Such forks should be encouraged, not avoided, said Bird, who will deliver the same message to a Comdex audience next week. IBM Corp.'s commitment to Linux hints at the potential scope of the operating system. Research teams at the company are working to show how Linux can be used across platforms, from large supercomputer clusters to small intelligent devices. In his keynote presentation, Alex Morrow, an IBM fellow at the T.J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, N.Y., talked in detail about the smart watch. It has 8 Mbytes of flash memory and 8 Mbytes of DRAM .
Users interact with the device through both touch and a roller wheel.
The watch has both IR and RF wireless connectivity. The watch is 56 mm wide by 48 mm long by 12.25 mm thick, weighs 44 grams, and works off a rechargeable lithium-polymer battery. IBM researchers are successfully running Linux and X11 on the device. Several benefits accrue from the use of Linux in small pervasive devices. Speaker Stuart Anderson, Technical Director for X Window System Products at Metro Link Inc. discussed alternative approaches to implementing graphical and windowing environments in Linux-based systems.