In the News Archive

Dusty-Computing is now open! A collaboration between TipMonkies.com, OSNews.com and Expert-Zone.com, Dusty-Computing aims to become the biggest archive of old and/or exotic computer systems (BeBox, NeXT, SPARC, SGI, Altos etc) on the Net. In order to achieve that goal, we need your help. Use our form to describe your hardware, its modifications, condition, software, how you acquired it, etc. After you have submitted your piece of history, feel free to talk & discuss on the forums. Finally, the site features a mobile-friendly design for those of you on the go, so check it out with your Newton or your Cassiopeia.

VMware plans to unveil a subscription plan Monday to grant developers cheaper and easier access to the company's products. Elsewhere, Bochs 2.2 was released.

Reports on Novell's quarterly earnings show that for all of the buzz about Novell's recent Linux activities, its well-being is overwhelmingly dependent on its declining legacy business. Quarterly revenue from software licensing fell from $60M to $46M in a year, and SuSE licenses only brought in $8 million (out of a total revenue of $297M). As would be expeced in a company trying to re-purpose itself for new opportunities, operating costs are on the rise, resulting in increased losses.

Recent PC sales numbers indicate a sluggish marketplace, though laptops are doing slightly better than desktops, and upgrades to flat panel monitors continue unhindered. Of the major computer manufacturers, though, Apple's sales have been extermely high, accorsing the Merrill Lynch analysts.

So, I went out to at least partially test this theory, and to do appropriate comparisons between Dell computers and Apple computers. I'm hardly the first one to take this challenge but I've decided it's time to stop talking and taking other peoples' word for it, and go get some concrete facts to put on (digital) paper.

Adobe Systems Incorporated has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Macromedia in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately US$3.4 billion. The companies plan to meet a wider set of customer needs and have a significantly greater opportunity to grow into new markets, particularly in the mobile and enterprise segments.

This month's Wired magazine has a terriffic story about a team of students from a high school in an economically depressed part of Phoenix, who took part in an underwater-robot building competition against students from the top universities in the country -- and won. All of the students are undocumented Mexican immigrants who don't qualify for most financial aid or even in-state tuition, and therefore can't afford to attend college, in the US, Mexico, or anywhere. When I read the article I determined to try to do something to help give these kids their chance, and I was delighted to discover that their faculty advisor has set up a scholarship fund for them, and I'm about to donate some money to help. I'd like to encourage OSNews readers to read the story, and if they feel the same way, to donate.

BitMover ceases development of the free (as in beer) version of their BitKeeper version control system. Linus Torvalds decided in 2002 that BitKeeper was "the best tool for the job", namely to manage the Linux kernel, a decision which received a lot of crisicism. Various open source programmers worked on reverse engineering the BitKeeper protocol, and BitMover decided to discontinue the gratis version.

Guest PC 1.2 has a 2x performance boost on G5s plus better support for dual-headed machines. Serial port support added. It became possible to communicate with serial devices such as modems, PDAs and cell phones. USB-to-Serial adapter is supported as well. Extended peripheral devices support. This feature allows to separately select modem and printer for every virtual computer.

BitRock InstallBuilder is a multiplatform installation tool that supports Linux, Windows, FreeBSD, Solaris and, soon, OSX. It has free, fully functional licenses for open source projects. This new release adds Linux PPC and FreeBSD 5.x support.

A group of underground programmers has posted code online they say will reopen a back door in Apple Computer's iTunes store, allowing Linux computer users to purchase music free of copy protection. The release comes just a day after Apple blocked a previous version of the program, called PyMusique.

The AP and BBC have short roundups of cool finds from CeBit: AP BBC. A silly diamond-studded mp3 player (who wants diamonds encrusted on their junk drawer obsolete tech?), GPS for motorcycles, a "palm vein" ID checker, a Bluetooth robotic camera, ultra-compact memory from IBM, an almost exact iPod Shuffle knock-off, a pen-sized text scanner, an eye-directed camera, and a cell phone with a HD inside.

It's called NeroLinux, and it's the Linux equivelant of the Nero suite. Screenshots to gaze upon. Unfortunately, it seems that it's using GTK+ 1.2.x instead of 2.x.

Carly Fiorina's undoing was her inability to capitalise on the 2002 HP-Compaq merger, seen as her bet-the-company move. HP is on shaky ground at the moment because its product portfolio has become too large and diversified to manage, and lacks organisation-wide synergy. The printing and imaging business account for a disproportionate share of the profits, while its enterprise divisions lag. The options that stand before HP's board range from organisational restructuring, to a complete split of the company. Which of the many strategies is eventually adopted depends on the identity that HP decides to create for itself.