eSlick : Linux based Ebook Reader

I am not sure in such a recession how many people can go for a product like this, but still Foxit has come up with its new product eSlick, a linux based ebook reader. Based on ARM processor this ebook reader is one of those luxuries which is meant to lure techy geeky chaps to spend some dollars to prove themselves more geeky. I find ebook reader as devices which came out of jealousy from IPods by the people whose main hobby is reading instead of listening music. Although eSlick is a cheaper model available but still $230 its too much for me. Its costlier than my IPod thing..


The eSlick ebookreader has pretty basic features: E-ink technology, 2GB SD card, PDF concerter and viewer from Foxit. The eSlick is quite the basic reader you might want to get. The eSlick claims for supporting 8000 pages of book reading in a single charge. The supported formats for eSlick are PDF and TXT but it comes with Foxit's PC-based PDF Creator software. This creator software can convert any printable document including TXT, PPT, DOC, XLS, and HTML to PDF document format. eSlick also supports USB to connect to other devices for downloading of data.With a built-in MP3 player, Foxit eSlick enables you to enjoy your favorite music while reading your favorite books or documents. After downloading your MP3 files to your computer and transferring them via USB to your eSlick, you can simply press the "Music button", go directly to the MP3 folder and select the specific music to play.

Specifications listed for the eSlick eReader include:


* Display: 6" E Ink® Vizplex screen 600 x 800 pixel resolution, 4-level gray scale
* Internal Memory: 128MB
* Storage Memory: SD Card (2GB included. Supports up to 4GB)
* Supported Formats:
- eBook Formats: PDF, TXT, Any printable document(after converted to PDF using included software)
- Sound Formats: MP3
* Weight: 6.4 ounces (180g) battery included
* Size: 188mm × 118mm × 9.2mm (7.4"x4.7"x0.4")
* Color: Gray(Black back), Black , White (Light Gray back)
* Connectivity: USB2.0
* Operating System: Embedded Linux

Browser for Linux devices

Mozilla Labs has announced the release of first version Fennec browser for mobile devices for PC desktops based testing. Both Arm and x86 ports of the browser had been released .Fennec is available for a number of platforms including Maemo, Linux, Windows, Macintosh and Windows Mobile.



With this release mozilla is trying to jump in head on competition with Safari's rendering engine Webkit , which has from sometime emerged as the default browser for all the small and handheld mobile Internet devices.

Release notes for Fennec on Official website say about the browser that "This is an early developer release of the mobile version of Firefox, for testing purposes only, intended to:

* get wider community feedback on our approach to the user experience
* engage Mozilla community teams, including localizers, add-on developers, and testers
* get feedback from Web developers"

Although previous release of Fennec were targeted for being tested on Nokia N810 internet tablet but in second release mozilla labs has tried to cover a number of platforms for the purpose of wider range of assessment for users.

There has been some tremendous gain in performance of Javascript engine in the new release. This is a major field for various browser activities these days. But still it has to compete with Webkit's javascript engine. Though this release is a good head start for mozilla in every terms for start of penetration in MID space.

Samsung Android phone

Samsung seems to make announcement of its first Linux based Android phone . This Linux based phone will be a first release of Android phone from World's number two OEM after NOKIA. Samsung comes second after Nokia in the smartphone market share worldwide. This release of Samsung's Android Phone is a real booster for Android and OHA dominance over other mobile platforms like LIMO.


Samsung is core member in both the prominent industry collaborations namely LIMO and OHA of Linux based Open Mobile Platforms. An insider report which says about Samsung working on Android phones release seems that the equilibrium seems to get tilted towards OHA & Android.

Report also reveals that there has been addition in workforce of Samsung's Android Phones Development team. Though different in expected looks from HTC G1 this Samsung Android phone is rumoured to be launched in Q2 by the same carrier T-Mobile in USA. No confirmations has been from either side.

