MIPS "open sources" CPU

Imagination Technologies who make graphics chips and bought the chip designs of MIPS have made the underlying MIPS processor design available to academic institutions for free.

The CPU has all the features (MMU, cache controllers, debug interfaces, etc.) that a modern operating system needs to run (such as Linux and Android). The actual RTL is included in the release.

This will allow the running of the CPU on an FPGA (field programmable gate array) and Imagination Technology hope that it will lead new new innovations in the Internet of Things, mobile and automative arenas.

This is the first time a complete commercial CPU has been released and is pretty innovative of Imagination. There is a site Opencores and someone did post an ARM compatible CPU, but it was pulled at the request of ARM.

Ofcom trials DAB based on open source software

Ofcom, the Super regulator that looks after radio spectrum management and broadcasting amongst other things has reported on a trial that used open source software to run a digital audio broadcast (DAB) transmission.

The trial was based in Brighton and used Linux software and an software defined radio (SDR) to broadcast DAB signals in the Brighton area, though the trial was only low power (the output of the SDR was set to 5mW) a signal could be received over 7Km away. There was also no detectable interference to the BBC local DAB multiplex which was around 3Km away from the trial transmitter.

The trial was carried out privately under Non-Operational Test and Development licence issued by Ofcom.

The full report is here, Ofcom doesn't endorse any software or hardware used, but the report contains references to all the hardware and software used.

Initially the trial was conducted using 2 laptops, but the software was integrated on to a single (rack mount) PC running xubuntu. It would also be possible to run at least some of the software (multiplexor etc) on a RaspberryPi.

Maybe this will lead the way for other Ofcom 'approved' trials such as running lower power GSM networks also using open source software.

Digia releases Qt 5.0

Digia the company that has taken over the development of Qt (from Nokia) has released version 5.0 of the toolkit. This maintains compatibility with Qt 4.

Qt 5 benefits include:

• graphics quality
• performance on constrained hardware
• cross-platform portability
• support for C++11
• HTML5 support with QtWebKit 2
• a vastly improved QML engine with new APIs

Qt 5 also supports OpenGL ES (the version of Open GL that is optimised for embedded systems).

Qt supports a wide range of operating systems including Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, embedded operating systems such as embedded Linux, Windows Embedded as well as the most widely deployed real-time operating systems for embedded devices – VxWorks, Neutrino and INTEGRITY – and popular mobile OSes.

Digia is maintaining 2 versions of Qt, the commercial version and a 30 day free trial is available from qt.digia.com and the open source version from qt-project.org.

Tizen bubbles out the bottle

Tizen, the open source operating system that came out of LiMO and MeeGo, has been released. It's available for Intel Atom N2800 and N2600 CPUs and ARM CPUs. Who will adopt Tizen is still up for debate, though Intel are still supporting it as they supported the previous incarnations of MeeGo and prior to that Moblin (which was combined with Nokia's Maemo to form MeeGo). Samsung are also expected to support it too. Nokia which was a major supporter of Maemo/MeeGo has put its efforts into Windows Phone and seems to have dropped support for the Linux'ish based operating systems. The industry as a whole also has generally adopted Android form Google (which was also based on a Linux core). However there still could be a market for Tizen in various connected devices such as automotive (where MeeGo was making inroads). The v1.0 release of the code, known as Larkspur, is available for download from the Tizen Technical Steering Group (TTSG) along with development tools.

Why Android is scary

Android is an open source operating system based on Linux that runs on phones, mobile internet devices etc. It comes under the auspices of the Open Handset Alliance, but it's really Google.

Android of course isn't completely open source, it cant be (more on that later). Lots of Android is open source including the application layer bits and a lot of the core too. Google do try and make the open bits easily available and those bits can be accessed via source code.

The bits that will not be open sourced are the low level drivers, the bits that "talk" GSM (or CDMA or 3G), the baseband bits. They cant be. In order for a phone to be certified it has to go through an approval process (which in the US means going through FCC approval). Part of the approval is ensuring the network bits are certified and that means users cant play with them. It's amazing what a handset can do to a basestation or network if you know what stuff to send it. Mobile Network Operators don't want users being able to reconfigure bits of the network.

The big issue for operators and Android is people hacking it and accessing the bits they shouldn't. Most of the low level stuff is protected, but if a user can become "root" or the superuser they have access to most of the operating system and potentially have the ability to modify parts of the OS they normally wouldn't be able to. The G1 has already been hacked giving people a root shell.

Having access to the low level parts of the OS is scary, not for the users but for the operators. They don't want you messing with the network or playing with the network protocols. It's really a big issue for them.

Most phone operating systems offer the same control, Symbian only exposes the upper layers as does Windows Mobile. This is even more apparent in the iPhone where the SDK just lets you develop application on top of the OS.

Android's open sourceness may actually be it's downfall in terms of slow adoption by MNOs.

Symbian to go open source

Nokia is purchasing Symbian (well the bits it doesn't own) for $410. It already owns 48% but other stakeholders include Sony Ericsson, Ericsson, Siemens and Panasonic.

Nokia will set-up the Symbian Foundation which will control the code. Nokia will donate their S60 interface, SonyEricsson UIQ and nttDoCoMo LOAM.

With the threat of other open source Linux variants (Android and LiMo), this is probably a sensible move. How they make money out of this move is another matter, though they may still have a licensing arrangement for support and development services.

Microsoft is the only other major OS vendor with the Windows Mobile OS - will they follow suit?

Microsoft buys Tellme

Tellme produce voice recognition software, companies like FedEx utilise their technology.

MS are likely to integrate the Tellme voice recognition software into their an on-line collaboration service or even LCS (live communication server) which was released in beta this week.

Tellme had solutions for Linux and other open source variants, but will MS now kill these as it has done in the past with other companies it has acquired.