Security Focus says a law has been passed outlawing the reverse engineering of recorded media in the US.

Linux PR is reporting on the efforts of TuxTop – the largest maker of Linux-based laptops – to create a portable application competition.

Andamooka is a new open content books reader support site. It features free hosting for authors of open content books and offers community annotation and discussion which can help readers get more from the
book and authors learn how to improve their books. The first Andamooka book will be KDE 2.0 Development. Two prerelease pieces are online now: a chapter on KParts, and an abridged API reference. The entire book will be online in early November.
– Submitted by David Sweet

From Canada NewsWire: LynuxWorks, Incorporated, a
provider of Linux compatible operating systems and related products and
services designed for the embedded systems market, today announced that it has
filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission a registration statement
relating to the proposed initial public offering of its common stock. All of
the shares will be sold by LynuxWorks.

From a Business Wire press release: InterVideo, Inc., a developer of PC video software, has
announced its LinDVD Linux DVD player/decoder has been selected to provide the DVD video/audio playback
capability in the breakthrough ZapMedia(SM) ZapStation Universal Media Player.

ZDNet reviews Frontpath’s ProGear, “a wireless portable information appliance targeted to vertical market segments. The ProGear uses Embedded Linux as its internal operating system, includes a 10.4′ TFT display, and obtains its user input via either a virtual keyboard or handwriting recognition on its touchscreen.”

CNet reports that the first laptops loaded with Transmeta’s Crusoe chip have arrived in the United States. “Tokyo-based Sony is shipping its Vaio C1 PictureBook — a 1-inch thick, 2.2-pound
machine based on the 600-MHz Transmeta TM5600 Crusoe chip — to the States. Until now, notebooks containing Transmeta’s chips
have been released in Japan only, and in limited numbers.”

From a column at ZDNet : “Last week I introduced you to OpenOffice, the nine million lines of source code Sun has released to the open source world from its StarOffice office productivity suite. As I said, I’m now using StarOffice but am eagerly waiting for something better to come along, and I know it will. But not everyone sees StarOffice’s opening as such a big deal.”

ZDNet’s LinuxDevices.com has a feature on the empeg car audio player, which features full-function embedded Linux computer.

According to a press release at LinuxPR, the Linux desktop
now has a full-featured fax and voice messaging application. PMfax for
Linux has been released and is immediately available at www.pmfax.com.
This product fills a hole in the Linux desktop and provides other Linux
applications with “print and fax” capabilities.