The six month voting window for ISO/IEC adoption of the OASIS OpenDocument Format standard closed on May 1, and at midnight (Geneva time ) last night it was announced internally that ODF had been approved by the ISO members eligible and interested in casting a vote. And on a related note, an article on smart formatting for better compatibility between OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Office.

Microsoft has shelved plans to include built-in support for RSA Security's tokens in Windows Vista, even though the company has been testing out the authentication technology for almost two years. In February 2004, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said that Windows would be able to support easy integration with RSA's popular SecurID tokens. That meant businesses would find it far easier to deploy a two-factor authentication system for logging on to networks and applications. However, almost two years after the SecurID beta-testing program kicked off, RSA's chief executive, Art Coviello, disclosed that Windows Vista will not natively support the technology.

Opera Software today announced a new version of its micro-browser for non-smartphones, Opera Mini 2.0. New features included content download to the phone, the ability to change the browser's visual skin, multisearch to allow users to select extra search engines for the homepage, speed dial for bookmarks similar to the phones speed dial, and quick horizontal and vertical panning when browsing backwards or forwards. There is the ability to use a simulator to try it out on your desktop browser.

Microsoft's long-awaited release of the upgrade to its flagship Windows operating system will likely be delayed again by at least three months, research group Gartner said on Tuesday. The research note, released to clients on Monday, said the new Windows Vista operating system is too complex to be able to meet Microsoft's targeted November release for volume licence customers and January launch for retail consumers. A Microsoft spokeswoman said the company disagreed with the Gartner report and it was still on track to meet its launch dates.

"In this latest interview, Theo examines the past five years of OpenBSD development. He also discusses the OpenBSD 3.9 theme song, 'Blob!', detailing what blobs are, why OpenBSD avoids them, and how OpenBSD developers work to reverse engineer them. Looking to the development process, Theo talks about recent and future 'mini-hackathons', small and focused OpenBSD development gatherings. Finally, Theo also discusses the OpenBSD project's funding issues, and the response to requests for funding from users of the project's OpenSSH software."

Google has made informal complaints to competition authorities in Europe and the US about default settings in Microsoft's IE7. The latest Microsoft browser includes a small window so users can search without opening up a specific page. The default setting sends users to MSN for searches - just as equivalent features in Opera and Firefox send browsers to Google. A spokesman for the search giant told the New York Times it was concerned Microsoft was limiting choice. My take: ...

PCMag reviews the first Origami PC by Samsung, and concludes: "Samsung plans on avoiding retail shelves with the pricey Q1 and selling at BestBuy online and CDW only. I appreciate the design, and the technologies that can be had in such a small unit, but the practicality of this device escapes me. For $1099, you're better off with a more capable - and keyboard-equipped-convertible tablet."

The day when WiFi cards 'just work' under Linux may be fast approaching. WiFi software stack specialist Devicescape has released its 'Advanced Datapath' 802.11 driver stack to the open source community under the GPL, and the Linux kernel developer community appears to be working to adapt it for mainline inclusion.

Following a holiday quarter in which worldwide shipments of handheld devices topped two million units, the worldwide market for (non-phone) handheld devices began 2006 with its ninth consecutive quarter of year-over-year decline. According to IDC's Worldwide Handheld QView report, worldwide shipments of handheld devices totaled 1.5 million units, down 22.3% from the same quarter a year ago. At the same time, PDA/smart-phones sales are skyrocketing. Also, I posted a review of the QTek 9100 PDA phone.

As a Macbook Pro owner myself, I'm somewhat reluctant to admit that the first generation of Macbooks suffer from an annoying and constant whine and an unaccpetable amount of heat output. Therefore, I will be one of the many calling Apple Support on May 20. May 20th, it's been reported, is "the day the whining ends." OSX86Project has more.

"Can you imagine getting a new PC and finding your software runs no faster than before? You probably can't imagine it running slower. For some types of software however, that is exactly what is going to happen in the not too distant future. Faster processors running slower may sound bizarre but if you're using certain types of data structures or code on large scale (8+) multicore processors it might actually happen. In fact it might already happen today if you were to run legacy software on one of today's processors which feature a large number of cores."

New Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz's first 100 days at the helm are about to get interesting. First up: managing an internal debate over whether the company should open-source Java. According to sources inside Sun, an ongoing debate over whether to open-source Java is coming to a head with the JavaOne conference looming May 16.

"Daines was browsing the Web when he clicked on a series of links that promised pictures of an unreleased update to his computer’s operating system. Instead, a window opened on the screen and strange commands ran as if the machine was under the control of someone - or something - else. Daines was the victim of a computer virus. Such headaches are hardly unusual on PCs running Windows. Daines, however, was using a Mac - a machine often touted as being immune to such risks." Remember boys and girls, this story is published on MSNBC.

The Inq reviews the Abacus WristPDA, a watch running PalmOS 4.x, and concludes: "While the 'Industry Analysts' and other professionals of spreading Fear Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) try to convince people that "bigger is better" and that a pocket device's OS must be as fat and bloated as Windows Mobile to be of use, the Abacus WristPDA shows that smaller and less bloated code can sometimes be better."