osFree Publishes First Screenshot

OS/2 58 Comments
The osFree project has published its first screenshot. "osFree is an open source free (non-commercial) software development project. Goals of the projects are to replace all (or most) of OS/2's subsystems with open-source analogues. The base compatibility system is OS/2 Warp 4 (Merlin), but that doesn't mean we won't be supporting features of newer versions of OS/2 like OS/2 WarpServer for e-business and eComStation by Serenity Systems."
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Maxell To Offer 300GB Holographic Discs ‘Late 2006’

Hardware 42 Comments
Maxell will ship its first holographic storage system late next year, the company has pledged. The storage specialist will initially offer a removable system based on 300GB media and capable of transfering data at a rate of 20MBps, Maxell said. However, the company said the technology, designed by InPhase Technologies, is capable of achieving 1.6TB per disk - and that's uncompressed capacity - with a 120MBps bandwidth.
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Browser Developers Agree on Common Security Features

Internet 30 Comments
In a historic agreement, the makers of Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, and Konqueror have agreed on a common set of security features that will be implemented into future versions of their respective browsers. The developers of the four applications had been in discussion for some time over ways in which they could make browsing safer by making it more obvious to users when a site is trying to pull a fast one on them.
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Desktop Linux for Small Business

  Submitted by sebFlyte Linux 119 Comments
"As desktop Linux becomes ever more professional, and with Microsoft still a year away from shipping its new Vista version of Windows, could now be the time to go open-source on the desktop? Of course, circumstances will vary from company to company, but if you're ready to make the move, there's a good crop of Linux distributions ready to accommodate your needs."
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NICTA Embedded OS Framework Released

  Submitted by navlrac OS News 2 Comments
Iguana and NICTA::Pistachio-embedded (yes, the two together), a new open-source operating system for mobile phones and embedded devices has been released by the ERTOS group of NICTA and adopted by Qualcomm for some of their phones. Iguana is a small and secure OS which runs on top of the L4 microkernel. It also runs Linux as an application alongside trusted programs, giving backward compatibility with legacy software. The system currently works on ARM, x86, and MIPS64.
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AROS for PPC, AmigaOS-68k, More

Amiga & AROS 17 Comments
AROS has seen a lot of under-the-hood work lately. Firstly, Joe Fenton has been able to run AROS PPC on his iMac using Fedora Core 4. Joe and Markuss Weiss are working hard on them, in order to give us a PPC version of AROS. Secondly, Bernd Roesch has compiled an AmigaOS-68k hosted version of AROS called AfA (AROS for AmigaOS): "AfA OS is a way to use AROS source without changes and compile them on every AmigaOS based operating system. It can run and be build hosted on every AmigaOS compatible system and provides a compatible API to all systems."
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Microsoft Releases Vista Build 5259 to Vendors, Testers

  Submitted by mcduck Windows 67 Comments
Microsoft has released a new build of Windows Vista to Vendors and Beta Testers. The build is 5259, and was compiled on November 17 2005. Screenshots of 5259 started appearing on forums yesterday (more here). 5259 contains new versions of Media Center, Internet Explorer 7 and Windows Media Player 11, but little new when it comes to GUI. Microsoft Antispyware has also been fully integrated in this build. There is more on Vista's new fonts here, and more on TCP/IP here. Update: more, high-res this time, screenshots here.
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Firefox 1.5 Review

  Submitted by DigitalDame Mozilla, Gecko 32 Comments
"The release of Firefox 1.5 is almost certain to drive adoption rates even higher. PCMag.com recently reviewed the new version, and found that the most noticeable improvement is the ability to reorder tabs via drag-and-drop. Navigation is significantly faster, as Mozilla has implemented 'intelligent caching' on the forward and back buttons. The final, gold-code release of Firefox 1.5 should arrive before the end of November." UPDATE: One more review.
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AGEIA PhysX Expansion Card Release Date Confirmed

  Submitted by Raghu Bhagwan 3D 23 Comments
"We are all aware of AGEIA and its desire to bring a PhysX processor for physics processing in order to make games look and feel more realistic. We all want the characters to move and act realistically, and that's exactly what AGEIA's PhysX will accomplish once it debuts. However, in order for the technology to work, it requires an expansion card for the motherboard. ASUS will debut the card in February 2006 when more games become available to take advantage of AGEIA's innovation."
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