International Data Corp. Japan (IDC Japan) released its
year-2000 Japanese market forecast for server operating systems on Oct. 26, reports AsiaBizTech News. Broken down by type, shipments of the Linux operating system are expected to jump
144.4 percent to 41,200 units. This 2.4-fold burst in growth will propel Linux to a 7.8
percent share of the overall server OS market in 2000, compared to a 4.0 percent share
the previous year, IDC Japan said.

From a Business Wire press release: NuSphere, provider of NuSphere MySQL, a packaged
software product for the open source database marketplace, has announced that it is partnering with the MySQL open source
database community to develop a row-level locking capability for the MySQL database. Code-named “Gemini,” this project will be
part of MySQL Version 4, targeted for release in the spring of 2001.

From PCWorldIDG: Understanding that the best way to maximize the speed of its Athlon processors is to crank up the performance of the surrounding platform, Advanced Micro Devices on Monday will introduce its new AMD 760 chip set, sources said.

Investigators have charged 831 people in Italy with purchasing
material involving sex with minors and are investigating a further
660 elsewhere in Europe, Asia and the US. From ZDCOUK.

The day may soon dawn when people won’t have to take time off work to let the plumber in. Their robots will be home to do it. Wired.com’s Patrick McGee reports from the Camden Technology Conference in Maine.

Techweb reports that the decision to select the Athlon tips Micron, Nampa,
Idaho. more firmly into the AMD camp, but doesn’t rule
out the possibility of a Pentium 4-based machine in the
future. Other PC vendors are expected to hedge their
bets with both Pentium 4- and Athlon-based machines.

A computer broker has been sentenced to 11 years in prison for
defrauding computer and printer maker Hewlett-Packard out of
millions of dollars by using pirated software to illegally upgrade
computer servers intended for resale, officials said Friday. From a report at ZDCOUK.

Wired.com reports: When Qualcomm CEO Irwin Jacobs got his laptop stolen last month at a conference, the technology to
protect his information may already have been at his fingertips.

By using a biometric fingerprint scanner, Jacobs could have added a layer of security to his laptop, which he
said contained proprietary information that was possibly valuable to foreign governments.

Security experts think it increasingly likely that the motive behind the
hacker attack on Microsoft was industrial espionage, the Financial
Times said Monday. From ZDCOUK.

The National Post reports that Red Hat’s Bob Young has joined the board of directors for Tucows. Bob is also on the board of directors of XDL Capital Corp, a Toronto-based VC firm who are significant investors in Tucows. –Gary Lawrence Murphy