"Although the .NET vs. Java war is basically over for control of the Windows desktop, where .NET is sure to become the managed language of choice for new Windows desktop applications, there is a new battle brewing. That battle is for the Linux desktop. Now that Java has been open sourced under the GPL, even the most strict of the 'free software only' distributions can start bundling it and integrating it into their Linux distributions out of the box."

Augmented Reality is the overlapping of digital information and physical environment. Sci-Fi has often portrayed A.R. as interactive floating transparent computer screens projected into the air, or perhaps the most absolute example: standing inside an entirely computer generated world.

"We have compared the 32-bit and 64-bit performance of Ubuntu and started a performance comparison of Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu, but how does the performance of the upcoming Feisty Fawn release compare to that of Fedora 7? In this article we have enclosed benchmarks from Fedora Core 6, Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft, Fedora 7 Test 2, and Ubuntu Feisty Fawn Herd 5. In gaming and desktop benchmarks, which of these Linux distributions is faster?"

"The FreeBSD project has received approval from Intel to redistribute firmware for several Intel-based PRO/Wireless devices in the base FreeBSD operating system. The inclusion of firmware for popular Intel wireless devices means that users of FreeBSD will have native wireless support for many Centrino-branded Intel PRO/Wireless devices without downloading additional software. This approval includes firmware for the Intel 2100, 2200BG, 2225BG, 2915ABG, and the 3945ABG devices."

If the press preview day for Microsoft's annual TechFest research fair is any indication of Redmond's future plans, search will become an increasingly larger part of the company's overall business. Demonstrations of various search technologies dominated opening remarks by Microsoft Research presenters Tuesday.

Documentary evidence that Microsoft considered abandoning Office for Mac in order to cause 'a great deal of harm' to Apple has emerged. An emailed memo from Microsoft-founder Bill Gates to then Mac Business Unit chief Ben Waldman dated June 1997 talks about morale in the Mac Office development camp. At that time Microsoft's senior management were considering dumping Mac support. The email complains at poor sales of Office, which it attributes to a lack of focus on making such sales among reps at that time.

Microsoft's Live OneCare security software has failed tests which check how well it spots and stops malicious programs designed to attack Windows. OneCare was the only failure among 17 anti-virus programs tested by the AV Comparatives organisation. Microsoft's software only spotted 82.4% of the 500000 viruses that the independent group subjected it to. The test is the second in less than a month that Microsoft's anti-virus software has failed.

If you live in the United States, you are probably affected by a law passed by Congress in 2005 which turned the daylight savings system upside-down. Computers are, obviously, affected by this as well. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols explains how to update your Linux computers to the new DST rules: "To make sure your Linux system knows when DST is, this year and ever on, you need to update your zoneinfo file, or replace it with one that contains the new rules." In addition, even though Apple has provided a fix for Mac OS X, this fix does not work for Macs running 10.3.9 or lower. Apple does provide a fix. This is where a freeware utility also comes into play.

"Here, Jon Schwartz, UAC Architect, and Chris Corio, UAC Technical Program Manager, discuss, in detail, the history of UAC, the architecture and design of UAC, the new security model of Vista (we are all standard users, gone are the days of running as admin by default on Windows), what happens when a UAC security dialog is invoked, how UAC impacts developers, how UAC will evolve, etc."

Microsoft Office program manager Brian Jones, whose work has centered around the Open XML document format, now says the so-called format war with OpenDocument is officially over. The winner, he says, is both. Jones made the statement in a blog post over the weekend following the release by Novell of an Open XML translator for OpenOffice. The plug-in enables the free, open source productivity suite to open documents created in the Microsoft format, as well as saving OpenDocument files into Open XML.

Microsoft said it will soon release a new version of its Visual Studio toolset for Windows Vista development. Jay Roxe, group product manager for Visual Studio, said Microsoft will introduce a new release of the Visual Studio targeting Vista development, known as Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 Update for Windows Vista, as soon as March 5 but possibly as late as March 12 depending on when internal developers clear the code for general use.

Multiboot is a specification that defines a protocol between boot loaders and operating system kernels. The idea behind it is to let any compliant boot loader load and execute any compliant OS kernel, decoupling these two system components. This way, boot loaders can be simpler by only having to know a single load protocol, and OS development is easier because there is no need to write a custom boot loader. This article details how NetBSD was made Multiboot-compliant, allowing it to be booted directly from within GRUB, and thus making it easier to install NetBSD alongside a Linux system in a single machine.

The Syllable team has released Syllabe 0.6.3. This release includes a 'cleaner, fresher looking desktop', USB cd-rom drivers, gigabit ethernet drivers, improved media support, initial printing support via CUPS, automatic GRUB installation, as well as many other new drivers and bug fixes.

"Freedom of choice is one of the great benefits of Open Source Software in general and Linux in particular. This freedom gives consumers the ability to select, without fear of litigation, what software they will use and how they will use or modify it. As a principal, this freedom is extremely valuable. However, a couple of announcements this week seem to indicate that market value of freedom of choice has dipped considerably. The biggest hurdle Linux adoption faced this week wasn't Microsoft, it was an enemy from within: Linux fragmentation."