Android to Go Beyond Phones to a Range of Personal Devices

Android, the Linux-based operating system used in the G1 smartphone and others to come, is destined to be part of many other devices, including personal multimedia devices, mobile Internet devices, medical monitoring tools and home-entertainment controllers.

By Matt Hamblen
Thu, April 23, 2009

Computerworld — Android, the Linux-based operating system used in the G1 smartphone and others to come, is destined to be part of many other devices, including personal multimedia devices, mobile Internet devices, medical monitoring tools and home-entertainment controllers.

Embedded Alley Solutions, a San Jose-based provider of embedded Linux products, said Thursday that it is extending the Android mobile application platform to support a processor architecture from MIPS Technologies Inc. in Mountain View, Calif. Embedded Alley said it will enable Android to work on the Alchemy low-power processors from RMI Corp., a Cupertino, Calif.-based semiconductor company.

Matthew Locke, Embedded Alley's chief operating officer, said his company will provide an Android-ready Linux kernel for RMI's Au1250 System on a Chip. Specifically, Embedded Alley is porting the Android Dalvik virtual machine to the MIPS instruction set and CPU cores. There are particular power management capabilities in the Au1250 that will make it popular for a variety of applications where low power consumption is a priority, he said.

Locke didn't name any specific devices that will run Android but said, in general, Android over MIPS could run inside game controllers such as for the Nintendo Wii or in media players like Apple Inc.'s iTouch.

Locke said that Android will eventually work on a variety of popular chip designs, including ARM, x86, PowerPC and MIPS. The diversity of devices running Android has already gone beyond the G1 smartphone sold by T-Mobile USA. This week, Chinese manufacturer Skytone Transmission Technologies Co. announced a Google Android netbook, the Alpha 680, which runs an ARM11 processor and costs $100 to $200.

While many devices will run on Android, Locke predicted that it would not be used in high-end, multicore processors.

Embedded Alley was founded in 2004 and employs about 30 people in San Jose and elsewhere. The company is privately held, and Locke would not disclose how many customers it serves. Embedded Alley support for Android will be available in May.

You are here: Technology Topics » News

Most Recent Technology Topics Stories

White Papers »

Has Your Server Infrastructure Kept Pace with End User Demands?

Learn how your answer to this question compares to your peers by taking this quick poll. See how your peers are dealing with the challenge of ensuring a highly capable server infrastructure as technological shifts impact the application server platform.

Enterprise Strategy Group: The Case for a New Data-centric DLP White Paper

With increasing data growth, comes increased need for data security. The existing DLP model, with a focus on compliance/enforcement is not sufficient as the data discovery and classification capabilities are not granular enough. Read this paper to find how you can efficiently and accurately manage your risk by rapidly inventorying and classifying your data and then developing remediation workflows that support business needs.

Data Loss by the Numbers

This paper breaks down attack sources into four categories: external, malicious insiders, accidental insiders, and unknown.

Data Loss Prevention Solution for Managing E-Discovery

The rapid growth of data and technology is creating challenges for organizations as this digital data is considered to be business communications and must be preserved according the same industry-specific regulations governing the retention and discovery of emails and more traditional forms of electronic communications. This paper examines the role that Data Loss Prevention ("DLP") technology can play in helping organizations address the challenges of locating information in response to electronic discovery.

Best Practices in Data Protection - Executive Summary

This research, conducted by the Ponemon Institute, focuses on issues relating to the use of data protection solutions such as endpoint encryption and data loss prevention within the workplace.

Business Centric DLP

This report, by Jon Oltsik from Enterprise Strategy Group, examines the need for a new business-centric approach to DLP in order to align business and security requirements.

Webcasts »

Virtualization Success is a Team Effort

As greater numbers of datacenter servers transition from the physical to the virtual world, the components of virtualization success come to the fore. What scores of organizations have discovered is that success is derived from an optimal pairing of the right software platform with the right hardware platform.

Customer Spotlight: How IPC The Hospitalist Company Implemented Oracle on VMware

Have you been looking to hear about customer's experiences with the new VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager product? View this webcast to learn about VMware customer, Navicure, and their experiences testing and evaluating the recovery manager, their progress in implementing it in their environment and their advice other customers considering using vCenter.

Quantifying the Business Value of VMware View - Webcast

Many enterprises have discovered that the use of virtualization to support desktop workloads creates a range of significant benefits. These benefits include price efficiencies, improved IT management and greater agility and choice for end users.

This VMware sponsored webcast with IDC will provide both quantitative measurement of the business value -- defined as the expected ROI -- and qualitative analysis associated with the use of VMware View™. IDC will also provide an analysis of the View Composer and ThinApp™ features of VMware View, including the business value of these solutions and an overview of how they work.

Attend this webcast to learn about:
- Challenges and barriers that might impede the adoption of desktop virtualization
- Navigating roadblocks to facilitate a strategic implementation
- Optimizing qualitative and quantitative benefits to IT and your business

Deliver Private Cloud Database as a Service with VMware vFabric Data Director

VMware recently announced VMware vFabric™ Data Director, a new database deployment and operations platform that enables enterprise IT organizations to offer database as a private cloud service. Built on top of VMware vSphere 5, vFabric Data Director enables IT organizations to ontrol database sprawl through automation and consistent policy enforcement and accelerate application development cycles with self-service database management. Attend this webcast to learn how vFabric Data Director can help you build database-as-a-service in your datacenter.

Reliable Disaster Protection with VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager

A simple, cost-effective disaster-recovery solution for virtual environments is high on the agenda for IT organizations as they virtualize more business-critical applications with VMware. VMware vCenter™ Site Recovery Manager-the market-leading disaster-recovery product-ensures the simplest and most reliable disaster protection for all virtualized applications. VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager provides centralized management of recovery plans, enables nondisruptive testing and automates site-failover processes.

Introduction to VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 5

Traditional disaster recovery solutions are often too expensive, complex and unreliable to meet business requirements. As a result, IT departments are hesitant to expand disaster protection beyond their most critical applications, largely because they are uncertain whether the quality of the protection is really worth its cost. VMware vCenter™ Site Recovery Manager 5 is the market-leading disaster recovery product that addresses this situation for organizations of all kinds. It complements VMware vSphere to ensure the simplest and most reliable disaster protection for all virtualized applications.

Newsletter Sign-Up »

Receive the latest news test, reviews and trends on your favorite technology topics

Choose a newsletter