MIPS Technologies, which is well-known for providing processors and architectures for home entertainment, portable multimedia, and communications devices, is moving ahead with a number of initiatives focused on the Android operating system. Companies officials say explicitly that they want to take Android beyond just phone handsets, and two months ago MIPS ported Android to its architecture. Now, the company is making the source code for that port publicly available, as seen here.

MIPS has also initiated an Early Access Program "for a small group of key customers who will have access to specific hardware and code optimizations before they are publicly available." And, as EETimes reports, the company specifically wants to develop extensions for Android to support HD video displays, and bring Android to Blu-ray players, set-top boxes and digital TVs.

Early this year, Terry Baume encountered something highly unusual -- a Netcomm NB5 DSL modem router infected by a botnet. The embedded device, powered by a MIPS processor running in little-endian mode (mipsel), was running a bit of malicious code known as PSYB0T 2.5L.

The botnet was originally thought to be a test, an experiment to see how this technology worked. It was shut down quickly by the botnet operator once its existence became public knowledge.

It now appears to have returned, and evolved into a new beast, PSYB0T 2.9L, and it affects more than Netcomm NB5 devices. Approximately 30 Linksys devices, 10 Netgear models, and 15 other models and brands of DSL modems and routers are at risk, including those running custom firmware, such as OpenWRT and DD-WRT.

That's the bad news. The good news is removing it, and ensuring it doesn't return, is fairly simple. In fact, DroneBL, the organization that scans for botnets and vulnerable machines, says that 90% of the routers involved are afflicted only because of user error.