Wind River Blog Network

Securing Android for the Battle Space

By Tim Skutt

Armed conflict has radically changed.  Remotely operated unmanned vehicles and cyber warfare highlight this change.  Combatants can launch an attack anywhere from a few hundred meters away to half a world away with the same devastating results.  One of the fascinating – and scary – parts of this change is that the trigger firing the weapon has become the Enter key on a keyboard or a finger press on a touchscreen.

Essentially, the geography of the battlefield now includes the mobile devices we carry – whether we carry them into the physical front lines being fought with kinetic weapons, or the virtual front lines that extend to our corporate or even home offices. 

Global defense organizations recognize the value of commercial smart phone and tablet capability for deployment to soldiers in the battlefield, wherever that battlefield may be. The challenge of securing the commercial capability and mobile platform for warfighter use requires end-to-end system threat assessment and incorporating embedded device strategies to minimize cyber-attacks and maintain mission-critical communications.

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Wind River and Android – 5 great years, with many more to come

By Dan Noal

It was 5 years ago this week that I got an email from our CEO who had just met with Andy Rubin and Rich Miner at the Googleplex. Google had invited us to talk privately and confidentially about what would become Android.  Other companies were already on board, and they asked us to join the small group of companies collaborating with them as part of the nascent Open Handset Alliance. They talked big about disrupting the entire mobile phone ecosystem and solving the fragmentation problem with so many competing Linux based phone stacks emerging at that time. They painted a vision where open source Android would dominate the mobile phone space and migrate to adjacent markets.  We knew that they had credibility from Danger, we knew that Google had tremendous momentum and power they could leverage.  We discussed it internally, and without much debate we replied “where do we sign?” and started to roll up our sleeves. 

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Android Security – making sense of all the choices

By Chris Buerger

Last week’s public release of the Security Enhanced (SE) Android project and associated source code is hailed by many as an important foundational step to add a new set of options to create secure Android devices. While the recent release of the code base by the National Security Agency (NSA) is familiar territory for Android experts such as Wind River who have been designing and implementing comprehensive security layers to a wide spectrum of Android devices for a few years now, the portrayal of this development in the media as an all-encompassing security solution grossly oversimplifies the complex subject matter that Android security represents.

Simply speaking, compiling and flashing the SE Android code base on to your Nexus S will not make it completely 'secure.'

Wind River has been enabling Android devices for close to five years now. Based on that experience and over a decade of pioneering mobile Linux-based devices, four key security-related points stand out.

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Adding Android to the Embedded Mix

By Dan Noal

Wind River just hosted a webinar titled, “Adding Android to the Embedded Mix" and saw a great attendee turnout. There were a broad spectrum of companies represented, not just the traditional smartphone and tablet manufacturers.  This is a clear indication of the interest to use in Android for devices in all market segments.  In fact, one of the most frequently asked questions is, what other embedded markets have you seen or do you see having an Android play? 

Wind River has been working with customers on Android for a wide range of applications and markets, and our efforts continue to expand.  We’ve worked on many projects including enterprise IP phones from the likes of Avaya and in-vehicle infotainment systems from Clarion.  

Increasingly, Android is finding its way into markets like point-of-sale, fit-to-purpose industrial style tablets, and other device categories where a strongly supported application framework and active application ecosystem are important elements of platform choice. 

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Secure Mobility Message Resonates at MILCOM 2011

By Chip Downing

MILCOM 2011 last week in Baltimore, MD was not only educational, but it was a watershed event.   Last year, it was a “coming out” party for custom Android devices; this year however, was the year where many companies are now using COTS hardware and software to their fullest extent, along the entire supply chain, from core to edge and user devices.   I believe this COTS adoption is driven by two powerful forces – the exploding capabilities of commercial tablet devices, and global military budget pressures.

The vastly increasing power and capability of commercially available mobile communications devices is simply amazing. Just a few years ago, almost everything in this military communications space was purpose built, and most commercial products were simply inadequate to address the rugged and complex system demands of military communications systems.   As seen at MILCOM 2011, this has officially changed -- COTS end-to-end communications domains rule.

