Yesterday Firefox's dowloads reached it's 75 million mark. That's 25 million downloads in less then 3 months, well above all previous expectations. Due to its imense popularity and the upcoming release of Firefox 1.5, the team is hoping to reach 100 million downloads in the next 2 months.

Microsoft has released some official screenshots of the just released beta 1 of Windows Vista, their upcoming Windows version. Microsoft has passed a major milestone with the release of its first full test version of Windows Vista, the next generation of its flagship operating system.

After his departure from Apple, Steve Jobs created NeXT Computer, a company which has had a large impact on the design of operating systems today.  NeXT was the creator of the first commercially viable object oriented operating system, the first hybrid microkernel, and numerous other notable innovations.  Read the whole story at Braeburn.

Sony announced that version 2.0 of the PSP system software will be available for download today. The user agent is "Mozilla/4.0 (PSP (PlayStation Portable); 2.00)" (in contrast to the older hacked web browser's "SCEJ PSP BROWSER 0102pspNavigator"). If you can upload a picture of the new PSP web browser rendering the HTML version of OSNews, please post a link below.

The global market for smart mobile devices continued its rise in Q2 2005 according to estimates released by research firm Canalys. Nokia once again saw its smart phone shipments increase at more than twice the average market rate. Palm still leads the handheld segment, with 31% market share, but its handheld shipments declined 32% year on year, resulting in a 1% unit decline overall. Handheld shipments fell in most regions, with North America down by 36%, while Latin America and Asia Pacific fell 12% and 21% respectively.

FreeBSD has been ported to the XBox. "Over the last 2 weeks, I have been working on a port of FreeBSD for the XBox. The port is fully functional. The framebuffer is fully supported, same goes for sound and USB devices (such as an USB keyboard). Only ethernet is missing, currently." The FreeBSD on XBox website is here, downloads included.

The Extensible Firmware Interface, which could speed the boot-up process for PCs, has been handed over to a group that will promote and standardize it.

Beta 1 of Windows Vista, formerly known as Longhorn, will be released coming wednesday. The download will be available to beta testers an hour after the official announcement.

Microsoft is tightening the noose for those people running illegal or pirated copies of its Windows XP/2000 software on their systems. Starting Tuesday, it will be mandatory for users of this Windows software to certify that their software is a genuine and legal copy before they will be able to receive any updates except security patches.

Apple has updated the iBook/Mini product lines, increasing standard RAM to 512MB on all models. Contrary to many rumors, the new iBooks do not sport widescreen. All iBooks and two of the now three Mac Minis contain AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth. My take: Not a word on better harddrives in the Mini Macs, which is something I personally hoped for.

This recent article on Epiphany has garnered many comments, both on FootNotes and OSNews. This followup article addresses some concerns that have been raised about Epiphany.

The first release of BSD divert sockets for Linux 2.6 kernels has been completed and may be downloaded here.

A Microsoft customer was so eager to get a beta of Longhorn that he FedEx'ed two pounds of inscribed chocolate to one of Microsoft's test managers. Yes, he did get the invitation and the chocolate was sent to the Longhorn shiproom for everyone to enjoy.

Dave Solomon of Sysinternals was experimenting about how many services are necessary for at least basic funtionality of Windows. What he discovered, however is that Windows can be perfectly used for almost all basic use, such as web browsing or running aplications, without any services running. In his article he explains how to achieve this. Apparently even Microsoft's own vice president of the Core Operating Systems Division was surprised about this.