Operating Systems Dispatch

Google’s Android to Outstrip Apple’s iOS by 2012

2010-08-05T15:45:00.000-07:00

Google Inc. is expected to prevail in a key battleground for its wireless war with Apple Inc., as the smart phone market share of the Android Operating System (OS) rises to surpass that of the iPhone’s iOS in 2012, iSuppli Corp. predicts. Android will be used in 75 million smart phones by 2012, up from 5 million in 2009. Meanwhile, iOS usage will amount to 62 million in 2012, up from 25 million in 2009. This will give Android a 19.4 percent of the global market for smart phone OSes in 2012, up from 2.7 percent in 2009. Apple’s iOS for the iPhone will see its share rise to 15.9 percent in 2012, up from 13.8 percent in 2009. In 2014, Android’s share of global smart phone OS usage will rise to 22.8 percent, while iOS will decline to 15.3 percent.

“Android is taking the smart phone market by storm,” said Tina Teng, senior analyst, wireless communications, for iSuppli. “The OS started with entry level models in 2008, but the flexibility Android offers for hardware designs and its appealing business model in terms of revenue sharing have attracted vigorous support from all nodes in the value chain, including makers of high-end smart phone models. Cell phone OEMs representing all tiers of the industry have committed to support Android, including Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, LG, Huawei, AsusTek and ZTE. This broad industry support will allow the Android OS’s usage and market share to exceed that of its chief rival—iOS—in 2012, just five years after its introduction.” While Apple’s family of iPhone products continues to be the standard by which all other smart phones are measured, the proprietary nature of the iOS and Apple’s closed system business model will limit the number of smart phones with the operating system. Visit the iSuppli research portal for complete details

Liquidware Brings Modular, Rapid Prototyping to the BeagleBoard Embedded Open Source Platform

2010-06-15T13:52:00.000-07:00

Liquidware announced 3 new modules for the popular Beagle Board embedded Linux and Android OS platform, designed to assist rapid prototyping Open Source hardware gadgets. With high-performance, modular open source hardware, proof-of-concept and even product, can be accomplished for a few hundred dollars in a matter of days. The BeagleTouch is a 4.3” touchscreen module with a specialty high-contrast, wide viewing angle organic LED display. When paired with the high-performance Lithium Ion BeagleJuice module, the Beagle Board becomes a handheld tablet computer, pre-loaded with Linux, and capable of running the Android operating system. A full line of sensors, including accelerometer, GPS, light sensor, and heart beat sensor, are readily connected using the BeagleMod prototyping board.

The Beagle Board community of designers and engineers has grown dramatically in the past year, as Open Source programmers port Android, Linux, and Windows to the high speed TI OMAP ARM-based processor. Engineers favor the Beagle Board platform over other prototyping systems because of the wide availability of open source software designed to run out of the box on the board, in addition to the combined high speed, low power consumption. It is no surprise that the TI OMAP chip found in the Beagle Board is expected to be used in forthcoming Android and Linux based smart phones, as well as high-end medical devices. Liquidware’s modules represent a dramatic change in how consumer, medical technology devices are rapidly prototyped and designed. Former development processes lasted 6-12 months, and required product companies to retain long, costly engineering contracts before achieving non-functional proof-of-concept. Now, in a fraction of the time and cost, engineers can deliver fully functional gadget prototypes. This is achieved through the concept of "architectural innovation", which builds on the concept of "modular innovation."

Modular innovation means designing discrete “building blocks” that interconnect with each other and form higher levels of complexity. In theory, this allows engineers to assemble building blocks in infinite combination quickly to create higher level complexity designs and gadgets. In practice, modularity alone is limiting, because the interface between each module often represents many weeks of work, as engineers struggle to get each module to communicate effectively with each other.

2010-06-12T14:27:00.001-07:00

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Google Announces "Froyo" Android 2.2

2010-05-20T16:25:00.000-07:00

Google announced Android 2.2. Codenamed Froyo (short for Frozen Yogurt), it is the latest update to the first open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices. Android 2.2 offers valuable new features for consumers, including portable hotspot functionality, support for Adobe Flash within the Android Browser, and improvements to Android Market. Android 2.2 also delivers powerful new tools and options for developers. These include performance & speed enhancements; new enterprise capabilities; the addition of the V8 Javascript engine to the Android browser; and a rich new set of APIs and services. Google also offered a preview of an upcoming web-based version of Android Market and an update to the native Music app, which will allow users to access their music from Android-based handsets.

