipping its Kindle Fire tablet device Nov. 14, a day early. The $200, seven-inch Android tablet will compete against the Nook Tablet and Apple iPad, among others, for holiday dollars.

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