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Mirus Bets on Linspire Linux for New Line of "Koobox" Desktop Computers

[Ed: Not to knock the Koobox, but who the heck is Mirus? How are they major? They have a one-page website with zilch for information, other than to say that Mirus recommends Windows. That said, at least Linspire is the exclusive OS, not just an option. - dcparris]

The halls of investing are littered with companies that had great businesses, but eventually stagnating growth, which inevitably gave their management the urge to do something in order to prove the growth story was still alive. Peter Lynch referred to this phenomenon as diworsification.

Diworsification pretty much sums up how I have felt about Motley Fool Stock Advisor selection eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) and its acquisition of Skype, which lets users chat via voice and video over the Internet. Internet telephony isn't all that unique; offerings from Apple Computer's (Nasdaq: AAPL) iChat service, Time Warner's (NYSE: TWX) AOL TotalTalk service, and a number of free software packages such as Gizmo allow you to do the same.

Before Linux, asset performance management provider Datastream ran its enterprise on proprietary Sun hardware and the Solaris operating system. But Jim Plourde, vice president of hosted solutions at Datastream, says he wasn't happy with the performance or the price of Sun hardware with its mission-critical database operations. In 2002, a move to lower-priced Intel servers was on the horizon, but Plourde still had operating system choices to make.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lobbyist Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty to fraud charges on Tuesday and agreed to help U.S. prosecutors in a corruption probe that could involve several top Republican lawmakers, including former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. Abramoff pleaded guilty to conspiracy, mail fraud and tax evasion before a federal judge in Washington. He also will plead guilty to conspiracy and wire fraud in a separate case in Miami on Wednesday, his lawyer there said.

[Ed: This story ties in with recent articles by LXer Editor-in-Chief, Tom Adelstein, "Following the Microsoft Money Trail". Abramoff figures prominently in Adelstein's articles. - dcparris]

A Chinese mobile phone software vendor has licensed a suite of A/V (audio-visual) codecs for its Linux smartphone software stack. China MobileSoft (CMS) says A/V technology from InterVideo will enable users of phones based on its Linux smartphone stack to record and play "high-quality, jitter-free video clips."

Sony's settlement over the rootkit fiasco represents a blueprint for legislative action, argues law professor Michael Geist. The settlement seeks to both compensate US consumers for the harm they suffered from the Sony CDs and to place limits on Sony's future use of TPMs.

[Ed: If you're interested in copy restriction measures, you'll want to read this. - dcparris]

First Multi-Terabyte Product Aimed at Home Media Market Stores Up to 5000 Hours of Video or 640,000 Tunes

Hackers have cracked the Xbox 360 puzzle game Hexic HD in order to discover more about the inner workings of Microsoft's new console. Files from the puzzle game have been extracted, burned to disc, and booted from a standard Xbox 360 console. The game can also be run on PC.

Discover the latest step in the evolution of Java application development using DB2 Universal Database for Linux, UNIX, and Windows. Get an insider view of the JDBC Universal Driver, the clear advantages to using a pure Java type 4 driver, and examine common debugging techniques that will help you get to the heart of any problem.

One of Microsoft's (Quote, Chart) lead intellectual property law firms has asked the United States Patent & Trademark Office to open a new reexamination of the Eolas patent. The Eolas patent covers "a system allowing a user of a browser program on a computer connected to an open distributed hypermedia system to access and execute an embedded program object."

Vincenzo Ciaglia has authored an article that describes his Linux Netwosix release, and answers many questions being posed by developers. He reiterates much of the information that he conveyed in a recent interview with LinuxWorld, but also added some new information. One brief outtake from the article (which is posted in full at LinuxWorld): 'The installation is simple and with the new release, Linux Netwosix 2.0-rc1, there's a new setup tool based on the Crux one that really help every user because it is simple and user-friendly for a security/network oriented GNU/Linux distribution. The Setup script will show a simple list of available 'base' packages you can choose to install on your system.'

What do you get when you combine reckless security with a tottering Internet Explorer feature set? An army of very unhappy opinion leaders: Geeks and network managers.

Motorola announces a Linux-Java smartphone under the moniker A910. It has Wi-Fi 802.11b/g, with a 1.3 megapixel camera. It has a TransFlash (micro-SD) slot, with voice recognition software. The A910 is expected to be available in 1st Quarter of 2006. Whether its available in our shores, that's an unknown.

Until today, the only two statements from Massachusetts spokespersons regarding Peter Quinn's open format policy stated that the "rules would not change." Now we know that the administration remains committed not only to open formats in general, but also to ODF in particular.

Newest Music-Optimized Mobile Delivers More Tunes Much Faster

In a few weeks, IBM will be delivering an update to OS/400, which has been i5/OS for the past year. Everyone knows its reputation for handling heavy-duty workloads by virtue of its impressive architecture and long list of applications. As an iSeries customer, you firmly believe that you get what you pay for. For instance, you get the capability to run multiple operating systems. In the past, OS/400 may have been enough. But as you look ahead, and certainly as IBM looks ahead, Linux could begin pulling more and more weight.

The saga of Internet Explorer, the piece of software that once brought the Department of Justice to the brink of breaking up Microsoft, continues to eat away at the company. Several Microsoft employees have been reporting on their blogs that they feel the browser is not receiving adequate attention from upper management, and that it reflects badly on Microsoft as a result.

Rory Blythe, after posting a rant complaining about how many people seem excited about switching Firefox simply to "beat the man," admitted in a comment that the lack of new features in Internet Explorer was embarrassing:

In this tutorial (login required) Ian Shields introduces you to Linux devices, filesystems, and the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard. Learn in depth how to: Create partitions and filesystems, Maintain the integrity of filesystems, Mount and unmount filesystems, Manage disk quota, Use file permissions to control access to files, Manage file ownership, Create and change hard and symbolic links, Find system files and place files in the correct location.

[Ed: While this requires registering, some readers may want to access these course modules. -tadelste]

MINNEAPOLIS, Jan. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Telsasoft today announced that West Central Wireless of San Angelo, Texas has purchased a set of GSM CDR (Call Detail Record) reports to complement their next generation integrated OSS network management solution also purchased from Telsasoft for their GSM network infrastructure.

Open source software is off to a good start, but it won't revolutionize IT until the community gets serious about defining business frameworks and processes, says Charles E. Bess P.E. and EDS Fellow.

It's prediction time for Bess, and he opines on the future of Linux and open source in this interview. He also lists the hot new technologies that will shake up the IT world in 2006. As head futurist for EDS Corp., a global technology services company based in Plano, Tex., Bess studies the future implications of changes within the software industry.