Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

One by one, established embedded board developers are experimenting with open, community backed single board computer projects. Habey USA’s “HIO” SBC project is more ambitious than most. With its Android and Linux-ready HIO-EMB-1200 SBC, the company is introducing a new 80 x 72 x 10mm “HIoTX” form-factor that is 20 percent smaller than Via’s 100 x 72mm Pico-ITX standard. With its 10mm profile, the HIO is also the thinnest SBC equipped with Freescale’s ARM Cortex-A9 based i.MX6 system-on-chip, says Habey.

After Tuesday, Microsoft will no longer provide technical assistance or automatic updates that help protect your computer that runs Windows XP. Another alternative is to install a free Linux operating system. You can first try out a system using a live CD or USB boot. Alternatively you can install a dual boot system that allows you to boot either to your Linux operating system or Windows XP. Once you are satisfied with and used to your Linux system you could do a full install that wipes out your Windows XP system.

Never one to mince words, Linux kernel chief Linus Torvalds has once again handed a verbal smackdown to a Linux developer, this time for failing to address a serious bug that could prevent systems from booting. The target of Torvald's latest tirade was Kay Sievers, one of the key developers of systemd, a system-management daemon that isn't part of the kernel but is among the first software to launch when Linux boots.

Mobile and embedded topics were the main course at this week’s Intel Developer Conference in Shenzhen this week. Intel tipped new 14nm Atom system-on-chips and announced the availability of its previously announced, Linux-ready Intel Gateway Solutions for IoT (Internet of Things). Five manufacturer partners were announced for products based on the Atom- and Quark-based gateway, and ADI announced a White Oak Canyon gateway with full specs (see farther below).

The puzzling move was disclosed to El Reg on Friday by multiple well-placed sources at multiple database companies, who were each familiar with the matter. The insiders, speaking on condition of anonymity, say relational database expert Oracle is trying to form a body dedicated to NoSQL databases, and is seeking participation from NoSQL startups. The emphasis of the standards body will be on go-to-market strategies, marketing, promotion and further commercialization of the technology rather than defining technical specifics, we understand.

If you want to be up to date on what’s going down in embedded Linux, there’s no place like ELC, as in the Embedded Linux Conference. The Linux Foundation has just posted the 90-session presentation line-up for the U.S. show, scheduled for April 29 through May 1 at the San Jose Marriott. The European version (ELCE) ran last Oct. 21-25 in Edinburgh, Scotland.

CEO Jeff Walpole of Phase2 helps persuade businesses to consider open source as a viable solution. Particularly, Drupal. Jeff says, "Phase2 invests an estimated $500,000 every year in time, code, and sponsorship to grow this remarkable open source project." And, in return? Jeff and his team show others how to use Drupal. What sounds simple in this trade-off, in fact is not. Many don't understand open source, or they don't trust it. So, Phase2 makes a business out of being their guide through the murky waters of misperception and into the land of plenty (of open source).

This past week, the OpenShift Origin repository on Github saw some major code merges from external contributors that added MSFT .Net functionality to the OpenShift Origin platform. Thousands of new lines of code were tested and merged successfully into the OpenShift Origin codebase, which was then instantly made available for anyone to download and deploy.

I never have a Twitter app crash in the middle of a Tweet. That wouldn't be too terrible to deal with. No, for me, it seems my e-mail application decides to crash after I've spent 20 minutes thumbing out a reply while sitting in a crowded airport. If you've ever lost a love letter, term paper, shopping list or world-class Facebook post, Type Machine is the perfect app for you.

By the end of December 2005, I had been blogging on ODF developments in Massachusetts for about four months, providing interviews, legal analysis and news as it happened. In those early days, not many bloggers were covering the ODF story, and email began to come my way from people that I had never met before, from as far away as Australia, and as near as the State House in Boston. Some began with, “This seems really important – what can I do to help?” Others contained important information that someone wanted to share, and that I was happy to receive.

