Imagine a computer formed from a mixture of technologies ranging from relays to fluidic logic. Now imagine being able to create a single piece of such a computer (perhaps as small as a single word of memory) in the technology of your choice, and then using the Internet to run your masterpiece in conjunction with other portions of the system created by contributors located around the world! Author Clive Maxfield explains the creation of just such a computing engine and how you can be involved.

Smile, we've been on candid camera, and we've been caught with our pants down, standing on our heads, with umbrellas between our teeth. "I have not succeeded in making this code do anything more than cause a crash and eat up system resources, and I certainly haven't used it to take over anyone else’s computer and execute arbitrary code. I do not have 30 undisclosed Firefox vulnerabilities, nor did I ever make this claim. I have no undisclosed Firefox vulnerabilities. The person who was speaking with me made this claim, and I honestly have no idea if he has them or not." Of course it did not take long for black helicopters to arrive. Microsoft has computers, so do the hackers: a link! MS is behind it all!

Last week we announced Mandriva's brand new distribution, and now Mandriva Linux 2007 is finally available to the public. The key new feature of Mandriva Linux 2007 is the AIGLX and Xgl 3D-accelerated desktop. Mandriva is the only distribution which offers both AIGL as well as Xgl out of the box; it will decide by itself which of the two is preferred for your setup.

The Kororaa project just issued a final statement about the GPL issue which arose earlier this year. "At this stage I have decided to take the opinion that non-GPL modules are violations of the Linux kernel and are also unethical. This means we will not build non-GPL drivers against the kernel and as such Kororaa will not be shipping non-GPL modules in any future products. Of course if the end user believes non-GPL drivers are acceptable, then he/she is free to install them on their own system. For myself however, I am using the Linux kernel to create a product. If it was not for Linux then it would not exist and I therefore have a responsibility to respect the license of the kernel."

"Sun Labs is pleased to announce the release to the OpenSolaris community of a long awaited update to the Solaris PowerPC code base. This source contribution provides the community with a functional Solaris PowerPC development environment on selected target platforms. This is a modest, but important step toward reaching the goal of developing the Solaris PowerPC port project to the point where it includes the latest source tree, provides a shell or single user prompt on the target platform, and has enhanced debugging, ie: KMDB."

Phoronix has published a review of the LIX Systems LX8100-AM2BB-M2NPV, which is a complete HTPC/PVR that ships with GNU/Linux and all of the other goodies. They conclude: "We have become overwhelmingly impressed by the LX8100-AM2BB-M2NPV. This HTPC system is incredibly compact, powerful for video purposes, offers a great deal of installed software and other media features, and is unbelievably quiet. The Lx8100 is extremely well designed for its size and the changeable frontpanel design is interesting and functional for matching the device with other multimedia equipment. The LX8100-AM2BB-M2NPV came loaded with all of the hardware needed to get going. The software also came completely configured and required virtually no setup."

Microsoft this Friday will ship the final pre-release version of Windows Vista and, unexpectedly, will name the release as Release Candidate 2. Previously, Microsoft had publicly asserted that it would not ship an RC2 milestone release of Windows Vista. But don't let the name fool you: RC2 is really just a standard interim build of Vista and will not be given out to millions of users as was RC1.

Computer code that exploits a flaw in Apple's Mac OS X was released over the weekend. The code takes advantage of a weakness in core parts of Mac OS X and could let a user gain additional privileges. Apple provided a fix for the error-handling mechanism of the kernel last week, but the exploit appears to have been authored before then. "It appears to have been written well before the vulnerability was fixed," said Dino Dai Zovi, a researcher with Matasano Security who was credited by Apple with discovering the flaw when the patch was released. Obviously anything but spectacular (since it's fixed), but it does raise the age old question: will the growing popularity of both Linux and OS X lead to more of these exploits-- possibly one that does get released 'in time'?

Over its thirty year history, Apple has survived and even thrived despite boneheaded business decisions. From pricing the Macintosh out of most consumers' reach to creating some really ugly computers, Apple has made a lot of bad decisions.

The Vista Team Blog has an interesting article on Vista's installation routine, more specifically on how long it takes to install Vista. "PC World got the conversation going on installation times in Windows Vista. While they quote Jim Allchin that Windows Vista can take as little as 15 minutes to install, my installs have been more like 20 minutes (still rocking fast), so I thought I would talk with David D'Souza who manages our Deployment and Installation team to get some more information about the different deployment scenarios and their installation time."

Lunapark reviews the EyeTV Hybrid, and concludes: "If you own a Mac Mini and have it in your living room, the EyeTV Hybrid is something you should run out to buy immediately (I mean right now). For MacBook, MacBook Pro and Mac Pro owners - if want your tv fix on the Mac or you want an easy way to transfer television shows to your ipod, EyeTV Hybrid is a great choice. Personally I love the EyeTV Hybrid and would enthusiastically recommend it without any hesitation."