From
CNet: “With the new version of its Pocket PC operating system for
handhelds, Microsoft is all business. As reported earlier, Microsoft
will unveil Pocket PC 2002 on Thursday and demonstrate a number of
new features that the company asserts will make the OS a more useful
tool for corporate workers.”

Kelly McNeill writes “There are new and improved ways for U.S. citizens to work. Why they aren’t in effect is anybody’s guess, but I think it has something to do with supplier-based economies monopolizing the standards and practices of the workforce. What do we have now? If you don’t do what you’re told, you’re fired. You can deviate from the predetermined goals of the corporation for which you work by developing better ways of doing things, but if you do so habitually, you’re a goner. If you go too fast for these companies — and they can’t control everything you create — they’ll toss you.”

From Business Week: “There’s a place for Apple in the handheld market, but it should be as an innovator, not a savior.”

Kelly McNeill writes “Among the obligatory hoop-jumping disclosures and approvals required for a merger the size of Hewlett-Packard and Compaq, there will be antitrust investigations to determine how this new entity will be allowed to operate without “harming” consumers. So, while the perceived gains in efficiency may not materialize for another two to three years, the combined organization must now subject itself to the same scrutiny IBM faced many years ago. This scrutiny, coincidentally, led to the creation of several new technology leaders, such as Compaq, Dell and Microsoft.”

From MSNBC: “A yougn hacker was sentenced to four months in prison Wednesday for breaking into computers at a NASA lab that overseas unmanned space missions.”

ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/alan/linux-2.4/; Intermediate diffs are available from http://www.bzimage.org

                  **      Radeon dri report needs checking for possible
                  **      remaining security holes, otherwise the 2.4.10pre4
                  **      kernel merging seems ok.

                  2.4.9-ac9
                  o       ICP vortex documentation update                 (Boji Kannanthanam)
                  o       Fix farsync ioctl checks                        (Bob Dunlop)
                  o       Kiovec optimisations                            (Rohit Seth)
                  o       Fix irda-usb match flags                        (Adam J Richter)
                  o       USB serial MODULE_LICENSE tags                  (Greg Kroah-Hartmann)
                  o       Tidy up Changes notes to recommend gcc2.95+     ("Colonel")
                  o       Kill dup in usb unusual_devs table              (Harald Schreiber)
                  o       Ethtool ioctl handling fix                      (Dave Miller)
                  o       Add S/PDIF, 4 and 6 channel audio to ICH driver (Bob Paauwe)
                  o       Fix compare types in ncpfs                      (Petr Vandrovec)
                  o       Add limit to bluetooth ioctl                    (me)
                  o       Fix missing channel range check in dpt_i2o      (me)
                  o       Fix lvm checks                                  (me)
                  o       Add missing wireless ioctl length check         (me)
                  o       Fix checks in sbpcd                             (me)
                  o       Fix checks in generic ppp                       (me)
                  o       Fix check in zr36067                            (me)
                  o       Fix checks in moxa                              (me)
                  o       Fix checks in zr36120                           (me)
                  o       Fix Matrox DRM to mention G450                  (Pavel Roskin)
                  o       DGRS multi-nic mode fix                         (Rick Richardson)
                  o       Reformat aztcd (no other changes)               (me)
                  o       Clean up the mcd driver                         (me)
                  o       Remove gendisk export. Gendisk is now private   (Christoph Hellwig)
                          to the sane API and has proper locking
                  o       Highmem overflow fix                            (Ben LaHaise)
                  o       Megaraid oops fix                               (Arjan van de Ven)
                  o       Update kernel-doc-nano-HOWTO                    (Ken Moffat)
                  o       Fix sis900 kerneldoc                            (Ken Moffat)
                  o       Fix via audio kernel doc                        (Ken Moffat)

                  2.4.9-ac8
                  o       Merge from 2.4.10-pre4 except
                                  USB uhci controller update
                                  MM/buffer cache changes
                  o       Intermezzo update                               (Peter Braam)
                  o       Clean up gendisk common code                    (Christoph Hellwig)

