Sony shipped its Android-based SmartWatch 2 in the U.S. market, featuring higher-resolution, NFC sync, and water resistance, while also launching its Xperia Z Ultra phablet and Xperia Z1 phone. Meanwhile, Google’s long awaited smartwatch — rumored to be a Nexus model codenamed Gem and featuring Google Now technology — is expected to be unveiled with Android 4.4 (aka KitKat) on Oct. 31.
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A Shenzhen-based startup called Wizarm has launched an Indiegogo campaign for a hackable media player with DVR recording, HDMI pass-through, Miracast support, and video overlay capabilities. The Wizarm device dual-boots Android and Linux on a Samsung Exynos 5250 system-on-chip, and offers SATA storage and extensive I/O including USB, HDMI in/out, DisplayPort, and S/PDIF.
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Mad Catz announced $250 pre-orders for its Nvidia Tegra 4-based Android game console. The MOJO Micro-Console for Android ships with 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, USB and Ethernet ports, and a separate gamepad controller with multiple modes for playing games on TVs, PCs, or other Android devices.
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Mozilla released version 1.1 of its Linux-based Firefox OS operating system, adding MMS support, push notifications, and performance improvements. Meanwhile, Telefonica, Deutsche Telekom, and Telenor announced plans for launching Firefox OS phones in South America and Europe, following “very successful” early sales.
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Amrel announced a compact, rugged, handheld based on a TI OMAP SoC and certified per MIL-STD for harsh environments. The Rocky DF6 is touted as lightweight at “less than a pound” and thin at “less than an inch,” sports a 5-inch sunlight readable WVGA resistive touchscreen, offers WiFi, Bluetooth, cellular, and GPS wireless, and is available with a choice of Android or Windows Embedded CE OSes.
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RCA is previewing a $200 Android-based music system on its RCA Tablets website. The RCS13101E Internet Music System features built-in WiFi and a removable tablet-style display, and is billed as a modern alternative to the traditional modular stereo system, for use in bedrooms, dorm rooms, and family rooms.
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MEN Mikro announced a rugged, Linux-ready box-PC for use on trains, buses, airplanes, and construction and agricultural vehicles. The BL50W comes with single- or dual-core AMD G-Series APUs, provides dual full-HD DisplayPort outputs, expands via SD, mSATA, and Mini PCIe slots, offers gig-E, WiFi, GPS, and cellular connectivity, and supports wide temperature fanless operation.
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Roku revamped the low and mid range of its Linux-based streaming media player line with new features and a curvier design, and announced a content partnership with M-Go. The new $50 to $80 models offer several new functions including a headphone jack and WiFi Direct on the remote, but the product line still lacks built-in capabilities for playing YouTube videos or streaming media from LAN shares
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ZTE reportedly will introduce a dual-core Firefox OS phone in 2014. The company recently started selling unlocked models of its initial Firefox OS phone, the ZTE Open, on eBay US and UK for $80, following its launch in Spain, Venezuela, and Colombia earlier this year, and reportedly has already moved 100,000 units.
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Valve announced that in 2014 multiple vendors will offer a variety of Steam Machines — living room devices that will play Valve’s Steam game library, and also stream multimedia content, on its newly announced open source Linux SteamOS gaming distribution. Meanwhile, developers can apply for a chance to receive one of 300 Steam Machines prototypes to be sent out later this year.
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Starting in early October, Ninja Blocks will ship another 1,000 units of its redesigned open source Linux based home automation device kit. The $199 Ninja Block Kit incorporates a BeagleBone SBC and an Arduino-compatible microcontroller, and offers remote access via smartphone apps and a cloud service for access to sensor inputs including motion detectors, contact closures, temperature and humidity sensors, and pushbuttons.
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NetGear is shipping a hybrid IPTV set-top box (STB) that supports terrestrial DVB-T, OTT, broadcast, and VoD HD video. The STB1100 runs Linux 2.6 on Cavium’s ARM 11-based PureVu Celestial CNC1800L STB processor, supports adaptive bitrate (ABR) streaming technology, and offers I/O including WiFi, Ethernet, and USB ports.
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The OpenROV project began shipping version 2.5 of its Linux-based, $849 underwater robot kit. The open source OpenROV 2.5 design advances to a 1GHz BeagleBone Black SBC, scraps the earlier BeagleBone cape in favor of a faster Arduino-compatible controller board design, and boasts improvements to buoyancy, durability, speed, and battery life.
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CompuLab announced four customized versions of its fanless, Linux-ready mini-PCs based on plug-in LAN, serial/CAN, USB/mSATA, and mini-PCIe personality modules. The company also introduced a signage and communication oriented mini-PC, as well as a $15 HDMI dongle that enables high-res VNC-based remote display from headless PCs by tricking proprietary video drivers into thinking an HDMI display is attached locally.
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At the Maker Faire in New York City, ValentFX showed off two open source FPGA boards that stack with BeagleBone and Raspberry Pi SBCs, and also unveiled BBot, a BeagleBone-based drink serving robot built with an earlier FPGA board version. The FPGA add-on boards use Xilinx Spartan 6 LX9 FPGAs, offer Arduino and PMOD expansion, and are supported with open source Linux code for the two ARM SBCs.
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Tesla Motors announced plans to produce an autopilot feature within three years for its Model S electric car, which currently offers a Linux IVI and telematics system. Tesla’s system falls short of being a fully autonomous car, a la Google’s Linux-based Prius systems, and will only handle control of the car for “90 percent of the miles,” according to CEO Elon Musk.
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Renault’s Android-based R-Link in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) tablet is now available in 15 Renault car models, selling as a 599 Euro ($800) option. The R-Link system’s 7-inch touchscreen provides TomTom navigation services, Bluetooth audio streaming, speech recognition and text-to-speech, and on Renault’s electric cars, extensive “eco functions” including a service for tracking remaining range.
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Zhongshan Gosinggo has begun selling a 4.1 x 1.5 x 0.6-inch Android 4.1 mini-PC that includes both WiFi and Ethernet ports. The Gosinggo GSG-TB-06 is equipped with a 1GHz Allwinner A10 processor and Mali-400 GPU, as well as 1GB of DDR3 RAM, up to 32GB of flash, an HDMI port, and dual USB ports.
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Following the appearance of leaked photos showing Tizen 3.0 running on Samsung’s Galaxy S 4 phone, new rumors say the upcoming Galaxy S 5 smartphone will be available in both Android and Tizen versions. Meanwhile, an LG D300g phone uncovered in the FCC database suggest the first LG Firefox OS phone is nearing release.
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Nvidia announced a reference design for 7-inch Android tablets using its ARM Cortex-A15-based Tegra 4 system-on-chip, which could show up in sub-$200 slates by year’s end. The Tegra Note design is equipped with a 1280 x 800 IPS screen with stylus support, dual cameras including a 5-megapixel model with Nvidia Chimera technology, and 10-hour battery life.
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