SkyOS now has a new beta web site, while Robert Szeleney updates SkyOS with many fixes for the TCP/IP stack, the VESA driver and the FAT mounting procedure and with some changes in the API. The new SkyOS version is expected soon. In other hobby-OS news, a new test version of MenuetOS 0.68 is out, while a new screenshot is showing the new window manager, borrowed by Gnome's CRUX theme.

Apple Computer has kept itself busy of late creating new recipes for marketing and sales. The company recently cooked up a public preview of QuickTime 6. To get a taste of Apple's future, CNET News.com sits down with Steve Jobs and bites into the issues. The interview is about the MPEG-4 issues, the iMac, while you will also find an article about eMac, now being sold to everyone, and not just to educational institutes and students.

After many months of waiting, QNX RtP (now called QNX Momentics) 6.2 is released. The new version has many fixes, new features and more device driver support. It requires a PIII-650 or better (however, I have successfully ran its beta on a 233 Mhz PC with 64 MB RAM a few months ago), 128MB RAM and 1 GB disk space. QNX Momentics' primary target are embedded developers instead of end users. Please note that QNX 6.2 does not support anymore the FAT32-installed QNX boot image, but instead, it requires its own partition. The ISO available for download is 195 MB. You can read our world exclusive preview of QNX 6.2 we published last January, here.

Openwave Systems Inc., the worldwide leader of open IP-based communication infrastructure software and applications, announced that it has contributed its Open Usability Interface server-side programming library and source code to the open source developer community under a Mozilla License. Openwave is contributing Open Usability Interface as a code base for developers for developing mobile applications that can be accessed through multiple networks and mobile devices. Open Usability Interface is a server-side programming library that that abstracts the presentation of content from the underlying platform implementation details. In practice, developers code to the capabilities that each platform offers. The library presents the best possible user experience by adapting the application user-interface for the particular device and gateway requesting the service.

KernelTrap has spoken with Peter Chubb who currently works for the Gelato Project. His efforts are currently focused on supporting large disks and partitions, utilizing 64-bits. Regarding the project's focus of improving Linux support for the Itanium 64-bit processor, Peter says, "Back in the days when the VAX was king, there was a general assumption amongst some programmers that `all the world's a vax'. In the Linux world, there's a similar assumption: `all the world's a pentium'." Peter lives in New South Wales, Australia, with his wife, Lucy, also a kernel hacker, and two daughters. He earned a PhD under the late John Lions, author of the Lions Book. His UNIX kernel hacking experience is with an impressively large number of kernels. KernelTrap has the full interview.

"Microsoft plans to release on Monday the first significant update to the Mac OS X version of Office and will also introduce a version of its instant messaging program designed for the latest Mac operating system." Read the report at ZDNews. On other Mac news, both DigiTimes and TheRegister are reporting that new iMacs, with larger LCD monitors will debut on the 3rd quarter this year.