The specs for the G5 machines that were accidentally posted at the Apple store a few days ago were correct. Steve Jobs just announced G5 Powermacs at the WWDC conference. He's calling it the "world's fastest personal computer." They just finished doing a demo in which a Dual 2 GHz G5 vastly outperforms a High-end Dual Xeon. Read more for preliminary specs. Prices will be $2000-3000. Oh, and the Panther OSX update was announced, but we already knew about that.

Linux and other open source software has been widely used by government technologists for years in an unsanctioned way, but a recent Department of Defense memo officially puts open source software on the "approved" list. Government research contractor MITRE recently published a study that found that OSS was in wide use in the government, and warned that if it were to be forbidden, the costs and security fallout would be considerable. See this Forbes.com story for more.

Today was a big day for Microsoft's mobile devices software strategy. The company: (1) rolled out Pocket PC 2003 (and renamed it); (2) unveiled a new "Windows Mobile" branding strategy; and (3) launched a collaboration with three leading high-speed wireless service providers to provide easier access to more than 3,500 Wi-Fi wireless "hot spots" by Windows-powered PDAs throughout the US. All this (and more) is covered in this "special report" at WindowsForDevices.com (including a detailed list of enhancements in Pocket PC 2003).

If you have a mixed network like I do sometimes you have to compromise. At my job we run Windows, Linux and a sole Mac (Graphics dept.) and lets face it, when you do consulting work and if you design and develop custom applications you have to be able to develop for your clients platform and as much as I hate it, it's a Windows world. Before I used to have 2 workstations, one Windows and one Linux, or I had to dual boot. In the past, virtual machines have been lacking. Either they were too slow or lacking a certain pizazz to get the job done. Enter VMWare Workstation 4.

LindowsOS 4.0 is expected to be released this week and so the Lindows.com web site is down for upgrade at press time. In the meantime, the Lindows.com folks released a funky Lindows theme song called "Lindows Rock". To view the video clip, you will need Flash.

Three tech allies demonstrated a new storage technology that they believe will keep a venerable hard drive standard safe from extinction.

Here is a new Pegasos review, also reviewing the MorphOS in addition to the hardware.

The new OpenBeOS newsletter is discussing the new VM and file caching implementation for OBOS.

Symbian PLC will outpace Microsoft Corp. in the market for cellular phone operating systems, reaching double the market share in 2007, a research firm said Friday. Symbian, a software consortium formed by handset makers, will have 5 percent of the market in five years, with Microsoft coming in second with 2.5 percent and Linux third with 2 percent, the Probe Group, Cedar Knolls, N.J., said. Get more mobile computing news on our sister site, NMC.

With the Standard Widget Toolkit (SWT), you can develop a stand-alone Java application that feels and operates like a native application. If you've spent any time developing Java client-side applications for Windows, you've probably wanted to integrate some native Windows components into your applications. This article shows you how to use Eclipse to easily leverage and integrate ActiveX controls within a stand-alone SWT application.

"Steve Jobs should take his own advice and sacrifice some profit margin in exchange for some market share. When Apple releases 970-based Macs, they may well be better than their PC counterparts, but Apple's current price structure will drive the masses off to the competition." Read the editorial at MacObserver. C|Net News.com says that Apple is preparing to introduce a new line of machines that are built around IBM's speedy new PowerPC 970 chip, analysts say, a move that won't erase the "gigahertz gap", but should at least narrow the chasm. Elsewhere, Shake 3 is out.

Microsoft has made the Office System Beta 2 Technical Refresh available to its 15,000 technical beta testers. The final product is still on track to be completed this summer and will be available to customers later this year.

This essay describes a visit to SCO, to discuss SCO's claim that Linux infringes on its intellectual property rights. Elsewhere, Eric Raymond says he has evidence that could undermine some of SCO's legal arguments. Raymond claims to have collected the names of 60 Unix users who are willing to sign affidavits that disprove SCO's contention that its Unix System V source code, which forms the basis of IBM's AIX Unix, contains trade secrets.

... strategy, saying, "IBM has been using Linus like a tool and exploiting the open-source community." Those fightin' words come from Jonathan Schwartz, executive vice president for Sun's software group. Read it at ComputerWorld.