Samsung Android Phone is supposed to be a touch screen smartphone with support for various Google services. It will be really nice to see whether Motorola comes up with Android Phone before Samsung or not. Motorola has announced about its ongoing work for Android based Phone in early October of 2008.

Linux Camera on Moon Rover

One project for Linux camera is in for Google's Lunar X PRIZE competition. The paper describing feasibility & announcing participation in Google's Lunar X PRIZE competition discusses use of Open source software & a donated Elphel NC353L network camera for the purpose of capturing , compression and store/transmit of extremely high-resolution videos.

Author of the paper Anders Feder is a volunteer with Team FREDNET. The discussed Elphel camera device has also been previously used by Google for Books Library and Street view projects.

Team of the volunteers at Frednet is currently designing a remote-controlled robotic rover intended to be sent to the surface of the Moon. Futher updates on the project can been on the their blog.

Moca Medical Diagnostic Application

Well i think this application actually gives hint of what can be an imaginative use of development for Web 2.0 & free Linux software like Android. Moca is an Android based application for HTC G1 which merges mobile technologies & telehealth. It is designed to provide better medical diagnostic, screening, and therapeutic services in developing nations & remote under-served areas. This application is actually based on the fact that nearly 80% to 90% of world population is under some kind of network connectivity through tower infrastructures.

Moca provides an Android application for medical screening which integrates a Linux server application and the open source OpenMRS medical records database. The Moca app is designed to be used by nurses and careworkers who work from clinics or mobile vans from remote areas sent out to remote villages.

Moca choosed Android as its target platform because of it being open source which may lead to lost cost handsets. Also Moca developers choosed Android because of its high end camera feature & advanced application development environment.

To deal with the various problems related to existing global cellular framework Moca developers provide innovative technolgies for packetization, synchronization, and multimodal communications . For more you can visit mocamobile website.

HP Offers Pre-Installed Desktop Linux

HP has finally come up with pre-installed Linux based Desktops for SMB business. Anyone interested in a Linux-powered work desktop, though, will be able to put the SLED-powered dc5850 to use. While HP would sell you desktop Linux on a business PC in the past, it had to be 'ordered.' Now, you'll be able to get it 'off-the-rack.'

The dc5850 is a small form-factor desktop. It comes with a wide variety of AMD processors. These range from the 2.2GHz AMD Sempron LE-1250 processor to the quad-processor 2.3GHz AMD Phenom X4 9600B processor. The system can hold up to 8GBs of RAM, but typically comes with 512MB to 2GBs of RAM.

You also get a variety of choices for your graphics. These include integrated AMD Radeon 3100 Graphics; NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS or the ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT. You also have many hard drives to choose from. The one thing the drives have in common is that they're all fast. At the low end, there's a 80GB 7,200 rpm drive and you can go up to a 500GB 7,200 rpm drive or a smaller, but faster, 160GB 10,000 rpm drive. You an also pick from one of three removable SATA drives.

Android 1.0 ported to Nokia N810

Now this can be considered as news of weekend. Google's much hyped Linux based mobile phone stack Android is ported on Nokia N810 tablet. Some week back there was news of Linux was ported to IPhone. Now this news can again be taken in same taste. This shows the penetration & attempts of Linux hackers to make Linux run on various proprietary devices.



This hack was done by Beijing based consulting firm NthCode. NthCode specializes in Linux device development, in markets that include mobile phones, set-top boxes, and "converged" multimedia devices. The NthCode team also did a comparative study between Android's Linux kernel and the mainline kernel and found the differences to be "significant." Google had changed 75 files and added an additional 88, making substantial changes in emulation, power management, Netfilter, debugging, memory handling, and other areas.

Video of Android booting on Nokia N810 tablet can be seen below :



But still there are few things left to be done. Most important of all is making ANDROID applications work & secondly to make wifi work on Nokia N810.

