Before the BeOS ever made it to x86, it had already spent some time on PowerPC, but the die-hard fans will know that BeOS was actually written and designed for a very different, short-lived processor: the AT&T Hobbit. While a PowerPC BeBox is already quite rare, the Hobbit BeBox was never sold, and only existed in the form of a number of prototypes. Imagine our surprise when we found out that Cameron Mac Millan, former Be employee, sold one of his two Hobbit BeBoxen on eBay a few days ago.

The Lua programming language is a small scripting language specifically designed to be embedded in other programs. Lua's C API allows exceptionally clean and simple code both to call Lua from C, and to call C from Lua. This allows developers who want a convenient runtime scripting language to easily implement the basic API elements needed by the scripting language, then use Lua code from their applications. This article introduces the Lua language as a possible tool for simplifying common development tasks, and discusses some of the reasons to embed a scripting language in the first place.

Sometimes, as you're walking through a crowded street, or as you brush by people, you catch a glimpse of the conversations they're having - a few words, a single sentence at most. Whenever this happens, I can't help but extrapolate the rest of the conversation, the subject, what the people in it are like. It seems like I'm not the only one, as two Dutch film makers have used the accidentally leaked search query records of 2006 as inspiration for a series of short films. Tantalising voyeurism.

Sure, Intel's been raking it in with the Atom that is powering so many netbooks being sold in these economically challenged times, but now the chip company is hoping to take a cut of an even more mobile market-- that of MIDs, or mobile Internet devices.

The Russian government is planning to build a new operating system (if you are fluent, here's the original), most likely to be derived from Linux, made especially for the country itself as a whole. This is being done to reduce Russia's reliance on foreign license agreements, particularly those of Microsoft it seems. The OS is expected to be open source and distributed at little or no cost, but it's uncertain just how successful this nationwide operating system will be, if indeed it ever comes to fruition. If it's anything like that Chinese Red Flag enforcement fiasco, count me out.

The release of KDE 4.0 was not a smooth one, and left a number of users a bit disgruntled. Still, the release showed so much potential that it was oozing out of every pixel. KDE 4.1 improved significantly in many areas of concern, but it wasn't yet ready for everyone. With today's release of KDE 4.2, the KDE4 vision is ready to face not only developers and enthusiasts, but every users. We have taken a look at the release candidate for KDE 4.2, and we have a short interview with KDE's Aaron Seigo.

In a possible legal showdown over multitouch patents between Apple and Palm, the Cupertino gadget maker has just looted a decent weapon off the dead body that is the US patent system: a patent on just about all multitouch gestures used in the iPhone and iPod Touch, such as swiping, pinching, and so on. Wielding this weapon, Apple suddenly has a pretty good case against Palm.

AMD has no replacement planned for the aging Geode low-power chip, creating uncertainty for its use in products like future XO laptops made by One Laptop Per Child. Comments by AMD executives end speculation about the future of Geode, an integrated chip used in netbooks like OLPC's XO laptop, ultramobile PCs and devices like set-top boxes.

One of the reasons Windows 7 runs faster (faster start up, resume, shut down, less churn during user sessions) is due to the re-engineering of how Windows maintains and activates services running in the background. Microsoft's Channel 9 has an interesting video with a Windows kernel developer whose team designed a new trigger-based service controller that enables service developers to mark services as needing to run only when certain conditions are met. This means Windows 7 can more intelligently manage when to make resources avaiable for services that employ this trigger pattern for starting and stopping. Less code that runs at any given time means Windows 7 has more resources available for foreground processes that impact users interacting with the OS. The net effect of this for users is a snappier OS.

IE8 has emerged from beta, with the arrival of its first release candidate. The IE development team now considers the browser platform- and feature-complete, but won't say how long untill it goes gold. PCMag.com got an early look and has posted a full review of Internet Explorer 8 RC1. The release candidate differs only slightly from beta 2, most notably in its InPrivate browsing feature, compatibility view, and improved performance. The browser has also been made more secure, and it gives users convenient new ways to use web resources. IE8's color-coded tab system, improved address bar, and enhanced privacy protections are noteworthy.

Tom's Hardware reviews Apple's MacBook. "The MacBook offers an excellent design for the money. The unibody construction is second to none, and Apple has done its homework with component selection, choosing best-of-breed technologies such as the Nvidia GeForce 9400M. While the lack of FireWire is disappointing for those who already own external HDDs with IEEE-1394 connections, or own low-latency FireWire external audio boxes for multitrack audio recording, we would rather have seen eSATA as the option for high-speed external storage. Nonetheless, the MacBook offers a robust notebook in Apple's entry-level product category."

ExtremeTech installs and launches 22 popular game titles - both old and new - to see which ones run on Windows 7, and which ones don't. And then there are games which do run but not without issues. Either way, the article provides gamers a glimpse into how Windows 7 affects gaming performance and if your favorite gaming title will run or not. They conclude: "We encountered relatively few problems, even with some of the older games. And given how sleek Windows 7 feels compared to Vista, we're looking forward to moving to the new OS as soon as it's released."

Fosdem 2009 takes place in Brussels on the 7th and 8th of february. Just like in previous editions we have collected a list of interesting interviews with our main track speakers: Rob Savoye (Gnash), Martin Odersky (Scala), Pieter Hintjens (OpenAMQ), Victor Stinner (Fusil), Simo Sorce (FreeIPA v2), and Max Spevack (Fedora).

Earlier this month, news got out that the European Commission is charging Microsoft with unlawful competition regarding its bundling of the Internet Explorer web bowser with Windows. At the time, information was scarce, but thanks to Microsoft's quarterly filing at the Securities and Exchange Commission. we now have a little more insight into what the EU might force Microsoft to do.