Arno Klenke has completed his work on the PCI and USB bus managers for Syllable. Not only does this simplify the internel managment of devices in Syllable, it also means USB UHCI support. The current implementation is a port of the Linux UHCI driver which has been re-written by Arno as a Syllable bus manager, and a native USB mouse driver. On other hobby OS news, SkyOS has some updates on SkyOS 5 while ReactOS can now run some simple Windows applications. IsComputerOn has an update on the OpenBeOS' bootloader too.

At the morphos.net site there is an overview about the new features introduced in MorphOS 1.4.

Within the next 90 days, Red Hat will release Enterprise Linux 3, "an open-source architecture for the enterprise," and an enhanced Red Hat Network with new management features aimed at the Enterprise market's needs.

Also, let me really clear about our Linux strategy. We don't have one. We don't at all. We do not believe that Linux plays a role on the server. Period. If you want to buy it, we will sell it to you, but we believe that Solaris is a better alternative, that is safer, more robust, higher quality and dramatically less expensive in purchase price. Read more on eweek's interview with Sun's Schwartz here.

PC Magazine has reviewed Apple's new dual 2 GHz G5 PowerMac. They say that the performance of Apple's new top of the line workstation is "generally as fast as the best Intel-based workstations currently available". Read the review over at PC Magazine.

Lycoris Desktop/LX Update 3 hits shelves this week, after a wait of a whole year. This much anticipated Update the award winning Desktop/LX OS features a new Help Center with interactive audio-visual tutorials, hundreds of updated drivers, crisper font handling, increased printer support for HP printers, extended digital camera support from Vivitar and Olympus, auto-configuration of WiFi connections, and exclusive Signature Wallpapers from Organic Light Photography. Currently Update3 is available via retail purchase, free download version will be made available on November 1st.

"Open source is ready for the real world. Sun Microsystems' just-released Java Desktop System for x86 is a polished Linux desktop that rivals Windows XP and even Mac OS X for fit, finish and ease of use. Whether corporations, governments and educational institutions adopt it will likely have more to do with migration issues and financial concerns than the viability of this Gnome-based user environment." Read the review at NewsForge.

The Microsoft .NET Compact Framework 1.0 SP2 Developer Redistributable includes the latest .NET Compact Framework 1.0 SP2 CAB files for all supported processor types. On othe Microsoft releases, here is the Developer Power Toys for the Windows Mobile platform and the Windows CE Utilities for Visual Studio .NET 2003 add-on pack which enables Visual Studio to connect to devices running Windows CE 4.1 and later.

There is now a plugin interface in libferris so that the filesystem can use AI to make suggestions as to what emblems a file should have. Currently I have Bayesian (bogofilter) and Support Vector Machine (svm_light) agents. The interface supports anything that can train on selected files and the attachment of emblems and then proffer a fuzzy assertion or retraction given an example file. The agent's beliefs are all collected and resolved to give an overall fuzzy assertion/retraction belief based on how trusted you think the agents are (the trust resolution should allow many resolution paths in the next release).

Within three years, most bank machines that dispense cash will run on the Windows operating system, according to a study published last week.

Isn't it annoying when you buy a new 160 GB hard drive and when you get it all formatted and ready it'll only hold 152 GB? Well, a couple of guys are not going to take it lying down, and they've sued the major HD vendors (PC Makers) to prevent them from overstating their products' capacities. This issue is similar to that of the "viewable area" of CRT monitors, where manufacturers were eventually forced to admit that a 17" monitor actually has a 15.2" viewable area.

New York Times writer David Pogue recently wrote an article about the recent rash of computer viruses in which he stated the old maxim that most viruses target windows because it's the dominant platform. Welcome to the OS Wars, Pogue. In a follow-up column, he notes that he received quite an education on the subject from readers who emailed him in, and notes that he's learned that Unix-based/Unix-like OSes like OSX and Linux are inherently more virus-proof for several reasons.

While DR-16.6-pre7 is out, the much anticipated for years now X desktop environment Enlightenment, sees yet another scrapping of code and rewrite. The team scrapped Ebits and all the applications that depend on it and started development of Edje, its replacement. You can read the rest of the saga here.

Novell is delaying shipment of its much anticipated Linux services for NetWare product until the end of this year, due to a decision to integrate software code from Ximian, a recently acquired ISV that is very active in the Linux space.