"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.

"Newly formed hard disk drive company Hitachi Global Storage Technologies on Monday unveiled plans for a tiny drive that will be used in consumer electronic devices and said it will turn a profit in 2004. Hitachi Global Storage said it plans to sell next fall a 1-inch microdrive that has 4 gigabytes, or 4 billion bytes, of storage space. That compares to the current top of the line microdrive with 1 gigabyte of storage that IBM had made." Read the article at ZDNews.

"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.

"Windows CE .NET, the newest member of the .NET family, includes a number of improvements over previous versions of Windows CE. For example, there are quite a few new APIs and enhancements to security and connectivity, the user interface, the kernel, and the emulator. In addition, DirectX support has been added and C++ in Windows CE .NET now supports C++ exceptions, STL, and runtime type information. In this article the author takes a tour of Windows CE .NET, starting with the New Platform Wizard that allows you to code for your choice of devices. A sample application is included that locates features on portable devices so the reader knows what's available before writing code." This article is from July but it should still be relevant to OS-interested readers.

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.

Gentoo Linux 1.4_rc2 has been released. There have been a huge number of improvements since the 1.4_rc1 release. A new release of Gentoo Linux is expected in 2 weeks time (est. 14 Jan 2003,) which will become 1.4_final or 1.4_rc3.

"The OpenBeOS Translation Kit BETA 1 is now available. It contains the Translation Kit library, BMP translator, StyledEdit files translator, TGA translator and the source and project files for all of the above. Also, the BMP and TGA translators should have more capabilities than the BMP and TGA translators that came with BeOS R5." You can download the beta at the OpenBeOS website.

I ran across an "unofficial" list of proposed fixes for Windows XP SP2, so if there's a bug or hole that's been bothering you, see if it's on the list. Ethan, who is apparently maintaining the list, says that he's going to keep it up to date as SP2 comes closer to beta.

Here's some recent news from the BeOS world. The OpenBeOS MIDI Kit team has reached Milestone 1! They now have their own now have their own midi_server and libmidi2.so.Work on the BeOS-native video editor, PostMagic, is moving along well. A new screenshot was posted on the 1st. PostMagic version 1.0 is expected to be released around mid July. LeBuzz reports that Marcus Overhagen is writing a new Audio Card Driver API. The new API will get rid of some of the multi-source, multi-channel limitations inherent in older BeOS APIs.

"Apple Computer next week will announce a plan to charge for upgrades to some of the company’s highly acclaimed "digital hub" software, a move that could anger customers accustomed to receiving free updates." Read on at CNet News.com.

"The good news for Linux as an operating system for the desktop--as opposed to the server--is that it is set to become No. 2 after Windows in the next year or so. The bad news is that its growth does not look to be as explosive as some advocates might have hoped." Read more at ZDNews.

Personal Computer World is reporting that the Indian government is making efforts to allow and even encourage the use of Linux in govenrment projects.

Timothy R. Butler writes: "In this second part of the OfB Distribution Shootout, Eduardo Sánchez considers the distribution who nabbed our first annual Open Choice award last July -- Mandrake Linux. After finding Mandrake Linux 8.2 quite possibly the best GNU/Linux distribution ever released, Sánchez probes deep into its successor to see if it is a worthy replacement." Read the full review.

As others looked into the past, ExtremeTech is looking forward to 2003, asking: What's in store for desktop operating systems? Will Linux and Mac OS X go the way of OS/2, or is Windows doomed?