The Icon Bar has got a live show report from the floor of this weekend's RISC OS show. So far seen there is the A9 Home machine, which runs RISC OS on an ARM9 processor, VirtualRiscPC for MacOS X, allowing MacOS users to run RISC OS on their Macs amongst other things.

In the UK, Plymouth University's Portland Square building is the subject of an interactive experiment. Researchers have developed a software called Arch-OS which not only manages the buildings systems but also encourages those working inside to interact with their surroundings. Check the video too.

Castle logoCastle have provided a beta ROM image of RISC OS 5.09 for Iyonix users, prior to an official post-Wakefield roll out of the new version. The beta release includes "updated USB" support.

NewsForge has a review of OpenBSD 3.7, covering some of the new features and what they do, a general overview of OpenBSD, and some suggestions for OpenBSD developers for some new features in the next release.

OpenBSD 3.7 is the first release to support newer wireless chipsets, especially for 802.11g, thanks to a big activism campaign lead by project leader Theo de Raadt. It's now possible to create a portable access point with a tiny PDA using the Zaurus port, too. As usual, there are a lot of other big and small changes, such as the import of Xorg, the jump towards gcc3, and a feature to update your installed packages automagically. Discover the details behind the scenes in this interview that Federico Biancuzzi had with several OpenBSD developers.

The process to establish the next-generation Wi-Fi standard, which promises to quadruple transmission speeds, has stalled as members of the working group developing the standard failed to pass the main proposal onto the next stage.

Java Swing comes with "pluggable look-and-feel technology", which essentially boils down to the fact that interfaces can be "skinned" (although this is simplifying a tad) and is therefore, extremely flexible. By default, Java ships with a cross-platform look-and-feel (LAF), which means your apps can look consistent across all platforms, or LAFs that mimic the look of a specific platform, say Windows, for example. However, one of the chief complaints of Java desktop applications is its "look". It basically stems from two issues:

Stable OpenBSD 3.7 has been released. On this site there is release announcement. Changes are noticed here. Many people are downloading files, so use nearest mirror if You can from this list .

A new Sun BluePrints article discusses the differences between Containers and Zones, and how to get the most out of them. The pdf file is located here.

Netscape has launched the new and improved Netscape 8 today. The new browser is based on the FireFox 1.0.3 code and includes extra features and enhancements. It includes the best of FireFox with a clean Netscape interface.

TrustedReviews published a review of OSX 10.4 Tiger, with screenshots.

The sixth major release of the LLVM compiler infrastructure was released today by the University of Illinois CS department. LLVM provides a comprehensive set of libraries and tools for building optimizing compilers with bytecode, JIT, and static compilation. For more information on LLVM, please visit the LLVM web site.

"Opera Software recently released version 8.00 of its eponymous Web browser. I decided to see how the new version of the popular commercial browser compares to the open source Mozilla Firefox 1.0. I found both Firefox and Opera are capable browsers, and though they are very different, they each has much to offer any user." Read more at NewsForge.

Java-based open source development has come a long way since the early days of developers sharing GUI libraries. Geronimo is a large-scale project attempting to create a certified J2EE 1.4 server based on existing open source components. Take a tour through the Geronimo maze with Sing Li as your guide. Gluecode Software CTO and principal Geronimo contributor Jeremy Boynes shares his perspective on Geronimo and go here to learn how to use the new Eclipse plug-in for Apache Geronimo.