Software originally developed for the One Laptop per Child project can now be used on any old PC. Sugar on a stick, as it is known, can be run from a USB drive to give aging PCs a new interface and access to collaborative educational software. The software, designed for use by children, was launched at the LinuxTag conference in Berlin. It has been developed by Sugar Labs, a breakaway organisation from OLPC. " is a great new opportunity to breathe new life into these old machines," Walter Bender, founder of Sugar Labs, told BBC News.

We're all pretty much versed in the worlds of GNOME, KDE, and to a lesser degree, Xfce, and while there are lots of alternatives, none of the smaller ones really seem to gain much traction beyond their fans. An exception is LXDE, a small and resource efficient desktop environment.

IBM has built a new sort of supercomputer that is not only more energy-efficient than supercomputers cooled traditionally with air-conditioning, but the excess heat from the computer can be used afterwards to heat a building. Water siphons off the heat via tubes and small capillaries that take the liquid very near to the chips, cooling it at 60 degrees Celsius. IBM says that the new supercomputer design, which they call "Aquasar," will reduce overall energy consumption by 40 percent as well as 30 tons of carbon dioxide. The heating function of the system will only help reduce heating costs a little, but it has some very promising applications in the future.

"Mandriva Linux 2010 Alpha 1 is now available on public mirrors. This first alpha is available only through Free version, 32 and 64 bits DVDs. This development release is the first one realized without mkcd, our historical build tool, but using bcd available also on Mandriva svn. This new tool should improve global quality of our release and make tests much easier and efficient... Final release of 2010 version is due the 21st of October."

Software moves on at a break-neck pace these days--version numbers clock up ever quicker as vendors try to market their apps as the latest and greatest. Software generally ages badly, falling into a state of looking grossly out of date, lacking new functionality that we've come to depend upon as well as compatibility problems. Dear OSNews readers, what old software (5+ years) do you still use, why, and what problems do you come across in sticking with it? Read More for my own contribution to the list

We've had an interesting week, with lots of news on web browsers, phones, and ARM netbooks. For instance, Opera launched Unite, Microsoft started a "Get the facts" campaign for Internet Explorer 8, NVIDIA talked about Windows CE, and much, much more.