Linux goes 64-bit for PowerPC

The only company licensed to supply Macs with Linux pre-installed expects to ship a 64-bit version on Power Mac G5s before the end of May. Terra Soft Solutions 64-bit version of Yellow Dog Linux will be called Y-HPC, and is built upon Red Hat's RPM-based Fedora. It will be available pre-installed on IBM and Momentum 970-based hardware in addition to G5s, to download, or on DVD. ...more

Fall halves Apple

Apple is a victim of a lower-than-expected revenues announcement. Its recent revenue warnings have caused its shares to skydive 50 per cent. Analysts at First Call/Thomson had been expecting Apple to earn 45 cents per share, but they dropped from the previous week's ?53. ...more

Xerox talks the language of colour

Xerox is developing a new technology that lets you change the colour on a computer document or display by simply speaking or typing a description. As the company puts it: anyone familiar with a box of crayons can describe the colour 'carnation pink' but how many people can make that colour appear 'correctly'? The technology interprets commands such as 'make the sky a deeper blue' or 'make the background carnation pink' and prompts its software to make the necessary change does the work. The invention creates 'colour language' by translating human descriptions of colour into the precise numerical codes that machines use to print colour documents. ...more

RIM pushes software services

BlackBerry manufacturer Research In Motion (RIM) has announced a licensing program for its corporate email server software. The 'BlackBerry Connect' licensing program will allow mobile device makers to add to their products the ability to access corporate mail through RIM's Enterprise Server system. This would benefit RIM by widening the number of devices its current customers can deploy throughout their company which hook up to the system, as well as making BlackBerry services more attractive and available to new customers. ...more

Open Source support industry to grow to multi-million pound market

Analysts at IDC reckon that public sector deployment of Open Source software will drive momentum in the enterprise, resulting in a booming market for support services. It says organisations in Europe already spend ?53mn on supporting Open Source software, with much of renewed interest stemming from public sector deployments that are the result of cost-saving initiatives. These in turn work as proof of concept demonstrations that larger enterprises can draw confidence from when considering using Open Source software in large-scale commercial environments. ...more