Sony will ship its Vaio UX UMPC on 27 May, the consumer electronics giant said today. The successor to the company's U series of handheld mini PCs will ship as the retail-oriented UX-50 and as the Sony-sold UX-90S and UX-90PS. As expected, the UX-50 will contain a 1.06GHz ultra-low voltage Intel Core Solo U1300 processor backed by 512MB of 400MHz SDRAM and a 30GB, 4,200rpm hard disk. The unit's display is a 4.5in, 1,024 x 600 panel driven by Intel's integrated GMA950 GPU - the chipset's a 945GMS. The handheld PC runs Windows XP Home Edition. Connectivity comes courtesy of Bluetooth 2 and 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi. There's an integrated webcam and a fingerprint sensor.

IsComputerOn reports that Haiku now has OpenGL and DVB-T support. You will need Rudolph's drivers for it to work, naturally. IsComputerOn has more information and screenshots. "And the icing on the cake... Quake 3 also runs on Haiku in OGL! As you can see from the screenshots here and here over at 's Flickr page."

Apple has released the long-awaited and seriously overdue replacement for its iBook consumer laptop product line. Dubbed the MacBook, it comes with an Intel Core Duo processor (1.83 or 2.0Ghz), 13.3" widescreen display, 512MB RAM, and an Intel GMA 950 integrated graphics card. It comes in white and black. In the US, you'll pay $1099 for the cheapest model, in the UK GBP 749, and on Europe's mainland EUR 1079 (mainland price taken from Apple Germany, may differ per country). Update: Between all the MacBook talk, Apple also upgraded its MacBook Pro product line. Besides a minor speed bump, Apple added, as a free option, the glossy screen stuff.

"Can the ordinary computer user ditch Windows for Linux? The question came up when I decided that my six-year-old version of Microsoft's Windows operating system had to be replaced. My Sony Vaio computer was still too young for the trash heap. And I was hesitant to spend $200 on the Windows XP operating system, especially with Microsoft planning to launch XP's replacement, Vista, in January. So, I decided to give the operating systems that run on Linux technology a try."

And no, the microkernel debate is not over yet. In a reply to various comments made over the past few weeks, Andy Tanenbaum has written an article to address these. He first clearly states he respects and likes Torvalds, and that "we may disagree on some technical issues, but that doesn't make us enemies. Please don't confuse disagreements about ideas with personal feuds." The article states: "Over the years there have been endless postings on forums such as Slashdot about how microkernels are slow, how microkernels are hard to program, how they aren't in use commercially, and a lot of other nonsense. Virtually all of these postings have come from people who don't have a clue what a microkernel is or what one can do. I think it would raise the level of discussion if people making such postings would first try a microkernel-based operating system . Has a lot more credibility."

The world is rapidly moving away from technology-based solutions toward end-user facilitation. Simple grammars provide a surprising solution to the problem of "driving" IT infrastructure to achieve business ends. In this article, Stephen Morris shows you how to use the interpreter design pattern to create a simple C++ grammar, which can be extended to produce surprisingly powerful capabilities.