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Lanner announced a modular 1U network appliance that supports Intel's recently announced Xeon E3 CPUs. The FW-8865 includes from five to 21 gigabit Ethernet ports, up to 16GB of RAM, one or two hard disk drives, a CompactFlash slot, and a front-panel character display, the company says.
Amrel announced the availability of Linux on a ruggedized, military-focused handheld PC that includes a five-inch, 800 x 480 pixel touchscreen. The Rocky DB6 has a 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z530 processor, 32GB of RAM, 64GB or 128GB of SSD (solid state disk) storage, and a Mini PCI Express expansion slot, the company says.
Aaeon has added to its line of fanless embedded controllers with a 1.86GHz Core 2 Duo-based model. The AEC-6924 has two DVI-I video outputs, two Ethernet ports, a CompactFlash slot, four RS232/422/485 serial ports, plus Mini PCI, PCI and PCI Express x1 expansion slots, the company says.
Toradex launched a pico-ITX carrier board for its Colibri modules, available with free schematics and compatible with Linux or Windows Embedded Compact 7. The Toradex Iris can support any Toradex Colibri module but is available with the Colibri T20 module pre-installed, making it one of the first Nvidia Tegra 2-based development boards, according to the company.
Nielsen reports that 31 percent of U.S. smartphone subscribers said they would prefer Android for their next phone, compared to 30 percent for the iPhone. Overall, Nielsen estimates that 37 percent of smartphone subscribers and 50 percent of recent subscribers use Android phones, up sharply from January.
Verizon says it is happy with Motorola Xoom tablet sales, despite a Global Equities estimate that only 25,000 to 120,000 units — a small fraction of the 500,000 to 800,000 units said to have been manufactured — have actually sold. Meanwhile, increasing frustration with Android fragmentation, as well as a rough-edged Android 3.0 (“Honeycomb”) release, has tipped mobile developer interest back toward the Apple iPad, claims an Appcelerator/IDC survey.
Buoyed by sales of smartphones and tablets, ARM Holdings reported a 35 percent increase in year-over-year profits. The company added that shipments of processors based on its designs were up 33 percent, while 39 different licensees signed up during the first quarter of its financial year.
MIPS Technologies says it's working on a port of Android 3.0 (“Honeycomb”) to the MIPS architecture, and also announced a 15 percent year-to-year increase in revenues for its fiscal third quarter. Meanwhile, MIPS and new licensee Ali Corp. of Taiwan announced Ali's Linux-compatible, MIPS32-based “M3701G” chipset, designed for triple-play set-top boxes.
The worldwide market for operating system software grew nearly eight percent to $30.4 billion in 2010, led by Microsoft Windows with 78.6 percent market share, says Gartner. Yet Linux was the fastest growing server OS, and Apple's Mac OS had the fastest growth on the desktop, says the research firm.
Advantech announced an “infotainment terminal” for hospital patients that includes a 15.6-inch touchscreen and a single- or dual-core Intel Atom processor. The PIT-1502W offers a resistive touchscreen with 1366 x 768 pixel resolution, a two megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, RFID, and a smart card reader, according to the company.
Sony announced a pair of Android 3.0 tablets that integrate Sony's Qriocity video and audio, Sony Reader ebook content, and Playstation Suite games. Due to arrive this fall, the Sony Tablet S1 is a 9.4-inch model with a wedge-shaped design, while the S2 offers a folding clamshell format with dual 5.5-inch screens that can be viewed as a single display.
A second major power regression in the Linux kernel has been discovered by Phoronix benchmarks. Following last week's discovery that Ubuntu 11.04 shows a 10 to 26 percent increase in power consumption over Ubuntu 10.10, in a problem traced to Linux kernel 2.6.38 and currently being investigated by Canonical, Phoronix found there was a 20 percent increase in power consumption in last summer's Linux 2.6.35.
LG Electronics announced it has taken out a license with ARM Holdings that will give it access to the Cortex-A15 MPCore and Cortex-A9 MPCore processors. Also covering ARM's Mali-T604 GPU (graphics processing unit) and CoreLink interconnect and system IP, the agreement will “drive … applications that include digital TV, set top boxes (STB), mobile phones, tablets, and smart grids,” the company says.
Verizon Wireless announced two new Android 2.2 phones, led by HTC's four-inch, global-roaming Droid Incredible 2 phone, which features dual cameras, including an eight-megapixel model. The ruggedized Casio G'zOne Commando, meanwhile, offers a 3.6-inch WVGA display, a five-megapixel camera, 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS, as well as special field-ready apps linked to the phone's sensors.
HP announced a business-oriented mini-notebook using AMD's dual-core, 1.6GHz E-350 processor. The 3105m includes an 11.6-inch display, up to 8GB of RAM, a 250GB or 320GB hard disk drive, a six-cell battery, an available cellular modem, and a choice of operating systems, according to the company.