"Of all the ultra-mobile PC's that arrived and will be arriving in 2007, Fujitsu's has been the most highly awaited. That's a serious claim, but as soon as people got a look at this device they started to get excited about it. After all, the first generation of UMPCs had some high points, but they missed the mark in a number of areas. The hope was that the arrival of the next generation would mark a considerable improvement."

The twice-yearly TOP500 list of the world's fastest supercomputers is expected to become an hot topic of discussion as the latest list shows five new entrants in the Top 10, which is a big turnover and shows how active the supercomputer market is. 71% Of the supercomputers now use Intel processors, a big grow from 58% 6 months ago. Linux monopolizes the OS area with 85% of the supercomputers (77% 6 months ago) using Linux-based operative systems.

The breakdown for the various editions of Windows Server 2008 was revealed this morning by Microsoft, and the big news there is the almost total lack of change: Retail server software editions for the next Windows Server will fall right in line with the current Windows Server 2003 R2 editions, including the number of client access licenses provided in the basic package.

Ryan Leavengood reports on the Haiku website: "I know I have been very quiet for a while in regards to my Haiku WebKit port, but that is because I've been in a long session of coding. I am happy to report that this weekend I finally got WebCore compiling for Haiku. So what does this mean? Does it mean the port is now complete? Unfortunately, no it doesn't." Update: Haiku gets a featured speaker spot and a booth at ScaLE 6x Expo

Google has finally released Android, the opensource platform that will be used by the Open Handset Alliance. The platform is based in the Linux kernel, freetype, sqlite, webkit, a 2D/3D subsystem and other pieces, but the application framework is built in Java using a embedded-optimized VM called Dalvik. The SDK is available for Linux, Mac and Win and it includes an emulator. Video here. Update: The WebKit browser failed to render the desktop version of OSNews, so now we feed it our mobile one.

"This is extraordinary news for all nerds, computer scientists and the Open Source community: the source code of the MULTICS operating system (Multiplexed Information and Computing Service), the father of UNIX and all modern OSes, has finally been opened . Multics was an extremely influential early time-sharing operating system started in 1964 and introduced a large number of new concepts, including dynamic linking and a hierarchical file system. It was extremely powerful, and UNIX can in fact be considered to be a 'simplified' successor to MULTICS (the name 'Unix' is itself a hack on 'Multics'). The last running Multics installation was shut down on October 31, 2000."

This is the fifth article in a series on common usability and graphical user interface related terms . On the internet, and especially in forum discussions like we all have here on OSNews, it is almost certain that in any given discussion, someone will most likely bring up usability and GUI related terms - things like spatial memory, widgets, consistency, Fitts' Law, and more. The aim of this series is to explain these terms, learn something about their origins, and finally rate their importance in the field of usability and (graphical) user interface design. In part V, we focus on modes.

Dave Morse (1943-2007), Amiga Computer co-founder, died on Saturday, November 2nd. In 1982, he left Tonka Toys (where he was Vice-President of Marketing) and became the Chief Executive Officer at Hi Toro, Inc., which he co-founded and which morphed later that year into Amiga, Inc. and led through the development of the Lorraine Project (a codename inspired by Dave's wife Lorraine) - ultimately, the Amiga 1000 Computer. Our take: We want to wish all the strength in the world to his family and friends, and I personally would like to thank him for creating a truly visionary computing platform. Forget Apple, forget Microsoft, forget Linux: the Amiga was the real revolutionary device.

DTrace has been ported to QNX. "The initial port to Neutrino that Colin and I have done is slightly different from the other OS ports. Since Neutrino is a micro-kernel, we wanted to see how far we could go keeping the dtrace module out of the kernel... And if possible even outside of the process manager. The current implementation has all of the dtrace system code, normally found in the kernel or a kernel module, encapsulated in a resource manager, io-dtrace, and the utility is a straight port of the Solaris utility."

Fedora 8 has been released. It sports a new look and feel, a codec installation program, the first signs of the GNOME online desktop, various security improvements, support for Compiz and Compiz-Fusion, Java support via Iced-Tea, and much more. Get it from the download page. Update: A couple of articles about the release: 1, 2, 3. Update II: One more: 4.

"Faster than virtualization, but harder to implement, containers are a promising security technology for Linux. Watch the 2.6.24 kernel for experimental support for creating and managing containers."

Ars has a review of Ubuntu 7.10. They conclude: "Ubuntu 7.10 provides an unparalleled desktop Linux experience and sets new standards for power and ease of use. This release lives up to Ubuntu's reputation and delivers cutting-edge new features and solid enhancements. Although Ubuntu 7.10 is very impressive, some of the new additions - particularly Compiz and Tracker - lack the polish and robustness that they need to truly shine. These technologies are still a work in progress and give Ubuntu 7.10 a slightly unfinished feel. Ubuntu also unfortunately inherits some of the minor weaknesses of the GNOME desktop environment."

Apple has seeded the first build of Leopard 10.5.1. "Apple details a number of issues addressed in the seed. Specifically, there have been fixes to Mail Sync, Spotlight Index, Disk Management, DesktopServices and moving files across partitions, Text Drawing, iCal and CalDAV syncing, Keychain login, Read-Only Issue with SMB, AirPort 802.1X, Application Firewall, To-Do Notes, and Smart Mailboxes. This list of issues, however, is never exhaustive, so other bugs may have also been addressed in this seed."

This is the fourth article in a series on common usability and graphical user interface related terms . On the internet, and especially in forum discussions like we all have here on OSNews, it is almost certain that in any given discussion, someone will most likely bring up usability and GUI related terms - things like spatial memory, widgets, consistency, Fitts' Law, and more. The aim of this series is to explain these terms, learn something about their origins, and finally rate their importance in the field of usability and (graphical) user interface design. In part IV today, we focus on a dead horse Fitts' Law.