“The growth of the Android ecosystem continues to exceed our expectations,” said Andy Rubin, VP, Engineering. “Every day, 100,000 new people start using Android-based handsets. There are now more than 180,000 active Android developers who have contributed over 50,000 apps to the Android Market. Froyo is another step toward making Android an even better platform for developers, enterprises and consumers.” Developers can download the Android 2.2 SDK and Android NDK, Revision 4 now from the Android developer site. Froyo will be made available to OEMs and the open source community in the coming weeks. A video of the keynote will be available shortly at http://sites.pressatgoogle.com/io2010

Apple Unveils iPhone OS 4 ... with long-awaited multitasking

2010-04-08T15:34:00.000-07:00

Given today's announcement do you believe that the iPhone's new multitasking capabilities will enable it to be the smartphone market leader, or this this functionality too little, too late? Send your thoughts to the Operating System Dispatch. In the meantime, here is an excerpt form Apple press release." Apple® today previewed its iPhone® OS 4 software and released a beta version of the software to iPhone Developer Program members. The iPhone OS 4 beta release includes an updated Software Development Kit (SDK) with over 1,500 new Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and over 100 new features that will be available to iPhone and iPod touch® users this summer. New features include Multitasking for third party apps; Folders to better organize and access apps; improved Mail with a unified inbox, fast inbox switching and threaded messages; enhanced Enterprise support with even better data protection, mobile device management, wireless app distribution and more; Apple’s new iAd mobile advertising platform; and iBooks, the delightful new ebook reader and online bookstore recently debuted on the iPad™.

“iPhone OS 4 is the fourth major release of the world’s most advanced mobile operating system,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We’re delivering over 100 new features, including multitasking, folders, a unified inbox, deeper Enterprise support, and an iPhone version of our iBooks reader and online iBookstore.”

iPhone OS 4’s new multitasking offers users a new way to quickly move between apps, and provides developers seven new multitasking services to easily add multitasking features to their apps. These services include background audio, so apps like Pandora can play music in the background, and VoIP, so VoIP apps can receive a VoIP call even when the iPhone is asleep or the user is running other apps. iPhone OS 4 provides multitasking to third party apps while preserving battery life and foreground app performance, which has until now proved elusive on mobile devices. Folders help users better organize and quickly access their apps. Simply drag one app icon onto another, and a new folder is automatically created. The folder is automatically given a name based on the App Store category of that app, such as “Games,” which the user can easily rename. Using folders, users can now organize and access over 2,000 apps on their iPhone. Users can also create and manage iPhone folders on their Mac® or PC using iTunes® 9.2.

Pip.io ... a new social operating system (OS)

2010-02-08T16:05:00.000-08:00

Pip.io is a new social operating system (OS) made up of two distinct domains: the “social” and the “OS.” The “social” aspect is Pip.io's native real-time communications platform. In seeing how people communicate, we looked at the spectrum of privacy in the physical world and adapted its multiple scopes to an online system. This spectrum ranges from very private (think one-on-one IM chats) to what we refer to as “global voyeurism” (like what we see on Facebook and Twitter). But what about all those scopes in between? They’re exactly what we all miss when we hold back on Facebook or Twitter because we’re worried about who will read our updates. Pip.io helps people define their audience so that they can communicate on the web as effortlessly as they do in the real world.

Do we expect people to abandon their Facebook and Twitter accounts? Of course not. Those platforms are extremely good at facilitating conversations at the “global voyeur” end of the privacy spectrum. This brings us to the “OS” part of Pip.io. To make an operating system, we needed to be able to bring third-party apps into Pip.io's eco-system. This has traditionally been done by aggregation: see Brizzly, FriendFeed, etc. Those services pull in and push out data. We wanted to do more than that. Pip.io aims for full functionality—and in most cases, enhancement—of third-party applications. The Netflix application, for example, has full functionality: logging in with a Netflix account will allow a user to use the live-streaming functionality right in the OS. Netflix subscribers could potentially enjoy such extended functionality as group synchronous viewing: if someone paused a video, it would pause for everyone in the group; if someone jumped to a certain point in a clip, it would do the same for everyone else, in real-time.

