Ubuntu running on the Kindle 2? Done. "What you see there is a Kindle 2 with the Ubuntu 9.04 port to ARM running in a chrooted environment. On the screen you see xdaliclock in front of an xterm with the remains of a top command and a few mildly embarrassing typos."

I had no plans to write a mini-review for the Canon SX200 IS which I bought recently, but I can't contain my excitement about its video mode, so I had to share. The story behind it is that after testing various digicams in its class, I concluded that this is the best HD video P&S digicam in the sub-$500 price range (not counting digi-recorders like the Sanyo Xacti). Read on for more info, and for some directly-out-of-the-camera samples to download and scrutinize yourselves.

The Genode project has published its second ready-to-boot Live CD featuring a bunch of graphical demonstrations such as Qt4 applications and Linux running on top of Genode. Immediatly after the latest release of the Genode OS framework the new Live CD demonstrates some of the framework's features. The Qt4 demo utilizes the freshly integrated dynamic linker in order to reduce the size of applications. Another scenario demonstrates Genode's ability to launch Linux. Beside these new features, the portability properties of Genode are demonstrated by an application scenario that can be executed on top of different microkernels, namely OKL4, Pistachio, and Fiasco.

In sync with its release schedule, the KDE team has released KDE 4.3.1, the latest and greatest in the KDE line. This monthly release includes fixes for many outstanding bugs, including several crash fixes, and support for transferring files over ssh via KIO::Fish. Those who use KDE can wait for it to be updated on its own or can always download it themselves. On a sadder note, a family member of one of the developers on the team recently passed away; this release is dedicated to her. "KDE 4.3.1 is dedicated to Emma Hope Pyne, the daughter of Michael Pyne. Emma Hope suddenly passed away last week. The KDE community feels incredibly sad about this loss and wishes Michael and the family and friends all the strength needed to cope with the loss of Emma Hope." Our best wishes go out to Michael and his family.

"US-based company Genesi, which builds ARM Cortex-powered appliances that could be compatible with the RISC OS Open Beagleboard work, is said to be in talks with RISC OS companies over a possible port of the OS to its products. It's hoped ROS 5 could be made to run on the lightweight EFIKA MX Open Client, which sports a 800MHz Cortex-A8 processor, 3D graphics hardware, 512M RAM, wifi networking and more. Genesi analyst Matt Sealey said: 'RISC OS is really popular in the UK and the last dedicated RISC OS box - the Iyonix - has been discontinued for six months. We are currently questioning the relevant companies in the UK, including Castle, about collaboration and marketing efforts, and the support they'd need to make it a reality.'"

With the imminent release of the Haiku Alpha, Haiku-Files is now releasing ISO images for testing. Note that these are not the actual alpha release, but only daily builds of the branch which will eventually become the alpha! "With the upcoming release of Haiku R1Alpha1, we are providing candidate imagefiles. They are X86 GCC2 Hybrid images and provided as Raw HD, VMware, and ISO images. As per the R1Alpha1 specifications, they are built from the releases/r1alpha1 branch code and utilize the alpha-* build profile."