“On Friday — coincidentally the day the government files its brief in the Microsoft case — a new movie opens nationwide. According to Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures, the film is a “relentless suspense thriller” about “the high speed, high stakes computer industry.” It is centered on “a corporate behemoth whose power, greed, and paranoia knows no bounds,” and stars Tim Robbins as the company’s CEO — who just happens to be “the world’s richest man.” Full story at the Washington Post.

Reuters via ZDNet News reports: “State attorneys general say they are determined to pursue the antitrust case against Microsoft, even if the Justice Department, under President-elect Bush, tries to back away.

At LinuxPlanet: “We in the Linux world take for granted that Linux will be a player in the consumer-electronics space, if only for the fact that it has many attributes that make it a good choice for embedded systems, speed and reliability being among them. But judging by the vendors at CES, Linux isn’t close to breaking into this space. There really was only one vendor that was pushing Linux at all, and that was Agenda, showing off the Agenda VR3 in the shadow of Palm Computing in the Palm Pavilion.”

“In a study hardcore computer enthusiasts find
“repulsive and unconscionable,” at least 99.9 percent of the general population will have no
special recollection of Jan. 5, 2001, the day the Linux 2.4 operating system was finally
released.” More at SatireWire.

From All Linux Devices: “G.Mate’s Yopy will be getting a speech interface when it’s released, according to Redmond-based
company Conversay. The company says the interface will allow for spoken commands in natural
English, and feature support for an upcoming GPS device for the Linux-based handheld.”

“A U.S. federal judge has issued a temporary restraining order, effective Jan. 12 to March 15, that forbids Juno Online Services from displaying third-party advertisements on a floating banner window used by the Internet service provider. Rival ISP NetZero sought a restraining order as part of its federal lawsuit against Juno, alleging that Juno’s advertising and navigation window violates a NetZero patent.” Full story at InfoWorld.

“No cusomter credit card information was stolen in last month’s attack on Egghead.com’s computer systems,” said company president Jeff Sheahan in a message to customers on Monday. More at Info World.

Info World reports that IBM has announced a March release date for its WebSphere Translation Server, a solution that will not only allow companies to serve Web pages in multiple languages, but facilitate e-mail and real-time chat sessions between users speaking different languages. Given Big Blue’s recent push into the Linux marketplace, the news that full Translation Server features will not be available for that platform is somewhat surprising.

Info World continues its coverage of CES in Las Vegas, this time with Philips: Look forward to streaming Internet home stereo systems, Internet appliances running on Linux, and Bluetooth-enabled headsets for wireless applications in 2001.

From NewsAlert, originally for the Raleigh (NC) News & Observer: “Red Hat will announce Monday that its version of Linux especially built to run small networked devices, so-called
embedded Linux, will be the underlying operating system for a slick, new in-car docking station for Palm Pilots and cellular
phones.”