A French start-up aiming to create affordable, programmable, autonomous humanoid robots has published several videos of a prototype. In one video, Aldebaran's “Nao” bot waves enthusiastically to the camera, wishing viewers a happy new year and promising to “see you soon,” in French-accented English. (more…)

Motorola this week announced a new mobile phone described as the first Linux-based cellphone to support all of Microsoft's Windows Media technologies. The popularity of Microsoft desktop OSes in the U.S. (more…)

3DLabs is demonstrating its DMS-02 multimedia-oriented SoC (system-on-chip) running the Opera 9 browser, at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this week. The DMS-02 combines a pair of ARM9-EJ cores with 24 FPUs (floating-point units), and targets portable and automotive digital entertainment… (more…)

[Updated Jan. 9] — Nokia quietly began delivering an upgrade to its Linux-based 770 Internet Tablet just prior to CES. The Nokia N800 Internet Tablet is available now from at least two retail stores in the U.S., priced at $399.99, CompUSA's Chicago “superstore” has confirmed. (more…)

A community site hosting discussion forums and Wikis about Qt has announced a Qt/Qtopia programming contest. Sponsored by five commercial tools vendors, the “Qt Centre Programming Contest” will award prizes like Trolltech Greenphones, MacBooks, and iPods, in categories that include mobile applications, desktop applications, helper libraries, widgets, and development tools. (more…)

A Linux-oriented entertainment networking software specialist has been acquired for $43.5 million. Mediabolic, which sells DLNA and UPnP-compliant media-sharing middleware to vendors of Linux-based network storage and playback devices, has been acquired by Macrovision, which specializes in the distribution of copyright-protected products, such as software and multimedia content. (more…)

IBM has published the following new technical articles, tutorials, and downloads on its DeveloperWorks website. They cover a range of interesting (though not necessarily embedded) technical topics, primarily related to Linux and open source system development. Some require free registration. (more…)

Fedora, the community-run Linux distribution sponsored by Red Hat, will no longer maintain separate “Core” and “Extras” repositories, according to Bill Nottingham, a Red Hat engineer and Fedora Project board member. The project's forthcoming release, expected Jan. 30, will be known simply as “Fedora 7.” (more…)

Aewin is shipping a 3.5-inch SBC (single-board computer) with both a PCI/104 connector and an on-board mini PCI slot. The EM-6331 is based on a low-power Geode processor and targets applications such as kiosks, gaming, POS, thin clients, automation, and digital signs, according to the company. (more…)

Flash vendor SanDisk is shipping a 32GB, ATA-interfaced, solid-state drive (SSD) aimed at enterprise notebooks. The 1.8-inch SSD UATA 5000 can radically improve storage performance and reliability, while adding around $600 to retail costs, the company claims. (more…)

A U.K.-based location-aware computing specialist is rumored to be developing a Linux-powered GPS handheld for snorkelers and deep underwater divers. An underwater-ready version of Node's Linux-based NodeExplorer handheld was reportedly featured in a local BBC channel report, according to a… (more…)

Commercial real-time Linux distributor FSMLabs has hired former Infineon Technologies software evangelist Jason Whitmire as managing director of a newly created EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Asia) office. (more…)

CompuLab is shipping a tiny embedded computer module available with a Celeron or Pentium M processor clocked at 2GHz. The CM-iPM, which is meant to be used like a component, crams processor, graphics, networking, super-I/O, and PCI Express functions into a 2.75 x 3.5 inch footprint. (more…)

Microcross has achieved a major release of its commercially supported GNU toolchains for embedded Linux development. GNU X-Tools v4.0 includes tested, modified, commercially supported toolchains based on stable releases of GNU compilers, debuggers, and other tools. It is available for six processor families — optionally with a visual development environment. (more…)

A fabless semiconductor house specializing in cordless phone chips will demonstrate a WiFi chip and Linux stack for dual mode phones at CES in Las Vegas next week. The DSP Group's “WiFi multimedia” design supports VoIP, media sharing, and chat, and includes “advanced MMI applications” for Linux, the company says. (more…)