S3 is back on the scene with its first new GPU architecture in five years. Rather than take aim at the high-end, S3 has set its sights on the midrange price/performance category, which is currently dominated by ATI's Radeon 9600 XT and nVidia's GeForce FX 5700, both of which are under $200. Today S3 unveils the DeltaChrome S8 GPU, which represents the midrange of its upcoming line of DeltaChrome GPUs.

Sun Microsystems' top software executive criticized Microsoft's decision to drop older software products that rely on Java software and offered a steep discount on Sun's own desktop software. Elsewhere, RealNetworks files a $1 billion lawsuit against Microsoft, accusing the software giant of illegally using its Windows monopoly to limit consumer choice in digital media.

MacMinute reports that Apple has released Xcode 1.1, an update to its set of powerful developer tools for Mac OS X. Version 1.1 provides overall stability and performance enhancements to Xcode IDE, as well as improvements to debugging, workflow, the Xcode build system and CodeSense. Apple recommends that all Xcode users install this update. Xcode 1.1 is available via the Software Update preference pane. Apple also released today iTunes 4.2 and QuickTime 6.5.

The author of this article, Tom Adelstein, articulates in unique detail the importance of Sun's JDS more effectively than Sun itself has done. And he explains within the context of .Net and its limitations how the scope of JDS extends beyond the GNU/Linux community's parochial horizons.

With the new Qt-ATK bridge, Qt/KDE applications will integrate seamlessly with existing assistive technologies on platforms that support Sun's accessibility framework. First snapshots can be expected in early 2004. Elsewhere, here's another KDE 3.2 beta2 mini-review.

Jonathan Shapiro has changed his mind about halting EROS development. In an email this morning, he wrote:"The EROS project is back. I'm sure this will seem very funny to some of you, but sometimes you have to firmly put something down in order to step back and think clearly about it." Since his first email, the list has hosted a flurry of productive discussions about the strengths and weaknesses of EROS.

Sources close to Microsoft confirm that the long awaited Beta for Service Pack 2 of Windows XP is due today. The reported build is 5.1.2600.2055 (XP SP_2 Beta 1.031215-1745). Update: There is also an alpha release of SP1 Beta 1 for Windows Server 2003 released today.

Pycs has posted a mini article on KDE 3.2-b2 while the KOffice project released 1.3-RC2. Changelog.

Novell Nterprise Linux Services 1.0 provides integrated file, print, messaging, directory and management services on Linux, wrapped in support, training and consulting services.

A couple of weeks ago TerraSoft released preliminary 64-bit ISO's of their flagship product, Yellow Dog Linux 3.0.1 (YDL), especially for owners of Apple's new G5 machines. I was pining for a chance to get an open source OS running in 64-bit mode so I quickly downloaded the three ISO's.

Fujitsu Limited and Red Hat today announced that, as a part of their global partnership in providing Linux-based solutions, engineers from the two companies have started to work together located on-site at a Red Hat office in Boston, Massachusetts, USA (where Red Hat's desktop unit has now moved too, closer to Novell's desktop unit, aka Ximian). The new organization will develop Linux features focusing on enterprise customer needs and will assert Fujitsu's support operations in Japan and worldwide.

Top programmers hope to release on Wednesday a major update to Linux, version 2.6.0, a change that's expected to help carry the open-source operating system into new markets. Linux 2.6 might get released tonight, C|Net says. UPDATE: The kernel 2.6.0 is out. Get it while it's hot. Changelog here.

Distrowatch reports that White Box Enterprise Linux 3.0 (WBEL) was born from the ashes of Red Hat Linux, to fill the gap between Fedora Core and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. It is meant to remain close enough to the original RHEL to share its errata, SRPMS, binary modules, and 3rd party packages.

I first tried Xandros when they released version 1.1. Being quite skeptical, I was unsure what to expect from this spawn of Corel Linux. I must admit in general, I was impressed. So needless to say, I was curious as to whether they managed to improve upon this distinct distribution and cater to the many requests they received about various improvements. Update: Another screenshot, Mozilla on Xandros.