Turbolinux ships first Wizpy handhelds
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(InfoWorld) - On Friday Japan's Turbolinux begins dispatching the first batch of itsÂ Wizpy handheldsÂ to people who ordered them from its Web site. The flash-based multimedia player contains a version of Linux, so it can be used to boot a PC into the operating system, allowing users to access their files in their own working environment on almost any PC. The devices have proved hot items on the TurboLinux Web shop since preorders began in late January, but what's it like to use one? We tested a pre-production version of the Wizpy for a week and found it delivers on its promise with some annoyances. As a device from which to boot Linux, the Wizpy was easy to use, it just required connecting. No set-up was required because all the PCs we tried were already configured to look first for a bootable CD before defaulting to the operating system on the hard-disk drive. The Wizpy masquerades as a bootable CD, so the PC jumped into the Linux OS and the copy of Windows on the hard-disk didn't stand a chance. The Wizpy requires a PC with USB 2.0 -- older versions of USB are just too slow for the large amount of data that needs to be exchanged with the host computer -- so problems could occur, particularly on older computers. In use, the PC didn't appear excessively sluggish despite the OS running off the Wizpy. The device managed to handle tasks like Web browsing, word processing and e-mail with ease. It comes with these applications installed and it's just such use that TurboLinux envisages. The backlight did annoy, however. With the Wizpy placed to the side of a laptop PC, the backlight kept switching off then a few seconds later switching on again -- something that became so annoying I had to cover it with a magazine. There are two versions of the Wizpy: 2GB and 4GB. The Linux OS and applications take up about 1GB, leaving either 1GB or 3GB available for data storage. That could be a bit on the low side for video but should be fine for many music files and documents. Personal files can be stored within the 1GB Linux sector and only accessed once logged into the OS. The remaining storage area can be accessed both from within Linux and also from other systems when the Wizpy is connected to a PC as a flash memory device. It's in this use we had a problem. Connected to a Windows XP machine the Wizpy was recognized and drivers loaded but the same thing didn't happen on two Apple Mac computers running OSX. It appeared to Windows as USB Mass Storage, so it should have worked with Macs but it didn't. TurboLinux said they would work on compatibility with Macs for future versions of the product. There were few other problems but a few things that could have been improved. For example the up and down buttons on the front of the Wizpy operate the volume, but the on-screen volume bar is horizontal. Not perfect but also not a huge problem ... until you turn the Wizpy on its side to watch a video. Then you're pressing the left-hand button to increase the volume but the volume bar is moving to the right. There was also a problem with the FM radio, which would only tune to the Japanese FM band (76MHz to 90MHz) when the user interface was being used in Japanese. There is no way of setting an English user interface, but listening to Japanese radio. That wasn't the only disappointment with the radio. The sensitivity was very poor, so bad that in central Tokyo several of the local FM stations couldn't be heard without static. All in all, the Wizpy delivered its promise of a multimedia player that can be used to boot Linux on a PC. But it disappointed because of these few small annoyances that should have been fixed or identified earlier. TurboLinux says it will use the feedback to help improve future versions of the Wizpy. The 2GB version costs Â¥29,800 ($246) and a 4GB version costs Â¥33,800. It is on sale now in Japan and will appear in international markets soon.
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BenQ says the Linux-based mobile Internet device it plans to ship before the middle of the year will feature built-in wireless capabilities and a 4.8-inch display.
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Tycho:  It's floating around now, out there on the Wub, and it calls to you.  Or maybe it does, I don't actually know.  In any case, it can be got from 3D Downloads, the Fileplanets, GamersHell, or WorthDownloading.  Download it from mulltiple sites simultaneously for a naughty thrill.  God only knows how this would run on my Vista rig at home, but it's a Vista rig, so you can probably guess.  (CW)TB
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Microsoft engineer shows off a new "MinWin" kernel that takes up a fraction of the space of the traditional OS.
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Elizabeth Smith has a new post today points out some Windows builds of some of the more popular PHP-GTK2 widgets she's compiled (including GtkSourceview, GtkHtml, and LibGlade).   I have these extensions building on windows, or have found someone else who is building them for windows. You can find downloads that are either the full distributions (if no one else is building them) and/or the runtimes + items needed to build with PHP-GTK2 at my callicore build site with the other gtk libraries.   She uses the rest of the post getting into some detail on how she compiled the modules, issues she had with some, and what widgets/packages are on the horizon.
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Japan's Turbolinux will begin selling its Wizpy Linux-based multimedia player in February. The Wizpy can also be used to boot a PC with the Linux OS.
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The Wizpy multimedia media player lets you carry a complete Linux desktop in your pocket.
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Nvidia today launched its first mobile PCI Express GPU. The GeForce Go 6800 will soon appear in desktop replacement notebooks and push mobile graphics to a new performance level.
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joestar writes &quot;Mandrakesoft &amp; LaCie have just launched &quot;GlobeTrotter&quot;, a ultra-compact 40 GB bootable USB hard-drive pre-loaded with Mandrakelinux 10.
