Integrated Device Technology has released a Linux 2.6 offering that enables optimised performance and a host of value-added features, including improved multimedia capabilities such as Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA) and digital video broadcasting. Highlighting its core competency in providing comprehensive hardware and software solutions, IDT is the first silicon vendor to deliver Linux 2.6. The offering includes the Linux 2.6 kernel, as well as application-specific development tools to ease the customer design process and accelerate overall time to market.

In addition to providing support for the full portfolio of Interprise processors, the IDT Linux 2.6 will also offer built-in support for PCI Express functionality and advanced feature set, enabling IDT to aggressively build a foundation of support for future product implementations, including its next-generation IP coprocessors and PCI Express switching and bridging solutions.

IDT provides comprehensive solutions for the networking infrastructure, and delivers silicon and a suite of software development tools.

This offering includes system-level architecture models, development code and optimisation tools, as well as the OS Linux kernels and application-specific software tools such as FreeS/WAN for the security market.

The Linux 2.6 kernel includes support for Journaled File System (JFS), a large number of USB devices, and several new requests for comments (RFCs) related to IP payload compression, IPv6 and Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP).

An additional upgrade of the Linux 2.6 kernel is its interactivity and responsiveness.

Specifically, the kernel is pre-emptible, allowing for mid-task interruptions so that other applications, such as security, can continue to run, even when other low-level or complicated tasks are occurring in the background.

Several aspects of the kernel have been completely redesigned, allowing developers to add devices such as disk drive controllers and wireless chipsets to their products with greater ease, significantly reducing time to market.

Location services specialist GCT has turned to CPS’ Matrix technology to power a new generation of high accuracy devices and applications. The two companies have launched a joint development programme that will see CPS’ software-only Matrix solution integrated into a range of products suitable for vehicle, personal, asset and even pet tracking. The service and devices - marketed under GCT’s Tekel brand - are designed to fit into a pocket or palm of the hand and will deliver sub-100m accuracy across all environments and rapid location fix speeds.

GCT will also apply Matrix to its Tekel application middleware platform - including global 2D and 3D mapping and applications tools - that is used by a number of European operators to operate enterprise and personal location-based services.

The Spanish company, which plans to launch a range of Matrix-enabled products in late 2004, turned to CPS because its technology matched its requirements for a high accuracy solution than could easily be deployed into the Tekel range of terminals.

The two companies are also to jointly market the products and applications to operators worldwide, but will initially focus on Latin America where there is strong demand for personal safety, vehicle location products and asset monitoring.

CPS CEO Chris Wade said: “This partnership will deliver a unique offering - a personal device, as small as a business card, that can be used to provide a highly accurate location.

Imagine the uses - for locating friends and family and personal possessions from laptops to vehicles”.

“This further underlines Matrix’s unique ability to support a range of enterprise services - and highlights the strong and growing appetite for our technology from device, applications and services companies”.

GCT CEO Enric Rossell said: “We wanted to work with CPS because they can provide a unique combination of high accuracy and low cost coupled with all-environment coverage”.

“Existing technologies, such as Cell-ID do not meet our needs or the expectations of end users”.

“We do believe that by joining efforts, our companies will be in the position of providing to the mass market an unbeatable range of Tekel products and services”.

“We look forward to offering our customers an enhanced range of Matrix-powered products alongside new compelling high accuracy applications and services”.

America Online has licensed the aacPlus v2 audio codec from Coding Technologies for use with its media delivery platform and the NSV file format. aacPlus v2 will enable AOL to efficiently deliver high-quality audio and audio-visual services at low bitrates to AOL members. “We are focused on offering the very best media experience to our members and web users, in order to showcase the world class content available on AOL and AOL for broadband, and throughout our various web properties”, said Scott Brown, Director of Media Systems Development for America Online.

“aacPlus v2 audio from Coding Technologies will help us to deliver the highest quality streaming audio and video via our efficient media platform”.

“AOL has the largest online audience and the leading media infrastructure to support their vast array of content”, said David Frerichs, Vice President and US General Manager for Coding Technologies.

“Their adoption of aacPlus v2 will further accelerate the codec as the common denominator for distribution of audio content across Internet, mobile and broadcast”.

aacPlus is AAC coupled with Coding Technologies’ SBR (spectral band replication) and parametric stereo technologies.

SBR is a unique bandwidth extension technique, which enables audio codecs to deliver the same quality at half the bit rate.

Parametric stereo enhances the codec efficiency a second time for low-bitrate stereo signals.

