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The Linux Foundation Goes Zephyr
The Linux Foundation has launched its Zephyr Project as part of a cunning plan to create an open source, small footprint, modular, scalable, connected, real-time OS for IoT devices.
While there have been cut-down Linux implementations before the increase in numbers of smart, connected devices has made something a little more specialized more important.
Zephyr is all about minimizing the power, space, and cost budgets of IoT hardware.
For example a cut down Linux needs 200KB of RAM and 1MB of flash, IoT end points, which will often be controlled by tiny microcontrollers.
Zephyr has a small footpoint “microkernel” and an even tinier “nanokernel.” All this enables it to be CPU architecture independent, run on as little as 10KB while being scalable.
It can still support a broad range of wireless and wired technologies and of course is entirely open saucy released under the Apache v2.0 License.
It works on Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low Energy, and IEEE 802.15.4 (6LoWPAN) at the moment and supports x86, ARM, and ARC architectures.
Courtesy-Fud
Android Is Coming To The Desktop
Jide Technology has released an Alpha build of its much praised Remix OS version of Android, available free of charge.
The Android fork, which adds conventional desktop features such as a taskbar, start menu and support for multiple windows, has been a huge hit, overshadowing the implementation of Android revealed in Google’s recent high-end tablet the Pixel C.
The initial build, as ever, is designed to fish for bugs and aid developers. A beta will follow in the coming weeks. The Alpha doesn’t contain Google Mobile Services apps such as the Play store and Gmail, but the finished version will. In the meantime, users can sideload the gApps package or go to the Amazon Web Store.
There may also be problems with some video codecs, but we’re told this is a licensing issue which will be resolved in the final version too. In the meantime, the first release is perfectly useable.
Compatibility with most Android apps is instant, but the user community can ‘upvote’ their favourites on the Remix OS site to flag what’s working best in each category.
The company has already released a small desktop machine of its own, called the Remix Mini, the world’s first fully functioning Android PC, priced at just $70 after a successful Kickstarter campaign. It has also developed a 2-in-1 ultrabook, the Remix Ultra, and has licensed Remix OS to several Far East tablet manufacturers.
In this new move, the company has teamed up with Android-x86, a group that has been working on an executable version of Android for computers since 2009, to launch a Remix OS installer which will allow existing hardware to become Remix OS powered, or as a partition on a dual-boot machine.
A third option is to store the OS on a USB stick, meaning that you can make any computer your own. This technique has already been popular through the Keepod programme which offers Android on a stick to countries without access to high-speed computers.
The advantages of Remix OS to the developing world are significant. Bench tests have shown that Remix OS works significantly faster than Windows, which will potentially breathe new life into older machines and make modern machines run at previously impossible speeds.
Remix OS was designed by three ex-Google engineers and includes access to the full Google Apps suite and the Google Play store.
David Ko, co-founder of Jide Technology, said: “Today’s public release of Remix OS, based on Android-x86, is something that we’ve been working towards since we founded Jide Technology in 2014.
“All of us are driven by the goal of making computing a more accessible experience, and this free, public release allows us to do this. We believe Remix OS is the natural evolution of Android and we’re proud to be at the forefront of this change.”
The public Alpha will be available to download from Jide and android-x86 from 12 January, and a beta update is expected swiftly afterwards. The INQUIRER has been using a Remix Mini for over a month now, and a full review of the operating system is coming soon.
Courtesy-TheInq
HTTP2 Procotol Nears Completion
When it comes to amping up traffic over the Internet, sometimes too much of a good thing may not be such a good thing at all.
The Internet Engineering Task Force is putting the final touches on HTTP/2, the second version of the Hypertext Transport Protocol (HTTP). The working group has issued a last call draft, urging interested parties to voice concerns before it becomes a full Internet specification.
Not everyone is completely satisfied with the protocol however.
“There is a lot of good in this proposed standard, but I have some deep reservations about some bad and ugly aspects of the protocol,” wrote Greg Wilkins, lead developer of the open source Jetty server software, noting his concerns in a blog item posted Monday.
Others, however, praise HTTP/2 and say it is long overdue.
“A lot of our users are experimenting with the protocol,” said Owen Garrett, head of products for server software provider NGINX. “The feedback is that generally, they have seen big performance benefits.”
First created by Web originator Tim Berners-Lee and associates, HTTP quite literally powers today’s Web, providing the language for a browser to request a Web page from a server.
Version 2.0 of HTTP, based largely on the SPDY protocol developed by Google, promises to be a better fit for how people use the Web.
“The challenge with HTTP is that it is a fairly simple protocol, and it can be quite laborious to download all the resources required to render a Web page. SPDY addresses this issue,” Garrett said.
While the first generation of Web sites were largely simple and relatively small, static documents, the Web today is used as a platform for delivering applications and bandwidth intensive real-time multimedia content.
HTTP/2 speeds basic HTTP in a number of ways. HTTP/2 allows servers to send all the different elements of a requested Web page at once, eliminating the serial sets of messages that have to be sent back and forth under plain HTTP.
HTTP/2 also allows the server and the browser to compress HTTP, which cuts the amount of data that needs to be communicated between the two.
As a result, HTTP/2 “is really useful for organization with sophisticated Web sites, particularly when its users are distributed globally or using slower networks — mobile users for instance,” Garrett said.