Apple isn't exactly known for catering to the lower end of the market, but so far, it doesn't really seem to have slowed them down much. They are selling more Macs than ever, and especially in the ever-growing notebook market, Apple is very successful. However, with people all worried about possible economic downturn, and with the success of cheap, small laptops (netbooks), people are starting to speculate if Apple will enter the netbook market.

As most of you will know, Microsoft is currently involved in a class-action lawsuit about the company possibly misleading its customers about which computers could run Windows Vista. The story goes that when Microsoft delayed Windows Vista they allowed computers makers to label existing stock as "Vista Capable", even though these computers could only run the basic, Aero Glass-less version of Vista. The most recent development is that Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer will be questioned under oath.

Fedora 10 is now available, sporting a new graphical boot-up sequence, OpenOffice.org 3, many improvements to sound support via PulseAudio, and other updates. See the release notes here, and Linux Format has a detailed look at F10's features and changes.

A common problem for web developers - but some users as well - is that of websites that work in one browser, but not in another. Some websites are (still) 'optimised' for Internet Explorer, but with the popularity of other browsers reaching ever greater heights, the problem becomes apparent to more users. A new browser from Japan, called Lunascape5, tries to address this issue by allowing you to seamlessly switch between three different browsing engines (IE's Trident, Mozilla's Gecko, and Safari/Chrome's WebKit).

"The Ubuntu developers have announced the availability of Ubuntu 9.04 alpha 1, the first prerelease for this version. Ubuntu 9.04 is codenamed Jaunty Jackalope and is scheduled for official release in April. The initial plans for Jaunty were published in September, prior to the release of Ubuntu 8.10. Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth aims to boost the software experience and make the popular Linux distribution more competitive with Windows and Mac OS X on the desktop. Canonical intends to push the platform into the mainstream by putting its resources into upstream usability improvements. In addition to the ongoing long-term usability enhancement efforts, Canonical and the Ubuntu development community are focusing on several specific technical goals for 9.04, including improving performance and boot time and integrating web services more tightly with the desktop."

The private computer museum of Max Burnet has every bit of computing nostalgia imaginable, ranging from the first UNIX PDP-7, a classic DEC PDP-8, the original IBM PC, a string of old Apple's including the Apple Lisa, a Spectrum Sinclair (doh!) ZX81, Bill Gates' personal favorite the MITS Altair 8800, a DEC VT100 terminal, and a range of IBM mainframe consoles from the 1960s and 1970s. If you have never seen what this old stuff looks like, this slideshow offers a snapshot of the past. And if you thought PCs became fashionable with the Apple iMac, then you haven't seen the lime green or powder blue consoles of some of DEC's machines from the 1970s.

When you're diving into the history of computing and its concepts, you rarely have to look much further back in time than the Second World War. It happens sometimes, but not that often. However, there are exceptions - and this is one that really boggles the mind: the pixel? One of those little dots on your screen? It's well over 400 years old.

"I'm about to tell you a true story. It's not about me (honest). I have this friend who submitted an application to Apple for review. After a few weeks, it came back with one of those embarrassingly stupid rejection letters that said more about the person reviewing the application than it did about the application itself. In a nutshell, the application violated one of those user interaction rules that seem to exist in certain pompous minds rather than in the actual Apple Human Interface Guidelines. After a day or so of calming down, this person decided to go ahead and resubmit the application. And did so without making a single change to the application. I'm sure you know where this is going."

"After what were surely a few extra pots of coffee last night, Apple released iPhone OS 2.2, the latest update to its operating system for the iPhone and iPod touch. As with the 2.1 update just over two months ago, Apple administered a healthy dose of new features and fixes throughout the OS and a handful of applications, many of which we saw previewed over the last couple months. Let's take a look at the most significant changes, some appreciated polish, and recap what's still missing."

IBM Research has uncovered work it is doing to bring the brain's processing power to computers, in an effort to make it easier for PCs to process vast amounts of data in real time. The researchers want to put brain-related senses like perception and interaction into hardware and software so that computers are able to process and understand the data quicker while consuming less power, said Dharmendra Modha, a researcher at IBM. The researchers are bringing the neuroscience, nanotechnology and supercomputing fields together in an effort to create the new computing platform, he said.

Last month we covered an article titled, "MSI: Wind Doing Well, Linux Version Not So Much" which revealed that Linux MSI Wind netbooks saw a return rate upto four times higher than the Windows equivalent. But in a recent interview with the CEO of Asus he revealed that Linux and Window versions of Asus Eee PC have similar return rates. He also described the plans for 2009 and talked about some changes to come in the Operating System for the netbooks.

What's after electrical charges and electricity in computer storage? Lasers and excitons. Theorists from the John Hopkins University have drafted a theory that uses low-power lasers and crystalline insulators to store data. In the theory, lasers would excite electrons in a crystalline-like lattice in order to record data; the atoms would vibrate at a certain frequency to indicate the type of bit. A side effect of using lasers and insulators is reduced heat output. The heat is reduced because the atoms do not exchanging electrons as current computer components do. The EE Times has a more detailed write up as well as WebIndia, TopNews.in, Eureka Alert, and Small Times.

Microsoft plans to offer one more public test version of Internet Explorer 8 before releasing the final version of the updated browser, the company said late Wednesday. The next test, essentially a "release candidate" version will come in the first quarter of 2009. That means the final release won't hit Microsoft's initial goal of finishing the browser this year. "Our next public release of IE (typically called a "release candidate") indicates the end of the beta period," general manager Dean Hachamovitch said in a blog posting, "We want the technical community of people and organizations interested in Web browsers to take this update as a strong signal that IE8 is effectively complete and done."

Every now and then, an article pops up which argues that it would make sense for Microsoft to offer a free, ad-powered version of Windows. "We are all aware that Google is the king of online advertising. Microsoft has wanted to compete in that space forever, which is why giving away Windows 7 makes so much sense," Business Pundit argues, "Let's look at the numbers; Microsoft's operating systems are on 90% of the world's computers, or roughly one billion machines. That's penetration on a massive scale. Even Google has to be impressed." While these articles make some valid points, they rarely dive into the actual details.