From our sister site, NewMobileComputing: PPCW.net has a review of the new version of Windows Mobile 2003 operating system running on PocketPCs.

Internet-based product activation of Windows XP involves transmitting an amount of data to the Microsoft activation servers. Is this a threat to the users' privacy?

Another test release of Linux's next incarnation, 2.6 has been released today. The full release is available here as well as a patch for those who prefer it. Check out kernel.org for details.

This article is aimed at Unix developers who already have some experience with programming languages and want to start developing GUI applications. It may also come in handy if you have used a particular GUI toolkit for some time and want to know whether others might suit your needs better.

Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates said the intellectual property battle between SCO and IBM is hurting the business of Linux. Gates said the SCO controversy has exposed a fundamental weakness of Linux--that the General Public License (GPL) makes it difficult for companies to engage in the cross-licensing deals that have become standard in the software industry. That's a big Achilles heel, Gates said.

Misinterpreted. I think that is about the best word around to describe the reactions to my previous article. Whether it has been misinterpreted due to people only reading what they want to read, due to an unclear choice of words on my behalf, or other factors, I am going to try it again. I will try to explain my position, again. Now, more stable, the code has been rewritten from scratch!

At OSNews we are interested to see how many people are using our special version of OSNews (no nested tables, no ads but still *full-featured* version, screenshots here and here) that is able to browse on "lesser" browsers. In the following polls, please vote and let us know if you are generally using an HTML-capable web browser with your PDA or your mobile phone.

Apple provided testers and developers with a new pre-release version of Mac OS X 10.3, code-named Panther. The update was marked build 7B21, the first "B" series Panther build to be seeded. A new version of Xcode Suite was also seeded, with "issues addressed in almost every component," according to the read me. Read more about it at ThinkSecret.

From Slashdot: "Hans Reiser has benchmarked Reiser4 against ext3 and Reiserfs 3. Reiser4 turns out to be way faster than V3, and for ext3, why don't you check out the results yourself ? Han's Reiser states, "these benchmarks mean to me that our performance is now good enough to ship V4 to users", and he will be probably sending in a patch within the next couple of weeks to be included in the 2.6/2.5 kernel." Benchmarks against XFS would be most interesting too.

SCO shares fell nearly 10% Friday, after an IBM memo rejecting SCO's Linux claims turned up. Meanwhile, Andy Butler of Gartner said "Users should not start waving their cheque books" in apparent contradiction of earlier comments by his colleague George Weiss. GROKLAW lists several other analysts taking anti-SCO positions on Linux licensing. Form-4 filings with the SEC reveal SCO Executives have been cashing out stock. They made $398,833.90 in June, and $781,964.70 in July.

To me, it's a miracle how every tiny article on OSNews.com, or any other tech-site, ends up in people shouting all sorts of nonsense at each other like "Linux is gonna bring back Elvis", "Windows shot president Kennedy", "Linux kept the cold war cold" or "Bill Gates wants to buy the moon and charge people for looking at it". Do these people really know what they are saying, or are they just going with the Open-Source flow? Update: Rebuttal article here.

According to a NYTimes article, Bill Gates says that 5% of all Windows installations crash more than twice a day. Elsewhere, at Silicon.com Microsoft CEO talks on the Longhorn 'big bang', $49bn cash mountain and more.

Scientists are wrestling with individual atoms to develop molecule-sized computers, tiny cancer-fighting robots that travel the bloodstream and stain-resistant trousers.

From the Mac news site MacMinute: It appears as though Apple has removed all of the "Switch" commercials from its web site. When trying to view the ads, which used to be available here, you are redirected to Apple's "Switching to Mac: Real Stories" page. In April, Apple removed the "Switch" tab graphic from the top of its web site navigation to make room for the "Music" tab, although all of the content remained at apple.com/switch. Several media outlets have recently claimed that the campaign was a failure, citing stagnant Apple market share numbers. Also, read our interview with a switcher here.