Mahwah, NJ — (press release excerpt) — Sharp Electronics Corp. announced that its new Linux-based Zaurus SL-5500 Personal Mobile Tool, a unique mobile communications and multimedia device, is now available to consumers at electronic stores and office products retailers nationwide. (more…)

Seoul, Korea — (press release excerpt) — HancomLinux today announced the immediate availability of Hancom Mobile Office, the first productivity suite for Sharp's Linux-based Zaurus line of PDA devices. Hancom Mobile Office, which includes a word processor, spreadsheet and presentation viewer comes pre-installed on all Zaurus SL-5500 devices. (more…)

[Updated 1:30 pm PST] TimeSys Corporation announced that it has extended its embedded Linux PowerPC architecture support with the release of certified board support packages (BSP) for Embedded Planet's PowerPC 823e based 'RPX Lite 823' and PowerPC 860 based 'RPX Classic LF860' single board computers (SBCs). (more…)

Sunnyvale, CA — (press release excerpt) — MontaVista Software Inc. today announced that it has formed a relationship with Celestial Systems Pvt. Limited (Celestial), a service provider focused on the embedded marketplace in India. Celestial, which has offices in New Dehli and Bangalore, will distribute and support MontaVista's embedded Linux product line in India. (more…)

Natick, MA — (press release excerpt) — In a recent study entitled 2001/2002 Merchant Computer Boards in Real-Time and Embedded Applications, Venture Development Corporation (VDC) noted that board vendors projected substantial growth in shipments of EBX form-factor motherboards during the period from 2001… (more…)

Stockholm, Sweden — (press release excerpt) — TrustLink AB today revealed that it is currently porting its mobile device applications to the embedded Linux platform as a step in its product evolution strategy. Support for Linux will be included in the next major versions of TrustLink's software. (more…)

In this second tutorial in a series on installing Linux on PDAs, Jay Staton explains how to install Linux on a VTech Helio (which normally runs a proprietary OS called VT-OS). Helio PDAs are not sold any more, but if you can locate one second-hand, you will end up with a Linux PDA based on a 75MHz 32-bit RISC processor, with 8M of RAM and 2M Flash ROM — for around $100. (more…)

In the previous tutorial of this series on installing Linux on PDAs, we discussed installing the uClinux distribution on a Handspring Visor. This time, we will take a look at a Linux distro specifically designed for the VTech… (more…)

Marking a first for a Linux-powered PDA, Sharp's Zaurus SL-5500 Linux PDA has been listed at ZDNet's Handheld Supercenter . . . (more…)

Parascript's Pen&Internet division (Sunnyvale, CA) today announced immediate availability of a next generation handwriting recognition technology which accurately recognizes unrestricted English handwriting in any style. Users of riteScript need not learn artificial alphabets, change writing habits, write on a restrictive baseline, or teach riteScript the nuances of their personal handwriting. (more…)

This article by China MobileSoft cofounders John Ostrem and Jiping Wang provides a perspective on the rapidly emerging market for Embedded Linux in China, including a general summary of trends, markets, and a brief survey of the significant Chinese Embedded Linux providers. Ostrem and Wang write . . . (more…)

Everybody seems to be interested in China these days. It represents a rapidly growing, potentially huge market for technology products of all kinds. Our company, China MobileSoft, has been doing business in China in the embedded arena for several years, and we would like to share our view of the opportunities. (more…)

LinuxDevices.com's Rick Lehrbaum chats with Victor Yodaiken, the creator of RTLinux and President of FSMLabs, a software development company headquartered in New Mexico. Yodaiken has been working on operating systems in both industry and academia since the early 1980s when he was one of the developers of one of the first commercial distributed fault tolerant UNIX systems. (more…)

Boston, MA — (press release excerpt) — The third annual GNOME User and Developer European Conference (GUADEC), will bring developers, GNOME Foundation leaders and individual, business and government GNOME users to Seville, Spain next month. The conference is a unique forum for highlighting the capabilities of GNOME, the user environment for desktops, networked servers and portable Internet devices. (more…)

In this article at ZDNet UK, Matthew Broersma interviews Open Source guru Eric Raymond about the challenge to Linux from Microsoft and how increased corporate backing of the upstart OS has significantly reduced the Microsoft threat. Broersma writes . . . (more…)