Nokia Smart Home Centre

Nokia unveils a linux device which can easily be out of the league a Nokia Smart Home Centre . This nano technology powered device is meant for controlling your home via a mobile phone or desktop PC. Nokia Smart Home Centre is a Linux Home Automation Gateway which uses Z-waves sensors & security radio to interact with other smart home devices.This device is meant for synchronising smart devices at home with a unique control interface.


Specifications listed for the Nokia Home Control Center include:

* 533MHz CPU
* 256MB RAM
* 6GB internal storage
* SD card reader with SDHC support
* 5 x gigabit Ethernet (4 x LAN; 1 x WAN)
* 802.11n WiFi (two antennas); Z-Wave
* GSM/GPRS
* 4 x USB 2.0 host
* 13.8 x 5.8 x 1.4 inches (350 x 150 x 35mm)
* OpenWrt Linux 2.6




The system offers a unified interface for devices including security systems, washing machines,self-operating lights,self-adjusting curtains,heating systems,smart refrigerators, and programmable thermostats.

Nokia Home Control Center features are also said to include:

* Automated responses to moisture, temperature limits , motion sensor triggering or luminance levels
* Linking of security, lighting, heating, and Internet systems
* Grouping of devices to control by location, function, and type

Device which is supposed to be shipped with OpenWrt Linux distribution comprise of fully featured 2.6 series linux kernel which features Linux server with file sharing cpabilities . Also this 550 gms (1.1 pound) device has web, email & media server capabilities. The product is expected to hit Europen Market in the last quarter of 2009.

Linux on IPhone

For all Linux enthusiasts who were waiting for IPhone & Linux integration here comes a piece of news chunk which may pass a sheer wave of joy. IPhone hacker "Planetbeing" along with his team of hacker contributors Poorlad, Cmw, Saurik , CPICH and Ius has reverse engineered Apple's hardware drivers to get a thing initial port. Video of their work is shown below



The port contains drivers for serial, framebuffer and SerialOverUSB functions. Once OpeniBoot bootloader is installed, it lets iPhone user can choose between booting into the IPhone's native OS, or into a rudimentary linux port's console. When the console comes, user can use USB download a kernel and root filesystem to the phone . Being an initial port , developers plans to integrate support for stuff like accelerometer, WiFi,baseband functions,NAND write, sound and touchscreen. As a next step we may see may be Android being ported on IPhone using OpeniBoot bootloader as iphone-dev.org is luking for Android hackers to contribute for development.

Palm PDA Software on Nokia Tablets

Many of the PDA lovers were waiting from a long time to have liberty of rich set of applications like PALM PDA devices to be present on there linux powered devices. But the fragmented nature of development of linux smartphones haven't resulted in any Linux device with a very rich set of applications like IPhone or Palm PDA. But after the acquisition of Access labs by Nokia there have been some integrated efforts on those fronts.

So here comes the result of efforts in form of Garnett Virtual Machines or Garnett VM for Nokia Tablets.



Now we can have the richness of Palm PDA Software applications on Nokia Tablets N 770 , N800, N810.

Garnett VM or GVM aims to let binaries of PALM PDA applications run on these Nokia Tablets. Thanks to GVM now you can have various application like Google Maps ,Pocket Tunes, EzFTP , SnapperMail etc & games like PacMan & Bejeweled on ur Nokia Tablets.

Good going Access & Nokia!!!!

Linux Devices

Here i am starting a series of articles on the latest buzz in field of linux devices.

Linux has been considered as an Operating system especially for geeks/hackers. But now it has found place in range of small & handheld devices. Use of linux as an embedded operating system has grown much . From the beginning of decade there has been fragmented but continuous efforts by every kind of device manufacturer to use linux for there needs. So there have been a range of devices which can be termed as linux devices ranging from mobile phone to set-top boxes.But the best among them has been from the mobile phone OEM's ranging from Nokia, Motorola, Samsung etc.

The idea of this whole blog is to create a place to cater the needs of audience readers who want themselves to remain updated about the latest buzz in world of Linux devices.