Steve Jobs just announced in his Macworld Keynote that Apple is releasing its own browser, called Safari. Its claim to fame is extremely fast performance on the Mac. The Mac platform has struggled from sluggish browser performance with IE (the old default browser). Update: According to Jobs, Safari is open source and based on khtml. It only runs on Mac OS X and will be available for download today.

SGI has a new refrigerator-sized Linux server that uses up to 64 Itanium processors. Called the Altix 3000, it's a Linux adaptation of the Origin 3000. Its most interesting capability is the ability to cluster several Altix 3000s together, with the architecture supporting up to 2,048 processors. Read more about it at ZDNet.

"The first thing I noticed about the new Mandrake 9.0 Linux is that the goofy cross-eyed penguin is gone. Mandrake is pointing itself in a more sophisticated direction - it's not drab like Red Hat, but elegant and inviting. It looks expensive." Read the review at NewsForge.

Microsoft Corp. today announced the availability of its Windows Powered Smartphone and Pocket PC software for CDMA and broadband CDMA (1xRTT) networks. The new release delivers the same Pocket PC and Smartphone software available for GSM/GPRS networks.

For the last 20 years or so, Microsoft has been playing the same old game. Sure, they morph and adapt along with the times, and they expand into new markets. But basically they are in the software business and one of the main ingredients in their recipe has been always this: "Keep the data format proprietary and take advantage of it."

"As much as Linux is pitted against Windows in the popular imagination, Linux has enjoyed perhaps more success supplanting Unix in the enterprise. The SCO Group's SCO Linux 4 (brand-new, despite its enumeration) can provide companies with an effective path to such migrations, particularly at sites that are running SCO's UnixWare." Read the review at eWeek.

"Windows XP Embedded with Service Pack 1 is the newest version of the Windows XP Embedded tools and database. New tool features are available, as are new embedded enabling components. Every Service Pack 1 binary is reflected in an updated component, and some new components have been added to make the entire system more flexible." Read the article at MSDN.

GTK+OSX is a native Mac OS X port of the Linux-based GTK+ open source graphical user interface library. GTK+OSX version 0.1 is an alpha release intended for developers.

"XP works best for medium-sized teams where a product can be delivered in stages, and where there's freedom to experiment with some of the more controversial techniques," author Ron Jeffries said.

"Although Microsoft Corp. doesn't anoint Windows .Net Server 2003 Release Candidate 2 as "feature-complete," this edition shows that Microsoft's next operating system revision will be a significant, incremental upgrade compared with the massive overhaul that took place going from Windows NT to Windows 2000." The article is at eWeek.

"We preview nVidia’s latest 3D wunderkind and handicap the inevitable battle with ATI. World exclusive benchmarks! Brought to you by Maximum PC." Read the article at Maximum PC.

"When Computerworld published its first issue in 1967, the private sector was still using vacuum tubes to exchange information. Technology and the world it has shaped have come a long way since then. Here is our list of the 35 products and technologies that have had the greatest impact on enterprise IT since 1967." Read the article.

Have you bought a PC to run Linux and received a copy of a proprietary desktop operating system you do not intend on using? Did the manufacturer collect a fee for the operating system you don't use? Walt Pennington, member of the San Diego Linux Users Group, concerned citizen, and esteemed tort attorney outlines the legal challenge of OEM agreements. Seeking a refund of his own unwanted copy of Microsoft Windows, Pennington relates his day in court and calls on other consumers to demand a refund on January 23, 2003.

The Turrican game series were among the best selling game titles released for the C64 and Amiga 500 little over a decade ago. Now Pekaro Software finished their Turrican recreation using Direct X (version 7 or newer) for Windows. More info about other Turrican games and inspired projects can be found at the Turrican SETA Project homepage.