So if all of these MILCOM vendors are not making customized hardware and software, what are they doing?   Wind River had over 500 people visit its booth at MILCOM this year, and most of the discussions I had with both suppliers and end users at the show were about increasing device security and leveraging high volume COTS components in demanding deployment scenarios.

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Cloud to Service Endpoints – The Missing Link

By Paul Anderson

I remember as a kid I was fascinated with phones. The idea that you could pick up the phone, dial it, and talk to someone on the other end was pretty neat. And… at the time, a phone was an elegantly designed electro-mechanical work of art, and it was fun to take them apart to try and figure out how they worked. I could understand how the phone itself worked, but as a kid, what happened after those two wires headed off to the pole was somewhat of a mystery to me. Eventually I came to understand the massive infrastructure that allowed reliable telephone service into the home to be possible. Hats off to Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone.

When you think of a basic phone, it seems like such a simple thing. It can receive, it can transmit, and it can provide bidirectional signaling. Receiving and transmitting is obviously important, and it took a while for folks to figure out how to do both simultaneously without a bunch of extra wires and things. Signaling is equally important. The user of the device needs to know when someone is trying to contact them, and to be able to establish contact with someone else out on the network. A phone is actually a very clever thing, particularly when one thinks of what people did with what they had at the time, particularly in a world before the transistor.

But, what is a phone really? It is a service gateway. In its most simple form, it provides telephone service. That service then allows connectivity to other services, like the ability to call the plumber when your sink gets clogged, or order a pizza. Quite amazing! 

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Platform Wars

By Dan Noal

In recent weeks, we’ve seen two seismic shifts in the mobile and tablet markets. First, Google announced its intent to acquire Motorola Mobility and a few days later, HP announced that it would discontinue producing webOS-based phones and the TouchPad. 

Google’s move to buy a hardware manufacturer has long been speculated in the media.  Motorola Mobility had previously been reported as a possible target, so Google’s move isn’t entirely surprising. However, after nearly 3 years since the public launch of Android, the question is why now?  Consider the comments of Android industry partners (e.g. Samsung, HTC, Verizon) mentioning the need to protect the Android ecosystem from IP lawsuits that threaten Android’s growth.  Now add the fact that Motorola Mobility has grown a significant patent portfolio in the mobile space over the past decade. 

Still, it is interesting to wonder about the long-term vision. 

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Android software quality: it's all in a single number

By Chris Buerger

Picture this: you are responsible for ensuring that the quality of the Android device you are about to ship will hold up in front of your customers. You are responsible that it will meet the often elusive 'commercial quality' goal. And it doesn't matter whether the Android software is being released as an initial software load on a new class of device or as a maintenance release for a device that is already in market. Also, ignore for a moment whether you sourced the Android software from your hardware Original Device Manufacturer (ODM) as part of a package deal or whether it represents significant investment into internal engineering budget.

The basic question to answer is simply: 'Is this software ready to be released?'. Or casting the net wider, will the software be good enough to stay below the return targets for the device? Will it be so good to act as a differentiator vs. your competitors and therefore help to meet your customer acquisition goals? And, if the software goes out to devices already in market, will it keep its users as engaged and satisfied with your brand as the prior device?

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Google I/O and MeeGo Developer Conference – A Tale of Two Events

By Chris Buerger

First off, let me say that it is not fair to directly compare the two conferences to draw a conclusion about the comparative future of Android and MeeGo. Both software stacks are at a different place in their respective life cycles, and important maturity indicators such as overall ecosystem support (silicon providers, device manufacturers, application developer community etc…) as well as software quality/complexity are simply at a different stage for each technology.

However, who is interested in fairness? There is a perception in the marketplace that Android and MeeGo are competitive technologies in a proliferation war that includes other heavyweights such as Apple, Microsoft, Samsung and HP. If industry analysts put all of these software stacks on a single Mobile OS market share chart, they’ve got to be competitive, right?

Not quite. One important reason Android got to where it is today is that its first mass-market device, the HTC G1, sold millions of units across the globe, thus delivering a very tangible proof point to rally a worldwide ecosystem to participate in the development of Android. MeeGo’s proliferation, partly because of the rather wide device scope the software stack is attempting to cover, is following a different path.