                  2.4.9-ac7
                  o       Add another 1885 ident                          (Leon)
                  o       Mention G450 in the 200/400 DRI                 (Pavel Roskin)
                  o       Fix non PCI aic7xxx oops                        (me)
                  o       Correct centaur chip detection                  (Keith Owens)
                  o       Correct Dell cable detection                    (me)
                  o       Fix usb storage warning                         (Christoph Hellwig)
                  o       Fix symbol clash between core and pwc           (Christoph Hellwig)
                  o       Comment out the visws                           (Christoph Hellwig)
                  o       Small alpha build fix                           (Ricky Beam)
                  o       NFS client update                               (Trond Myklebust)
                  o       SE401 update                                    (Jeroen Vreeken)
                  o       Check proc/modules before querying it in        (Andr=E9 Dahlqvist)
                          ver_linux
                  o       Add hppa to unaligned list for reiserfs         (Jurriaan)
                  o       i2c Config.in fix                               (Christoph Hellwig)
                  o       LVM 32/64bit sort out                           (Patrick Caulfield)
                  o       Softirq update/fixups                           (Andrea Arcangeli)
                  o       Add arch_init_modules hook                      (Maciej Rozycki)
                  o       Update slab cache to do LIFO handling and clean (Andrea Arcangeli)
                          up code somewhat
                  o       Ethtool and alias fix                           (Arjan van de Ven)
                  o       Self adjusting syscall table filler             (Andrea Arcangeli)
                  o       Configure.help typo fix                         (David Weinehall)

                  2.4.9-ac6
                  o       Update compiler requirements doc                (me)
                  o       Fix module count leak (I hope) in cs46xx        (me)
                  o       Fix sx.c warnings                               (Christoph Hellwig)
                  o       Fix seagate.c prototypes                        (Christoph Hellwig)
                  o       Remove non-modular stuff from mod builds        (Christoph Hellwig)
                          and fix warnings
                  o       Fix missing return value on xirc2ps             (Christoph Hellwig)
                  o       Fix atmtcp MODULE_LICENSE                       (Christoph Hellwig)
                  o       Remove various unused code                      (Christoph Hellwig)
                  o       Switch drivers/fc4 to use module_init           (Christoph Hellwig)
                  o       Config file fixes                               (Christoph Hellwig)
                  o       Fix AX.25 digipeat crash                        (Thomas Osterried)
                  o       DECNET update                                   (Steven Whitehouse)
                  o       Fix UNUSUAL_DEV entry for eUSB SmartMedia       (Andries Brouwer)
                  o       Remove spare maxinefb setup                     (Paul Mundt)
                  o       Add USB MODULE_LICENSE tags                     (Greg Kroah-Hartmann)
                  o       Update the irq fix for the i810 audio based     (me)
                          on further analysis by Doug Ledford
                  o       make rpm target bug-fixes                       (Eli Carter)
                  o       Fix missing export-objs in acpi                 (Keith Owens)
                  o       VIA ide update (support 82c576, other small     (Vojtech Pavlik)
                          fixes)
                  o       Fix tulip bug when using MWI experimental bits  (Jeff Garzik)
                  o       Add MODULE_LICENSE tags to telephony            (Robert Love)
                  o       Add MODULE_LICENSE tags to drivers/video        (Robert Love)
                  o       Fix z2ram tag                                   (Robert Love)
                  o       Ask for 255 bytes of header on scsi pages       (Matt Dharm)
                          | Lots of USB crap can't even get truncating right
                  o       Fix ver_linux for e2fsprogs 1.23                (Albert Cranford)
                  o       Add MODULE_LICENSE tags to zorro                (Robert Love)
                  o       Make __module_license static                    (Keith Owens)
                  o       Merge some of the PPC64 submission      (Peter Bergner, Anton Blanchard, Mik=
                  e Corrigan, Dave Engebretsen,
                                                          Tom Gall, Todd Inglett, Paul Mackerras,
                                                          Pat McCarthy, Steve Munroe, Don Reed,=20
                                                          and Al Trautman)
                          | I dropped some config bits to keep stuff simpler
                          | and a few files that definitely didnt follow CodingStyle
                  o       Merge updated gdth scsi raid driver             (Achim Leubner)
                  o       Remove escaped debug code from ni5010           (Frank Davies)

