"...Something else that hasn't changed is vendor's annoying, no, make that pathological mania for secrecy. Another gadget you can get is one to read and decipher the trouble codes emitted by your vehicle's engine. These have just a tiny bit of storage, so if you don't capture the information quickly it's lost, which makes diagnosing a transient problem ever so much fun.

A "significant portion" of development teams continue to use Linux as their primary embedded OS, a recent VDC survey finds. Additionally, the results suggest the trend will persist, "as the majority of current Linux users surveyed plan to use Linux again as their primary operating system on future [embedded] projects."

A start-up located in the French Alps near Grenoble is readying a tiny ARM-based Linux single-board computer (SBC) in a USB key form-factor. Calao, based in Sant Martin le Vinoux, is also readying a tiny Linux SBC designed to plug into QIL (quad in-line) IC sockets.