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Embedded is cool (and getting even cooler)

By Paul Anderson

When people ask me what I do, I never know how to answer the question. Most people state their occupation. But, does that define what we do? I usually respond with something cheeky like “metabolize,” or “provide for those around me” or “go running or fly airplanes any chance I get.” But, usually people want to know what you do for a living. I usually get stumped when they ask that particular question.

I asked my youngest child what he thought I did for a living. He said “play with computers all day,” which is not entirely inaccurate. I asked my oldest, and he said “fly airplanes” (again, I do fly a lot of airplanes, but unfortunately I spend most of my time as a passenger rather than a pilot). My pets would say my entire existence is dedicated to providing them food and entertainment (obviously they have figured something out). My wife would say that I type on the computer, talk on the phone, go to meetings, and spend way too much time in airplanes and at hotels. Although accurate, it doesn’t get at the core of what I do.

When I try to explain to people what I do in any detail, after a minute or so I see their eyes glaze over. I have taken to just saying “I’m in the software business.” I can usually get away with that, but sometime people actually want to know more.

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Is Linux Secure?

By Paul Anderson

It’s the wrong question, really. Are my financial and medical records secure? What about all that information stored in the cloud? What about my desktop computer or cell phone? What about the power grid and other infrastructure? Should I be worried?

The answer to all those questions is “It depends on what you mean by ‘secure.’” One may need to consider: What is the definition security? Or what is an acceptable level of risk at that level of security?

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Wind River Turns 30: Looking Back and Moving Forward

By Tomas Evensen 

2011 marks Wind River’s 30th anniversary. The big 3-0…it’s a major landmark moment in anyone’s book. This year, we’ll be taking time to honor this milestone with a retrospective of Wind River’s history and also a series of employee stories.  In my many years with the company, Wind River always impressed on me the concept of  being bigger than just a single product or technology. There is an underlying spirit within our teams that constantly reaches for more, for some greater innovation. While many customers know Wind River for the VxWorks real-time operating system, it was always part of the vision to provide more value. In the early days, this entailed providing a TCP/IP stack and GDB for debugging. Later, additional value came from strong IDE support through Tornado and Workbench. Lately, it has been by providing a choice of operating systems, real-time or open source/Linux. 

A standout example that exemplified the vision of providing a more complete solution was when we embarked on creating a truly embedded hypervisor. In 2004, it had already become clear to us that virtualization would play an important role in embedded designs at some point in the future. In early 2005, Paul Borman who worked for me in the CTO Office created a very impressive prototype, called eCPU, that ran VxWorks and Linux on a single CPU and we learned a lot from that effort. When Johan Fornaeus came on board in 2006 through an acquisition (he was co-founder of Interpeak and before that, one of the co-designers of the Enea/OSE operating system), I had him leading a small nimble task force team to develop a hypervisor really suited for the embedded space. I felt we made a real breakthrough. This was not a repackaged operating system pretending to be something it was not designed for, but instead a truly unique approach to virtualization and separation. Over the next couple years, this small team created a scalable product with an extremely tight footprint, incredible performance, while at the same time being full featured for the common architectures such as Intel, Power, ARM and MIPS.

Back in those days, it was not clear to us when and how important multi-OS systems would be in the future, but today it is hard to imagine how to deal with these new complex systems without a hypervisor for embedded virtualization. Looking at my team’s achievement now, I still marvel at how the Wind River Hypervisor brings together multi-core and our various operating systems. Why choose between operating systems with different characteristics when you can mix them in one system? Throw in a networking stack optimized for multi-core and tools that can debug and find performance bottlenecks and you get a very capable foundation on which our customers can innovate.

By constantly looking to the future, Wind River continues to evolve and further build on its expertise. The ongoing push to innovate may have created interesting and complex challenges along the way. However, it has also resulted in celebrations and breakthroughs, and it’s undoubtedly a big reason why so many of us continue to stay on the ride. 

