Microsoft has released an interim build of Windows Vista, Build 5342, today to a select group of testers. This is the first build to come with the 'real' Aero Glass: fully scalable vector based transparencies that take advantage of pixel shading. The previous builds contained Aero Express and Aero Express with transparancy, not the real Aero Glass. Other notable improvements: a complete firewall, support for Pocket PC 2000, 2002, and 2003 synchronization, and more. Flexbeta has screenshots, but Flexbeta seems pretty down to me at the moment.

"Free open source software is making slow in-roads into the world of big box retail. This article is the first of a series of two Mad Penguin articles which take a detailed look inside the world of retail as Tux is experiencing it. Today, in Section One Mad Penguin goes shopping to see what can be seen in four retail big box stores in the San Francisco Bay Area, complete with short videos inside some of those stores for the purpose of providing a wee bit of context."

"Many customers have asked us about having a better way to enter IE bugs. It is asked 'Why don't you have Bugzilla like Firefox or other groups do?' We haven't always had a good answer except it is something that the IE team has never done before. After much discussion on the team, we've decided that people are right and that we should have a public way for people to give us feedback or make product suggestions. We wanted to build a system that is searchable and can benefit from the active community that IE has here. As of today, our new Internet Explorer Feedback site is live."

"Need a teeny-tiny, business-card-sized, open source operating system that squeezes a lot of software into a little space? Take a look at DSL Linux. This quick review shows you how to use the miniscule OS, highlights the on-board applications, details how to load and start it, and explains how to save between sessions when using a bootable CD."

"This week was a huge move forward for the OpenVZ project. We have released an updated vzctl, an updated stable kernel, a new development kernel based on 2.6.16, a SUSE kernel, a template for Fedora Core 5, and finally a GIT repository with our development kernel."

Ars is contradicting the 60% claim made earlier today, stating: "Reportedly, the Media Center code in the OS is in shambles, and needs to be saved by the Xbox code team. Curiosity piqued, I contacted my usual sources. In short, the story is an extreme exaggeration. I suppose this much is obvious from the mere fact that what was once a late November shipping date has now moved to January 2007: would the revelation that more than half of the code is in need of repair only translate into a two month delay? Of course not. I suppose the cynic could still invest in this rumor by arguing that the delay will stretch into 2007, but that has yet to be seen, and it really amounts to FUD at this point."

Paco, a Mono contributor gives an up-to-date overview of the state of Mono, from handhelds to servers and how Microsoft developers are migrating. The interview is offered in both mp3 and ogg formats.

The first benchmark of Mustang (JDK1.6) versus Tiger (JDK1.5) shows that Java users are up for an agreeable surprise. According to this JavaLobby discussion the virtual machine raw speed has improved significantly (40-100%). Although, the core library implementation (e.g. collections) could also benefit from some rework/optimizations.

"By now you have probably figured out that we aren't releasing Universal Binaries of our current application versions. If you haven't, all you need to know is pretty explicitly spelled out here . 'But, c'mon', I hear people saying, 'Steve said it was just a recompile!' Or, 'Back during the PowerPC transition, you guys released a patch!' Well, this time is different. And I really wish it weren't."

Anandtech reviews Sun's T2000 Coolthreads server, and concludes: "At first sight, Sun has won the performance/watt battle for now, but it cannot rest on its laurels. Low voltage versions of the Xeon 'Woodcrest' and Opteron might be able to come very close to the performance/Watt levels that the T1 offers. We also can't shake the feeling that the number of applications, which will really exhibit the kind of exceptional performance that Sun's own heavily optimised benchmarks show, will be quite limited. Last, but certainly not least, Sun's solid engineering has impressed us. Sun's meticulous attention to detail resulted in a sturdy, well-polished machine." More benchmarks here.

"In the last several days there have been several stories in the news that highlight the increasing tension between ownership of intellectual property rights and the opportunities that become available when broader, free access to those rights is made available."

"I'm happy to announce today that ROTOR 2.0 has released to the web. You can download the release here. ROTOR contains most of the CLR and base class libraries found in our commerical product. It is released under the shared source program. There are several new things in this release: generics implementation; Lightweight Code Generation; stub-based dispatch support; new reflection and reflection emit; new C# features like Anonymous Methods, Anonymous Delegates and Generics."

Red Hat has opened its knowledge base to the general public today. You no longer need to login to access it. "Red Hat Knowledgebase is a library of tips, troubleshooting advice, and current information updated daily by Red Hat technicians."

Hyperion, the company behind AmigaOS 4.0, has found at least one way to generate revenue from AmigaOS 4.0. "Hyperion Entertainment VOF announces that it has licensed its 3D driver technology for ATI Radeon 9000 chipsets to Smiths Aerospace LLC. Hyperion's 3D driver technology is OpenGL ES compatible and was originally developed for Amiga OS 4, Hyperion's multi-media centric, small foot-print embedded OS."