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As for Palm, well they've been in the market for a new kernel for a while now, and BeIA being very slick is perfect for them. Its established (technically, not commercially) and deals exceptionally well with real time media and networking - the kind of things Palm want to build upon for appeal.

The real question is where does that live the desktop OS that showed som much promise? As expected of a slashdot reader, I';ve got to say 'I hope it going to be made open source/GPL/Free/wibbleware' or similar words. Well, who knows... I just hope it doesnt vanish away... Press release here.

"Robo-cup" (audio, requires player) by Lee Gutkind, National Public Radio, Weekend All Things Considered, 28 July 2001

"RoboCup 2001 Marks SGI's Second Year of RoboCup Federation Sponsorship" (press release), PR Newswire, 1 August 2001

"Robot Competitors Meet on a Soccer Field of Dreams" (free registration required) by Jeffrey Selingo, New York Times, 2 August 2001

"RoboCup: Where Bots Kick Butt" by Jason Spingarn-Koff, Lycos News, 2 August 2001

"Rush is on for 'HAL'-like computer to perfect A.I." by Winda Benedetti, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 3 August 2001

"Robot world cup kicks off", BBC, 3 August 2001

"RoboCup 2001 boots up" by Helen Pearson, Nature Science Update, 3 August 2001

"Blutgrätschen ohne Blut und Beine", stern.de, 3 August 2001

"Roboter aus 23 Ländern tragen Fußballweltmeisterschaft aus", Net-Business Online, 3 August 2001

"RoboCup 2001, il calcio visto dai robot", Punto Informatico, 3 August 2001

"Building a better goalie (buzz, whir)" by Gregory Roberts, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 4 August 2001

"Man and machine take the field" by David Olsen, Seattle Times, 4 August 2001

"Robots Storm the Soccer Field" by Maria Godoy, TechTV/Tech Live, 6 August 2001

Information about live Webcast of Botball finals (an event distinct from Robocup) on 7-8 August

Um, I submitted this story to slashdot last week, but it was rejected

• Though people ask for it continually, people in the know, such as _BeOS Bible_ author Scot Hacker, have repeatedly said that an open source version of BeOS will basically never happen. The system depends on licensed code that Be apparently couldn't give away even if they wanted to. I'd like to see this happen as much as everyone else, but don't count on it ever happening.
• New math department: according to The Register, Be's recent financial reports indicate that revenues are up over 600 percent. Thus proving that 600% of nothing is still, well, nothing.
• Supposedly, somewhere on beosradio.com, a ready to ship copy of BeOS r6 has been presented to CEO Jean Louis Gasseee. Various interesting takes on this one. Supposedly development on the desktop OS had basically halted, with all effort going into the IA version, so it would seem that there isn't enough code to be worth releasing a new version of the desktop OS. This is a shame, because a couple of useful components -- BONE networking, OpenGL graphics, etc -- were apparently under development before the switch to the IA focus, and it isn't clear if these components were then or are now ready for prime time. It could be a move to just get out one last version in whatever state it may be in, or there could actually be some new developments that haven't been publicized.
• Discussion at BeGroovy suggests that, among other things, this Palm press release would indicate that they're the likely buyed, while another commenter suggests, supposedly on good authority, that Sony is the likely buyer and they're already feeling out where they would want to go with Be & its technology. Then again, a a followup to that said that, at least as far as releasing BeOS6, he was full of it, and that the only developer working on BONE has been on an extended vacation anyway. Finally, one commenter noted that the final issue of BeDope ["Be's own Onion" --me.] had anticipated all of this months ago. Hrm....
• Over at BeNews, there was yet another link to the Reg article and a whole lot of discussion, generally going nowhere as these forums are wont to do, throwing out speculation that the buyer -- if there even is one, don't forget that this is still just a rumor -- could be any of Palm (they seem to like that idea; I'm not sure I see it but hey whatever), Gobe (developer of Be software -- seen as unlikely as they probably don't have much more cash than Be does), AOL, Compaq, Sun (now *that* would be a nice Network Computer...), Symbian, QNX (why?), Apple (doubt it), Microsoft (pretty sure that was a joke...) (too bad...), Amiga (ok that was definitely a joke), IBM, Hitachi, Samsung, Nokia, Transmeta, Intel, Red Hat (we're pretty safely into wild speculation territory at this point), SGI (see? completely off the wall, these people have no idea what they're talking about), QSSL (bonkers), DoCoMo (two unprofitable ideas that lose money together!), Wind River (who?), Ericsson, etc. Mostly this is all silliness. Towards the end of the conversation, a commenter notes that over on Yahoo's forums, the rumor has been confirmed (by who?), that the stock price is expected to shoot up (whoa, a whole dollar! golly!), and there will be an after hours announcement. Keep in mind however that, not so long ago, a 15 year old kid had such financial forums in the palm of his hand with his "expert" advice, so take that with the appropriate amount of salt. Still, something to watch for anyway.
• Meanwhile, *checks* yes, Be's own press page hasn't been updated since May 17. No help there...