People think of these privacy scopes as abstract concepts, but they form the basis of the environments in Pip.io's native eco-system that facilitate conversation. And a third party could use these privacy scopes to facilitate anything it wanted. For example, we have an area called “Rooms.” At its most basic, a room is an environment where users can invite people to join and accept invitations from others. Netflix, for one, could use the “Rooms” API to facilitate the invitation process for the synchronous group video-viewing feature.

The traditional definition of an OS has been software that connects third-party applications to hardware resources. But as virtualization and cloud computing get more sophisticated, hardware resources become less relevant. So, what other resources would be of greatest benefit to both consumers and third-party developers? We think social resources. We have essentially created APIs for different scopes of the real-world privacy spectrum—thus the “OS” aspect of Pip.io. Developers would be able to use Pip.io's API to create rich applications that take advantage of Pip.io's real-time platform and that enable users to communicate exactly how and with whoever they want.

atsec Announces Common Criteria Cert for Mac OS X v10.6

2010-01-21T16:46:00.001-08:00

atsec information security is pleased to announce the successful Common Criteria Certification of Mac OS X Snow Leopard at EAL 3 (augmented for flaw remediation) with the Controlled Access Protection Profile [CAPP]. This certification includes both Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server.

The certification of Mac OS X through the German BSI national scheme adds another operating system to atsec's portfolio of over 60 OS evaluations. atsec has been involved with evaluating operating systems under Common Criteria for nearly a decade and our staff has had experience with ITSEC and Common Criteria since the 1980's.

The evaluation consisted of the operation of Mac OS X in a networked environment with other instances of Mac OS X, as well as other well-behaved network systems and operating systems administered by the same management domain. All of the systems connected to the network were configured according to a defined common security policy. Visit the atsec portal for details

Palm webOS Arrives on Verizon Wireless' Network With a Plus

2010-01-07T14:44:00.000-08:00

Verizon Wireless and Palm announced the Jan. 25 availability of Palm® Pre™ Plus and Palm Pixi™ Plus, bringing the Palm webOS™ experience to customers on the nation's largest and most reliable wireless 3G network. Palm Pre Plus has a large, vivid touch screen; high-performance processor; and slide-out keyboard. The Pre Plus keyboard makes for quick and easy typing, while the unique gesture area provides a sleek look and intuitive navigation. Pre Plus also comes with the Palm Touchstone™ Back Cover, making the phone compatible with the revolutionary inductive Touchstone Charging Dock (sold separately). Verizon Wireless Pre Plus customers will also get 16 GB of storage (approximately 15 GB user available) for applications and media.

Feature-rich, Pre Plus and Pixi Plus offer Verizon Wireless customers greater flexibility for access to the Internet with Wi-Fi. In addition, the all-new Palm mobile hotspot, a webOS app that can be downloaded from the Palm App Catalog, gives customers the option of creating a personal Wi-Fi cloud capable of sharing the reliability and high-speed Internet connectivity of the Verizon Wireless 3G network with up to five Wi-Fi-enabled devices such as notebooks, netbooks, cameras, gaming devices or portable media/MP3 players.

Social communicators and first-time smartphone buyers who want an affordable and customizable phone and instant access to messaging and Web content will love Pixi Plus. Customers have a host of options for personalizing their phones with the separately-sold Palm Pixi Artist Series Back Covers and new color Pixi Touchstone Back Covers, which will be available in pink, blue, green, orange and black. Visit the Palm and Verizon press rooms for complete details

WinMagic Launches SecureDoc v4.9 Full-Disk Encryption for Mac OS X Snow Leopard

2009-12-03T13:01:00.000-08:00

WinMagic^® launched SecureDoc v4.9 for Mac OS X version 10.6 Snow Leopard. SecureDoc v4.9 will support Snow Leopard in both 32 and 64 bit kernel modes. With SecureDoc v4.9 for Mac OS X Snow Leopard, organizations can take advantage of the efficiencies of the 64 bit kernel to make it easier than ever before to protect all data stored on desktops, laptops and removable media with transparent, full-disk sector by sector encryption.

In response to numerous requests from government customers, SecureDoc v4.9 for Mac OS X Snow Leopard will also support both the DoD Common Access Card (CAC) and Personal Identity Verification (PIV) security cards widely utilized by government agencies and contractors.

“We developed SecureDoc for Snow Leopard to ensure that organizations migrating to the latest Mac OS experience continued protection of their valuable data,” said Thi Nguyen-Huu, CEO and President of WinMagic Inc. “The latest version of SecureDoc for Mac OS X provides Snow Leopard users with a full-disk encryption solution that also sets a new benchmark for transparent, seamless and state-of-the-art data protection.”

