Cool! Prepackaged, Linux-powered iMac clusters.Full story at The Register.

Almost everybody seems to love the idea of online Applications Service Providers [ASPs], says FairfaxIT — except the big-biz customers who are supposed to use them.

“Have you ever been on an airplane and wanted to watch a racy DVD on your laptop but were too
embarrassed?” Wired says you won’t have to worry about this problem much longer:

“Later this year you may be able to, thanks to a new range of microdisplays — tiny screens that when
magnified appear as large as a regular monitor but offer total privacy.”

FairfaxIT interviews famous workaholic (and Netscape cofounder) Marc Andreessen briefly about this and that before he “…grabs his pager and starts checking his e-mail.”

It’s been reproted elsewhere, but this is Wired’s take on “…an integral flaw that allows users with
personal digital assistants to eavesdrop on conversations.” (They’re talking about upcoming ones using Bluetooth wireless technology, not PDAs already on the market.)

Blurb at PCWeek begins, “Lucent Technologies’s Microelectronics Group has reached an
agreement with PacketVideo to integrate streaming video into
next generation mobile devices, the companies said this week.”

According to a FairfaxIT article, Monash University professor Liz Kendall is excited by new networking and ‘Internet appliance’ possibilities, but also worries that “… Australia is on the brink of missing out on the lucrative windfalls because of Federal
Government funding policies that discriminate against popular IT courses.”

A group of self-styled Internet visionaries got together over the weekend in Emeryville, California at an event unsurprisingly called the Festival
for New Media Visionaries. Wired was there.

LinuxToday.au asks whether Compaq is pro-Linux or a creature of Windows. On one hand, there’s Alpha and some very nice Linux support in some of Compaq’s divisions. On the other hand, they have a tight relationship with Microsoft. On the gripping hand, Compaq is supporting Gnome like mad. Read the article, draw your own conclusions.

“Sometimes a Linux geek just wants to have fun,” says this cute Wired piece about Linux getting more game-y lately. The paradigm of using Linux for work and Windows for play seems to be changing; before long, according to the article, that leftover Windows partition used only for games may not be necessary.