Microsoft has signed a patent agreement with $28 billion Taiwanese original device manufacturer (ODM) Compal Electronics. With this tenth Android agreement, over half of all Android devices are now being made by companies that have signed Android-related licensing pacts with Microsoft, claims the company.

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Contec announced a fanless box PC intended for embedded applications, with a height of just 1.4 inches. The BX-956 includes an Intel Atom D510 processor, two CompactFlash slots, two gigabit Ethernet ports, four USB 2.0 ports, plus a VGA port and a serial port, according to the company.

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ViewSonic has begun selling a $200, seven-inch tablet that runs Android 2.3. The ViewPad 7e is equipped with a 1GHz Cortex-A8 processor, 4GB internal storage, 800 x 600 pixel screen resolution, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, dual cameras, and a micro-HDMI port, says the company.

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The OpenELEC project released an embedded Linux OS designed to run the open source XBMC Media Center home theater PC (HTPC) software on x86 PCs. OpenELEC 1.0 offers a footprint of just 80-130 MB, boots in less than 10 seconds, and is available pre-installed on the Xtreamer Ultra — a mini-PC based on an Intel Atom D525 and Nvidia Ion GPU.

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Arbor announced a Qseven module that employs Via's 1.0GHz Nano U3500 processor. The Emq-v900 has 1GB of soldered-on DDR3 memory, two SATA ports, eight USB 2.0 ports, gigabit Ethernet, and multiple video outputs, the company says.

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Google announced that ongoing changes to some undocumented aspects of the Android 4.0 (“Ice Cream Sandwich”) build — related to calendar and text-to-speech functions — could cause some problems for developers. Meanwhile, several smartphone vendors have promised support for Android 4.0, while analysts explore the release in greater detail.

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Norco announced a fanless, ultra-compact PC that can simultaneously support Wi-Fi and dual 3G cellular modems. The BIS-6625 includes a choice of Intel Atom E6xx processors, dual Ethernet ports, five USB ports, and room for an SATA-interfaced hard disk drive or SSD (solid state disk), according to the company.

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Nokia is re-spinning its Qt project as an independent open source project, promising that cross-platform development framework code will be simultaneously available to Nokia and to the open source community. More details on the new project will emerge at the Qt Developer Days events, scheduled for Oct. 24-26 in Munich and Nov. 29 to Dec. 1 in San Francisco.

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Vodacom announced an Ubuntu Linux-based netbook for the developing world, to be initially be launched in South Africa for $188. The Vodafone Webbook offers a 10-inch screen, 512MB of RAM and 4GB of storage, a Vodacom SIM card slot, and a weight less than 2.2 pounds, says the mobile provider.

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Kobo announced a $200 Android 2.3 tablet with a seven-inch, 1024 x 600 pixel AFFS+ anti-glare display. The Kobo Vox eReader features an 800MHz processor, 512MB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage, a microSD slot, Wi-Fi, and access to the Kobo eBook Store, says the company.

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Wyse announced what it claims to be the industry's fastest thin clients using SUSE Linux. Using AMD's single-core T52R clocked at 1.5GHz or dual-core T56N clocked at 1.6GHz, the Z50 is a desktop device whose features include DVI-I and DisplayPort video outputs, while the X50m is a mobile thin client that apparently combines an AMD CPU with a 14-inch display.

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Renesas announced a new member of its R-Car series of automotive systems on chip (SoCs). The R-Car H1 has four ARM Cortex-A9 cores clocked at 1GHz, offering up to 11,650 Dhrystone MIPS (DMIPS) performance, plus a Imagination Technologies' SGX-543-MP2 graphics processing unit (GPU) and an optional real-time multimedia engine (MME) based on Renesas' SH4A core.

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Sprint unveiled two $100 Android 2.3 smartphones with 1.2GHz processors. The rugged Motorola Admiral offers a 3.1-inch screen and exposed keyboard, and operates on Sprint's Direct Connect push-to-talk network, and the HTC Evo Design 4G is a four-inch “worldphone” that supports Sprint's 4G WiMAX network.

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Advantech announced a Pico-ITX board that sports the company's own MIO (Module I/O) expansion interface as well as a half-size Mini PCI Express slot. The MIO-2260 has a 1.66GHz Intel Atom N455 processor, up to 2GB of RAM, a CompactFlash slot, and the ability to drive both VGA and LVDS displays, according to the company.

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Google announced Android 4.0 (“Ice Cream Sandwich”), a version of the mobile operating system that for the first time is optimized for both smartphones and tablets. Unveiled with a preliminary software development kit — and due to appear first on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus — it sports a revamped user interface, a faster browser, an improved camera interface, plus facial recognition and text-to-speech features.

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