Diamond Age Solutions News for the IT Industry

Thu Jul 14 07:20:15 NZST 2005

Today Index

The New Zealand Open Source Society files objection to Microsoft's broad XML patent. Microsoft says it will persist:
http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/UNID/F68C4D35A4AE5DD5CC257038000F4A24?OpenDocument&pub=Computerworld

Vail Unified School District switches completely from paper textbooks to laptops and online learning:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8540381/

LG Are to use PalmOS in their new cellphones, which PalmSource is investing most of its resources in porting to the Linux operating system:
http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=165700231

A buffer overflow flaw in the zlib compression library poses a security risk for Windows and Linux users alike:
http://www.neoseeker.com/news/story/4745/

Patches for all, covering Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft's "patch day":
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07/13/firefox_update/

Google's current vision-based access authentication effectively blocks access to those who cannot see. They're working on an audio version:
http://www.internetnews.com/ent-news/article.php/3518741

The NZ Fire Service is to switch its old X.25 alarms to IP-based systems as Telecom shuts the old lines down:
http://stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3340742a28,00.html

Basix releases a completely reprogrammable video device, shipped as a retro MSX1 video game emulator. A large FPGA onboard can be repeatedly rewritten by users:
http://www.fpgajournal.com/news_2005/07/20050711_11.htm

Mark Shuttleworth puts US$10m into The Ubuntu Foundation to ensure that Ununtu 6.04 will be supported free for at least 3 years on desktops and 5 on servers:
http://www.ubuntulinux.org/UbuntuFoundation

Universal Display Corp. develops a blue OLED with a 15,000 hour lifetime:
http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=165700100

Scientists at Seikei and Aichi universities develop an ultra-low friction lubricant. They sandwich buckyballs between graphite sheets to stop binding:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=24425

And finally. Skippy, a proud member of the US forces, lists the 213 things he's not alowed to do. It looks like the enemy is the least of his worries!:
http://www.skippyslist.com/skippylist.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.