“Need to look at movie schedule? Pull over and look up the nearest movie theater web page. Cool, eh? Can you think about a couple of thousand other ways to use Internet access from anywhere you happen to be? Linux is an ideal candidate to make this scenario not only possible but cheap, too.” More at Linux Journal.

“Continuing to demonstrate its leadership in the media streaming market, SGI (NYSE: SGI) today announced that Kasenna(TM) MediaBase(TM) is now available for Linux(R) OS-based servers from SGI and can be purchased from SGI and its resellers. This brings the hardware entry price for multiformat streaming capability down to $3,445 (U.S. list price) and gives customers a choice between powerful, scalable SGI(TM) IRIX(R) OS-based servers and multiple low-cost Linux OS-based servers from SGI” Full press release at PR Newswire

From a press release at Business Wire: “Red Hat, Inc. (Nasdaq:RHAT), the leader in developing, deploying and managing open source Internet infrastructure solutions, today announced that Rymic Systems, Inc. has chosen Red Hat’s uClinux port as the operating system for a prototypical vehicle monitoring device soon to be tested by the United States Army. The embedded device will be incorporated in the Bradley fighting vehicles, heavy expanded mobility tactical trucks and humvees.”

TheStreet.com reports: “Linux-related stocks were bouncing back faster than a 7-year-old on a trampoline Wednesday, thanks largely to IBM’s announcement that it’ll spend $1 billion on the open-source software next year. VA Linux and Red Hat were among the rising Linux stocks. VA Linux recently was up $2.88, or 26%, to $13.88, and Red Hat was rising $1.41, or 17%, to $9.81.” (VA Linux owns NewsForge).

From CNET News.com: “Palm on Tuesday released a beta version of its newest operating system–software it hopes will help take Palm devices from electronic organizers to powerful vehicles for wireless voice and data communication.”

Opera has the announcement. Some highlights: Renders HTML 3.2 and 4.0 pages; executes most EcmaScript 1.1 (Ecma-262 v.3) programs; renders CSS 1 and 2 extensions; bBrowses FTP sites; handles cookies; supports HTTP 1.0 and 1.1; displays GIF, PNG and JPEG; and has a hot list, bookmarks and bookmark bar.

The humor site Segfault.org has this item: “The Exchange virus/trojan poses as a MTA/MDA server. It is currently distributed on CD only. It costs
between $1500 – $5000, typically, although some versions cost much more.

Once installed & deployed as a mail solution, the exchange virus will periodically crash, causing you to lose
all your data. When you perform the “maintenance routines” specified by the creator, it can randomly crash
as well. The virus is designed to prevent any back-ups of your data from being successful.”

Reuters reports that search engine Ask Jeeves will cut 25 percent of its workforce its earnings warning last week that it
expected a fourth-quarter pro forma loss of $18 million, or 50 cents a
share, far wider than the 33-cents-a-share loss analysts had
expected.

Slashdot readers discuss an interview at Upside.com in which vitural reality guru Jaron Lanier “takes a few digs at the open source community.
Although an admitted fan of the open source development model,
Lanier considers open source technologies such as the GNU/Linux
operating system a prime example of how legacy software design —
in this case, the 30-year-old Unix operating system model —
imposes its will on even the most cutting-edge software systems.”

InfoWorld has a year-end roundup of quotes, including several Linux people: “If Gates is going back into programming and design, this is the best thing that’s happened to Linux.” — Jon “maddog” Hall.