"Apple dropped a bombshell on music makers today by acquiring Emagic which, with Steinberg, dominates the market for sequencing software. Apple said it will axe the Windows version of Emagic's Logic sequencer come September." Read the report at TheRegister.

This is just a reminder about some OSNews-related stuff. First off, by reading the survey results, we saw that a lot of people were complaining about the popup ads, while these have completely stopped as of 2 weeks ago. Also, other people complained that OSNews does not look good on Lynx. OSNews looks pretty good on Lynx and w3m and Links and even AvantGo, while we even have WAP support (check screenshot on the above link). But you will need to read here first how to have these services working for you. Also, we are always looking for people to write articles for OSNews. These days we generally serve more than 40,000 page views per day, so this could be a good way to have your voice heard on OS and other technology-related matters.

This article summarizes Microsoft's decades-long effort to evolve Windows from a single, one-size-fits-all desktop operating system for everyone into a robust family of server and desktop operating systems.

Microsoft DirectX 8.1b is the latest version of the DirectX technology, an important and significant part of the Windows operating systems. This version of DirectX can replace the all previous released versions of DirectX. It includes several critical fixes for Direct3D and DirectShow components. In related news, industry sources have confirmed that Microsoft's DirectX 9 is likely to arrive in October, quite a while later than ATI's R300 Nvidia-buster.

Security Update July 2002 includes the updated components, Apache v1.3.26, mod_ssl v2.8.9 and OpenSSH v3.4p1, which provide increased security to prevent unauthorized access to applications, servers, and the MacOSX operating system. Download it via Software Update on your Mac.

From TheRegister: "Ross Anderson of Cambridge Uni has published a lengthy and informative paper, FAQ on Palladium, the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance, their relationship and their implications."

AMD touts Athlon and Opteron, pointing out that Hammer-based servers don't require different chipsets for systems with one, two, four or eight processors--unlike Intel-based machines. Via will release its first Hammer chipsets in late 2002, the same time the chip will begin to ship to manufacturers. MandrakeSoft will adapt its distribution of Linux to Advanced Micro Devices' next-generation chip platform, the companies said on Thursday.

Today, SuSE Linux announced the release of an updated version of the SuSE Linux Groupware Server as well as the immediate release of the SuSE Linux Pro-Office CD. The release date for SuSE Linux eMail Server 3.1 was also previewed to be in early July.

Six Degrees is a remarkable new piece of software for Mac OS X and Windows. This article describes my experiences with the application and discusses some of its implications for the future of all software.

"Opera Soft. CEO Jon von Tetzchner can claim an achievement held by few of his fellow tech entrepreneurs: He's competed head-on against Microsoft and lived to tell the tale." Interview is at CNet.

We've prepared a short survey to collect some basic demographic information about OS News readers and collect your opinions about what we can do to make OS News better. Please take a few minutes to fill it out. Link to Survey. If you'd like to share your thoughts about OS News, its present and future, with everyone, please comment on this posting below.

Gnome 2.0 is finally here! Read the press release, download Gnome 2.0 for various architectures, mirrors here, while the Sun Solaris 8 version can be found here. Update: Compilation instructions here. You might want to use the CVSGnome script which downloads and compiles everything for you, but make sure you will give it a subdir on your ~/ or on /opt/gnome2 as PREFIXDIR, and not anywhere outside your $HOME or /opt. Type "world stable" when you are asked to, and it will do everything for you. You will need to modify the script's compiler CPU defaults from "athlon" to whatever you got. Or, you could use Garnome.

"Since the dawn of the PC era, various companies have undertaken various initiatives to move computing away from keyboard and mouse-based input and towards the more natural interfaces of pen and voice. And while voice computing has seen some limited success, pen computing is set to explode with the introduction of Microsoft's Tablet PC platform, driven by a new Windows XP version logically named Windows XP Tablet PC Edition." The review and screenshots can be found on WindowsSuperSite. In related news, Microsoft today announced that "Mira," the code name for new software technologies that will power a wide range of smart displays, will officially be named Microsoft Windows CE for Smart Displays.

"Microsoft is pitching a new development tool at non-professional developers who want to make use of the features of .NET. The new tool, known as the Web Matrix project, offers all of the basic single-user features that would be expected and doesn't have some of the management features that are to be found in Visual Studio .NET. The idea is to provide a simple and easy to use development tool that will promote the use of .NET at all levels and also engender the idea of a development community where individuals help each other to come up with solutions. Web Matrix is available free of charge as a relatively small 1.2 MB download." Read the story at TheRegister.