IBM is expected to demonstrate a blade server next week based on the Cell processor the company is developing with Toshiba and Sony. The Cell processor, which also is the brains of Sony's upcoming PlayStation 3 videogame console, has a PowerPC processing core supplemented by eight special-purpose cores to boost the chip's calculation abilities.

NetBeans 5.0 has been released. "NetBeans IDE 5.0 introduces comprehensive support for developing IDE modules and rich client applications based on the NetBeans platform, the new intuitive GUI builder Matisse, new and redesigned CVS support, Sun Application Server 8.2, Weblogic9 and JBoss 4 support, and a lot of editor enhancements."

"Once it became clear that Nicholas Negroponte, one of the key originators of the One Laptop per Child initiative, was going to insist that the device use open source software, Linux provider Red Hat became the most likely provider of the device's operating system. Mike Evans from Red Hat discusses his company's involvement in the One Laptop per Child project, which aims to develop and distribute a $100 PC to millions around the world."

"When it comes to a multi-headed environment under Linux, there are two popular options for consumers - Xinerama and TwinView. TwinView was developed by NVIDIA for allowing multiple monitors to be powered by a single GPU with their array of GeForce graphics cards. On the other hand, Xinerama was originally developed by DEC under the name of PanoramiX, and was later incorporated into the X Windows System as Xinerama. With Xinerama and TwinView being two of the popular multi-headed options for Linux users, we have decided to study the frame-rate performance for both of these configurations, as well as a traditional single-head setup, under a variety of popular games."

Cambridge University's Ross Anderson has given parliament advice on how to protect the UK from the excesses of technology. An influential security researcher has urged members of parliament to tighten up the law to prevent technology and media companies from abusing patents and digital rights management applications.

Trading was suspended for an hour at Russia's main stock exchange because of a computer virus, the Russian Trading Systems, or RTS, said Friday. Data processing was paralyzed late Thursday afternoon as specialists rushed to localize the virus and switch off the infected computer, according to a statement from the exchange. No permanent damage was caused and no information was lost.Spokeswoman Zoya Konovkova said it was not clear what virus had led to the shutdown.According to RTS vice president Dmitry Shatskoi, the virus entered the system via a computer used to test new software, which was connected to the Internet.

Chris Messina, of Flock. A devoted open minded guy, met with a few folks from Microsoft, had a dinner, chatted about DRM, Apple, Freedom, Technology, browsers, and just wrote a story about what was going on out there. Part One and Two.

Security watchers say the Kama Sutra worm, which is programmed to overwrite files on infected Windows PCs today, will have a damaging but not catastrophic effect. The Kama Sutra worm (or Nyxem-E or Blackworm) poses as an email message offering a variety of salacious content. Subject lines used in the malicious emails include: The Best Videoclip Ever, Fw: SeX.mpg, Miss Lebanon 2006 and Fuckin Kama Sutra pics. The worm, which can also spread across network shares, only affects Windows PCs.

Apple has killed off the 17" iMac G5 - at least, the machine is no longer available from either the UK or the US online AppleStores, or stores throughout Europe and Asia-Pacific, though it remains listed on the main Apple website. The move comes just days after Apple cut the price of the 20" iMac G5 by $200 in the States and GPB 150 in Britain.

"R is a rich statistical environment, released as free software, which includes a programming language, an interactive shell, and extensive graphing capabilities. This installment discusses creating reusable and modular components for R development. This article follows up two prior installments and looks at the object-orientation in R along with some additional general programming concepts in R."

"As more computer users move to larger, wide-screen monitors, Microsoft is staking a claim to that added real estate. Windows Vista, the update to the operating system due this year, will add a feature called Sidebar. Sidebar is a small panel at the side of the monitor that can be used to view photo slide shows, RSS feeds and other small programs, dubbed gadgets."

We barely got time to install the first one, the second one is still in the donwload queue, but the third one is already here. OpenSUSE Linux 10.1 Beta 3 has been released , and it includes a number of bug fixes - however, we can't really tell which since they placed the changelog on the first CD. Here's to hoping this won't set a trend.

RISCOS Ltd. detailed that "the full launch of the A9 computer, and then Select 4, are currently targetted for around May this year", perhaps at the Wakefield show, "and once completed attention can be focussed on the Iyonix." They will also issue new shares to fund the development of RISC OS 4.

"The United States-based body responsible for protecting the 'Linux' name appears to be making a renewed push to register it as a trademark in Australia. The nation's intellectual property regulator, IP Australia, turned down an initial bid by local body Linux Australia to register the name on behalf of Linux creator Linux Torvalds in September 2005, saying the name was not distinctive enough to be trademarked. But the US-based Linux Mark Institute, which acts for Torvalds worldwide appears to be in the process of appealing the decision."