The BumpTop structures files and programs as 3D cards with weight that you can shuffle around and move about the desktop. You can throw a bunch of similar cards on a pile to represent stuff you'll get to later, or stack them neatly to represent stuff you've already seen.

"This list is compiled from a variety of sources and is intended for anyone who wishes to find centralized reading material about Eclipse. One of the biggest challenges new Eclipse users face is where to find the right information for a task. This article provides a small step in solving that problem."

Microsoft will release updates to the beta of Windows Vista every month until the gold master release to corporate customers in November, the software giant's Australian Windows chief revealed today. Jeff Putt, Director, Windows Client, Microsoft Australia revealed the plan in a briefing to journalists at Microsoft's headquarters in Sydney today. "We're on the bug-hunt", he said.

Microsoft Australia's Office chief today delivered a frank retrospective on how badly bloated Office had become over the years. Speaking at a briefing to journalists about Windows Vista and Office 2007, Wilkinson launched into a lengthy and frank retrospective on how Office came to be as bloated as it is today. "Little point changes to our user interface design weren't helping the problem. The real problem was the application had increased too much in complexity."

"Let's face it. Google pretty much owns the Internet landscape. Unless something truly unexpected happens within the web community, I see no real indicator that they'll lose their market share anytime soon. This also opens them up to other online opportunities should they decide to pursue them. One such opportunity is believed to be the much famed idea of a Google OS. The rumors have been floating around back and forth for awhile now and many people believe that it's simply a matter of time. Well I'm here to tell you that this is never going to happen; at least not in a form that we might expect to see, that is."

Counterfeiters aren't Microsoft's only opponents in its effort to combat piracy: Some of its customers are against it, too. The company is forging ahead with a program, Windows Genuine Advantage, tied to its free software downloads and updates, that checks whether the Windows installation on a PC is pirated. But some people, including some who say they own a legitimately acquired copy of Windows, have challenged the need for such validation.

"IBM and the Georgia Institute of Technology announced today that their researchers have demonstrated the first silicon-based chip capable of operating at frequencies above 500 GHz - 500 billion cycles per second - by cryogenically 'freezing' the chip to 451 degrees below zero Fahrenheit (4.5 Kelvins)." Now that's what I'd like to see in the new PowerBook. Oh, wait.

The One Laptop per Child scheme is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the history of the IT industry, according to Tony Roberts, chief executive and founder of UK charity Computer Aid International. Speaking to ZDNet UK last week, Roberts claimed that although he would be delighted if the OLPC scheme proved a success, he had severe reservations about the strategy underpinning the project.

PC-BSD 1.11 has been released. Major changes: updated installed ports to current versions as of 6-12-06; updated KDE to 3.5.3 (more than 800 bugs fixed compared to 3.5.2); added additional DRM video drivers to default kernel, 3D/DRI support for Intel 3D, Voodoo, ATI, S3, SiS, Matrox, etc.; and much more. Get it from the download page (update or complete .iso), read the changelog, or read the release notes.

The world's first commercial one-petaflops supercomputer has been commissioned, Codenamed 'Baker', the 24000-socket, Opteron-based Linux system is due to be installed at the US Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 2008.

"Immediately after the release of new Virtual Infrastructure 3, Virtualization.info had the pleasure to reach Raghu Raghuram, Vice President of Platform Products at VMware, to ask him details about the just launched products, the recent Akimbi acquisition announcement, the secret VMware Integrity product, a planned presence in the Apple operating system, and further steps in the virtualization market leader's strategy. From his answers a revelation came out: VMware is going to partially support Microsoft'svirtualization technologies."

The no-charge version of the IBM database DB2, is now available for download in its 9th revision. DB2 9 Express-C is a no-charge relational database that can be run on up to 2 dual-core CPU servers with up to 4 GB of memory. Available for Windows (32bits, 64 bits coming soon) and Linux (Intel/AMD and Power; 32 and 64 bits)

Opera 9.0 has been released. The new features in this major release include BitTorrent support, content blocking, tab preview, widgets (small desktop applets), and a source viewer, among others. Update: First impressions.

Cloanto has released its 2006 version of Amiga Forever, an all-in-one package for emulating the AmigaOS (1.x as well as 3.x) on any standard PC; OSNews reviewed the previous version. This release includes about 200MB of new Amiga games, as well as enhanced support for AmigaOS add-ons such as AmiKit, AmigaSYS, and AROS for Amiga.