Here are a few screenshots of applications on YellowTAB's Zeta: "BeTunes is coming along well, the TimeLiner management app looks promising, the Tracker configuration is easy and very useful. MeTOS, the developing tool is fully functional and will speed up your coding adventures. AbiWord is a tight word processor and for simple editing use Zedit, the enhanced text editor. As you will see, the Network configuration has dramatically improved over R5. If you develop an app that requires network settings you can add a tab to the configuration panel."

Lycoris unveiled its new OS for the tablet PC, Desktop/LX Tablet Edition, into the hands of tablet manufacturers and resellers this week. Seen as a giant step into a new market for the Linux software company. Tablet Edition gives OEMs and vertical markets access to an inexpensive operating system capable of running on the Tablet PC platform. Read the rest of the press release here.

Sun Microsystems Inc. is hoping to lure users of Hewlett-Packard Co.'s Alpha server technology with an incentive program that includes no-risk assessments of migrating to the SPARC/Solaris platform.

A few days ago we published an editorial suggesting that Apple should be selling the eMac for 500 bucks or a bare-bones G3-based machine for $200-300 USD, in order to compete with the "cheap PCs" trend today. I was wrong. Creating such price differentation between the G5 and the G3 or eMac would cannibalize the sales of the high-end machines (where more margin for profit exists) and even worse, it would destroy the Apple brand name. But hey, you know me, I am as stubborn as it goes. I discussed the situation with some more people around me and we came up with an alternative plan, which in my opinion, makes more sense business-wise and it has some good potential.

Although nearly all of the public focus is geared around advocacy of Linux and Windows, there is a third Intel based operating system, which generates a tiny fraction of the publicity surrounding these operating systems, and has a much smaller user and developer community. FreeBSD secured a strong foothold with the hosting and internet services communities at the genesis of the web and has anything but gone away. Indeed it is the only other operating system that is gaining, rather than losing share of the active sites found by the Web Server Survey, Netcraft says.

Embedded developers using QNX Momentics Professional Edition, the integrated development suite for the QNX Neutrino RTOS, can now target a broader range of hardware platforms and leverage an array of new features, including an advanced power management framework, a fault-tolerant flash file system, and Big Endian support for ARM-based processors, including network and control-plane processors from Intel. The features are all part of a new supplemental release for QNX Momentics v6.2.1.

IBM has put more muscle behind its effort to improve Linux for its Power family of processors, adding dozens of programmers to Big Blue's Linux Technology Center with plans to hire more.

After reading yet another "why Linux is not ready for the desktop" article/discussion, I decided that, as someone who uses Linux exclusively at home, its about time I wrote my response to the attitudes expressed. I have been using Linux since January 1999 (Red Hat 5.2 off of a cover disc).

The latest cell phones can show you the nearest bathrooms in San Francisco or which subway to take in London. They can also help with your diet by tracking calorie intake. Behind such programs and more is the very technology at the center of an intense battle between Microsoft Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc. over control of desktop computers. Though Sun has mostly lost that fight, the beleaguered Silicon Valley icon is trying to give new life to its Java programming language with an aggressive push into mobile devices. Once again, it finds a foe in Microsoft. But this time Sun has the lead.

Today we host an interview with Chris McKillop, software engineer of QNX Software Systems. Chris is probably the most well known QNX engineer as he is always helping out the QNX community in forums, IRC etc. In this interview we talk about the embedded space, the competition but also about the QNX Momentics 6.2.x release (preview with screenshots), a free OS to download and try out on your PC (~260 MB ISO image, ~1 GB primary partition required for installation).

Linus Torvalds released on late Sunday the first test (-pre) kernel of the upcoming Linux Kernel 2.6. Download or get more information here and make sure you report any bugs you might find on the way.

The Embedded Linux Consortium (ELC) entered a new phase of its standardization activity today, as it launched three key new initiatives aimed at developing specifications covering user interfaces, real-time performance, and power management for embedded Linux based systems and devices.

Cosmoe 0.7rc20 is now available. During all the furious patching, "Pulse" started working and now has apparently broken again. Most other patches submitted via the mailing list have now been applied.

Jasper writes: "I thought you might be interested to know we have just released the first release candidate for XFce 4.0. This is meant to become 4.0 unless important bugs are found." You can view the announcement, release notes and you can download it directly. Also, check out the screenshots.