InfoWorld reports on the introduction of PC card fingerprint readers for authentication, potentially eliminating the need for passwords.

ZDNet has a review of IBM’s IntelliStation M Pro 6149, using Intel’s newest processor, the Pentium 4 at 1.5GHz. The reviews are favourable for the new chip, which comes on the heals of Intel’s retracting the 1.13GHz Pentium 3.

MSNBC reports that Honda has unveiled its newest humanoid robot in Tokyo.

ZDNet reports on the many reported shortcomings in MS Office 10 beta 2. The problems, primarily with its speech recognition software may force Microsoft to release a beta 3.

OS Opinion says “the Mac press is spreading FUD on the subject of Mac OS X. Members of the PC press seem enthusiastic about the OS, and isn’t that exactly what Mac supporters have been waiting for? But as soon as PCers start gushing about it and Apple seems to be looked at with renewed interest from the real world, then the Mac Press starts dumping on OS X with uninformed and sometimes just plain unresearched nonsense.” –Kelly McNeill

The Cobalt RaQ4 is a Linux-based server appliance that provides a dedicated developer/web-hosting platform ideal for virtual Web site hosting, Internet services (e-mail, ftp), web publishing, personal and client development and e-commerce applications.
Read the
full review at Linuxlookup.com. -Anonymous Reader

From Business Wire: RidgeRun Inc., a provider of embedded Linux software for products employing digital
signal processing components, announced today two appointments to strengthen the senior management of the company.
Rudy Prince has been appointed CEO and chairman of the board. Prince will be overseeing the company’s strategy, products, marketing focus and
pursuit of key strategic and financial partners. He brings a wealth of business and management experience to the new start-up venture. In addition to Prince’s appointment, Rick Seger has been appointed vice president of Business Development. Seger is responsible for RidgeRun’s
worldwide sales and partnering efforts to a wide range of manufacturers, developers and application solutions providers for Internet appliances.

InfoWorld reports that Computer Associates has released a new version of its Unicenter TNG ebusiness management software. Unicenter TNG 2.4 features comprehensive Linux platform support. LinuxPR has a press release.

From LinuxPR: After selecting Open CASCADE
as the development tool for its ANATOLE
tolerance analysis software, the Corporate Research Center of EADS at
Suresnes (France) has once again chosen these open-source C++ 3D modeling
components from Matra Datavision along with the 3D-MasterSuite Java 3D
graphic library from TGS for creation of an integration platform for its simulation
software ASERIS-FD. The CCR has ordered 121,000 euros worth of
development services from the Open CASCADE and TGS teams for the
project. These services will allow obtaining greater productivity and ease of use
from the ASERIS-FD solver.

From LWN.net: “During internal source code auditing by FreeBSD several buffer overflows
were found which allow an attacker to make tcpdump crash by sending
carefully crafted packets to a network that is being monitored with
tcpdump.”