“The Mac is becoming more popular than ever in markets like government, education and business,” said Ron Okamoto, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations. “Snow Leopard is highly secure, compatible and easy to use, and WinMagic’s encryption solution is a nice complement to the advanced security features found throughout Mac OS X.”

Google launches the Chronium Open Source Project

2009-11-20T12:00:00.000-08:00

"Today we are open-sourcing the project as Chromium OS. We are doing this early, a year before Google Chrome OS will be ready for users, because we are eager to engage with partners, the open source community and developers. As with the Google Chrome browser, development will be done in the open from this point on. This means the code is free, accessible to anyone and open for contributions. The Chromium OS project includes our current code base, user interface experiments and some initial designs for ongoing development.

This is the initial sketch and we will color it in over the course of the next year.We want to take this opportunity to explain why we're excited about the project and how it is a fundamentally different model of computing. First, it's all about the web. All apps are web apps. The entire experience takes place within the browser and there are no conventional desktop applications. This means users do not have to deal with installing, managing and updating programs.Second, because all apps live within the browser, there are significant benefits to security. Unlike traditional operating systems, Chrome OS doesn't trust the applications you run. Each app is contained within a security sandbox making it harder for malware and viruses to infect your computer. Furthermore, Chrome OS barely trusts itself. Every time you restart your computer the operating system verifies the integrity of its code.

If your system has been compromised, it is designed to fix itself with a reboot. While no computer can be made completely secure, we're going to make life much harder (and less profitable) for the bad guys. If you dig security, read the Chrome OS Security Overview or watch the video. Most of all, we are obsessed with speed. We are taking out every unnecessary process, optimizing many operations and running everything possible in parallel. This means you can go from turning on the computer to surfing the web in a few seconds. Our obsession with speed goes all the way down to the metal. We are specifying reference hardware components to create the fastest experience for Google Chrome OS." (excerpt form the Google press release)

Prowess Announces SmartDeploy® Enterprise for Windows 7 & Server 2008 R2

2009-11-19T13:51:00.000-08:00

Prowess today announced full support for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 with its innovative software suite, SmartDeploy Enterprise. SmartDeploy Enterprise is a simple, comprehensive deployment solution for Windows desktop and server operating systems. It saves time throughout the deployment lifecycle of creating, managing, and deploying images; and it reduces storage, bandwidth, and related infrastructure costs commonly associated with large deployment initiatives. SmartDeploy Enterprise is flexible enough to allow customers to use it in conjunction with their existing management systems or as a stand-alone solution.

SmartDeploy Enterprise customers realize immediate benefits from using SmartDeploy in a wide range of industries, from defense to education and across the private sector. “SmartDeploy is an incredibly powerful and easy-to-use solution,” said Scott Colson, Vice President of IT service provider Autonomix. “Our IT managed services business is like having 20 branch offices. SmartDeploy saves hours of time on painful deployment tasks and it eliminates unnecessary trips on-site. Plus, hardware variations are now essentially irrelevant with Platform Manager because I never require a new image.” Visit Prowess' SmartDeploy portal for complete feature details

Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 systems are expected to serve pent-up demand for business customers that did not migrate to Windows Vista.¹IDC states that the downturn in the global economy and competitive marketing campaigns have reduced pressure on corporations to migrate sooner, resulting in faster-than-expected release and adoption of Windows 7. SmartDeploy Enterprise enables a seamless migration to Windows 7, reducing the risk, complexity and cost associated with major operating system migrations.

Encouraging Start for Windows 7 (StatCounter)

2009-11-03T15:30:00.000-08:00

Windows 7 has had an encouraging start in the US and globally according to web analytics firm, StatCounter. The firm’s research arm StatCounter Global Stats reports that Windows 7 weekly share went from 1.75% of the US market pre launch to 2.82% by the end of October. Globally too the news was positive for Microsoft with market share increasing to the same levels.

“Windows 7 has hit the ground running and the underlying trend is positive for Microsoft,” commented Aodhan Cullen, CEO, StatCounter. “The new operating system should be further boosted by December holiday season sales of computers which will have Windows 7 preinstalled.”

