From Slashdot: “Tjp($)pjT writes “A Canadian company which bought Iridium for roughly a quarter of a cent on the dollar has scheduled the re-opening of the service. Rescued from a blazing death of dropping all 66 sats and their spares out of orbit to burn up on reentry, the 5 BILLION dollar system was purchased on the block for 25 million. The US Government contracted with the service for unlimited air time for 20,000 phones for two years with other options. More can be read here.””

From the Los Angeles Times: “Imagine a cheap, light computer made largely of paper. Imagine complicated electronic circuits woven into fabric that could easily monitor a hospital patient’s condition. Imagine a profound change in the design of electronic gizmos, which might soon be freed from the tyranny of the circuit board and the silicon chip. That’s a lot to ask from one little invention. But a new cellular phone, which could be available to consumers before the end of the year, holds such promise.”

“Microsoft should have sent the Open Source community a big box of candy and dozens of roses. Open Source software has been the epicenter of some of the greatest innovations of our industry — namely, the Internet. And these innovations have benefited Microsoft handsomely. Sound ridiculous? Let me explain.” Read Michael Tiemann’s full commentary at ZDNet.

This week’s edition of the Linux Advisory Watch is now available at LinuxSecurity.com.

Zack Brown posts this week’s summary of discussions on the linux-kernel mailing list.

From The Register: “Microsoft’s plan to providing Windows XP (aka Whistler) with interface themes (aka skins) may be knocked on the head by Apple, which has patented desktop themes. The patent, granted on 13 February from an application made way back in May 1998, covers “systems and methods for providing a user with increased flexibility and control over the appearance and behaviour of objects on a user interface are described.”

AllLinuxDevices’ Bojan Smojver describes how to configure a Compaq Aero handheld PC for use with Linux: “Basically, in just a few hours, I’ve achieved excellent connectivity of Linux and PocketPC, thanks to a few documents and free downloads. I still can’t sync Tasks and other items stored in the proprietary database format, but most of the stuff I need works. And, for once, it’s really reliable and fast.”

Want to run the latest 2.4.x kernel on Debian? Adrian Bunk has prepared the packages you need to get up and running with that kernel on a Debian 2.2r2 (potato) system. Standard warnings apply, says Adrian: “These are packages taken from unstable recompiled on potato. You can’t expect that they are as stable as the packages in potato and although I’ll try my best I can’t garuantee anything.”

Linux Planet reviews Bluefish, “a GNOME-oriented HTML editor that provides a huge array of menus and keystrokes for producing HTML that doesn’t bury the tags under a WYSIWYG interface even as it makes it easy to check a document on the fly.”

Coming this spring to a computer vendor near you: Casio’s Crusoe-based Fiva notebook. The Fiva will run Windows 2000, but also ships with “a version of Linux that lets consumers skirt the Windows boot-up when it comes to certain applications.” Casio believes that the best way to introduce Linux to the commercial notebook computer market is through the “possibility of a peaceful coexistence” with Windows. Full story at CNET News.com.