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This little OQO  machine is certainly pretty cool.  The biggest problem though is that it doesn't run Linux.  This leaves you with a device heavier than your PDA and all the insecurity and bloat of Windows and with a price tag of only sub $2000.  People don't care what OS their PDA/Handtop runs.  It can run an alternative OS and for the most part consumers don't care.  WinCE hasn't exactly been a stellar market success.  While Microsoft does have significant market share PalmOS, Symbian, and Linux are doing just fine.  Also most of the WinCE devices never have the fit and finish of their Palm and Symbian counterparts.  I don't know where OQO thinks they are going to fit in.  If they were to  ...
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The next great mobile hope for Linux, the Neo1973, has arrived. Wired News has a first look at the most promising open source alternative to the iPhone.
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According to a recent report by Gartner, Microsoft has taken the top spot for the first time in handheld shipments. Microsoft&#39;s Windows CE has had a long lasting
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First hardware maker to align with community-based Linux offering.
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Conky is an advanced, highly configurable system monitor for X based on torsmo   This is the next maintenance release for Conky, prompted by bugs introduced in 1.4.6.  Also notable is changes/clarifications made to licensing.  If you have any problems with the licensing changes (ie. someone got left out of AUTHORS) please let us know.  Summary of changes is as follows:      * Check for pkg-config >=0.19     * Use timed_thread for mpd     * Fixed issue with SIGPIPE and mpd     * Updated COPYING (with more clarifications)     * Updated vim/nano syntax files.     * Added $hwmon var, similar to $i2c and $platform.     * Added var $platform which is similar to $i2c and accommodates the conversion       of many devices from /sys/bus/i2c/devices to /sys/bus/platform/devices.     * Removed config item post_21_kernel since it forced all i2c device lookups       to go to /sys/bus/platform/devices and some people may need a mix of both         i2c and platform devices.     * Clarifying licensing     * RSS support     * Wireless support for Linux  Regards,  Brenden
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InfoWorld - The&#160;TurboLinux Wizpy, a multimedia player that contains a PC-bootable version of the Linux operating system, will go on sale worldwide in June.
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The wxWidgets team is pleased to announce a new release of the mature cross-platform C++ application framework.   This is the first version in the new 2.7 series. Please notice that this series is called "development" and not "stable" solely because compatibility is not assured among between different 2.7 series versions but there are no known issues with the stability of the programs using this version.  There have been many changes since the 2.6 series, please see the change log file included in the distribution for more details. The most significant additions to the GUI part of the libraries were:      - AUI (advanced user interface) library providing dockable windows and much more     - richtext library implementing wxRichTextCtrl     - New wxComboCtrl and wxOwnerDrawnComboBox controls     - New wxTreebook book-like control     - New wxColour/Dir/File/Font/PickerCtrls     - wxHyperlinkCtrl control  https://sourceforge.net/projects/wxwindows
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(InfoWorld) - TheÂ TurboLinux Wizpy, a multimedia player that contains a PC-bootable version of the Linux operating system, will go on sale worldwide in June. TurboLinux designed the device based on its own distribution of Linux and will target the same market overseas as it has done in Japan: early adopters who are curious about using Linux but either don't want to or can't install the operating system. "With Windows Vista just coming out people are thinking about changing their operating system but many are not sure they want to upgrade to Vista," said Noriaki Fukuyasu, director of TurboLinux's international business division, in an interview. The Wizpy allows users to carry a complete Linux desktop in their pocket. When plugged into a PC's USB port the user is given the opportunity to boot-up the Linux system that resides in the Wizpy's memory. User settings, passwords, and bookmarks can be stored inside the Wizpy, with the desktop set up to the user's preference so that no matter what PC is used to host the Wizpy, the user gets their familiar desktop. The device also doubles as a multimedia player but in this aspect it isn't very different from others on the market. It has a 1.7-inch OLED (organic light emitting diode) color screen and keypad on the front. Within is software to play music in Ogg, MP3 and Windows Media Audio formats, and to show XviD and MPEG4 video files and JPEG images. It can also record sound to MP3 files and display text files, and has an FM radio. The diminutive player will first be launched in nations where English is the primary language: the U.K., U.S., Canada, Australia, India, and Singapore; and be followed with non-English language versions either late in 2007 or in early 2008. The device itself already has a multilingual on-screen display, but the bootable version of Linux included inside needs to be translated into other languages prior to wider availability. In Japan two versions of the Wizpy are available, differentiated by the 2GB or 4GB of memory they contain. TurboLinux will offer only the 4GB version overseas. It will be priced at the local equivalent of the Japanese price, which is Â¥33,800 ($278). The Wizpy will be available in North America through Source One Network, in South Asia through eSys Information Technologies, and in the rest of Asia and Oceania through Ferosys. A distribution agreement for the U.K. is under negotiation. Â ADVERTISEMENTIBM Information On Demand 2006Industrial Industry Leaders, please join us at IBM's premier information management global event, IBM Information On Demand 2006, October 15-20, Anaheim, CA. More IBM business and technical solutions content in one place than ever before! Select from  over 800 sessions. Register today!