He added that as expected it looks as if Windows 7 is taking market share from Vista and to a lesser extent XP. “In the US Vista has declined from 35.78% to 34.52% at the end of October. XP has seen a smaller fall from 48.92% to 48.47%.” One factor is clear from the analysis. “Apple Mac fans remain unimpressed by the global launch hype. Mac OS X grew over the same period in the US from 11.29% to 11.87%.”

Data is based on an analysis of 4.7 billion page views (1.1 billion from the US) which were collected during the three week period 12th October to the 1st November 2009 from the StatCounter network of over three million websites.

Microsoft launches Windows 7 Home, Professional & Ultimate

2009-10-22T11:12:00.000-07:00

After much fanfare Microsoft today launched Windows 7 Home, Professional and Ultimate editions. some of the key new (or revised) features include: Snap, Live Taskbar Previews, Home Group, Pin, Windows Search, IE8, Remote Media Streaming, System Restore, Internet TV, Windows Firewall, and many more ...

Two critical elements of Windows 7 which consumer and business users alike have been clamoring for are enhanced security and faster boot time. List prices are Home ($119), Professional ($199) and Ultimate ($219). Is it time to upgrade your laptop, desktop or server? This largely depends on the age of your current system? Or, is a simple upgrade a better choice? The answer is most likely yes if your current system(s) are less than 2 years old. Visit the Windows 7 product page via Microsoft.com for complete details

Google and Verizon Wireless Android Partnership

2009-10-06T12:37:00.000-07:00

Verizon Wireless and Google™ today announced a strategic partnership that will leverage the Verizon Wireless network and the best of the Android™ open platform to deliver leading-edge mobile applications, services and devices. Both companies view this agreement as an opportunity to offer consumers an array of products that combine the speed of the nation’s largest and most reliable 3G network with the flexibility of the Android mobile platform.

Integral to this agreement is a commitment by the companies to devote substantial resources to accelerate delivery of leading-edge innovation that will put unique applications in the hands of consumers quickly. The two industry leaders will create, market and distribute products and services, with Verizon Wireless also contributing the breadth of its nationwide distribution channels. Consumers will be able to purchase products resulting from the collaboration in Verizon Wireless retail and online stores.

Verizon Wireless and Google plan to co-develop several Android-based devices that will be pre-loaded with innovative applications from both parties as well as third-party developers. The family of Android phones on the Verizon Wireless network will come from leading handset manufacturers. Visit Verizon's press room for complete details or listen to the webcast: www.thomson-webcast.net/us/dispatching/google-verizon-wireless_20091006.

NVIDIA Collaborates With Microsoft On High Performance GPUs for Windows HPC Server 2008

2009-09-28T15:15:00.000-07:00

NVIDIA announced work with Microsoft to promote NVIDIA® Tesla™ graphics processing units (GPUs) for high performance parallel computing using the Windows HPC Server 2008 operating system.

“The coupling of GPUs and CPUs illustrates the enormous power and opportunity of multicore co-processing,” said Dan Reed, corporate vice president of Extreme Computing at Microsoft. “NVIDIA’s work with Microsoft and the Windows HPC Server platform, is helping enable scientists and researchers in many fields achieve supercomputer performance on diverse applications.”

NVIDIA Research developed several GPU-enabled applications on the Windows HPC Server 2008 platform, such as a ray tracing application that can be used for advanced photo-realistic modeling of automobiles. Related to this, NVIDIA worked with Microsoft Research to install a large Tesla GPU computing cluster and is studying applications that are optimized for the GPU. In addition, a whole range of enterprise applications – such as data mining, machine learning and business intelligence, as well as scientific applications like molecular dynamics, financial computing and seismic processing – are taking advantage of the massively parallel CUDA™ architecture on which NVIDIA’s GPUs are based to achieve higher levels of productivity. The CUDA architecture enables developers to use the CPU and the GPU together in a co-processing model. Compute-intensive sections of an application use the parallel computing capabilities of the GPU, while the sequential part of an application’s code runs on the CPU. Visit NVIDIA's press room for complete details

Android Key to Defining Mobile Experience from Operators (Strategy Analytics report)

2009-09-24T11:25:00.000-07:00

Due to the rise of mobile internet and its associated revenue opportunities, cell phone carriers are trying to wrestle control of the user experience away from device manufacturers. Operators are focusing on open operating systems, such as Google’s Android, which allow them greater design input, and create additional revenue opportunities from application downloads. The next big advance in mobile user experience will come from digital home convergence. These findings were based on interviews conducted with cell phone operators in the US and Western Europe. Details may be found in the Strategy Analytics Wireless Media Labs report, “Mobile Operators Aiming for Control and Convergence of the User Experience.”