KDE today releases the first Alpha version of the next-generation Plasma workspace. This kicks off the public testing phase for the next iteration of the popular Free software workspace, code-named "Plasma Next" (referring to the 'next' Plasma release-see below "A note on versioning and naming"). Plasma Next is built using QML and runs on top of a fully hardware-accelerated graphics stack using Qt 5, QtQuick 2 and an OpenGL(-ES) scenegraph. Plasma Next provides a core desktop experience that will be easy and familiar for current users of KDE workspaces or alternative Free Software or proprietary offerings. Plasma Next is planned to be released as 2014.6 on the 17th of June.

The wifi-enabled Fire TV brings voice search to media servers. The tiny device brings together quad-core processor, dedicated GPU and 2GB memory to drive 1080p content to HDTVs.

Rockchip is the second chipmaker to jump on ARM’s recently announced Cortex-A17 processor design, after MediaTek’s octa-core MT6595 system-on-chip. This heir to the quad-core, Cortex-A9 RK3188, which fuels Android stick computers like the Rikomagic MK802IV and Ugoos UM2, was tipped at CES as being a Cortex-A12 processor. However, Rockchip instead converted the SoC to the similarly 32-bit Cortex-A17.

The more I learn about OpenStack, the more I see why there is so much buzz about the technology as well as about the community of developers and users. In a poll hosted on Opensource.com, we discovered that many of our readers are curious and eager to learn more about OpenStack. For those new to this technology, OpenStack can be described as a set of software tools for building and managing cloud computing platforms for public and private clouds.

Nothing To Hide is an "anti-stealth game," in which you must carry cameras and spy gear to live in a world of self-surveillance and self-censorship. A world where you're made to be your own watchdog. Released for The Day We Fight Back, the game is now seeking crowdfunding to complete the open source game—10% of what's raised will first go to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Demand Progress, and the Freedom of the Press Foundation.

The VAB-1000 Pico-ITX single board computer debuts the Via Elite E1000, which appears to be the first ARM-based Via Technologies system-on-chip developed in-house instead of designed by its Wondermedia subsidiary. It’s not, however, the company’s first ARM-based VAB Pico-ITX SBC. In October, Via announced a Springboard VAB-600 kit running on a single-core, 800MHz Cortex-A9 Wondermedia WM8950 SoC, and based on an earlier VAB-600 board. Also in October, Via announced the VAB-820, which taps the quad-core Freescale i.MX6.

At the former Wired editor’s start-up, 3D Robotics, open-source robots take to the skies. Friday is Fly Day at 3D Robotics, a maker of small robotic aircraft. So here we are, on a windswept, grassy landfill with a spectacular view of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, looking up at a six-prop copter with a gleaming metal frame. It’s like a spiffy toy from the future. Buzzing like a swarm of bees, it lifts off smartly, hovers, then pinwheels. “Jason’s making the hex twirl,” says CEO Chris Anderson, a trim man in jeans and an untucked oxford shirt. “That’s just for show—a human pilot couldn't do that.” That’s because Jason, the flight tester, did nothing more than figuratively push a button. The hexarotor—technically, the 3DR Y-6—is on autopilot, which it demonstrates by zooming off on a preprogrammed route. The Y-6 sells for US $619. That’s a lot for a toy, but it’s chicken feed for a capital investment.

Github has released a beta of what it says is “ the text editor we've always wanted.” Atom, for that is the software's name, is billed as “modern, approachable, and hackable to the core” and also “welcoming to an elementary school student on their first day learning to code, but also a tool they won't outgrow as they develop into seasoned hackers.”

Brooklyn based 3D printer manufacturer MakerBot has launched pre-sales for the second of three Replicator models that appear to be the world’s first commercial 3D printer based on embedded Linux. Almost all 3D printers are compatible with Linux desktops, just as they are with Windows and the Mac, and many, if not most, offer open source hardware and software designs. However, aside from some Raspberry Pi and BeagleBone hacks, the MakerBot Replicator Mini Compact appears to be the first to run embedded Linux.

Bruce Momjian years ago salvaged a nearly abandoned open source database project: PostgreSQL. Now he heads an international group helping to keep its community growing. He also is a key architect for a commercial database company that supports his advisory group and the Postgres open source community. PostreSQL, or "Postgres," is a popular open source object-relational database management system.