GPRS is a technology used by mobile phones to transmit data. If you have internet access on your cellphone, it's likely that you are using GPRS. A project called OsmocomBB is underway to develop software that could be used in free mobile devices. Progress has been good, with regular telephone calls and text messages already working, but data connections are still not supported.

Trolltech will release its entire application development framework for Linux-based mobile phones under the GPL license, it announced on Sept. 18. Additionally, the development tools and software stack vendor plans to support FIC's iPhone-like GTA01 ("Neo1973") as an open phone development platform.

TapRoot Systems is demonstrating its telephony middleware for Linux/Qtopia-based mobile phones at the Linux Mobile Communications Conference this week in Beijing. TapRoot's director of product management, stated, "Development of Linux mobile phones is on the rise and is changing the landscape of the mobile phone industry. Our LinuxTel telephony software is a critical piece."

A recent message on the UbuntuOne mailing list announces that Canonical has teamed up with Funambol, an established software stack that synchronizes thousands of mobile phones and other devices who have built a community around different client plugins, virtually supporting the majority of the existing software on all platforms that have contacts (Thunderbird, Outlook, Mac OS X Mail, etc).

Ocean Blue Software is readying a digital TV receiver software stack aimed at free-to-air and pay-TV digital set-top boxes and TVs for European, U.S., and Japanese markets. The stack, which targets Linux-based devices, aims to simplify the development of reduced-component-count consumer electronic devices based on Toshiba's second-generation TC9040x "Donau" processors.

"Linux device software stack vendor Trolltech has acquired Fonav, a vendor of unified messaging software. Trolltech plans to use Fonav's "unified live inbox" application software to enhance its Qtopia stacks for mobile phones and VoIP phones, it said."

Intel's project to put a Linux and open source stack on mobile devices is getting overhauled to attract developer support, having failed to generate much interest.

After months of media-built hype, the mythical "gPhone" was unveiled this week as Android, a Linux-based software stack for building mobile phones. Despite the disappointment, Android might be just what the market needs, if the Open Handset Alliance (OHA) can actually get an open stack shipping on real devices.

A la Mobile has added advanced security features to its embedded Linux stack for mobile phones. New security-oriented features in its Convergent Linux Platform (CLP) are said to include pre-boot OS signature checks, filesystem encryption, application sandboxing, and secure OTA (over-the-air) firmware upgrade capabilities.