Mandrakesoft acquires South American Linux distro

Linux platform builder Mandrakesoft has announced a stock swap deal to acquire its Brazilian equivalent Conectiva. In what can only be described as a Pheonix-like rise from the ashes of near insolvency a year ago, Mandrake has since announced its most profitable quarter ever, posted a net income for the year, inked numourous deals with new customers and acquired a support company. Now its guns are aimed at bigger game. ...more

Broadband rollout continues apace

BT has announced when another batch of exchanges are to be upgraded to ADSL broadband. ...more

Last century codecs for next-gen Blu-ray

As Sony prepares for the introduction of the first commercial Blu-ray products early next year, its film and TV division is planning to release its first movies on the format using a decade-old codec. Don Eklund, senior vice president of advanced technology for Sony Pictures, has revealed that the it will encode with the same MPEG-2 technology used for DVDs. 'Advanced formats don't necessarily improve picture quality,' said Eklund. ...more

Sun open sources UltraSPARC

Sun is taking one step further along the open source path by releasing the code to its recently announced UltraSPARC T1 processor . This is the first time that a major vendor has released the full details of its processor to the developer community. Sun said it also intends to publish the specifications of the UltraSPARC-based chip, including the source of the design expressed in the Verilog hardware description language. ...more

BT puts more exchanges closer to broadband readiness

BT Wholesale has cut some of the trigger-levels for ADSL-enabling local exchanges. Such exchanges will now have lower registration targets in BT's broadband-ometer scheme, which tests local demand for fast Internet access. Paul Reynolds, CEO at BT Wholesale, said: 'This is another significant step in making broadband more widely available. ...more