SPACE.com reports on a small window of opportunity coming up for amateur astronomers allowing them to see a planet outside our solar system for the first time.

The Register reports on Microsoft’s Mundie’s latest FUD offensive against Linux and Open Source, this time calling on testimonials from Linus Torvalds and Caldera.

Andrew Leonard at Salon writes about response he received to an article analysing the harm of the pained economy to the Open Source community and Linux-related businesses, saying that a sluggish economy can only help.

ZDNet reports that Compaq is exploring the idea of making a computer which can be either a laptop or a desktop, with the help of a built in stand and a removable keyboard and mouse.

Yahoo! has a press release announcing that Penguin Computing, and Red Hat are partnering up to allow Red Hat certification on Penguin Computing solutions.

ZDNet reports on a new browser on its way under the Gnu General Public License. “No Limits” is targetted to be ready by the end of the year.

From a reader: MozillaQuest Magazine (mozillaquest.com), has an interestig article about the browser wars. http://mozillaquest.com/shorts_01/Linux_browser_wa r-01-story-01.html. “Netscape 6 is noticeably absent from the Red Hat Linux 7.1 and the SuSe Linux 7.1 distributions. It’s also noticeably absent from Caldera’s OpenLinux 3.1 beta. Meanwhile, both Red Hat and SuSe include the Mozilla browser-suite in their latest Linux distributions.

Mozilla is not Netscape 6’s only competitor for the Linux desktop. For example, most Linux distributions include the K Desktop Environment (KDE), which includes the Konqueror browser. Sun’s cross-platform (XP) StarOffice suite has browser functionality and is included with many Linux distributions. StarOffice also is available for free downloading. And many Linux distributions such as Red Hat Linux 7.1, SuSe Linux 7.1, Mandrake 8.0, and the OpenLinux 3.1 beta include Netscape 4.7x rather than Netscape 6.”

“Rekall is a personal, programmable DBMS system for Qt/KDE. Beta 2 adds a few
new features but more importantly has been conveniently packaged for most
distributions.” Full press release at LinuxPR.

EE Times reports on remarks made by Edward Whitacre, head of SBC communications. Whitacre says that cable operators are keeping the telcos out of the market for delivering high-speed Internet access. The U.S. Baby Bells are currently lobbying Congress to pass a bill that would allow them to deploy broadband services without opening those lines to competitors. This, apparently, would justify the cost of offering DSL and similar services in rural areas. Sure. That’ll happen.

CNET News.com: “Ontario, Canada-based RIM charges in a suit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Delaware
that Glenayre Technologies violates a patent granted last month to RIM protecting the way the
BlackBerry redirects e-mail from a computer or server to a handheld using a single e-mail
address. Charlotte, N.C.-based Glenayre already has a pending suit of its own against RIM.”