A market research report published by Allied Business Intelligence (ABI) looks at the sudden importance of RFID (Radio Frequency ID), a fascinating technology that replaces fragile and tedious barcode tags with tiny and inexpensive transponders that can be probed by radio transceivers. (more…)

The Open Source Business Conference (OSBC), March 16-17 in San Francisco at the St. Francis Hotel on Union Square, will focus on the business, legal, and financial issues faced by open source software vendors and end-user organizations. Vendors, visionaries, legal counsel, and financiers will take part, according to event organizers. (more…)

Novell, which recently acquired prominent Linux distributor SuSE, has launched a copyright lawsuit indemnification program for qualifying enterprise and other customers. The company asserts that its legal connection to UNIX and SVR4 uniquely positions it to offer such indemnification. (more…)

Sharp's just-introduced SL-6000, an enterprise-oriented model featuring IBM middleware, is the first device to feature Opera 7 for embedded devices, Opera Software announced. (more…)

Interpeak AB has released the second generation of its Secure Shell (SSH) daemon, which it claims has a smaller footprint and more flexible shell integration model than the free alternatives on Linux. The release supports IPv6, Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP), and Remote Authentication via RADIUS, and is fully supported by Interpeak. (more…)

McObject has unveiled a royalty-free single-threaded version of its eXtremeDB in-memory database, which the company positions as a powerful, economical solution for embedded systems with streamlined database needs. eXtremeDB supports Linux on the x86 platform. (more…)

Red Hat has announced that it will assign all of its copyrights in the eCos open source operating system to the Free Software Foundation (FSF). In conjunction with the eCos development community, Red Hat agreed that it would be best to have all eCos copyrights held by a single party. (more…)

The RTAI project has accomplished its third major release, with the 3.0 version of the Real-Time Application Interface (RTAI), codenamed “Kilauea.” The release offers significant new features and supports x86, PPC, ARM, MIPS, and CRIS processor architectures. (more…)

By 2006, only 45% of corporate users will count a traditional desktop as their primary information device, according to a market research summary report from the META Group Inc. published at DeviceForge.com. Another 40% will primarily use a notebook or tablet PC, with the final 15% focusing on thin-client or other information appliances (e.g., custom device, handheld). (more…)

MontaVista will present a series of technical, two-day classes promoting embedded Linux as an alternative to legacy RTOSes. To a lesser extent, the $995 courses will promote MontaVista's embedded Linux products. The classes are intended for experienced real-time programmers. (more…)

Samsung Electronics is shipping a two-chip chipset for high definition television (HDTV) and set-top-boxes. The S5H2010 MPEG-2 decoder and S3C2800 Digital TV central processing unit (CPU) silicon duo target low- to mid-range HDTVs and HD STBs, and will be supplied with embedded Linux. (more…)

Updated — 12:40PM, PST — The Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) has created a legal defense fund that will likely be used initially to cover its expenses and those of OSDL Fellow Linus Torvalds in response to the SCO subpoena of November, 2003. The fund could also be used to aid end users in certain kinds of cases, should any arise. (more…)

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

DVD software specialist InterVideo has come out with a Linux-based “InstantOn” media-centric operating system that it hopes to license to PC makers as a dual-boot option. InterVideo claims its product boots in under 10 seconds, turning standard x86 PCs into “complete home entertainment centers” operated by remote control. (more…)

Toshiba is shipping updates to its Magnia line of firewall/security devices for the small and medium business (SMB) market that run Astaro Security Linux. Toshiba's Linux-based security server devices previously deployed a Red… (more…)