The 2nd beta of Windows' new shell (Monad) has been released for use with the just released .NET 2.0. "The Windows 'Monad' Shell is a new interactive command-line and task-based scripting technology in Windows that enables administrators to more efficiently and securely automate and control system management tasks on both desktops and servers." Download for x64 and x86.

CosmoPOD offers free remote KDE desktops over NX. Anyone can sign up to have their own desktop accessible from any computer with a network connection. CosmoPOP uses KDE's Kioskstyle.html framework to ensure security for their system. To find out more about the service and why KDE was the chosen desktop, KDE Dot News spoke to the man behind CosmoPOD, Stephen Ensor.

Now that full complement of 12544 Power5 processors have been installed, the Blue Gene/L supercomputer has hit 260 teraflops. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and IBM unveiled the Blue Gene/L supercomputer on Thursday and announced that it has broken its own record again for the world's fastest supercomputer.

BentUser has Part II of an in depth preview of Windows Vista, which includes a look at some more Vista features as well as some analysis of overall performance, including a numerical comparison with Windows XP. Also takes a look at the new error reporting/self healing features and the cross-computer syncing features.

The Free Software Foundation is just weeks away from announcing the roadmap and process that will govern the release of the first draft of the rewritten GNU General Public License.

Gregory John Casamento just announced the release of Gorm 1.0 on the gnustep mailing lists. Gorm is the GNUstep graphical interface builder which let you easily create GUI applications.

Hyperion Entertainment, creator of various Linux game ports and currently working on the next generation Amiga OS, has now unveiled their new dedicated Amiga OS 4.0 website. It showcases important features and is targeted to current and new users as well as potential OEM clients.

According to some, one of the adoption problems of the Gnome development platform is the lack of good documentation for new developers. And so the GNOME Foundation has hired Shaun McCance as a contractor to write such documentation. Elsewhere, the Gnome developers discuss about which new apps should be included in the upcoming Gnome 2.14 release.

Singularity is a research project in Microsoft Research that started with the question: what would a software platform look like if it was designed from scratch with the primary goal of dependability? Singularity is working to answer this question by building on advances in programming languages and tools to develop a new system architecture and operating system (named Singularity), with the aim of producing a more robust and dependable software platform.

The OpenSolaris desktop community released an opensource version of the Java Desktop System. "The Java Desktop System is a secure and comprehensive enterprise desktop software solution that combines the best of open source innovation. Java Desktop System is a major component of the Solaris 10 Operating System, x86 and SPARC architecure editions, and an earlier release is also available with a Linux OS."

Microsoft on Thursday said that an investigation by Korea's antitrust watchdog could lead to the withdrawal of Windows from the country, or to delays in introducing new versions of the OS there.

Pixel, the image editor that works on just about every platform imaginable (not my TI-83 though, and where's that Zaurus port?), has been ported to SkyOS, and will be available in the next alpha of the beta or beta of the beta release of SkyOS v5 beta. You can view a screenshot here. This port was possible because of the recent port of the Freepascal compiler 2.0.0 to SkyOS.

Yet again hell freezes over. As if Apple's switch to Intel wasn't enough, Sun has announced that IBM is going to sell Solaris on its blade servers. "IBM has agreed to sell Sun's operating system with its BladeCenter servers in "the coming months," according to an IBM spokesman. This is quite the surprise given IBM's contentious relationship with Sun. IBM's services organization, however, does do a large amount of business selling Sun servers and Solaris, which may have helped seal the deal." Jonathan Schwartz announced it in his blog as well.

Microsoft on Thursday reported first quarter earnings just ahead of Wall Street estimates, though the company's sales and current quarter forecast fell short of expectations.