Halcyon Software announced the beta release of its iNET technology, the first commercially available Java-based implementation of the Microsoft .NET framework. The iNET technology offers Microsoft VisualStudio.NET developers an immediate solution to deploy their Client/Server applications and Web Services to any platform. "Develop in .NET, deploy anywhere," Don Hsi, Halcyon's President & CEO explained, "is what iNET delivers to the Microsoft .NET developers." He went on to say, "Our customers need a seamless solution to accommodate their commitment to both J2EE and Microsoft .NET architecture."

Mozilla.org released the latest Mozilla 0.9.8 Milestone. New to this release are improved Address Book functionality, page setup(for printing), MNG/JNG support, native-style widgets on Windows XP and MacOSX, dynamic theme switching, improved BiDi support, speed, stability and footprint improvements and more. This release also brings the first BeZilla version that it is actually... usable under BeOS. Two ex-Be engineers have contributed large chunks of code to the BeZilla team during the past month and massively optimized the BeOS version.

From the press release: "In a move to dramatically broaden the market for handhelds and smart phones, PalmSource, Inc., the Palm OS subsidiary of Palm, Inc., today previewed the Palm OS 5 beta and announced that final delivery of the new operating system to Palm OS licensees is scheduled for early summer. Palm OS 5 will be the foundation to build a new class of devices that will help make mobile computing ubiquitous. Palm OS 5 will bring the flexibility, innovation and ease of use of the Palm OS to powerful ARM-compliant processors. Licensees can choose from a full range of processors, starting with the ARM 7 CPU and scaling to the highest-performance ARM chips from Intel, Motorola and Texas Instruments. In addition, the operating system will deliver enhanced performance, data security, multimedia and wireless networking, as well as compatibility with existing Palm OS software programs ." ZDNews also has an article about it: "The new OS will feature only a modest influence from Palm's acquisition of the assets of Be. Palm executives said future versions of the OS will use more Be technology, although Palm is not continuing development of the Be operating system."

DesktopLinux.com founder and executive editor Rick Lehrbaum interviews Abhi Datt, Chief Software Architect and founder of Project ELX, a new project to create a uniquely easy-to-use Linux distribution. Abhi Datt describes his vision for Project ELX, lists the main features of the ELX Linux distribition, provides an update on the status of ELX, and shares his thoughts on how Linux can succeed on the desktop and elsewhere.

Ramesh writes: "I came upon this kernel Benchmark article at Byte, via Slashdot. Very good data on different kernels. The author has done testing on different kernels with input from Alan Cox and Andrea Arcangeli."

"Red Hat chairman Bob Young says Windows will continue to rule the desktop, but open source will win the day on the Internet. Red Hat said at last month's earnings announcement that it would be emphasizing its focus on two key areas: replacing legacy Unix systems, and expanding its presence in the embedded market. That strategy is paying off so far: despite the continued world economic slump, Red Hat showed a slight profit for the third quarter of its 2001 financial year. In a conversation with ZDNet UK, Red Hat Chairman Bob Young explains why converting UNIX customers is easy; why open source will win the day on the Internet; and why Linux will never replace Windows on the desktop." Read the interview at ZDNews.

Today, most Amiga users and developers own PCs next to their Amiga platform(s). The PC platform is currently the only "cheap" solution available to give access to modern day hardware. This is why many Amiga fans use it as a development platform or use PCs for applications which aren't available for the currently dated Amiga hardware platform . Of course, this is soon to change with advent of new PPC based AmigaOS 4.x compatible computers on the horizon, as well as a huge variety of AmigaDE enabled devices. But there is also another way: run AmigaOS on your PC. This article will review a new product, AmigaOS XL, which allows you to run the AmigaOS under any modern PC. Screen shots included.

Microsoft on Friday released USB 2.0 drivers for its Windows XP operating system. The drivers are designed to enable third-party USB 2.0 add-in cards to work with XP, which originally shipped without support for the connectivity standards. The drivers can be downloaded using the "Windows Update" feature. USB 2.0 transfers data at 480mbps, which is much speedier than USB 1.1's rate of 12mbps for exchanging information between PCs and peripherals such as external hard drives and CD-rewritable drives. USB 2.0 is also backwards compatible with USB 1.1.

Klint Finley writes: "I have a question for the OS news community: There's been a lot of talk about "BeOS refugees" and analysis of various alternatives but one that I haven't read much discussion of is Nemesis. There was some brief commentary when OSNews ran a story on it, but that's about it. Nemesis already has Java and GTK support , which means it should be capable of running a lot of programs. Seems like the GIMP and Kino should run on it. And it has an Amiga/BeOS-ish UI and a slim microkernal. So why isn't anyone developing this? It needs more hardware support and stuff, but it's already much further along than BlueOS and OpenBeOS."

This is an old article (Nov. 2000), but it is still a good read. Jordan Hubbard, the well known FreeBSD leader who later got a job at Apple's kernel team, had written this interesting MacOSX review for Salon.com. His article was from a different point of view than other review articles at the time: the open source hacker who tries to find and uncover the UNIX underneath OSX.

There is an interesting editorial in the Inquirer that paints a picture of what an Apple/AMD platform might mean for the ailing PC industry and what a MacOSX/Hammer combination could do to chip-away at the Microsoft/Intel "Wintel" hegemony. The article is pure speculation, the conclusions highly unlikely, but interesting nonetheless.

The major skin sites and several tech news sites (including OSNews) have gotten together with Stardock to create the first GUI Olympics. It is the ultimate user interface design contest in which users from around the world can submit their WindowBlinds skins and represent the website of their choice. Stardock is putting up $10,000 in cash and prizes that will be distributed to 75 different award categories (which means that just submitting a skin gives you a reasonable chance of winning something). Half of the cash award goes to the website a user represents. In this way, users can support the websites they enjoy using as well as win for themselves and have a lot of fun.

"Linux users' and developers' lives have just gotten a little easier. The Free Standards Group released two tools on Thursday intended to ensure that all Linux applications can run on any Linux Standard Base-compliant version of the open source operating system: LSB 1.1 and Li18nux 1.0. Some commercial application developers, including Microsoft, have slammed open source development, saying that it lacks the necessary controls to define the common programming standards that need to be used across different projects to ensure compatibility." Read the rest of the story at Wired.

"X Windows and GTK+ are not the bloated monsters you think they are. Here's how we modified GTK+/X for our device's GUI." Read the rest of the feature article at LinuxDevices.