                  2.4.9-ac5
                  o       Make pae i386 compile again                     (Russell King)
                  o       Add MODULE_LICENSE tagging                      (me)
                  o       Clean up aztcd (phase 1)                        (me)
                  o       Fix aztcd subchannel error reporting bug        (me)
                  o       Reformat cdu31a pending cleanups                (me)
                  o       Reformat cm206 pending cleanups                 (me)
                  o       Reformat gscd pending cleanups                  (me)
                  o       Reformat isp16 pending cleanups                 (me)
                  o       Reformat sjcd pending cleanups                  (me)
                  o       Reformat tpqic02 pending cleanups               (me)
                  o       Add tags in drivers upto and including drivers/char/*
                          | lots more to add yet...
                  o       pl2303 oops fix                                 (Greg Kroah-Hartmann)
                  o       Sony clie updates for clie OS 4.0               (Greg Kroah-Hartmann)
                  o       Fix elf loader for prelink binaries             (Jakub Jelinek)
                  o       Make xconfig fix                                (Robert Love)
                  o       Add reparent_to_init, fix pnp and 8139 zombies  (Andrew Morton)
                  o       Update Configure.help                           (Steven Cole)

                  2.4.9-ac4
                  o       ns83820 driver fixes and updates                (Ben LaHaise)
                  o       Configure.help updates                          (Steven Cole)
                  o       Add generic pgtable_cache_init()                (Russell King)
                          | and remove pae ifdefs from init/main.c
                  o       Fix X.75 with new hisax drivers and an isdn     (Kai Germaschewski)
                          disconnect race
                  o       Remove now defunct directory offset cast        (me)
                  o       Make several vm behaviours tunable for now      (Rik van Riel)
                          | This is so we can study behaviour patterns not for
                          | the long term
                  o       Merge an additional ide-floppy fix              (Sam Varshavchik)
                          | Fixed the ide floppy I/O error funny on some drives
                  o       Pull dac/adc rate setting into ac97_codec.c     (me)
                  o       Update mips64 makefiles                         (Ralf Baechle)
                  o       Complete the missing bits of the proc           (Ralf Baechle)
                          infrastructure using constant HZ to userspace
                          | This has been partial for a long time, with the mips tree
                          | it actually needs to be completed...
                  o       Avoid oops in rivafb when using 15bit depth     (Steve DuChene)
                          on riva128
                  o       Indent seagate scsi into linux format           (me)
                          | Changes pending so do this in two steps..
                  o       pl2303 updates                                  (Greg Kroah-Hartmann)
                  o       Orinoco update                                  (David Gibson)
                  o       IRQ stack value fix                             (John Byrne)
                  o       Enable DMA on 20268R                            (Zygo Blaxell)
                  o       Add missing -EFAULT return to se401             (Pavel Machek)
                  o       Voodoo 1/2 frame buffer console                 (Ghozlane Toumi)
                  o       Update cache size reporting errata              (Dave Jones)
                  o       Fix nasty oops and deadlock in i810_audio       (me)

                  2.4.9-ac3
                  o       Fix config glitch in drivers/video/Config.in    (Steven Cole)
                  o       Kaweth endian fixes                             (Brad Hards)
                  o       Update the MPT fusion drivers                   (Steve Ralston)
                  o       Possible floppy probe fix                       (Paul Gortmaker)
                  o       Add the KT266 agp to the table                  (Kris Kersey)
                  o       Start convering ia32 and x86_64 mtrr code       (Dave Jones)
                  o       Account ramdisk in out of memory code           (Russell King)
                  o       Possible fix for cardbus allocation failures    (Andreas Bombe)
                  o       Clean up other cases of const initdata          (Dave Jones)
                  o       Update the keyboard rate code to be more        (Dave Miller)
                          flexible (needed for sparc)
                  o       Configure.help fixes                            (Steven Cole)
                  o       Pegasus USB driver fixes                        (Petko Manolov)
                  o       Fix i810 audio pops on speed changes            (Scott Herod)
                  o       GPIO driver for the ITE board                   (Hai-Pao Fan)
                  o       Philips Nino port update                (Steven Hill, Pavel Machek)

