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The US-based Mac clone maker that first attracted national attention last month has posted several updates to Apple’s Mac OS X 10.5 for its users, including some that appear to be copies or modified versions of Apple’s own security updates.

Psystar, a company that sells Intel-based computers with Mac OS 10.5 pre-installed, has added 13 Leopard patches to its support site.

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The nonprofit One Laptop Per Child Project has shown the first images of its next-generation touch-screen laptop that goes by the name XO-2. According to Nicholas Negroponte, chairman of OLPC, the laptop is under development and has a goal of costing US$75. Negroponte showed off images of the XO-2 at an OLPC event here at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He says the first XO-2 is slated to be built by 2010.

The laptop is nearly half the size of current XO notebook and consists of two touch-screen displays. The notebook does not include a keyboard, but instead will feature a software-based touch-sensitive keyboard.

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Long distance Wi-Fi bridge retails for $318

HD Communications Corp has introduced a new wireless bridge that can connect two remote locations up to 5 miles apart using 802.11b/g Wi-Fi networking. The complete outdoor wireless network bridgerequires line of sightbetween the two locations.

There have been other solutions on the market before that would allow for similar wireless network bridging, butthe HD Communications Corp HD26200 bridge retails for $318 where as other similar systems (more…)

Microsoft is looking at alternatives to ultra-low-cost laptops in the drive to arm people in developing nations with a way to communicate and access the Internet, and the company is turning its sights on cheaper devices that can give people a start in computing, such as smartphones and shared computing.

The world’s largest software maker has a few projects in the making, including a push to use mobile phones in computing and microfinance. Mobile phones have already made an impact in nations across the developing world, from India to Zimbabwe, enabling people such as farmers and fishermen to find better markets and prices. Handsets also give a person a way to be reached for jobs.

A 23-year-old Oregon man has pleaded guilty to charges that he used identity theft to set up bogus accounts on eBay, where he sold counterfeit software with a retail value of more than US$1 million, the U.S. Department of Justice said.

Jeremiah Joseph Mondello of Eugene, Oregon, pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count each of criminal copyright infringement, aggravated identity theft and mail fraud before Judge Ann Aiken in U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon. He faces up to 27 years in prison and a fine of $500,000, the DOJ said.

Customers of Hewlett-Packard and Electronic Data Systems offered a range of reactions Tuesday to HP’s US$13.9 billion bid for the massive outsourcing company.

HP will benefit from EDS’ talent pool, but the specter of layoffs — which EDS President and CEO Ronald A. Rittenmeyer indicated Tuesday would be possible as the companies integrate — raises concerns about customers’ existing deals, said Nina Buik, president of Encompass, a HP user group that says it has 50,000 members.

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The One Laptop Per Child Project and Microsoft plan to make both Windows and Linux available on a version of the project’s XO laptop, the companies said Thursday.

The parties expect to deliver a dual-boot XO system in August or September that will have both the traditional Linux-based Sugar operating system of the XO and a low-cost student version of Windows XP, according to Kyle Austin, an OLPC representative.

OLPC Chairman Nicholas Negroponte has referred in the past to a dual-boot XO model, but this is the first official announcement of such a system. The XO was developed by OLPC for children in developing countries. The availability of Windows on the system will give customers more choice in operating systems and let them use Windows-based educational software and tools, the parties said. Customers and partners worldwide have asked for Windows on the XO, they said.

Austin said the dual-boot system will have Sugar and Microsoft’s Student Innovation Suite, a US$3 software offering that Chairman Bill Gates announced last year. Gates said the suite would include a version of Windows XP, Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007, Microsoft Math 3.0, Learning Essentials 2.0 for Microsoft Office and Windows Live Mail.

A Microsoft representative confirmed the XO would have a version of Windows XP but said the specifics were yet to be determined.

Trials of Windows on the laptops will begin in June in select countries, they said. During the trial, Windows will reside on an SD (Secure Digital) card in the laptop’s SD slot, according to Austin, but in the final shipping machine, both OSes will be on the hard drive.

OLPC is working with third-party developers to have the XO’s distinctive Sugar user interface placed on top of Windows, but the dual-boot systems coming later this year will use the Windows interface for Student Innovation Suite, Austin said.

Microsoft and OLPC did not specify the price of the dual-boot system on Thursday.

IBM Tuesday unveiled a new blade server based on the Cell chip that was originally designed to run a video game console.

The IBM BladeCenter QS22 runs the new PowerXCell 8i chip, a souped up version of the Cell processor jointly developed by IBM, Sony and Toshiba to run large computations on the Playstation 3 video game system. Instead of running operating systems, the Cell chip takes on massive calculations, making it well-suited for video games or supercomputing tasks.

The updated Cell chip has 16 times more memory and is five times faster than the original, IBM said.

“The new Cell chip is up to 20 times faster on some common financial calculations than Intel’s quad-cores,” said Dan Olds, an analyst with the Gabriel Consulting Group. “The real advantage is being able to run a lot of workloads a lot faster than you thought possible. It could potentially be a game changer for some companies.”

Olds added that the new system will let IT managers run projects in house using much less hardware. “If you’re currently using 20 Intel- or AMD-based systems, you could replace that with one of these blades,” he added. “Think of the difference.”

While IBM has used Cell blades in the new Roadrunner supercomputer that they’re building for Los Alamos National Laboratory now, this is the first time they’ll be selling them for more than research applications.

The Cell-based blades are largely expected to give Roadrunner enough of a power boost to enable it to bypass the petaflop barrier when it’s fully tested later this month.

The QS22 blade is designed to work in supercomputers or in a large corporate data center, according to Olds. It can be used on its own or along side other blades, like those based on AMD and Intel processors.

When the Asus Eee PC 900 landed in the TechRadar office a month ago, there was an air of excitement.

The buzz was apparent even amongst those behind the scenes-types who wouldn’t normally get excited about what is essentially just a new PC.

And yet when we actually saw the Eee PC 900, the atmosphere fell flat. It looked exactly the same as the original apart form a bigger screen. And a bit of extra storage and memory wasn’t really enough to get anyone excited.

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A U.S. judge has ruled on a nearly US$111 million copyright-infringement decision against TorrentSpy.com, the BitTorrent peer-to-peer search site.

Judge Florence-Marie Cooper, of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles awarded the judgment to the Motion Picture Association of America, the MPAA announced late Wednesday. Cooper entered a default judgment against the operators of TorrentSpy in December, saying they had destroyed evidence related to an MPAA lawsuit against them.