Hasta La Gadget!

My, my — what have we here? No, seriously, what is this hodgepodge of (rival) companies, and why have they suddenly decided to high five each other here at Computex? Frankly, we’re still trying to piece it all together, but after sitting through a Linaro launch event in Taipei, we’re beginning to get a better handle on the relationship that Samsung, ARM, IBM, Freescale, ST-Ericsson, Texas Instruments and the Linux Foundation have just made official. The outfits mentioned above are coming together to form the UK-based Linaro (a not-for-profit entity), which currently has 25 engineers but will see that figure shoot up to nearly a hundred around the world in the coming days. In short, the new firm — which will have an annual budget in the “tens of millions of dollars” but below “$100 million” — is seeking to “speed the rollout of Linux-based devices,” with one of the key points being this: Linaro will “provide a stable and optimized base for distributions and developers by creating new releases of optimized tools, kernel and middleware software validated for a wide range of SoCs, every six months.”

Read on for more…

Continue reading ARM, Samsung, IBM, Freescale, TI and more join to form Linaro, speed rollout of Linux-based devices

ARM, Samsung, IBM, Freescale, TI and more join to form Linaro, speed rollout of Linux-based devices originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Jun 2010 00:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Digging all the Moorestown tablets and phones we’ve been seeing at Computex? Yeah, us too, but it looks like we’re still going to be waiting a considerable amount of time for them to hit the market. According to Intel’s Anand Chandrasekher, the first Moorestown devices won’t pop up for at least six to twelve more months. That may be after the end of 2010 mark we had heard before, but let’s hope Intel is using the time to get things just right. Anand also said that the first Moorestown products will be tablets rather than smartphones, the latter arriving sometime in the first half of 2011 — not too surprising given handset manufacturers’ history of designing and optimizing around ARM silicon and the fact that the smartphone flavor of the Intel-friendly MeeGo OS is still in development.

Intel Moorestown tablets will arrive before smartphones, won’t hit for at least six months originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Jun 2010 08:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Intel’s just released its Computex press release, which beyond detailing its new Oak Trail and Canoe Lake platforms, reveals that Acer is about to take a bite out of MeeGo. Acer CEO Gianfranco Lanci is quoted saying that the company plans to run MeeGo on its future Atom-based tablets and netbooks. There’s no word on using the Intel / Nokia OS on its phones, but we’ll be keeping an ear to the ground on that. It’s pretty ironic, huh, that Acer was rumored to launch Chrome OS netbooks at the show, but now we’re hearing of this MeeGo love affair. Full Intel press release is after the break.

Continue reading Future Acer netbooks and tablets to run MeeGo

Future Acer netbooks and tablets to run MeeGo originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Jun 2010 00:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve heard a similar message from Nokia dating all the way back to MeeGo’s introduction at MWC back in February, so it comes as little surprise that Espoo is apparently trumpeting the virtues of ARM for its first MeeGo-powered device that’s still targeted for the tail end of 2010. What might make this particularly interesting is the fact that MeeGo 1.0 is clearly further along for Atom devices than it is for the Cortex A8-based N900, not to mention that Nokia has already warmed up to Intel thanks to its Booklet 3G — but regardless of the silicon, getting the platform solid enough for any sort of retail device by the end of 2010 still seems like a tricky proposition when you figure that the ARM build doesn’t even have a proper user interface yet. Ultimately, it might come down to a question of size; Intel still hasn’t proven that it can scale Atom down far enough to tackle the smartphone market head-on, so if Nokia wants to go small with its first MeeGo hardware, that alone could be impetus enough to go ARM.

Nokia will kick off MeeGo effort with ARM-based silicon, not x86 originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 30 May 2010 21:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You’ve already watched pre-release versions of MeeGo fly around on a number of netbooks, but if you’re still wondering if it’s worth your while to install v1.0 on your own machine, you owe it to yourself to have a look at the video posted after the break. The fine folks over at Liliputing have installed the fresh-out-of-the-lab operating system onto their MSI netbook in order to showcase some of the features, and frankly, we’re duly impressed by what we’re seeing. It’s clearly light on its feet, with an Expose-like shifting of screens happening at speeds which we previously only dreamed of seeing on an Atom-based rig. We can’t say the rest of the world is really ready to ditch Windows 7 for something as niche as this, but judging by this vid, you should probably give it a whirl. What’s to lose, right?

P.S. – Phoronix was able to run the new OS through the benchmark gauntlet, and it certainly showed up Ubuntu.

[Thanks, Rafael]

Continue reading MeeGo 1.0 demoed on MSI netbook, looks shockingly stupendous (video)

MeeGo 1.0 demoed on MSI netbook, looks shockingly stupendous (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 May 2010 16:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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