                  2.4.9-ac2
                  o       Last small bits of the PPC merge                (Paul Mackerras)
                  o       Fix compile bugs in airport driver              (David Gibson)
                  o       ITE8172 ide updates                             (Steve L)
                  o       Add i2c drivers for the ITE board               (Hai-Pao Fan)
                  o       AC97 register naming fix                        (Ralf Baechle)
                  o       TI 3912 serial driver                   (Harald Koerfgen, Jim Pick,
                                                                           Steven Hill)
                  o       ITE general updates                             (P Popov)
                  o       Remove double init of SGI streamable device     (Ralf Baechle)
                  o       Update SGI indy drivers                         (Ralf Baechle)
                  o       Qtronix keyboard driver updates                 (P Popov)
                  o       Add tx3192 frame buffer support                 (Steven Hill)
                  o       MIPS frame buffer updates                       (Ralf Baechle)
                  o       Move vino.h into driver directory               (Ralf Baechle)
                  o       Ocelot updates                  (Jun Sun, G Lonnon, S Kranz, Steve J)
                  o       DDB5 updates                                    (Jun Sun)
                  o       MIPS jazz update                                (Ralf Baechle)
                  o       SGI wd33c93 update                              (Ralf Baechle)
                  o       Baget updates                                   (Ralf Baechle)
                  o       SNI updates                                     (Ralf Baechle)
                  o       Alchemy Au1000 support                          (P Popov)
                  o       MIPS eval board updates         (Ralf Baechle, Carsten Langgaard)
                  o       Update Decstation serial support                (Maciej W. Rozycki)
                  o       NEC Vrc5477 audio driver                        (Steve L)
                  o       General MIPS32 updates          (Jun Sun, Ralf Baechle, Matt Porter,
                                                           Kevin Kissell, Carsten Langgaard,
                                                           Jan-Benedict Glaw)
                  o       MIPS scsi updates                               (Ralf Baechle)
                  o       Notifier signal oops fix                (Benjamin Herrenschmidt)

                  2.4.9-ac1
                  o       Merge the fat and iso changes from 2.4.9
                  o       Merge the sunrpc changes from 2.4.9
                  o       Merge (hopefully correctly) the nfs changes
                  o       Switch to the 2.4.9 emu10k1 driver
                  o       Merge vfs directory type changes
                  o       Merge other oddments
                          - This leaves min/max and the vm/buffer changes
                            both of which are pretty dubious anyway
                  o       lock_kiovec page unwind fix                     (Velizar B)
                  o       do_swap_page recheck pte before failing         (Linus, Jeremy Linton)
                  o       do_swap_page doesn't mkwrite when deleting      (Linus)
                          | From 2.4.9 with extra comments etc            (Hugh Dickins)

IDG (at CNN): “The days of racing to get work done before the
notebook battery runs out of juice may soon be over.

NEC Corp. and two Japanese government-affiliated research institutes have
developed a fuel cell for use in mobile devices that could mean notebook
computer battery life times of several days become commonplace within the next
few years.”

Reuters: “After months of silence, the Bush administration will weigh in “shortly” on
a range of high-tech issues ranging from junk e-mail to online privacy, a senior
administration official said Wednesday.

Nancy Victory, who heads the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and
Information Administration (NTIA), said the Bush administration has been working on an inclusive
policy and would announce its position on several high-tech issues, including proposed limits to
the junk e-mail known as spam.”

Reported at The Register: “The USB Implementers Forum, the consortium of developers behind the Universal
Serial Bus, has just issued the first public version of a specification designed to
allow the bus to offer IEEE 1394-style peer-to-peer connectivity.

Extending USB to circumstances where there isn’t a host PC to manage the bus is a
pretty radical move, and one that has clearly been made to drive USB 2.0 into
1394’s consumer electronics heartland.”

Anonymous Reader writes “Apparently, there is a difference of opinion between the President of Brazil (supported by Steve Ballmer) and the people of Brazil about the use of Windows.”