Hopefully all those links work, if not I apologize. I'm just summarizing the various pages that I've skimmed over the course of today. If there's any truth to the Yahoo rumors, there could be confirmation of this as soon as tonight. Though it would be sad to see the company shut down or swallowed whole, a lot of people have seen this coming for a long time, and it would be nice to have some resolution of the situation. BeOS is some great consumer computing technology, and I hope very much that it has a future. Perhaps we're about to find out if that is the case...

Here are some of the links that I found.

International Ophthalmology Expert Joins Microvision Advisory Panel

Eye Safety FAQ about Retinal Scanning Display Technology

Quarterly Report -- "Our products may be subject to future health and safety regulation that could increase our development and production costs. Products incorporating retinal scanning display technology could become subject to new health and safety regulations that would reduce our ability to commercialize the retinal scanning display technology. Compliance with any such new regulations would likely increase our cost to develop and produce products using the retinal scanning display technology and adversely affect our financial results."

I wish I could report that the company was taking the possible health risks of its product seriously, but that is not the impression that I get from my web search. There is no word on controlled clinical studies of the product's effects on people with normal vision, for example.

Tim

Microvision just came out with a new full color display . They are using light sources
rather than lasers to achieve full color.

Still no word on screen resolution... I assume if they aren't touting 320x320, that means they are still at 160x160. Of course, that is all PalmOS 4.0 can handle is 160x160, anything higher (e.g. Sony Clie) uses some sort of pixel doubling or something.

I emailed OmniSky last week to ask if they have support for the Palm505 yet. They said that they were not ready to announce any new support yet. But made it sound like they would. The link above lists Minstrel modems (the ones OmniSky uses) available in April 2001. So I assume shortly after the m505 hits shelves OmniSky will have full support. That gives users a full TCP/IP stack (afaik), modem for $199 with rebate, unlimited service for $39.95/month.

The new vibrating/silent/audible alarms being built in is a nice touch.

And it appears that applications will be able to be run directly off the SD Cards. That's a good thing too.

Personally, I would like to order one, they sound great... but I'm just unsure of the life of this thing. If Palm is going to release a 320x320 device with a StrongARM processor next year, I may just wait. But for now, I'm planning on buying one when they hit store shelves.

Why does Slashdot use the Old Silicon Graphics logo? Silicon Graphics effectively became SGI as of april 99. So is this just graphics trolling? Or should slashdot reflect the current branding strategy of a corporation? Wasn't this a News site once?

For example, this article points out that Network Associates brought in about $9Million last quarter from McAfee.com, and this one claims that McAfee has 47% of the market; so that says that folks spent around $20Million last quarter on virus software alone -- assuming linear rates, that means $80Million last year...

Of course that doesn't count virus-scanning firewalls, and so on, much less peoples' time.

How about adding an update to the story like;

The Technology evaluation article uses IDC data as of Dec 99. IDC data for Jul 2000 indicates that Linux-Mandrake is #1 in retail sales in US 31,5% with Red Hat #2 - 24,9% 3 - Corel: 23,0% and 4 - TurboLinux: 8,4%.

