Windows Embedded

Microsoft ended extended support for Windows Embedded CE 6.0 earlier this year, and plans to end support for all Windows Embedded products in the next five years. In this article, we look at differences that embedded developers will encounter.

At the request of a customer in the banking machines segment, Datalight recently completed an investigation of some performance differences they were seeing between SD and SSD on their embedded target. The findings left us scratching our head a bit.

Datalight developers know the danger of power interruption on embedded devices, and we also know the FAT file system well. In my 10 years as a software engineer on ROM-DOS, the internals of our FAT implementation were of daily interest.

Before embedded devices, file systems were designed to work in servers and desktops. Power loss was an infrequent occurrence, so little consideration was given to protecting the data.

Datalight congratulates our integration partners Adeneo and Bsquare for again winning the Microsoft Windows Embedded Excellence Award for 2012!

Microsoft has a new file system but how does it compare to Reliance Nitro?

Blackboard is the standard-bearer for student ID systems around the world. Their contactless cards serve as campus ID, building access, and point-of-sale accounts for meals and other services, and are rapidly replacing the old magnetic stripe systems.

InHand's development platforms are known in the embedded industry for their generous list of features, fast time-to-market, and solid performance. Recently, when a customer's unusual flash configuration began causing corruption issues related to the default flash driver on Windows CE,

Watch our demonstration of the Datalight Reliance flash file system on the Beagle Board with Windows CE 6.0

Last week one of our customers sent the following evaluation report in an email to Datalight support staff: "Right now we are in the process of testing the impact of Reliance Nitro in our application. Apparently, we noticed some boost in the performance:  faster write speed, significant speed increase of transaction point creation, faster read speed, and significantly faster directory read (we typically have 1000 files in the directory). So, in conclusion, the overall performance of the system is boosted quite significantly." Another real world example of how Reliance Nitro boosts performance in directories with a large number of files. To learn how Reliance Nitro does it, check out the whitepaper.

We were excited to read about this week's release of the new Motorola MC9500. This slick new member of the MC9000 rugged mobile computer family includes features like swappable keypad, modular 3.5G WAN with support for GSM HSDPA or CDMA-EVDO Rev A wireless broadband connectivity in one device, screen orientation sensor, battery lifespan management and lots of other bells and whistles. We were even more excited to see a report from Computerworld that Fedex has already ordered 100,000 units!

Palm and Apple have released updates to their mobile devices and Microsoft is about to as well. This activity signals embedded devices becoming more like PCs.

We're totally psyched about Reliance Nitro, our newest file system (yes, we're file geeks), and we're always on the lookout for opportunities to show off the performance and reliability attributes it adds to Windows Mobile and Windows CE. When we discovered the relatively new Beagle Board, it occurred to us that a small, low-cost platform might be just the thing to demonstrate Nitro's amazing benefits. As you've probably heard, the Beagle is making waves with its low cost (around $150) and diminutive size. It uses an OMAP 3530 processor and 256MB of NAND. Though they are most commonly used with Linux, we lucked out in having a partner (MPC Data) who has already developed a Windows CE BSP for it. After a few phone calls, the wizards at MPC Data were able to develop a slick video playback demo app, and presto, the Reliance Nitro Beagle Demo was born! Amateur videographers that we are (ok, REALLY amateur), we recently videotaped…

Recently, LG Electronics created a multimedia-enabled portable navigator for the North American market, featuring a 4.3" LCD screen, Bluetooth hands-free functionality and video-enabled playback. However, the two-minute startup time didn't match LG's reputation for high-performance devices.

WindowsForDevices has an interesting article today that shows the results from a recent ABI research study on high-end handset sales. It is interesting to note that the economy has not slowed down sale of higher-end mobile phones and the overall mobile market has been strong as well. This bodes well for flash memory vendors, especially for NOR flash vendors like Spansion and Numonyx since mobile handset industry has been a NOR stronghold (though lately NAND is making heavy inroads - call it the iPhone effect).

Contrary to popular belief, flash memory does not last forever. Every flash part in existence comes with a finite number of write and erase cycles before the data stored becomes corrupted and the flash part unusable. Most flash file systems on the market today include a basic type of wear leveling, but all wear leveling algorithms are not created equal.