A Bulgarian company has used the open source eCos operating system in a personal security device with a built-in GSM/GPRS cell phone and GPS (global positioning system) receiver. Media Systems Ltd.'s Personal Securer targets mobile operators wishing to offer tracking devices/services. (more…)

ACTIS Computer has dropped pricing and scaled up the processor on its VME-bus and CompactPCI-bus PowerQUICC II SBCs (single-board computers). The new VSBC-6872 (VME) and CSBC-6872 (CompactPCI) are based on a Freescale (formerly Motorola) MPC-88270 processor, and are available with optional Linux board support… (more…)

IBM has published the following technical articles, tutorials, and downloads on its developerWorks Website. They cover a range of interesting (though not necessarily embedded) technical topics. Some require free registration. Enjoy . . . (more…)

Empower has ported its Linux-based operating system for PDAs, portable data terminals, and other handheld consumer electronics devices to a dual-core RISC/DSP SoC (system-on-chip) from Texas Instruments (TI). The LinuxDA Embedded OS (LEOS) will be demonstrated running on TI's OMAP5910 at the October LinuxWorld Expo in Frankfurt, Empower says. (more…)

Trolltech has announced that its application stack for Linux-based PDAs and mobile phones now supports a wireless mobile multimedia processor from Texas Instruments (TI). Qtopia for OMAP is said to give manufacturers a powerful platform to rapidly develop high-performance wireless devices based on Linux. (more…)

A Chinese ODM (original design manufacturer) will ship a mobile phone based on Linux and Qtopia in Q1 of 2005. Yuhua TelTech's “Normandy” phone will use Qtopia Phone Edition (QPE), an application stack for mobile phones that includes a PIMS and other PDA-like features. (more…)

The first commercial software product to exploit the cryptographic acceleration engine in newer Via processors has hit the market, according to Via. LocustWorld's MeshAP-Pro is a commercial version of MeshAP, Linux software for self-organizing networks of wireless access points. (more…)

The PC/104 Consortium is holding its third annual PC/104 Embedded Design Contest to recognize developers who are designing creative products based the Consortium's PC/104, PC/104-Plus, PCI-104, and EBX standards. (more…)

eCosCentric has contributed a generic SPI (serial peripheral interface) bus infrastructure from its eCosPro product line to the public eCos project. The contribution will enable a range of developers support esoteric SPI peripherals using a unified API, the company says. (more…)

The embedded military COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) electronics market will grow at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 6.27 percent, to reach $3.25 billion by 2008, according to VDC (Venture Development Corporation). The US accounted for more than three-quarters of sales in the sector in 2003. (more…)

Kontron has introduced a pair of new products based on STMicroelectronics x86-compatible system-on-chip (SoC) processors. Built in two of Kontron's standard form-factors, the ETX-e.lite and DIMM-PC/lite are both based on ST's 100MHz 486-class STPC Elite processor (with integrated floating point unit). (more…)

3Com's OfficeConnect SecureRouter (3CR860-95) and OfficeConnect VPN Firewall (3CR870-95) are Linux-based VPN routers for the SOHO (small office, home office) market. 3Com offers a free but unsupported Linux-MIPS kernel source tree and cross-compiling toolchain for the devices, making them potentially interesting to… (more…)

Neoware has made another “fastest-growing companies” list, rating 18th on Deloitte's “Fast 50” ranking of technology companies in the Delaware Valley. Additionally, the Linux thin-client, server-centric computing specialist has purchased an IBM mainframe thin-client business from Visara, including assets, licenses, customer… (more…)

O'Reilly has published a book that aims to help software developers and other interested readers make sense of the many open source software licenses in circulation today. Understanding Open Source & Free Software Licensing offers annotated copies of popular licenses, along with comparison… (more…)

Team ASA is sampling an inexpensive single board computer (SBC) for storage and other networking applications in the SMB (small-to-medium business) and residential markets. The NPWR-LC is based on an Intel IXP425 NPU (network processing unit), and comes with embedded Linux and other open source software. (more…)