Something Years and years of experience, plus the advantages of Atom CPU technology, are making possible Fanless Computers
Something new for us- a SaaS, in fact PaaS (Product as a Service) offering - Ridernet3. If you can get WiFi on your commuter bus or WiFi on your train, you may be using it now.
Operating systems? Fagetabowdit!! In the world of pervasive computing, it will be all abo0ut "Application Frameworks" to tie devices to devices.
Nokia is the biggest sup0plier of connected, mobile devices. What they do is what the 800 pound gorilla does, and they do NoTA- Network on Terminal Architecture.
Lining up with them we see the European Artemis program. This program will line up with the Eurotech NoTA initative . Eurotech is running its contribution along the IBM Websphere lines, using the MQTT Publish and Subscribe protocol.
This could be big- keep posted.
Something old is new again. PC104 with Atom. Interesting, but PC104 Atom seems to be a 'hot' combination.
PC104 we know- a 30 years old standard. It is a power glutton 16 bit ISA Bus in a different package. But why build a post millennium , 32 bit 45 nano meter Atom Processor into this from factor?
Who knows? Lets just call it form factor inertia.