Both SBR and parametric stereo are backward and forward compatible methods to enhance the efficiency of any audio codec.

As a result, aacPlus delivers streaming and downloadable 5.1 multichannel audio at 128Kbit/s, near CD-quality stereo at 32Kbit/s, excellent quality stereo at 24Kbit/s, and great quality for mixed content down to 16Kbit/s mono and below.

This level of efficiency fundamentally enables new applications in the markets of mobile and digital broadcast.

Zi Corp has licensed its eZiText product to handset manufacturer Nanjing Panda Mobile Communications Equipment Co (PMC). PMC is the ninth largest handset company in China and a wholly owned subsidiary of Nanjing Panda Electronics Company. PMC has both design and manufacturing capabilities and is considered one of the fastest growing companies in the Chinese handset market due in part to the wide reach of its parent.

PMC has licensed eZiText in English, simplified Chinese and traditional Chinese in its GSM and GPRS handsets for use in strategically important greater Chinese market including China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

China continues to be one of the fastest growing mobile phone markets in the world.

According to China’s Ministry of Information Industry, one in four Chinese are expected to have a wireless phone by the end of 2004 and, as of April, China’s total number of mobile phone subscribers had grown to 295.8 million subscribers, an increase of 27.1 million since January.

The total number of subscribers is expected to reach 320 million by late 2004.

PMC is expected to introduce its new GSM and GPRS handset designs embedded with eZiText in the second half of this year, said Yongqing Hua, Vice General Manager of PMC.

“We consider predictive text a core requirement for our handset designs and Zi, with its extensive Chinese language expertise, is the innovative leader in the field”, Hua said.

“As we continue to ramp-up our in-house design capabilities, we look forward to working closely with Zi as a key component of our products”.

Zi’s Beijing-based regional sales director for Asia, Kam Ching, said the agreement with PMC again demonstrates the value of Zi’s products for China’s leading handset manufacturers.

“PMC is a very important customer for us because of their standing in the key Chinese market”, Ching said.

“PMC’s selection of our products is an important endorsement of Zi’s expertise in the Chinese language and validates our claims that our features, including learning and personalization, are in very high demand among mobile phone consumers”.

The DVD Forum has selected Coding Technologies’ High-Efficiency AAC (HE AAC) codec as the mandatory codec format for the new Compressed Audio Zone in DVD audio. Known in the market as MPEG-4 aacPlus and fully standardised by MPEG, HE AAC enables the inclusion of high-quality precompressed audio on DVD audio discs. In a related release, Via Licensing also announced today that patent licenses for Coding Technologies’ HE AAC are now available through the MPEG-4 Audio patent pool.

Along with the high quality tracks already included on the DVD, the Compressed Audio Zone allows for the inclusion of precompressed copies of the high quality tracks.

These new tracks will be easily transferable directly to portable music players and jukeboxes in a protected format without the complexity of “ripping” the disc.

With support for both stereo and 5.1 channel content at sampling rates up to 96kHz, HE AAC in the Compressed Audio Zone gives consumers the freedom they want, electronics makers room to innovate with new products, and record labels the assurance of content fidelity.

“We support these enhancements to the DVD audio format because they heighten consumers’ music experience”.

“We think this capability will give added value to consumers when they transfer their music to their PCs and portable devices”, said Kevin Gage, VP of Strategic Technology and New Media for Warner Music Group.

“Having our aacPlus codec selected as the compressed audio format for DVD audio creates a strong connecting force between markets”, said Stefan Meltzer, Vice President of Business Development at Coding Technologies.

“The synergies between the DVD audio format and other uses of aacPlus in mobile, broadcast, and Internet are driving aacPlus towards being the common denominator for digital audio distribution”.

The DVD Forum has selected Coding Technologies’ High-Efficiency AAC (HE AAC) codec as the mandatory codec format for the new Compressed Audio Zone in DVD audio. Known in the market as MPEG-4 aacPlus and fully standardised by MPEG, HE AAC enables the inclusion of high-quality precompressed audio on DVD audio discs. In a related release, Via Licensing also announced today that patent licenses for Coding Technologies’ HE AAC are now available through the MPEG-4 Audio patent pool.

Along with the high quality tracks already included on the DVD, the Compressed Audio Zone allows for the inclusion of precompressed copies of the high quality tracks.

These new tracks will be easily transferable directly to portable music players and jukeboxes in a protected format without the complexity of “ripping” the disc.

With support for both stereo and 5.1 channel content at sampling rates up to 96kHz, HE AAC in the Compressed Audio Zone gives consumers the freedom they want, electronics makers room to innovate with new products, and record labels the assurance of content fidelity.