 

The Dawn of a Paradigm Shift in Embedded Device Software Security

By Marc Brown

The number of connected embedded and mobile devices is increasing exponentially, predicted to be in excess of 50 billion by 2020.  The lion’s share of this growth is expected to come from traditional market segments where there is an increasing push to transform sensing equipment to more autonomous embedded control, real-time telemetry, and proactive diagnostics. We all know website hacking is nothing new, but just imagine having your public water utility meter, your automobile safety functions, our public transportation traffic sensors, or even the national power grid being hacked by organized criminals or nation states.  This tsunami of connectivity and more intelligent control is creating a huge increase in security vulnerabilities that can impact financial profitability, public services and safety, and national defense. 

Many of today’s most advanced embedded control systems are based on a collection of standalone components – embedded operating systems, virtualization technologies, communication stacks, middleware, and application code.  These standalone products, and the companies that create them, lack the integrated security support required in today’s highly connected world, offering overall solutions that are only as safe as the weakest link. 

McAfee and Wind River have formed a strategic partnership to develop and support comprehensive, purpose-built security solutions specifically designed for these next-gen embedded devices.  

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Come and see us at Mobile World Congress!

By Chris Buerger

Grab a pen and write down this number: Hall 2, booth 2C04 – this is where you’ll find the Wind River booth at Mobile World Congress (MWC).

Mobile innovation comes alive at demonstrations. At this year’s MWC event, we are showcasing the latest and greatest mobile Android and MeeGo innovations from Wind River. Along with the newest features within our Wind River Platform for Android such as DLNA Media Server and multi-windowing capabilities, we are also showing off the latest version of our Wind River Framework for Automated Software Testing (FAST) for Android that includes significant real world enhancements developed jointly with our customers. As Android is becoming more complex, an automated test tool to help you validate the performance and reliability of your Android stack can save both time and money. Come and see out what we have to offer to make your Android project a success.

MeeGo also continues to be a significant part of our efforts. At MWC, we are not only showing off brand new FAST for MeeGo technology; we are also proud to be the first software vendor to showcase a new MeeGo tablet user experience co-developed with Intel. It’s a definite must-see if you’re interested in creating a differentiated tablet device!

Check out our latest news and see additional details regarding Wind River’s presence at MWC.

 

Making the Case for MeeGo 2.0

By Chris Buerger

As an owner of the original Maemo-based N770, today is a sad day. Earlier, Nokia announced it would make Windows Phone 7 Nokia’s primary mobile platform, not MeeGo. This puts the brakes on what many considered a bold corporate initiative to bring Linux to a new class of Nokia mobile devices. Well before the iPad, well before the undoubtedly innovative yet largely undifferentiated avalanche of Android based devices, there was a dream, a vision to create unique Linux software for a new class of Nokia devices.

There are plenty of opinions that this announcement marks the end of MeeGo. Personally, I do not subscribe to that view. MeeGo, and the open source projects that are part of it, has a place in open source mobile Linux, and in many cases will continue to evolve and thrive. 

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Virtualization on Handsets or not?

By Mark Hermeling

Here is an interesting article, continuing a discussion thats has been going on for a long time on mobile virtualization. It argues the case that a single mobile phone can run multiple operating systems using virtualization. A bit of googling will show that this is indeed already the case. However, there is a big caveat typically that you do not see exposed. 

Mobile phones have two big constraints: processing power and battery power. Typically one operating systems is the 'phone operating system' and the other OS is more general purpose. With 'phone OS' I mean that the OS has to handle a lot of the time critical tasks, sometimes even to the level of passing data off to/from the signal processing side for communication with the antenna and the wireless network.

The signal processing side is very time sensitive and hence it is important that the time constraints are met and data is delivered/picked up on the right time. This makes it that typically the virtualization layer will have to be aware of this and it makes the solution not a general virtualization solution, but a highly device customized solution.

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Low-cost Android phones: Feature phones an endangered species?

By Chris Buerger

There is no doubt that there will always be a set of consumers that only want their mobile phone to be, well, a phone. Voice calling is likely to remain the ‘killer app’ for the majority of consumers for a long time to come, and there will remain a sizeable section of the mobile phone market that will cater to this demand.

However, the market change to smartphones is undeniable, even in the last bastions of feature phone-centered markets such as Japan and South Korea, Android-based smartphones are rapidly winning market share at the high end of the device spectrum. Now, a second wave of the Android smartphone revolution is happening in many countries, and I am excited to say that Wind River mobile software solutions for Android are right in the thick of things, helping to drive this new wave of devices.

