While the X86 world hops from one to two processing cores, startup Azul Systems plans to integrate 48 cores on its second-generation Vega chip, expected next year. The first-generation Vega processor it designed has 24 cores but the firm expects to double that level of integration in systems generally available next year with the Vega 2, built on TSMC's 90nm process and squeezing in 812 million transistors. The progress means that Azul's Compute Appliances will offer up to 768-way symmetric multiprocessing.

"On this day ten years ago, the first prototype StrongARM processor card was powered up by Acorn engineers. The experimental kit managed to run at a cool 228MHz, running software nearly six times faster than the 40MHz ARM710 processors used in RiscPCs at the time. The card, which drew one watt of power, would later go on sale in September 1996."

IsComputerOn (back from some downtime) has previewed the latest ZETA 1.2, still in beta testing, soon to be available to the general public. "Well, this is not the final 1.2 version, but so far my experience with this beta (and the previous ones) has been very pleasant. Stability issues have been (mostly) solved, speed has increased and the overall look has improved as well (the new buttons, tabs, the default decor has been improved too), making this a good experience throughout the beta testing." Many screenshots included, boys and girls. Expect a review of a 1.2 beta on OSNews too, soon.

Fresh on the heels of a delay in broad availability of Windows Vista, Microsoft confirmed late Thursday that it is also pushing the mainstream launch of Office 2007 to next year. As with Vista, Microsoft hopes to finish the code for Office 2007 this year. The company said work will be completed by October, when it will make Office 2007 available to business customers that have signed up for Microsoft's volume-licensing program. And, again like Vista, Microsoft plans to ship retail and original equipment manufacturer versions of the product in January. UPDATE: Microsoft has joined a committee that has a key role in the ratification of the OpenDocument format as an international standard.

"In what must have seemed to many as a bold move, Sun Microsystems last week announced that it would released the source code for its UltraSparc T1 processor under the GPL, supported by a new organization that it calls OpenSPARC.net. But to those that have been around for a while, the announcement had an eerily familiar sound to it, and that sound was the echo of an organization called SPARC International. Formed 18 years ago to license the SPARC chip design to multiple vendors to ensure second sourcing for the hardware vendors that Sun hoped would adopt it, SPARC International seemed to be every bit as revolutionary for its time as Sun's new initiative does today. SPARC International's site, looking very retro and neglected, can still be seen - at least for now."

"See the process of porting the Berkeley curses library from UNIX to eCos, picking up a few fragments of the Berkeley C library extensions along the way - and learn about some general issues of porting from UNIX to eCos."

A review of the latest Fedora Core release, code named "Bordeaux", the Fedora Core 5, which has proven itself to be one of the best Linux distributions out there was published by LinuxForums.org. OSNews' own Fedora Core 5 review was published a few hours ago too.

Algorithms can often be implemented recursively or nonrecursively; the decision rests with the programmer, who might shy away from a recursive solution because the algorithm might not terminate or that performance might be poor. In reality, recursion can allow for very elegant code as well as facilitating an interesting and economical type of code reuse. Software consultant Stephen B. Morris explores this interesting topic with a data-centric application drawn from the field of networking.

Cameron and Tracey Hughes conclude their exploration of cluster programming with an example of a cluster-based text-file analysis utility that processes and analyzes multiple files in parallel.

It was a nice departure last week, to write about not so serious matters, in order to make fun of everything and everyone (including myself). Today, however, it's back to more serious matters (if you can call computer matters 'serious', of course): Amiga OS4. Or how it will fail utterly if Hyperion/Amiga Inc. don't get their heads out of the sand. Note: Sunday Eve Column.

BusinessWeek explores why the chance is right for Apple to license the Mac OS to 3rd party hardware vendors. "First, the caveats: there's as much chance that Apple will license the MacOS as there is that Steve Jobs will show up to his next keynote wearing a dress instead of the usual attire. Secondly, he's probably right not to change course, because there's plenty of evidence that Apple's proprietary approach is the way to go to win the huge consumer electronics and digital media markets that are now opening up. But humor me anyway, because it's actually an interesting time to consider the question."

"In this tutorial I will describe how to set up a highly available NFS server that can be used as storage solution for other high-availability services like, for example, a cluster of web servers that are being loadbalanced. If you have a web server cluster with two or more nodes that serve the same web site(s), than these nodes must access the same pool of data so that every node serves the same data, no matter if the loadbalancer directs the user to node 1 or node n. This can be achieved with an NFS share on an NFS server that all web server nodes (the NFS clients) can access."

Phoronix takes a look at nVIDIA's SLI and nVIDIA's efforts to support alternative operating systems, such as Linux, BSD, and Solaris, and how HP fits into all that. "While this NVIDIA SLI support can still be considered very much rudimentary compared against the Microsoft Windows support with the ForceWare drivers, which were introduced back on November 9 of 2004, there is no clear sight for how it will ultimately fair in the world of Linux. According to some information we have obtained from our sources and research, NVIDIA's motives for Linux SLI may largely dissent from the public opinion. In this article today, there are a few comments we would like to share about the big green manufacturer and their outlook on alternative operating systems."

"Recently, Coverity presented their first results in their scanning technology that hunts for defects in source code. One of the addressed projects was Firebird. After Roman Rokytskyy reviewed the results, he concluded the failures are in two areas."