Apple Computer released 20 patches for its OS X operating system designed to fix flaws that could catch users off-guard. The vulnerabilities apply to Mac OS X v10.3.9 and Mac OS X Server 10.3.9, according to Apple's advisory. The advisory also falls just days after Apple's much ballyhooed release of the latest version of its operating system, Mac OS X 10.4, widely known as Tiger.

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group - the body that controls the wireless connectivity standard - has formally chosen ultrawideband as the foundation for future versions of the technology. UWB, traditionally seen as a potential competitor to Bluetooth, seems to now be bluetooth's ticket to future relevance. Meanwhile, Bluetooth's current popularity assures that UWB adoption won't spark yet another Beta vs VHS standards war.

Mobile security is a hot issue, but who is listening? The mere word 'security' sends most people running. Investing in preventative IT security has never been a very popular topic. It often needs a competitor or an organisation itself to become a victim of crime before senior executives sit up and listen. read more

According to HaikuNews, new open source nVidia 3D drivers are now ready for BeOS. Included are screenshots of Be's 1999 era Quake II port running unmodified and 3D accelerated.

The suit claims that the "Free Software Foundation has entered into contracts and otherwise conspired and agreed with individual software authors and commercial distributors of commodity software products such as Red Hat Inc. and Novell Inc. to artificially fix the prices charged for computer software programs through the promotion and use of an adhesion contract that was created, used and promoted since at least the year 1991 by the Free Software Foundation" Update: A Groklaw article casts some serious doubt on the validity of the suit and sheds some light on serious inaccuracies in the Linux Business News article linked above.

James Chacon of the NetBSD release engineering team has published the prospective timelines for the upcoming NetBSD releases.

Ada - a modern programming language designed for large, long-lived applications - and embedded systems in particular - is set to get some extensions in its next incarnation Ada 2006. There is a talk here, highlighting the most important changes (eg. cyclic type structures, Java-like interfaces, standardization of the Ravenscar tasking profile, container libraries, etc.). Updated drafts of the standard are available here. For general information about Ada there is a Wikibook Programming:Ada.

The mid-market is hot. It is forecasted to be the main growth segment in the IT market for the next few years. As such, it is fiercely contested by the major software makers. The BBC recently even called it a 60 billion dollar software battle. What exactly constitutes the mid-market is a bit vague, but some define it as businesses ranging from 50 to 1,000 employees.

Underlying Longhorn is the Windows Graphics Foundation, or WGF. The first version, prosaically dubbed "WGF 1.0" will incorporate DirectX 9.0c as its primary interface. Longhorn will also have the next-generation 3D API also built in at release. You can think of it as "Direct3D 10," but it's currently called WGF 2.0.

Novell's SuSE Linux Professional 9.3 is a solid, comprehensive Linux distribution that provides access to the latest technologies the open-source software world has to offer—with a level of polish that's superior to most other general-purpose distributions. SuSE Linux Professional 9.3 fits well as a desktop or notebook distribution, particularly for developers and system administrators new to Linux, says eWeek. Also, this does seem to be the boot ISO for the FTP install.

An interesting review and performance testing of the new GCC 4.

In part one of EnGadget's interview with Bill Gates, published yesterday, they chatted with him about the next Xbox console, whether or not Microsoft is going to come out with a competitor for the PlayStation Portable, and the future of Windows Mobile. In today's second and final installment they asked him about HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray, IPTV, Windows Media Center and DTV, and why the Tablet PC has struggled so much in the marketplace.

When Bill Gates showed off the new Metro document format in Longhorn at a hardware conference last week, some analysts were quick to call it a PDF killer.

This document provides information regarding features that differ in functionality from Windows XP SP2. It is important to note that this document uses the Windows XP SP2 feature set as the baseline for comparison with Windows XP Professional x64 Edition. Features not documented here are at parity with Windows XP SP2 and function the same way.