I don't know why you would post a story based on 9 month old data but an update would clarify the situation somewhat.

It is because Corel Linux is currently #3 in sales and by next month should be number 2. The stats given in the article was from Dec 99. Corel Linux was only released in Nov 99 so obviously it did not have much of a market share in Dec. Since then Corel has launched WPO2K-L, CD9-L, PP9-L and CLOS SE. Since Corel is after the desktop and RedHat is in the server market it is hard to compare. Here are the IDC stats from Jul 2000

Retail sales in July 2000 - Source: PC Data With a 32,966-unit-sample selected by PC Data

1 - Linux-Mandrake: 31,5%

2 - Red Hat: 24,9%

3 - Corel: 23,0%

4 - TurboLinux: 8,4%

5 - SuSE: 6,1%

6 - Caldera: 4,3%

The only reason Mandrake has these numbers is that it is bundled with MacMillan's books. I can tell you that I have their cds in one of the books I bought but they have never been used. If you could find out what people actualy have installed I am sure that Corel would fair better. Now if I can find these stats why can't the rest of the media? Here is IDC for Feb and Nov

Linux®: US RETAIL MARKET SHARE PCDATA RETAIL

Revenue - Share_____Feb-00 _____ Nov-99

Red Hat________ 40.4% _____ 58.5%

Macmillan _____ 19.6% _____ 21.5%

Corel ________ 19.3% _____ 2.3%

S.U.S.E. _____ 7.1% _____ 0.7%

TurboLinux _____ 4.1% _____ 1.1%

Caldera _______ 3.0% _____ 6.9%

The CNet download stats are interesting also. While downloads don't directly translate into revenue they are a good indication of popularity, brand recognition and potential upgrade_apps sales. Total download stats from CNet show:

Corel Linux (since Nov 99) 307,840

RedHat (since Mar 98) 334,857

Caldera 39,495

Mandrake 86,505

SuSE 5,946

WordPerfect 8 for L PE (since Dec 98) 1,134,190

Star Office PE (?) 160,644

If you look at the monthly trend this year you can see that CLOS is more popular than RedHat by 30% and WP almost 350% more than Star Office.

Summary since 30 Apr 00

___________________WP84L_____CLOS_______RedHat____ ____Star Office

27-Aug________________ 5,610______ 3,188_______ 2,728______1,634 weekly snip

25 Jun - 16 Jul_________21,730_____13,304 _____12,501(monthly total)

28 May - 18 Jun_______27,318_____19,573 _____15,106

30 Apr - 21 May ______25,900 _____24,805 _____15,512

Totals________________107,149______81,478_____61 ,103 BTW the above story is just a rip off of a CNet article of 31 Aug Red Hat holds huge Linux lead, rivals growing By Stephen Shankland It also cited these 'recent figures from IDC.

there are press releases talking about this on the Hi/fn press release page.

how long, do you suppose, before someone makes a keyboard that ssh's (or use some equivalent measure to encrypt all traffic between the keyboard and computer) to the computer, so that the truly paranoid can feel a little less worried about someone planting a KeyGhost on a machine when they're not looking? or is that way too paranoid?

I've been reading newspapers, the web services, and the newswires for many years.

You know where I and most newsorgs get their information?

Corporate "news releases". The newspapers are the worst of the lot. Many will print the news releases verbatim as leading edge stuff. Even most of the photos now come through from there.

You want in depth reporting, read alternative magazines, as newspapers don't want to expend resources looking into the information. Otherwise go to PR Newswire and save yourself looking at the grammer errors created by the newsorgs.

This is great, especially since this allows developers to contribute additions and other changes to the originial source code, thus improving its security. The article also mentions that this is the same security used by the current version of Netscape Communicator. Does anyone know if this will be 128-bit security?

For more information, you can find Mozilla's official press release here. Also, check out the Mozilla crypto FAQ. It talks about PSM and various crypto-related questions.