“Cell phone carriers still face many barriers to delivery of an optimal user experience,” commented Chris Schreiner, Senior Analyst at Strategy Analytics. “Organizational structures that do not foster communication between different product and service groups are a major obstacle to developing a holistic experience.”

Kevin Nolan, Vice President in the Strategy Analytics User Experience Practice, added, " Operators that offer so-called ‘Triple Play’ packages combining broadband, TV and cell phones, have an immediate head start on the ability to make the next leap in mobile user experience into the digital home.” Read the abstract or order the report via the Strategy Analytics portal

KatDC & AllGo Systems join MIPS Technologies' Android On MIPS Initiative

2009-09-23T13:59:00.000-07:00

MIPS Technologies, Inc. welcomed two new companies to the ecosystem supporting its initiative to drive the revolutionary Android(TM) platform into a broad range of consumer electronic devices including set-top boxes, DTV, home media players, VoIP solutions and mobile internet devices (MIDs). Kat Digital Corp. (KatDC) and AllGo Systems are bringing unique multimedia technologies and expertise to bear on these efforts.

Since Android was originally targeted for mobile handsets, functionality doesn't exactly match the requirements of other consumer electronic devices such as DTVs and set-top boxes. Much of the functionality must be extended to handle different feature sets and usage models. MIPS Technologies is taking a lead in overcoming these challenges, and together with its ecosystem partners, is making significant progress. To these efforts, AllGo brings engineering expertise in multimedia codec integration into Android to address the limited multimedia support currently available for Android. KatDC brings a full user interface and application platform for Android that will enable customers to quickly develop a rich UI for the large screens found in Android on MIPS-Based digital home products. In addition, the KatDC solution brings a framework for multimedia, networking and DLNA functionality to the platform.

"MIPS is committed to making Android a viable platform that will enable the next generation of connected multimedia devices," said Art Swift, vice president of marketing, MIPS Technologies. "The work of AllGo, KatDC and other Android on MIPS ecosystem partners, combined with our ongoing work on creating reference platforms and optimizing underlying technologies, brings us ever closer to widespread deployment of Android-based devices in the digital home and beyond."

"As we leverage our experience and success in embedded Linux-based consumer electronics to help drive Android into new market segments, we are pleased to team with MIPS, the leading provider of processor cores for digital home devices," said Kyo Li, co-founder and chief architect, KatDC. "With our unique technologies, MIPS developers can customize the way in which graphical user interfaces are presented. We are also offering new features and functionality for Android, including DLNA, 3D GUI and multi-touch." Visit the Android on MIPS portal for complete ecosystem details

DDC-I’s Safety-Critical Real-Time Operating System Available for Intel’s Atom Embedded Processor

2009-09-21T15:16:00.000-07:00

DDC-I announced that its Deos™ safety-critical real-time operating system and OpenArbor™ software development tools now provide architecture support for Intel’s Atom embedded processor. Deos and OpenArbor greatly accelerate the development, deployment, and DO-178B certification of safety-critical avionics applications targeting Atom-based systems. DDC-I also announced support for Compulab Ltd.’s fit-PC2 reference board, which facilitates rapid prototyping, development and testing of application code targeting Atom-based safety-critical systems running Deos.

“The Atom processor’s low power consumption and high performance make it ideal for safety-critical avionics applications,” said Greg Rose, vice president of marketing at DDC-I. “The Deos real-time operating system, together with our OpenArbor IDE, provides a turnkey development and run-time solution for safety-critical developers targeting the Atom processor. Deos provides the fastest, lowest risk path to DO-178B certification of any COTS RTOS, and flies on more commercial and military aircraft than any other COTS RTOS.”

