Open source appliance maker Vyatta has unveiled the 3500 networking appliance family, which combines routing, firewall and VPN functionality. Vyatta claims it costs 1/20th the price of rival Cisco gear. But are partners and customers listening?

Thanks to tech like Moblin and Android, netbooks, smartbooks, and smartphones are all the rage right now for consumers, but Linux is also showing up on the very sales counters where all of these devices are being bought.

At CES, Nvidia demonstrated tablet-PC prototypes incorporating its Tegra 250 processor, including a Linux-based model from Foxconn, and Android-based models from ICD and Notion Ink, the latter using Pixel Qi display technology. Meanwhile, an Android version of HP's Windows-based "Slate" computer is on the way, say several reports.

Lots of fascinating new devices were showcased during past week's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. In addition to marketing new products events like the CES serve as an opportunity to demonstrate what technology can do.

Internet penetration in Africa is a paltry 6.7% of the population, compared to 27.7% outside of Africa. Moreover, Africans have very limited broadband options due to infrastructure.

Nvidia has added Ubuntu Linux to the list of supported operating systems. This is extremely important for both Nvidia and Linux in general since a lot of IT-savvy people find Android insufficient for the netbook form factor and ask for a “real” Linux on these very promising devices.

Shame on me, I missed that during last week's CES (Consumer Electronics Show), MSI wasn't the only company to announce the release of a SUSE/Moblin Linux-powered netbook. Samsung also announced that they'll be releasing this Linux mix on its N127 netbook.