Phoronix has up an article looking at the release of X Server 1.4.1. This maintenance release for X.Org, which many open-source operating systems depend upon for living in a graphically-rich world, is coming more than 200 days late and it doesn't even clear the BugZilla release blocker bug. According to Phoronix, there are more problems for X.org than just this one.

Green, power reduction, and climate change are all the rage these days, and the world of computers is not off the hook on this one. Software and hardware manufacturers are trying hard to keep power consumption down - while first something for mostly mobile computers, desktops and servers are now part of the effort too. PC World tested Windows Server 2008 and two Linux server offerings and compared their power usage patterns.

Earlier this month, we reported that The Unofficial Apple Weblog's as well as Ars Technica's sources said that Apple was working on the next version of Mac OS X, dubbed Snow Leopard. The news was that the new release wouldn't focus on new features, but on performance. During yesterday's WWDC 2008 keynote, Steve Jobs confirmed this rumour, and now Apple has published a preview page.

Now that the WWDC08 keynote has come and gone, we've learned very little that we didn't already know. The iPhone 3G will be here on July 11, and will retail for $199 for an 8GB phone, $299 for a 16GB phone, available in white or black. OS X 10.6 will, as expected, be code-named "Snow Leopard," additional details to follow for sure. The App Store will feature some amazing new software, and Apple's new MobileMe is mere weeks away. Watch the "read more" link on this story for continued updates from around the web. If you'd like to read the play-by-play on the WWDC announcement, see Macrumors Live. UPDATED within.

Windows Embedded? Windows CE? Windows Mobile? I must admit I lost track long ago of which Windows is what in the mobile and/or embedded space, but fact is Microsoft is working hard on bringing new releases in those spaces. It's working on a new Windows XP-based Windows Embedded release, dubbed Windows Embedded Standard 2009, but the company is also working on a Windows Vista-based embedded release.

The story of Hans Reiser, the eccentric file system programmer, is a tragic one. The author of the ReiserFS was arrested under suspicion of the murder of his wife Nina Reiser in 2006, and was declared guilty in April 2008. Some still placed doubts about the conviction, stating that he might be innocent. It now seems that all doubt has been quelled, since Alameda County District Attorney Thomas Orloff has revealed that Hans Reiser will disclose the location of Nina's body for a reduced sentence.

The Linux kernel is one of most complex open source projects. Even though there are a lot of books on the Linux kernel, it is still a difficult subject to comprehend. The Interactive Linux kernel map gives you a top-down view of the kernel. You can see the most important layers, functionalities, modules, functions, and calls. Each function on the map is a link to its source code. The map is interactive. You can zoom in and drag around to see details.

Crunchgear has posted pics that they believe are a real ad for the upcoming 3G iPhone, revealing the much discussed video conferencing feature many have been anticipating. Recent patents filed by Apple corroborate this evidence. In addition to showcasing a Product (RED) version, the ads also suggest the release of iChat for Windows. It also appears that the new firmware will support UMTS/HSDPA, as expected.

As Bill Gates promised earlier this week during his last public speech as chairman of Microsoft at TechEd 2008, the company has released the second beta of Silverlight 2, Microsoft's Flash competitor. Silverlight 2 beta 2 comes as a 4.66MB download, but as Ars Technica already noted, the Silverlight homepage has not yet been changed to reflect the new release, but there is a changelog that details many of the changes in this release. The Mac OS X version has not yet been released.

Asus' small Eee PC was a rather unexpected success for the hardware vendor - an expansion of the Eee brand was only natural. The Eee Pc 901 followed, with a bigger screen and the option of having Windows XP pre-installed. Now, Asus is moving into the desktop PC market with their Eee Box, an Intel Atom-powered mini-desktop PC, showed off at Computex.

While I can personally attest for the gains Microsoft made when it comes to Windows Vista's performance between its release-to-manufacture November 2006 and now, there is no denying the fact that Vista simply isn't made for running on lower-specced computers. In addition, while Vista brings interesting new features and massive overhauls of many subsystems, a lot of people simply don't like it. Sadly for them, Windows XP is going out-of-sale 30 June. However, there are plenty of loopholes - PC World listed them.

"Google has announced the official release of Desktop Gadgets for Linux and is distributing the source code under the open-source Apache software license. Although there are still bugs and the implementation is not yet entirely complete, it works well enough for day-to-day use."

Microsoft is hard at work trying to battle the public and businesses' perception about Windows Vista. They already published a whitepaper named "Five Misunderstood Features in Windows Vista", detailing some of what they believe are misunderstandings. Now, they also published a document wit five reasons to deploy Windows Vista - and why you shouldn't wait for Windows 7.

Acer has stated that it will be pushing Linux aggressively on its laptops and netbooks. The company is already heavily promoting Linux for its low cost ultra-portable netbook range out later this year, but senior staff have said that Acer will also push Linux on its laptops. Acer has already started selling Linux in its Media PC business but this should now spread, according to Gianpiero Morbello, vice president of marketing and brand at Acer. "We have shifted towards Linux because of Microsoft," he said. "Microsoft has a lot of power and it is going to be difficult, but we will be working hard to develop the Linux market."