Nokia plays with open source

NEWS Romulo Pinheiro, Open Standards Terminal (OST) product manager at Nokia, said: "This open source platform is intended primarily for the home entertainment sector initially, but it might eventually cross over into personal technology (mobile phones and PDAs) and business (PCs). The strategy is to have an interoperable system across all technologies." Pinherio continued: "We are aiming to add support for WLANs, then GSM, GPRS and Bluetooth, as time goes on. We believe that the current industry leaning towards competition rather than collaboration is the wrong way to go. That is why this open developer community is to be important to ongoing development." Nokia's first OST-based product is the Media Terminal, which should offer support for digital video broadcast services, full internet access and personal video recorder technology. It is expected to be available in Sweden late this summer, with the full European launch by mid-Autumn. The company claims to have been researching open source development for some time now, beginning with the release of basic application protocol interfaces for digital broadcasting last year. Don't forget to check out silicon.com's exclusive interviews with and insights into Linus Torvalds, father of Linux, on www.silicon.com/linusweek . And to buy a copy of Linus Torvalds' autobiography, Just For Fun, at the reduced price of £16.20, visit www.silicon.com/Linusweek/book.htm .