SlinkySausage writes "Linux is burdened with 'enterprise crap' that makes it run poorly on desktop PCs, says kernel developer Con Kolivas. Kolivas recently walked away from years of work on the kernel in despair. APCmag.com has a lengthy interview with Kolivas, who explains what he sees is wrong with Linux from a performance perspective and how Microsoft has succeeded in crushing innovation in personal computers."

JJJumper writes "CoolTechZone.com reviews Evoluent's VerticalMouse 3 mouse that's touted to be the world's most health conscious, ergonomics friendly mouse in the world. And it's vertical, too, instead of horizontal. The review states, "Unlike other mice, Evoluent's VerticalMouse 3 stands vertical to locate your hand in a handshake position, or where the arm is in 90-degrees form from the tabletop. It even has a small lip at the bottom to prevent your little finger from touching the desk. According to the company, this is the most natural position for the hand to be in and it reduces a magnitude of stress from your hand, wrist and arm. Apparently traditional mice with horizontal statures twist your lower arm and put unnecessary stress on its vital areas. We must admit that getting used to the mouse didn't take too long, even though it was slightly awkward to get used to in the beginning. After all, old habits die hard."

techie writes "OSWeekly.com has published a review of Beryl, a very cool looking UI for Linux. Matt Hartley writes, "This release, in my opinion, was the most over-hyped and bug-filled to date. You will have to really hit Technorati to see more of what I'm talking about, but Feisty is as buggy as the beta I tested a short time ago. After completely tossing into the wilds of the ubber-buggy "network-manager," anything running with Edgy supported RT2500 driver shows up, but it will not connect without a special script. Those of you who are on Feisty and need help with your RT2500 cards are welcome to e-mail me for the bash script."

crazyeyes writes "This is easily the best article I've seen comparing data compression software. The author tests 11 compressors: 7-zip, ARJ32, bzip2, gzip, SBC Archiver, Squeez, StuffIt, WinAce, WinRAR, WinRK, and WinZip. All are tested using 8 filesets: audio (WAV and MP3), documents, e-books, movies (DivX and MPEG), and pictures (PSD and JPEG). He tests them at different settings and includes the aggregated results. Spoilers: WinRK gives the best compression but operates slowest; AJR32 is fastest but compresses least."

ACTRAiSER writes "A recent Post on Bugtraq claims the hack of the Xbox 360 Security Protection Hypervisor. It includes sample code as well." From Bugtraq "We have discovered a vulnerability in the Xbox 360 hypervisor that allows privilege escalation into hypervisor mode. Together with a method to inject data into non-privileged memory areas, this vulnerability allows an attacker with physical access to an Xbox 360 to run arbitrary code such as alternative operating systems with full privileges and full hardware access."

FiReaNGeL writes "Researchers have located the gene that controls the red color of apples — a discovery that may lead to bright new apple varieties. 'The red color in apple skin is the result of anthocyanins, the natural plant compounds responsible for blue and red colours in many flowers and fruits,' says the leader of the CSIRO. By identifying master genes that were activated by light, they were able to pinpoint the gene that controls the formation of anthocyanins in apples. 'As well as giving apples their rosy red hue, anthocyanins are also antioxidants with healthy attributes, giving us plenty of reasons to study how the biochemical pathway leading to apple color is regulated,' researchers said."

hankwang writes "Reuters reports that Microsoft has handed over technical documents to the EU in order to enable the competition to make interoperable software. So far, the EU has imposed fines of €497 M and €280 M onto Microsoft for abuse of its monopoly. The deadline for this documentation was today. According to Microsoft, the documentation is over 8500 pages."

An anonymous reader writes "The library of congress approved many copyright exemptions today. Among the exemptions were new rules about cell phones, DVDs, and electronic books." From the article: "Cell phone owners will be allowed to break software locks on their handsets in order to use them with competing carriers under new copyright rules announced Wednesday. Other copyright exemptions approved by the Library of Congress will let film professors copy snippets from DVDs for educational compilations and let blind people use special software to read copy-protected electronic books. All told, Librarian of Congress James H. Billington approved six exemptions, the most his Copyright Office has ever granted. For the first time, the office exempted groups of users. The new rules will take effect Monday and expire in three years. In granting the exemption for cell phone users, the Copyright Office determined that consumers aren't able to enjoy full legal use of their handsets because of software locks that wireless providers have been placing to control access to phones' underlying programs."

Gamespot reports that Gears of War has sold a million units in two weeks. This has made it the fastest-selling 360 game to date, beating out GRAW and CoD2 for the honor. From the article: "Microsoft dropped some other statistics as well, saying 'more than 850,000 unique gamers have engaged in 10 million [Gears of War] gameplay sessions while unlocking an impressive 7 million achievements.' Since the game went on sale November 7, the rate of Xbox Live Gold subscriptions, which are required for online play, has increased more than 50 percent. According to Microsoft, the impressive subscription rate is because more than 85 percent of Gears players play one of the game's various multiplayer modes, which include full campaign co-op." The GamerScore Blog wants you to know that rumours you have heard about Gears for Windows were mistaken. For the time being, anyway.

Sony's having a rough week. After shootings on launch day and a harsh review from the New York Times, Bloomberg is now calling Sony out as having completely missed its shipping targets. The analyst company says there may have been as few as 50% of aimed-for units available, and that the company may only get about 200,000 units to stores by the end of the year (something Sony flatly denies). PS3 fans now also have to deal with the fact that Koei is cross-platforming two previously exclusive titles. Fatal Inertia and Bladestorm are now in development for the 360 as well, marking the latest in a string of titles that have slipped away from Sony. There is some consolation for the company to take away from this week, though. They did better than Microsoft last week in Japan, with around 81,000 PS3s, 19,000 PSPs, and 16,000 PS2s sold to a mere 4,000 Xbox 360s and ... 4 Xboxes.

Bret540 writes "A Reuters news story reports that German lawmakers are considering a crackdown on 'violent computer and simulated war games' because a youth decided to attack other students at his school. The young man was apparently already under police consideration for weapons-related violations, and was described as 'someone with no friends.'" From the article: "Wolfgang Bosbach, the deputy head of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) in parliament, said it was time to consider banning games that simulate wanton killing. 'We need effective guidelines to protect children from exposure to different types of media, but we don't need (simulated) killer games that can lead to brutalisation,' Bosbach was quoted on the Netzeitung news Web site as saying." InfoWorld has more details on the event as well.

hausmasta writes, "In this guide you will learn how to tweak your virtual Postfix setup to better combat spam by stopping the mail before it hits SpamAssasin, using RBL (Realtime Blacklists) and RHBL (slightly different), greylistings, and Helo Checks." A clear, step-by-step guide to a complex subject.