The Spark tablet is a 7 inch tablet that will ship with Linux and the KDE Plasma Active user interface. It’s expected to ship in May for about $265, and it should go up for pre-order soon. KDE developer Aaron Seigo has posted a first video of  Plasma Active running on the tablet. It seems to respond well to touch,…

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A new tablet called the Spark is on the way. At first glance it looks like most of the cheap Chinese tablets we’ve seen in the past few years, but the Spark won’t run Google Android. Instead it will run an open source Linux-based operating system with the KDE Plasma Active interface running on top. KDE Plasma Active team member…

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The OpenPandora project is an open source project to create a handheld gaming console using open source designs and open source software. The Pandora has an ARM-based processor, Linux-based operating system, and support for a wide range of game console emulators along with a QWERTY thumb keyboard and dual analog game controllers. It’s been about four years since the project…

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Google started out in search, but the company has expanded into a wide range of businesses over the years, starting with advertising and continuing with email, document creation, mobile operating systems, and even image editing. But every now and again Google decides to shutter some of the projects its developers have been working on to refocus on other areas. This…

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Update: It looks like the merger of Tizen and Bada might not be a done deal yet. A Samsung official has told AllThingsD that while the company is considering the possibility, the decision hasn’t been made. Samsung plans to merge its Bada mobile phone operating system with the open source Tizen project backed by Intel. Forbes reports that this means existing…

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HP has announced that it will turn webOS into an open source project. The company paid $1.2 billion to acquire Palm and its webOS mobile operating system last year, and sunk billions of additional dollars into developing webOS smartphones and tablets before killing the hardware division this summer. Now HP is hoping to keep webOS alive by making it open…

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Independent developers have been working for the past few months to port Google Android to run on the recently discontinued HP TouchPad tablet. The effort got a big boost in late August when a handful of users reported that they had received HP TouchPad tablets with Android preloaded. At least one of those people shared a system dump with the…

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There’s a new open source, Linux-based mobile operating system in town. The Linux Foundation has announced the launch of Tizen, an operating system aimed at smartphones, tablets, netbooks, and other devices including in-vehicle entertainment systems and smart TVs. While the Linux Foundation will host the project, it will be led by Intel and Samsung. The Linux Mobile (LiMo) Foundation is…

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Starting on June 15th you’ll be able to go out and buy a notebook running Chrome OS. But you won’t be able to download an official Chrome OS build and install it on your own laptop anytime soon. Google already offers most of the source code for its browser-based operating system, and some developers regularly compile that code and make…

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The powers that be that manage the development of the MeeGo Linux software for netbooks, tablets, smartphones, and other mobile devices have released the source code for the first tablet version of the operating system. The software developer kit and source code for MeeGo Tablet are now available for download. MeeGo still describes the tablet software as a “preview” version…

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Dell has released the source code for its Streak and Aero devices. The Streak is a 5 inch Android tablet or smartphone, depending on how you look at it, while the Aero is pretty inarguably a phone. Google Android is built on open source software and uses a version of the Linux kernel at its core. While Google keeps some…

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When KMart started advertising that the Augen GenTouch78 tablet which the store was selling for $150 would have access to the Android Market, I was skeptical. Google may not review every  app in the Android Market with as much rigor (and suspicion) as Apple does with the iTunes App Store. But to date, Google has only allowed smartphone makers to…

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