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Android Froyo – Making it the Best It Can Be

By Chris Buerger

By many measurements, Android’s Froyo is an impressive release of a very impressive mobile operating system. Android is the poster child example for combining stability, performance and innovation in a mobile operating system that has been rapidly realized in an open source context. Its success is clearly reflected in therecent statistics and predictions regarding Android adoption (e.g. daily activations, share of shipping mobile SKUs) from research organizations such as Gartner and Informa.

So, Froyo is pretty good, but the Android team here at Wind River is working to make it the best it can be for your commercial project.

I bet you are thinking “That’s a pretty bold claim,” so let’s review some proof-points:

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The Myth of the Killer Mobile Reference UX

By Chris Buerger

The "killer" preloaded mobile UX...is the concept on life support?

I just came back from IDF, and while the event was strong on mobile market assertions but somewhat lightweight on public proof points, it did give me a chance to spend some time with the German-designed WePad running an embedded Linux kernel incorporating a number of MeeGo 1.0 release elements and a completely custom UI.

Experimenting with the WePad (and getting it to crash twice within five minutes) got me thinking about the evolution of user interfaces in mobile devices, both Tablets and Smartphones. From a high-level perspective, there are really three approaches in the market.

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“Good” Android

By Chris Buerger

Following a recent trip to China, I acquired an Android tablet running Release 1.6 (Donut). Total retail price: $90. Unlike an iPad, it is both 'Designed and Made in China.' Running on an ARM platform and containing an 802.11 interface, SD card slot and a touch screen, it is actually a reasonably speedy experience. However, that is where the positive news ends.

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It’s Time for Testers to Step Up

By Paul Henderson

RTC Magazine recently published an article that I wrote called "Time to Rethink Software Testing for Embedded Devices". In it I describe some of the new techniques that are possible, and I believe necessary, to delivery high quality device software for embedded devices.

• When staying 'positive' doesn't pay
• Getting negative with white box testing
• Focusing on the 'deltas' with change-based test automation

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Test Driven Development Meets Continuous Integration

By Paul Henderson

In my last posting I mentioned I'd be running a webinar with James Grenning on Agile testing. James is a recognized expert and frequent speaker on the topic of software development and one of the original authors of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development.

We talked about the case for agility where today's embedded software projects are inevitably faced with changing requirements and market conditions that cause unplanned, mid-course corrections. The result is what went in is often not what was expected to come out. Testing folks are the tail trying to wag the dog as they try to test in quality at the end of the project.

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Inadequate Management Visibility into Quality is Eroding Confidence

By Paul Henderson

Here’s the next installment in my series on our embedded device software industry testing survey conducted in April-May 2010 with almost 900 respondents (see previous blog postings).  If you’d like a copy of the full report in pdf, please drop me an email at paul.henderson@windriver.com and I will send it to you.

In this section of the survey we asked participants about how they measure software quality today, the metrics most often cited by survey respondents were reactive in nature such as tracking customer-reported failures and open defects rather than metrics that can help them prevent defects.

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The ‘Big Reveal’ Release Approach in Mobile Linux – How Android and MeeGo Differ

By Chris Buerger

A couple of weeks ago, I read through a somewhat heated email thread about the ‘Big Reveal’ mentality that Intel and Nokia were claimed to apply to the pending MeeGo 1.0 release. By coincidence, the timing overlapped with the excitement Google was stirring up for its 2.2 (Froyo) release of Android. Both events made me wonder about the value of a ‘big reveal’ approach in mobile open source stacks, and whether there might not be developments that occur within rapidly maturing software stacks that are native and systemic to the open source model, and that at the same time change the potential impact of ‘Big Reveal’ releases of either Android or MeeGo.

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Hypervisors in Mobile

By Mark Hermeling

I received a bunch of emails today pointing to this blog from Jason Perlow. Jason has an interesting thought with regards to the Apple and HTC lawsuit that is brewing. Let me first say that I understand that companies have to protect their IP and that there are clearly important and enforceable patents out there, say Coca Cola's formula for well, Coca Cola. Apple certainly has a lot of valuable IP as well and they are spending a lot of dollars in making the user experience better. Some of these patents are vague at best, so I have mixed feelings on this and since I am not a lawyer I am going to leave it at that.

