If you thought that Service Pack 2 for Windows XP was the last of the big updates, think again. Speaking yesterday at the Gartner Symposium in Orlando, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said that a number of important security initiatives were underway for Windows, some of which would be part of a pre-Longhorn "Release 2" for Windows XP.

Behind the scenes, painstaking effort and computing power has gone into cleaning up George Lucas's original Star Wars trilogy for its recent DVD release. 600 Mac G5s. And btw, the Star Wars III teaser will be released in less than 15 days.

Although Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition brought some important improvements to the Pocket PC platform, Microsoft has not yet made the myriad of other changes to the operating system people have been hoping for.However, it is beginning to seem that the next version of this operating system, code-named Magneto, will bring some significant improvements.

Here a quick look at Ubuntu Linux 4.10 on PowerPC: hardware detection and some other details.

The upcoming SUSE LINUX 9.2 has yet to hit the retail stores, but the product's two live CDs (with either KDE or GNOME) and a live DVD are now available for free download. Update: KDE shots and Gnome shots from the SuSE Live CDs.

Speaking at the Gartner Symposium and ITxpo 2004 in Orlando, Florida, yesterday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer outlined new security initiatives, some of which would make it into a pre-Longhorn 'Release 2' for Windows, next year.

Last Wednesday, IBM's AIX was the first to recieve the UNIX 2003 certification from The Open Group, beating out Sun, HP, SCO and the rest.

The experts at the Applied XML DevCon last week didn't just show off shiny new features (though they did get a preview of the XML capabilities built into Whidbey). They honestly discussed the flaws in XML technologies and what has to be done to address them.

Window Maker, a window manager for X11 which mimics NEXTSTEP as close as possible, was released today. The most important news are antialiased fonts, UTF-8 support, font configuration in WPrefs, xinerama support, NetWM support (allows running well with GNOME 2.x, KDE 3.x) etc.

Some FreeBSD and Linux coverage in Aug and Oct issues of Network Computing Asia: FreeBSD still Packs a Wallop, Inside Linux, Where Does Linux Work?.

Gtk+ WebCore -project releases pre-alpha version of Linux/Gtk port of WebCore/KHTML rendering engine and a reference browser implementation. Released components include KJS javascript interpreter, KHTML rendering engine, Qt porting layer, WebKit API for embedding and a reference browser for demonstrating the functionality of the other components. As the first GNOME Browser Atlantis was updated to use GTK-WebCore as standard rendering engine.

The new tools and enhancements make it easier for development organizations to build, extend, integrate, modernize, and deploy software and software-based systems. The new set of products include a UML-based visual modeling tool, a design and construction tool, and a comprehensive IDE that enables developers to quickly design, develop, analyze, test, profile, and deploy Web, Web services, Java, J2EE, and portal applications.

Intel is backing the 128-bit AES encryption protocol for securing Wireless USB connections, which it hopes will replace cables for connections over very short distances . . . Intel wants Wireless USB networks to interface with the Ultra Wideband (UWB) standard to make networks that cover whole households.

A new type of material, called graphene, is a gigantic wafer-shaped single molocule the thickness of an atom. Graphene is a member of the fullerene molecule family, like buckyballs and nanotubes. It could make a great semiconductor material, allowing for ultra-fast, stable transistors. More at BBCNews.