“We support these enhancements to the DVD audio format because they heighten consumers’ music experience”.

“We think this capability will give added value to consumers when they transfer their music to their PCs and portable devices”, said Kevin Gage, VP of Strategic Technology and New Media for Warner Music Group.

“Having our aacPlus codec selected as the compressed audio format for DVD audio creates a strong connecting force between markets”, said Stefan Meltzer, Vice President of Business Development at Coding Technologies.

“The synergies between the DVD audio format and other uses of aacPlus in mobile, broadcast, and Internet are driving aacPlus towards being the common denominator for digital audio distribution”.

The DVD Forum has selected Coding Technologies’ High-Efficiency AAC (HE AAC) codec as the mandatory codec format for the new Compressed Audio Zone in DVD audio. Known in the market as MPEG-4 aacPlus and fully standardised by MPEG, HE AAC enables the inclusion of high-quality precompressed audio on DVD audio discs. In a related release, Via Licensing also announced today that patent licenses for Coding Technologies’ HE AAC are now available through the MPEG-4 Audio patent pool.

Along with the high quality tracks already included on the DVD, the Compressed Audio Zone allows for the inclusion of precompressed copies of the high quality tracks.

These new tracks will be easily transferable directly to portable music players and jukeboxes in a protected format without the complexity of “ripping” the disc.

With support for both stereo and 5.1 channel content at sampling rates up to 96kHz, HE AAC in the Compressed Audio Zone gives consumers the freedom they want, electronics makers room to innovate with new products, and record labels the assurance of content fidelity.

“We support these enhancements to the DVD audio format because they heighten consumers’ music experience”.

“We think this capability will give added value to consumers when they transfer their music to their PCs and portable devices”, said Kevin Gage, VP of Strategic Technology and New Media for Warner Music Group.

“Having our aacPlus codec selected as the compressed audio format for DVD audio creates a strong connecting force between markets”, said Stefan Meltzer, Vice President of Business Development at Coding Technologies.

“The synergies between the DVD audio format and other uses of aacPlus in mobile, broadcast, and Internet are driving aacPlus towards being the common denominator for digital audio distribution”.

The DVD Forum has selected Coding Technologies’ High-Efficiency AAC (HE AAC) codec as the mandatory codec format for the new Compressed Audio Zone in DVD audio. Known in the market as MPEG-4 aacPlus and fully standardised by MPEG, HE AAC enables the inclusion of high-quality precompressed audio on DVD audio discs. In a related release, Via Licensing also announced today that patent licenses for Coding Technologies’ HE AAC are now available through the MPEG-4 Audio patent pool.

Along with the high quality tracks already included on the DVD, the Compressed Audio Zone allows for the inclusion of precompressed copies of the high quality tracks.

These new tracks will be easily transferable directly to portable music players and jukeboxes in a protected format without the complexity of “ripping” the disc.

With support for both stereo and 5.1 channel content at sampling rates up to 96kHz, HE AAC in the Compressed Audio Zone gives consumers the freedom they want, electronics makers room to innovate with new products, and record labels the assurance of content fidelity.

“We support these enhancements to the DVD audio format because they heighten consumers’ music experience”.

“We think this capability will give added value to consumers when they transfer their music to their PCs and portable devices”, said Kevin Gage, VP of Strategic Technology and New Media for Warner Music Group.

“Having our aacPlus codec selected as the compressed audio format for DVD audio creates a strong connecting force between markets”, said Stefan Meltzer, Vice President of Business Development at Coding Technologies.

“The synergies between the DVD audio format and other uses of aacPlus in mobile, broadcast, and Internet are driving aacPlus towards being the common denominator for digital audio distribution”.

Spirit has unveiled the latest versions of itsTeamSpirit voice conferencing engine: TeamSpirit 2.0 and TeamSpirit Mobile.
At VON Europe last week Spirit presented the latest versions of its award-winning TeamSpirit voice conferencing engine: TeamSpirit 2.0, a multipoint media server for enterprise software vendors along with the voice conferencing client under Windows, Linux and Mac OS; and TeamSpirit Mobile for handset OEMs supporting VoIP over Wi-Fi and 3G on 200MHz ARM, Intel or MIPS processors. TeamSpirit Mobile is the world’s most compact voice engine running on mobile devices today delivering industry-leading voice quality. TeamSpirit Mobile SDK delivers complete voice engine functionality for soft-phone application for mobile devices.