Deos is the industry’s most robust, highest performance real-time operating system for the safety-critical market. Featuring deterministic real-time response, the memory-protected RTOS employs patented “slack scheduling” to deliver higher CPU utilization than any other safety-critical commercial off the shelf (COTS) RTOS. Deos is the only certifiable time and space (T&S) partitioned COTS RTOS built from the ground up for safety-critical applications. Development support for the Atom processor and Deos RTOS includes DDC-I’s Eclipse-based OpenArbor integrated development environment (IDE). Featuring C and C++ optimizing compilers, OpenArbor provides a color-coded source editor, project management support, automated build/make utilities, and a multi-window symbolic debugger. The debugger recognizes C and C++ expressions and can view objects, expressions, call chains, execution traces, interspersed machine code, machine registers, and program stacks. The debugger is non intrusive, can debug at the source or machine level, and can be enabled without changing the generated code. Visit DDC-I's portal for complete technical specifications

Apple delivers patches for Mac OS X Snow Leopard

2009-09-11T12:58:00.000-07:00

Here is a brief recap of Apple's patches for Snow Leopard. Visit Apple's Enhancements and refinements portal for complete technical details. The Finder has been completely rewritten using Cocoa to take advantage of the new technologies in Snow Leopard, including 64-bit support and Grand Central Dispatch. It’s more responsive from top to bottom, with snappier performance throughout the Finder. If you put an item in the Trash, then change your mind, you can restore it to its original location. Just select the item in the Trash folder and choose Put Back from the File menu. Change the default behavior of Spotlight to have it search the currently selected folder or your most recent search location.

Adjust view options for Spotlight results just as you can with any Finder window. Modify the default view as well as the size, labeling, and alignment of icons. Just as in Cover Flow, you can thumb through a multipage document or watch a QuickTime movie right in the Finder in icon view. Sort your Spotlight search results by name, date modified, date created, size, kind, or label. Just open the Action menu, choose Keep Arranged By, and select the field you want to sort by. To see your files clearly in the Finder, you can use a slider to adjust the size of the icon previews up to 512 by 512 pixels, four times their maximum resolution in Leopard. Snow Leopard makes ejecting external drives more reliable. Core system services such as Spotlight indexing and file system events will intelligently stop their work so you can remove your drive. And improved dialogs tell you which applications are using the drive so you know what to close in order to safely disconnect your drive. If you remove the items under the Devices, Places, or Search For header in the sidebar, the header will disappear, too. To add it back, simply drag an item into the sidebar.

Snow Leopard Sessions Announced for Macworld 2010

2009-08-31T11:33:00.000-07:00

Macworld 2010 will feature two full days of technical conference content dedicated to Apple’s newest operating system, Mac OS X Snow Leopard, IDG World Expo, owner of Macworld 2010, announced today. Macworld 2010, taking place February 9 - 13, 2010, at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, is the world’s premier event singularly focused on the Apple products platform. Apple released Snow Leopard on Friday, August 28, and in anticipation of the release, IDG World Expo has built a comprehensive program of conference content and training opportunities led by world-class faculty and aimed at helping new and experienced users unlock the full potential of Snow Leopard.

“When Apple releases a new OS, Macworld is the first and best place to learn how to use and maximize its capabilities,” said Paul Kent, Macworld general manager and vice president at IDG World Expo. “Macworld provides the community with the education, hands-on training and support needed to get more than they ever thought possible out of these new tools. The Macworld 2010 sessions on Snow Leopard and Final Cut Pro 7 are just the beginning of our cutting-edge conference agenda.” Visit IDG's Macworld conference portal for complete schedule details

MIPS Technologies Leverages Digital Home Leadership to Drive Android beyond the Mobile Handset

2009-08-26T14:44:00.000-07:00

MIPS Technologies, Inc. and Sigma Designs, Inc. today announced they are bringing a full high-definition (HD) experience to the revolutionary Android(tm) platform. At the DIGITIMES Tech Forum Multimedia Day in Taipei on August 27th, the companies will demonstrate an Android-based system displaying 1080p video on a full HD flat screen display.

"After showing a Blu-ray reference design for Android in June, we are pleased to now show full HD video on a MIPS-Based platform from Sigma -- a platform that was selected as an official Android reference port for the OESF STB working group," said Ken Lowe, vice president of strategic marketing, Sigma Designs. "Support for Android is a priority on Sigma's roadmap as we enable our customers to quickly, easily and cost-effectively bring exciting new functionality to their next-generation of connected devices including DTVs, STBs and Blu-ray players." Visit MIPS' Android portal for complete technical details

IDC Report projects 16.9% CAGR for Linux OS through 2013

2009-08-26T12:23:00.000-07:00

A recent IDC study reveals that worldwide revenue from Linux operating system software grew by 23.4% from 2007 to 2008, and that growth will be followed by a 2008-2013 compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.9%. With this growth, worldwide Linux operating systems revenue will cross $1 billion for the first time in 2012, growing to $1.2 billion by 2013.

