Diamond Age Solutions News for the IT Industry

Sat Apr 16 21:36:38 NZST 2005

Today Index

Clipping is about to shut down for a week in order to cover the 2005 Linux conference in Canberra, so here's a bumper edition for next week. I'll be back!

NZ's District Health Board's OSS pilot attracts comments from Microsoft that their solution is 15% cheaper, while Novel claim Open Source is 30% cheaper:
http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/UNID/CE6C59FE57DB9AF8CC256FE0000FC912?OpenDocument&pub=Computerworld

Novell claim their next release of Linux Desktop will surpass the functionality of Windows, and be suitable for the mass consumer:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1778093,00.asp

The first run of 10,000 Wikipedia DVDs - currently only available in German - sells out in 3 days. English versions eagerly awaited:
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/German_Wikipedia_DVD_on_P2P_networks

Remotely operated drones are no longer the preserve of superpowers and their allies as Hizbullah flies one over Israel:
http://www.albawaba.com/en/news/182353

Open Source browser support and the adoption of SVG graphics by mobile phones are driving the new standard into mainstream web use:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1784931,00.asp

The US starts to take steps towards developing a method for returning some "orphaned" copyright material to the public domain.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,67139,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1

Active exoskeletons for humans become close to commercial reality. Designed to help elderly and disabled, about to go to market for US$14,000 to US$19,000:
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18624945.800

Itel claims it is now shipping its Pentium Processor Extreme Edition 840 running at 3.2 GHz, for their first dual-core processor-based platform:
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=technologyNews&storyID=8146525

Researchers at UCSD make carbon nanotubes bent in precise predetermined angles, for use in nanoscale tool tips:
http://www.jacobsschool.ucsd.edu/news_events/release.sfe?id=368

And finally. Messrs. Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney of American political fame, are now immortalised as varieties of slime-mould beetles:
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/April05/slime-mold.Bush.Cheney.ssl.html

News collated from various sources by Vik Olliver for Diamond Age Solutions Ltd. The views presented in this document are the personal opinion of the collator, and should not be taken as any more than that.