Intel just announced the Moblin 2 alpha release available to the public for testing. Get out the good old netbook and have a go with the release; it's confirmed to work relatively well with the Acer Aspire One and the Dell Mini 9. Those of you with bitty Eee netbooks aren't completely left out in the cold-- you'll just have to go without wireless for the time being.

Sony just reported that through the fourth quarter of 2008, their profits plummeted a staggering 95%, losing $1.67 billion. The reported down profits were taken from last year's Christmas season, usually the time of the year that all companies including Sony sell the most products. This is the first loss that Sony has reported since 1995 when they produced several box-office flops. In lieu of the situation, Sony is reportedly cutting 8,000 jobs and going to shut down five or six of the 57 worldwide factories. Will the headless chicken that is the economy ever recover?

Earlier this morning, you may have been surprised to see that every Google search you performed resulted in links to sites which were, according to Google, potentially harmful to your computer. As it turns out, Google's malware detection system got a little trigger-happy - due to a human error.

From the announcement email: "On behalf of the NetBSD Release Engineering team, I am proud to announce that the first release candidate of NetBSD 5.0 is now available for download. Those of you who have been paying close attention will have noticed that RC1 was tagged on Sunday. A few hiccups delayed the availability of binaries, but they can now be downloaded from here."

Microsoft has given a bit more insight into where to go from the Windows 7 beta to general availability. There will only be a release candidate (no second beta), and even though an exact release date is unknown, it is most likely released before the timebomb date of the beta (July 2). The RC will take much longer to expire, too.

SkyOS has always been criticised for the fact that you have to pay for it in order to beta test it. I personally never saw a problem with this construction, especially since the price included a full copy of SkyOS 5 (they dropped the five) once it was completed. However, as of late, it has become increasingly clear that there may never be anything like a final version - or another test release for that matter. Update: In the comments, Robert Szeleney explained the current SkyOS situation in more detail. For future readers who find this article via a search engine, I've attached Robert's comment to the actual story for completeness' sake. The reply can also be found on the SkyOS website.

"Whilst an increasing number of recent converts are avoiding it (and I don't blame them really), the shell is still a key tool for the majority of GNU/Linux users. Shell scripts are knocked-up, shared and deployed in all sorts of circumstances - some simply time-saving, others life-saving. But even if the shell script has been written by somebody else, running it can be a cumbersome and frightening exercise for users of lesser experience or confidence. How do we bring the flexibility of the shell script to the GUI-only user? Recently faced with just such a quandary, http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/columns/saving_my_sanity_zenity_shell_script_interaction_gui">I discovered Zenity: a tool which just might have saved my sanity."

The usually reliable Wall Street Journal claims that Dell, the world's no. 2 computer maker, will enter the smartphone market in an effort to make up for the lost income due to the economic downturn. They say the Texas company is planning on releasing several models, pitching them against RIM's and Apple's phones.

In a classic case of kicking in open doors, research firm Gartner has concluded that software will not be able to keep up with the ever-increasing number of cores in modern processors. "By Gartner's reckoning, the doubling of core or thread counts every two years or so - and for some architectures, the thread growth is even larger with each jump - will affect all layers of the software stack. Operating systems, middleware, virtualization hypervisors, and applications riding atop this code all have their own limitations when it comes to exploiting threads and cores, and Gartner is warning IT shops to look carefully at their software before knee-jerking a purchase order to get the latest server as a means of boosting performance for their applications."

"As someone who wants Microsoft to be cooler, I'm all for them making an aggressive pitch to consumers. I say make Windows 7 a simplified, colorful, fun experience for everyday users. Emphasize how it can store and share music and photos. Keep those potential Mac users from switching. Heck, open up retail stores while you're at it. But of course Microsoft has to walk the line here. By kowtowing to consumers, it runs the risk of neglecting its core customer, the business user. In a recent interview on CIO.com sister site Network World, Windows blogger and editor of Supersite for Windows Paul Thurrott contends that Microsoft is biting the hand that feeds it by leaning heavily on consumer features with Windows 7. Enterprise needs have been reduced to an afterthought, he says."

Late last week we informed you on the official revealing of the 10" Acer Aspire One, the successor the immensely successful 8.9" Aspire One. We couldn't yet confirm or deny any possible Linux model or SSD option, but we can now: Acer has stated that while during the initial launch there will only be a HDD/Windows version, it will soon be followed by an SSD/Linux model. The SSD will be 16GB in size, and the Linux distribution will - again - be Linpus. The Windows version will launch mid-February.

Currently, NVIDIA is really missing out on the netbook market, which is dominated by all-Intel platform designs. NVIDIA has finally woken up to this reality, and the outspoken cofounder, president, and CEO of NVIDIA, Jen-Hsun Huang, has launched an all-out campaign to promote his company's Ion platform - and he isn't shy of flinging some poo to Intel and netbooks in general.

According to Forbes, who conducts this and other types of research every year, Seattle has achieved the crown of being the most wired city in the United States in 2009, squeezing ahead and pushing Atlanta into second place. This is probably due to the septillion Starbucks WiFi hotspots, and it probably helps that Amazon.com and Microsoft are situated nearby. Why not check to see if your home town made it on the list of the top thirty? Glory lies in being a thoroughly networked city.

The open source leader and founder of the Ubuntu Linux distribution explains the elements that can inspire innovation and change the world--or at least your small piece of it. He'd be one to know, huh?