At the Embedded Systems Conference (ESC) Boston show on Oct. 26-30, the organizers are giving away free Cortex-A8-based Beagle development boards. TechInsights will offer attendees either the Linux-based, Texas Instruments-made Beagle, which is based on TI's OMAP3530 system-on-chip (SoC), or a Windows CE-based kit from iBase.

Via Technologies announced a nano-ITX board targeting compact industrial PCs and embedded automation. The Epia N700 includes Via's 1.5GHz C7 or 500MHz Eden ULV processors, gigabit Ethernet, two SATA ports, four USB ports, four COM ports, plus Compact Flash and Mini PCI expansion, the company says.

LWN.net has published an article on a new Linux access control mechanism called the Simplified Mandatory Access Control Kernel (Smack). Part of the mainline kernel since version 2.6.25, Smack is simpler and less resource-intensive than SELinux, especially for embedded developers, says the story.

Samsung has announced new drivers and file systems it claims will "significantly" improve the performance of embedded flash memory in embedded devices running Linux and other operating systems. The software will accelerate all file operations, when used with Samsung's "OneNAND," "Flex-OneNAND," and "MoviNAND" memory products, the vendor says.

The seventh annual Southern California Linux Exposition (SCALE) has opened its call for papers (CFP). Scheduled for February 20-22, 2009 at the Westin LAX Hotel in Los Angeles, SCALE has added beginners' and developers' tracks along with its general sessions.

Wind River is offering an embedded Linux board support package (BSP) for Intel's EP80579 (AKA "Tolapai") system-on-chip (SoC). The Wind River Linux 2.0 BSP is aimed at industrial automation, network security, storage, IP telephony, and wireless and enterprise networking.

Portwell has announced a mini-ITX board employing Intel's recently announced 2.54GHz Core 2 Duo T9400 processor. The "WADE-8067" has four SATA ports, two serial ports, plus two gigabit Ethernet ports, supports up to 4GB of DDR3 memory, and includes a PCI Express expansion slot, says Portwell.

Sangoma, which makes telephone network add-in cards supported under Linux, has launched a developer network for the open source community. Sangoma's Developer Network will serve as a platform for open source VoIP developers, connecting them with potential clients and employers, says the company.

A Gartner study estimates 5.2 million mini-notebooks will ship this year, rising to 8 million units in 2009. Gartner pegs Linux and Windows XP as the two dominant operating systems (OSes) in the segment, which could hit 50 million shipments annually by 2012, says Gartner.

The Linux Foundation (LF) has published a guide by Jonathan Corbet (pictured) on how to participate in the Linux kernel development community. The 30-page guide explains the development process, but does not require a deep knowledge of kernel programming, says the non-profit group.

Freescale Semiconductor announced a low-cost system-on-chip (SoC) for gigabit passive optical network (GPON) devices used in fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) deployments. Equipped with an e300 PowerPC core, and supplied with a Linux 2.6 BSP (board support package), the MSC7104 GPON supports data rates of 2.4Gbps downstream and 1.2Gbps upstream, according to Freescale.

UK-based embedded device manufacturer Datasound Laboratories (DSL) announced an embedded module based on Kontron's ETX "computer-on-module" form-factor spec. Based on an AMD Geode LX800 clocked at 500MHz, the Linux-compatible LX800-ETX Module supports displays with resolutions up to 1600 x 1200.

AMD has been taking a "wait-and-see" attitude to the netbook market, but its Turion 64 X2 processor has reportedly made it into one anyhow. Raon Digital announced the Everun Note, which also includes a seven-inch display, 1GB of RAM, and a 60GB hard drive.

Qnap Systems announced a new member of its "TS" family of Linux-based network-attached storage (NAS) devices. The five-bay, hot-swappable TS-509 Pro Turbo NAS is equipped with a 1.6GHz Intel Celeron processor, 1GB RAM, and dual gigabit Ethernet ports.

An open developer community has desiged a tiny ARM9-based board for industrial applications, such as serial device servers. Manufactured by SystemBase of Korea, and designed by the "Embedded Module Developer Community" (EMDC), the "Eddy 2x" board comes with "Lemonix" real-time Linux and Eclipse-based "LemonIDE" tools.

Motorola announced that its LiMo-compliant Moto U9 phone is now available unlocked for GSM networks in the U.S. Available in gray, pink, or purple, the music-oriented U9 has a rounded, contemporary flip-phone form factor, highlighted by a seemingly borderless OLED (organic light-emitting diode) external display.

Gateworks Corp. announced a new line of power-sipping networking boards called the Cambria Network Platform. The first Cambria device is the GW2358-4, which ships with an OpenWrt Linux-based board support package (BSP) and optional dev kit, and is primarily designed for wireless applications, says Gateworks.

Xilinx is shipping a development kit for its Virtex-5 FXT FPGA (field-programmable gate array). The Embedded Development HW/SW Kit -- Virtex-5 FX70T PowerPC and MicroBlaze Processor Edition targets communications, military, and aerospace applications, and is available with a Linux BSP (board support package).

Digital Gadgets has announced an 8.9-inch netbook computer that will sell under the Sylvania brand name. Offered in four different colors, the Linux-compatible "g netbook MESO" includes a 1.6GHz Atom processor, 80GB hard drive, four-cell battery, webcam, and 802.11b/g wireless networking, according to the company.

Two LiMo-member mobile phone stack firms followed through on partnership deals in separate announcements this week. Purple Labs announced a joint testing commitment with Openwave Systems, and Access announced it had concluded a joint development agreement on FOMA phones with NTT DoCoMo.