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Aug. 6, 2009
Google's Android open source operating system is about to be embedded in some consumer electronics devices,
after the company behind the MIPS CPU architecture ported the source code to the Android OS.
MIPS Technologies Inc. released the source code on August 3, two months after it first said it had
ported Android to the 32-bit version of the MIPS architecture.
The implementation is used in set-top boxes, digital TV sets, home media players, Internet telephony systems and MIDs (mobile Internet devices) and is
a rival to the ARM technology on which Android already runs.
MIPS Technologies and its partners, including chipmakers, manufacturers and working groups within the
Android-focused Open Embedded Software Foundation have already demonstrated Android running on a home media
player and on a digital TV reference design.
The group plans to demonstrate even more applications for the Android OS over the coming months.
"Overall, Android presents a compelling value proposition in bringing open source, Internet connectivity
and a much broader range of various applications to MIPS-based digital home devices," MIPS Technologies's
vice president of marketing, Art Swift, said in a statement.
He added "we are working closely with customers and partners to ensure that critical technologies are
available for developers to take advantage of the Android OS for consumer electronics."
Android was unveiled as a smartphone platform by its main sponsor, Google, at the end of 2007. Since then,
it has started to take off in the handset market, with several manufacturers releasing phones using the system
this year.
Additionally, work is underway to release low-cost Android sub-notebooks later in 2009, although Google is
also planning a separate operating system, Chrome OS, for that market.
The move into embedded systems therefore opens up Android's third front, after mobile phones and the
desktop against Microsoft's Windows, the embedded version of which is Windows CE.
It will be interesting to see just how Microsoft intends to fight off Android's growing influence
in the open source community in the coming months. Android is also becoming rapidly accepted in the
Linux community as well.
Source: Tech Blog.
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