By comparison, Linux server operating system subscriptions will exhibit a different profile, with a contraction of net new subscriptions expected in 2009, followed by a steady recovery through 2013. Meanwhile, nonpaid Linux server operating system deployments are predicted to grow more quickly than new subscriptions through 2013, leading to a net increase of nonpaid Linux server operating systems deployed compared to total worldwide Linux server operating systems being placed into service.

The combined total of Linux server operating system subscriptions and nonpaid deployments is expected to show a 2008-2013 CAGR of 1.1% -- a low growth rate that is impacted significantly by the anticipated contraction in 2009. IDC notes that this low growth rate of new deployment can be misleading, since growth of virtualized deployments will also be taking place aboard existing servers, a metric not directly considered in the predicted growth of net new subscriptions and deployments. Review the abstract or order the report via the IDC research portal

Apple to Ship Mac OS X Snow Leopard on August 28

2009-08-24T10:41:00.000-07:00

Apple® today announced that Mac OS® X v10.6 Snow Leopard™ will go on sale Friday, August 28 at Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers, and that Apple’s online store is now accepting pre-orders. Snow Leopard builds on a decade of OS X innovation and success with hundreds of refinements, new core technologies and out of the box support for Microsoft Exchange. Snow Leopard will be available as an upgrade for Mac OS X Leopard® users for $29.

“Snow Leopard builds on our most successful operating system ever and we’re happy to get it to users earlier than expected,” said Bertrand Serlet, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering. “For just $29, Leopard users get a smooth upgrade to the world’s most advanced operating system and the only system with built in Exchange support.”

To create Snow Leopard, Apple engineers refined 90 percent of the more than 1,000 projects that make up Mac OS X. Users will notice refinements including a more responsive Finder™; Mail that loads messages up to twice as fast;* Time Machine® with an up to 80 percent faster initial backup;* a Dock with Exposé® integration; QuickTime® X with a redesigned player that allows users to easily view, record, trim and share video; and a 64-bit version of Safari® 4 that is up to 50 percent** faster and resistant to crashes caused by plug-ins. Snow Leopard is half the size of the previous version and frees up to 7GB of drive space once installed. Review the complete press release via Apple's news room. You can order Snow Leopard via the Apple ad on Amazon.com to your right

Symbian Foundation announces the Horizon application publishing program

2009-07-30T14:57:00.000-07:00

The Symbian Foundation previewed Symbian Horizon, a break-through application-publishing program on schedule for general availability in October 2009. With Symbian Horizon, developers will receive assistance in building applications for Symbian devices and in placing those applications in the many global stores which reach Symbian customers, and will receive promotional assistance for bringing those applications to end users. The goal of Symbian Horizon is to reduce barriers to success, while increasing the profitability of creating and delivering Symbian applications.

Upon general availability, companies and developers participating in Symbian Horizon will gain access to a variety of services that support the development, distribution, and marketing of mobile applications. From application certification and in-store presence, to language translation services and marketing programs – Symbian Horizon works with developers to create a single point of management and distribution to the largest group of mobile consumers worldwide. Visi the Symbian Horizon portal for complete details: http://developer.symbian.org/main/horizon

Citrix Delivers Windows Apps to New Generation of Mobile Devices with Sneak Peek of Citrix Receiver for Android

2009-07-30T13:44:00.000-07:00

This week at iForum Singapore, Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CTXS) is demonstrating an early version of Citrix® Receiver™ for Android™ mobile phones. Citrix Receiver already gives iPhone users instant access to Windows applications from anywhere with a lightweight client that can be downloaded directly from the Apple App Store. By extending this capability to Android mobile devices, Citrix is giving this same access to Windows apps for a whole new generation of mobile devices. Citrix Receiver for Android tech preview will be available for download in the second half of 2009.

Citrix Receiver is a lightweight universal software client that makes accessing applications and IT services on any device as easy as turning on a TV. Receiver features an extensible architecture with plug-ins that communicate with desktop virtualization products like Citrix XenDesktop™ and Citrix XenApp™ in the datacenter to ensure a rich, secure, “high-definition” experience for end users through Citrix HDX Technology™. Citrix Receiver supports PCs, laptops, netbooks, thin clients and smart phones and is set to become a ubiquitous software client for accessing corporate applications and data. Visit the Citrix solutions portal for complete details