fak3r writes "Sun today announced that they are putting their weight behind Ubuntu Linux. While Ubuntu has been many people's desktop Linux choice for a few years now, with its Debian heritage, you can see what kind of server it could be. Slap that on the new Sun 1Us with the new Niagra T1's CPU, the one that'll have four, six or eight cores each, and go to town."

nyxon writes "BBC News has an article about a 'website that aims to record the history of videogame innovation ... The Game Innovation Database (GIDb)has been developed by a team at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University. The online encyclopedia is similar to Wikipedia and allows users to browse and edit the site's content. The developers hope that games fanatics can start to build a complete picture of the last 35 years of games history.'"

Thomas Hawk writes "A lot of noise has been made lately regarding TiVo's transformation from an ad zapper to Madison Avenue's new darling. In their first podcast ever, TiVo explains how they hope to redefine advertising in the age of the DVR through a customer centered approach. I'm not sure you are going to see TiVo changing their slogan to "we'll leave a light on for you," anytime soon, but with DVR penetration hitting mainstream how will their new initiatives change your TV viewing experience?"

littleghoti writes "Macworld is reporting that "Thanks to pirates, or rather the fear of them, the Intel edition of Apple's OS X is now a proprietary operating system." Mac developers and power users no longer have the freedom to alter, rebuild, and replace the OS X kernel from source code."

bblboy54 writes "According to The Washington Post, Blue Security has closed its doors, which can be confirmed by the Blue Security application failing to work today and their domain no longer resolving. Blue Security's CEO is quoted in the article: "It's clear to us that [quitting] would be the only thing to prevent a full-scale cyber-war that we just don't have the authority to start," Reshef said. "Our users never signed up for this kind of thing." You have to wonder where it goes from here. It seems an effective method has been found but more than a small private company could handle. Will someone else adapt this concept, or does the internet world give up?"

lerhaupt writes "I've setup a howto for streaming your MythTV recordings to your 3G cell phone. In involves getting your myth box to convert recordings to 3gp format and then setting up Apple's Darwin Streaming Server to handle streaming the videos from a webpage it sets up. "

maquina writes "Google released a new AJAX framework based on Java. From Google's mouth: "Google Web Toolkit (GWT) is a Java software development framework that makes writing AJAX applications like Google Maps and Gmail easy for developers who don't speak browser quirks as a second language." This impressive framework promises to make AJAX available to the masses and is one more step towards Google becoming the de facto Internet platform provider."

Mike Barton writes to tell us InfoWorld is reporting IBM has announced that the upcoming version of Lotus Notes, due out this fall, will feature an "ODF-compatible version of OpenOffice embedded in the Notes e-mail application." IBM hopes that this large scale distribution of the ODF standard will help bolster their foothold in the marketplace since "standards live or die on how many people use them"

Don420 writes "Jim Gray has an interview with Amazon CTO Werner Vogels for ACM Queue. It is filled with a lot of details about the Amazon architecture that we have not seen before: 'If you hit the Amazon.com gateway page, the application calls more than 100 services to collect data and construct the page for you.' But also quite a strong statements about developing software at Amazon: 'Developers of our services can use any tools they see fit to build their services. [...] Whatever tools are necessary, we provide them, and then get the hell out of the way of the developers so that they can do their jobs. [...] Developers are like artists; they produce their best work if they have the freedom to do so, but they need good tools.'"

gliph writes "Yahoo news has a piece about a small biogenetics firm that is using genetically engineered rice containing human genes to help fight diarrhea. From the article: 'Ventria's rice produces two human proteins found in mother's milk, saliva and tears, which help people hydrate and lessen the severity and duration of diarrhea attacks, a top killer of children in developing countries.'"

skayell writes "The RIAA is suing XM Satellite radio contending that the ability to store songs in memory makes it similar to an iPod, but with no income involved for the RIAA." From the article: "XM said it will vigorously defend this lawsuit on behalf of consumers and also called the lawsuit a bargaining tactic. [...] The labels are currently in talks with XM and its rival Sirius Satellite Radio, to renegotiate digital royalty contracts for broadcasts."

An anonymous reader writes "Bill Gates has collaborated to pen a response to the Wall Street Journal's recent claim that we are at the end of the PC era. From the article: 'The reality is a little different. The truth is that the model which has fueled the incredible popularity and affordability of the PC will continue to drive innovation and choice in the burgeoning area of personal devices such as cell phones, digital players and mobile PCs. As such, the PC is becoming more important and popular as a key enabler for these new digital scenarios in every corner of the world, from Indianapolis to Istanbul. If anything, it is, to paraphrase Churchill, perhaps the end of the beginning: the end of the first phase in the life of a young and evolving technology that is just now becoming as ubiquitous as the TV or the automobile.'"

P asks: "In the light of the recent discussions about on-line privacy: What can one do to protect his/her on-line privacy, while still having a enjoyable web experience? For example, are you using PGP for all your emails and Zfone for all your VOIP traffic? Or are there better ways of protecting oneself? Share your tips and tricks."

twasserman writes "Lance Ulanoff of PC Magazine reported on Sony's recent event showing the new VAIO AR desktop with a Blu-Ray drive, observing that Sony faked the high-def demo by using a plain old DVD+R of House of Flying Daggers. Even before the rootkit fiasco, Sony has seemed increasingly desperate, but the general consensus seems to be that Sony is looking pretty sad and pathetic." Update 03:07 GMT by SM: Many users are calling shenanigans on this one since there were two laptops side by side, one with the Blu-Ray demo and another for comparison. Independent confirmation or negation has yet to surface, so take with the requisite grain of salt required when reading any news.

DurnikBob asks: "I do a tremendous amount of development work sitting in hotel rooms while I'm on the road. While I've used Xen and VMware on my laptop, they come with limitations (memory usage, not 'real-life', interfere with my day job, and so on) that I'd like to move away from. I've looked at short depth 1U servers (the 19" wide makes it almost impossible to carry in the laptop bag), carrying a separate laptop (hate the weight penalty and cost of the not used keyboard and screen), the Mini-ITX field (each one I've looked at has the 1 DIMM, 1GB max limitation) and even the Mac-Mini (2" tall is a killer). Does anyone know if someone makes something along the lines of the following: small footprint (laptop size case 1" tall); Intel/AMD dual core capable; 2GB memory; space for 2.5" drives; on-board video (no need to fake it for headless operation); and on-board wireless?"