Tokyo, JAPAN — (press release excerpt) — ACCESS Co., Ltd. has announced a new Software Development Kit (SDK) for use in integrating the NetFront embedded browser into Linux-based Internet appliances and other non-PC applications. ACCESS claims that their new SDK represents the first SDK for a “proven embedded browser” that supports Embedded Linux. The NetFront browser is targeted at Internet TVs, PDAs (personal digital assistants), set-top boxes, car navigation systems, smart phones, web/screen phones, vertical Internet terminals, video game consoles, and Internet kiosks. Since its introduction in 1995, ACCESS' NetFront browsers have been shipped in over 18 million embedded devices from 40 different manufacturers, according to the company.

NetFront 2.6 for Linux is described as “a highly compact, yet powerful browser that is optimized for networked Internet appliances with limited hardware memory configurations.” The browser kernel consists of less than 270 KB of code, fits in 1.3 MB of disk space (typically Flash memory), and requires less than 2 MB of RAM memory to operate. It is fully compliant with HTML 3.2 and partially compliant with HTML 4.0, and it also supports frames, JavaScript, cookies, web printing, and multilingual capabilities.

The new SDK allows Embedded Linux device developers to customize the look and feel of the user interface as well as add plug-ins tailored for specific applications. Plug-ins currently available from ACCESS include Internet mail, Japanese language support, SSL, Java Virtual Machine, animation, and more. The browser supports a range of embedded processors including ARM cores, StrongARM cores, Hitachi's SuperH series, IBM/Motorola's PowerPC, MIPS Cores, and Mitsubishi's M32R/D series.

The new Linux SDK runs on Linux kernel 2.0 or later and supports glibc 2.0 or 2.1 and the Xfree86 3.3 window system. It comes in two configurations: an X Windows version using GTK+ 2.6, and a non-XWindows version using SDL 1.1.3. Written in ANSI C, the NetFront version 2.6 SDK for Linux will be available as a full source code package. The SDK includes the NetFront 2.6 browser kernel, a sample user interface module and PIM suite, the Internet mail module, a sample library for peer interface layer and graphics layer (GTK/SDL), and documentation.� An AVE-SSL, SSL version 2/3 module is optional. A demo version will be available for download from ACCESS' web sites (US, Japan) by December 15, 2000.� The SDK is offered for $40,000, which includes five developer seats and three months of support.

 
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