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Canonical unveiled a search-oriented Head-Up Display (HUD) interface that will debut in April's Ubuntu 12.04 (“Precise Pangolin”). Aiming to reduce dependence on menus and eventually replace them with the help of gesture and voice interactions, HUD could find its way into future versions of Ubuntu designed for smartphones and tablets, as well as the recently announced Ubuntu TV platform.
The KDE community announced version 4.8 of its desktop environment and software bundle for Linux, featuring improved, adaptive power management and new windowing functions. KDE 4.8 is faster and more stable, and offers new features like Qt Quick-based Plasma widgets and the KDE Telepathy real-time communication and collaboration framework, says the community.
E-con Systems has announced a five megapixel camera add-on designed to work with the Texas Instruments (TI) OMAP3530 or DM3730 evaluation modules (EVMs). The e-CAM52_35x snaps onto the EVM boards and connects to the high-speed CMOS sensor interface on TI's DM37xx or Sitara AM37xx processors, providing five megapixel video capture as well as stills, the company says.
Coverity is readying an evaluation edition of a security analysis package pre-configured for Wind River Workbench and Wind River Linux. Coverity Static Analysis for Wind River Workbench integrates security within the embedded development process, identifying vulnerabilities as code is written, according to Wind River.
Axiomtek announced a half-size, PICMG 1.3-compliant CPU card that supports “Sandy Bridge” Core i3, i5, or i7 processors. The SHB213 offers up to 8GB of RAM, two SATA ports with RAID support, as many as eight USB 2.0 ports, PCI Express expansion, and a CFast expansion slot, according to the company.
Xi3 Corporation announced a 4-inch, “eco-friendly” server it claims will be readily upgradeable, thanks to the use of one board containing the processor and memory and two separate boards containing I/O ports. The “microServ3r” apparently offers a choice of AMD processors, SSD (solid state disk) storage, two gigabit Ethernet ports, two eSATA ports, and a Fibre Channel port.
HP announced a roadmap for its Linux-based WebOS operating system, which will be released under an open source Apache 2.0 license in September. HP also released an Apache-licensed version 2.0 of its Enyo Javascript development framework for WebOS, adding cross-platform app development across Android, iOS, and desktop browsers.
Texas Instruments announced a Linux-based evaluation module featuring the digital light processing technology from its DLP Pico Projectors. The DLP LightCrafter combines an ARM9-based, 300MHz DaVinci TMS320DM365 processor, a 20-lumen RGB LED light engine and projector, as well as TI's 0.3-inch, WVGA DLP chipset, enabling up to 4000 binary patterns per second, says TI.
Elektrobit (EB) and startup Raptor Identification Systems (Raptor ID) announced two ruggedized biometric devices that run Android 4.0 on TI's dual-core 1.5GHz OMAP4460. Raptor ID's RaptorOne smartphone offers a four-inch touchscreen; the RaptorPad tablet features a seven-inch display; and both offer iris cameras, fingerprint scanners, and CAC/smartcard readers.
Traditional measures such as TDP (thermal design power) or CPU architecture-specific benchmarks are no longer good predictors of actual chip power consumption, several computer science professors have charged. Their paper, which will be presented at an Association for Computing Machinery conference in March, advises chipmakers to expose their CPUs' power metering to programmers — something Intel has already done with its “Sandy Bridge” CPUs.
The Linux Mint team announced the first “fully stable” version of its new GNOME 2.x-like “Cinnamon” fork of the GNOME 3.x desktop environment. Available for several major Linux distros, Cinnamon 1.2 is more customizable than GNOME 3.x, restores much of the GNOME 2.x interface, and adds features such as new desktop effects and layouts, a configuration tool, and five new “applets.”
Ibase announced a modularized panel PC that features a 15-inch touchscreen and a 2.13GHz Intel Atom D2700 processor. The IPPC-1500 includes up to 4GB of RAM, 2MB of battery-backed static RAM for system restoration, a 2.5-inch drive bay, a PCI expansion slot, and a front bezel that meets IP65 standards, according to the company.
[Updated: Jan. 25] — Red Hat, Canonical, and Arch Linux have released patches for a vulnerability in Linux kernels 2.6.39 and above that enables attackers to gain root access on a system. Proof-of-concept exploit code was posted last week after “CVE-2012-0056” was exposed — thanks to Linus Torvalds announcing a kernel patch before Linux distro projects had had time to apply it.
Ampex Data Systems announced a compact, ruggedized airborne recorder that runs SUSE Linux on a 1.3GHz Intel Atom E660T CPU. The ruggedized TuffServ 40 (TS 40) offers 1GB of DDR2 RAM, a 2GB boot disk, an 80GB or 160GB solid state drive, a gigabit Ethernet port, and a -40 to 159.8 deg. F operating range.
Notion Ink says it will switch to a Texas Instruments OMAP 4 processor running Android 4.0 for its next generation Adam II tablet. In other tablet news, Pew Research found the percentage of U.S. adults who own a tablet computer nearly doubled from 10 percent to 19 percent between mid-December and early January, and RBC Capital estimated that Amazon.com will earn $136 in content-related revenue from each Kindle Fire customer.