14 DAY TRIAL // Based in Tokyo, Japan, Turbolinux produces the Linux distribution with the same name, which is quite popular, especially in Asia. The Turbolinux distro is well known for including a registered copy of the DVD Decrypter for Linux, called CyberLink PowerDVD and also for coming with licensed binary Windows Media codecs.
Last year in November Tutbolinux introduced an interesting project, which targeted to launch later this year a portable media player hosting a Linux operating system. The device was called Wizpy and it supposed to allow the user to boot-up the Linux system that resides in the Wizpy's memory, once this one was plugged-in into a PC's USB port. The Turbolinux team has recently announced that the device will be ready for sale this June. Wizpy looks exactly like an ordinary media player and has all functionalities the latter provides, such as playing back Ogg, Mp3 and WAV file contents or XviD and MPEG4 video files.
Highlights:
- 1.71" OLED screen - 4 GB flash memory (from which approximately 2.5 GB are available for user storage) - supports Ogg/MP3/WMA/DivX medias - FM radio - built-in microphone - still picture display - text viewer
"With Windows Vista just coming out people are thinking about changing their operating system but many are not sure they want to upgrade to Vista" said Noriaki Fukuyasu, director of TurboLinux's international business division.
The LiveCD OS for the host PC will be based on Turbolinux Fuji even though there were rumors claiming the device will feature VxWorks OS. The player will be launched in U.K., U.S., Canada, India, Australia and Singapore first and then it would be followed by some versions featuring other language than English, possibly in 2008. The device itself has already a multilingual on-screen display, but the bootable version of Linux included inside is available in English only.