Jason's blog evolves around hypervisors and his fantasy world in which they can change the way we build mobile phones. This is not a fantasy world, in the fact that what Jason wants is technically very possible. However, it would also require alliances between some of the fiercest competitors in one of the biggest markets in the world. Unlikely to happen, however, allow me to dream with him.

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Stark Bloggin' Mad!

By Emeka Nwafor

Wow!!! OK, so how is it that a few innocent tweets about the iPad gets me embroiled in a little Twitter / blogosphere skirmish with a colleague? Who would have thunk it? It's not just Schaefer, almost everyone seems to have formulated an opinion or a prediction about the future of mobile computing.

Following last week's announcement of the Apple iPad there has been an impressive flood of blogs, microblogs, and YouTube from pundits and pranksters, alike.  I don't recall a technology preview that had as much publicly generated hype and excitement as the iPad announcement.

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2010 Is The Year Of Embedded Virtualization

By Mark Hermeling

I believe that 2010 will be the year of embedded virtualization, all the signs point in the right direction. It always takes a while for new technology to grab the imagination of embedded device developers.

Embedded developers are traditionally a conservative bunch, however, the benefits of virtualization can not be ignored, even by them.

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How Industry Software Expertise is Helping to Solve the Android Fragmentation Dilemma

By Jason Whitmire

It is no secret:  While Google continues to push for wide adoption of smartphones driven by its open source Android platform, most industry pundits know that manufacturers typically need upwards of a full year of development and productization effort (and often Google’s help) to develop an Android phone. Not surprisingly, it takes much longer for an OEM to reach a level where they can irrigate the operator ecosystem with differentiated phones based on Android (this of course applies to most new mobile device software stacks).

At the same time, we are all aware that there are multiple parallel efforts to enhance Android that have led many observers to believe that fragmentation is inevitable. Ultimately, it is said, this will become the bane to developers who will struggle to reach an economy of scale on a moving target where multiple variants of the Android OS co-exist.

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Smartphones, Smartbooks different by necessity?

By Doug Schaefer

Boy I'm having fun with Android. Maybe because it's the first time I'm getting the chance (albeit in my spare time) to do some real embedded development. And even in the playing I'm doing, I am experiencing the challenges that regular embedded developers face. Yes, believe or not, even with the latest and greatest hardware, you are limited by the amount of memory and storage your device has, and by the speed and capabilities of the processor. Not to mention power (feel like running your graphics loop at full speed, see how long your battery lasts doing that). You really have to think about these things and write your code carefully to be successful. (And I won't get started on Java again).

One thing you still see in the rumoursphere with Android is the spreading of it's wings into the "smartbook" world. I love that term, Smartbook. Mobile Internet Device is too vague and I think there is a clear delineation between the tree contenders: smartphone, startbook, netbook. Smartphones are the small handheld things we know and love today. Netbooks are the small notebooks which likely have a hard drive in them. But Smartbooks are an exciting middle ground between the two. They have usable screens, 5-9 inches, but everything else is like a smartphone, particularly in mobility and power consumption. A good smartbook should last the day without charging making it handy for carrying around conferences like EclipseCon, for example :).

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Open Source Symbian and the Inescapable Truth of Product Lifecycles

By Jason Whitmire

The announcement one year ago that Symbian will be open sourced under a license free platform in 1HCY10 was heard around the world. If we are to believe game theory, the motivations behind this move are not a non-zero sum game but rather one of rational choice by its major stakeholders. But what does Open Source Symbian really mean for all of the players involved?  Recent press commentary on the announcement might suggest that the leading ascendant contenders for the unifying Open Source platform – Android, Moblin, and LiMo – will somehow be cannibalized by a resurgent Symbian platform that is "free."

Indeed, in the mobile industry, invariably, there is always that big announcement that gains mindshare from industry pundits who can see the future (I recall WCDMA handset launches enjoyed similar attention in 2000). However I believe the opposite is true in the case of Symbian, that its demise as it nears an end to a natural product lifecycle will only be accelerated when it is made available under an open source license next year.

Here are 7 reasons why I believe this to be the case:

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