TeamSpirit Mobile is the industry first shipping voice engine (that includes industry-standard vocoders, high-end acoustic echo and noise canceller, adaptive jitter buffer and PLC) that enables to run a high-quality VoIP application on 200MHz processors, and supports budgetary phones such as Qtek 8310, iPAQ 6340, and the like.

TeamSpirit Mobile has been recently licensed by MediaRing and several other Asia-based mobile OEMs.

Spirit vocoders are also shipping within Trinity software framework for mobile OEMs.

TeamSpirit 2.0 is a multipoint voice conferencing engine and media server targeted at enterprise software vendors delivering conferencing and collaboration products with integrated wideband quality voice.

The solution provides sophisticated conferencing features and ease of real-time voice integration with IMs, application and document sharing functionality, presence management, web and video conferencing, as well as with enterprise legacy hardware infrastructure (media gateways and IP PBXs), and existing non-real-time enterprise software components.

TeamSpirit 2.0 multipoint voice conferencing engine is shipping in collaboration products from Adobe, HP Open Call, Oracle, Paltalk and others.

The LynuxWorks LynxOS-178 real-time operating system has received reusable software component acceptance from the Federal Aviation Administration.
Today’s avionics systems integrators and developers are continually charged to do more with less while at the same time meet demanding cost and time schedules. Software reuse is an important aspect of controlling these software costs as well as improving time to market and quality of software systems, especially where the system needs to go through a rigorous certification process. Until now, however, no safety-critical embedded operating system (OS) had received reusable software component (RSC) acceptance from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

LynuxWorks becomes the first and only embedded operating system vendor to receive an Advisory Circular AC 20-148 acceptance letter from the FAA.

With RSC approval of the LynuxWorks LynxOS-178 real-time operating system (RTOS), embedded systems integrators and developers can consider the operating system portion of the safety-critical software code and supporting DO-178B artefacts for reuse in other system designs with other software components without the need for full recertification.

As a result, integrators and developers can significantly reduce the time and cost of achieving FAA certification and further reduce the risk involved in redevelopment efforts across multiple safety-critical systems.

‘The time consuming and expensive certification process for safety critical software has been a challenge for developers of such systems’, said Dr Inder Singh, CEO of LynuxWorks.

‘The LynxOS-178 RSC will lead to a dramatic reduction in the cost and schedule risks associated with such projects’.

‘This is very consistent with LynuxWorks’ focus on software reuse through our conformance with open standards and our RTOS and Linux dual product strategy’.

LynuxWorks’ RSC acceptance represents the first standards-based approach for software reuse in airborne systems and equipment to allow system integrators and embedded developers to reuse their existing software.

LynxOS-178 addresses system developers’ need to meet FAA certification by providing a time, space and resource partitioned commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) operating system that fully satisfies the objectives of the DO-178B, level A and the ARINC 653 standard as well as full conformance with the IEEE Posix standard.

Currently, any time a systems integrator or developer wants to integrate components of any other RTOS or any previously certified DO-178B software in multiple hardware, each new hardware/software configuration or system must be recertified.

In other words, integrators and developers cannot take full advantage of the software’s existing certification across other multiple platforms, but instead must go through the entire certification process for each new system they build.

The RSC acceptance letter from the FAA for LynxOS-178 can be used to support virtually any FAA Technical Standard Order.

‘In addition to avionics flight systems, safety-critical software is in embedded military application environments such as weapons systems’, said Stephen Balacco, Embedded Systems Market Analyst at Venture Development Corporation.

‘Today, software drives cost and schedules of embedded system designs’.

‘As a result, developers have a need to leverage software reuse from previous development efforts wherever possible and no longer develop software from scratch for each embedded project’.

‘RSC has the potential to streamline the software certification process in meeting safety-critical requirements with a reusable component that has been proven in other designs and helps developers reduce design complexity and time to market’.

‘With the industry’s first RSC time and space partitioned RTOS, and by following the guidance of AC 20-148, LynuxWorks raises the bar in delivering the lowest risk solution for integrated modular avionics (IMA) developers’, said Joe Wlad, Director of Product Management and FAA DER for LynuxWorks.

‘Our LynxOS-178 certification artefacts provide IMA developers with guidance on how to build and certify IMA applications more easily’.

‘We set out to address a critical customer pain point in helping systems engineers get their future, innovative safety-critical avionics systems to market faster and at lower cost’.

‘No other embedded OS vendor can make claim to decreasing the time required for software development and overall costs of avionics equipment that LynuxWorks is now providing in the market today’.