Sun`s Mad Hatter takes crack at desktop Windows

Sun Microsystems` chief software engineer took to the LinuxWorld stage in San Francisco to show off "Mad Hatter," the company`s upcoming unified desktop, which will be sold for half the price of a Windows environment, reports eWeek.

Jonathan Schwartz, executive VP of Sun`s software group, also said that a broad software licence deal struck with AT&T in the late 1990s allowed the company to inject whatever code it wanted into the Linux kernel. Schwartz pledged to indemnify its customers against any lawsuits by SCO or other suppliers.

Mad Hatter, which Sun first disclosed a year ago, is Sun`s effort to dislodge Microsoft and its Windows/Office combination from the desktop PC. Like StarOffice, Mad Hatter will include a third-party Linux GUI such as GNOME, the Mozilla browser, Sun`s StarOffice suite, the Evolution e-mail server, the GAIM messaging client and Java, and it will be priced "80% to 90% less expensive than [Microsoft]".

Sony and Samsung have announced that Samsung will start producing and selling Sony memory products used in digital cameras and electronic organisers.

Reuters reports that digital cameras, personal digital assistants and personal computers often come with a slot for removable memory, which has an easily rewritable NAND-type flash memory, allowing users to store data and transfer information to other digital products.

Industry figures, quoted by a Samsung official, put the flash memory market at $10 billion, with the memory stick accounting for a quarter of the total market.

The chairman of the UK`s Data and Network Security Council has issued a dire warning about the havoc that evolved Internet worms could cause. Jonathan Wignall told a computer security conference in Las Vegas that Internet worms are growing faster, smaller and more virulent.

One theoretical attack could be by so-called "flash worms", which could spread across the Internet in as little as 15 seconds by splitting themselves into ever-smaller pieces to infect as many PCs as possible, he said. Another potential threat was a worm that spread so slowly that no one even noticed it.

A poll by InternetWeek.com has found that the main reason people would not use Linux is that they are concerned about support. The poll found that 20% of respondents were already using Linux, and around 22% were wary of the open source community.

Other open source concerns raised in the poll included the cost of ownership, perceptions that it is not as good as commercial software, and fears that it might include some pirated code.

Reuters reports from Dublin that mobile phone users worldwide will soon be able to dial-a-dolphin if a scheme to record their underwater conversations proves a success. Scientists at a dolphin sanctuary off the west coast of Ireland have teamed up with British mobile telecoms giant Vodaphone to transmit the clicking and whistling sounds of bottlenose dolphins.

"In theory, you could phone up and listen to dolphins while sitting in a traffic jam in Dublin," says marine biologist Simon Berrow of the Shannon Dolphin and Wildlife Foundation. The aim is to install underwater microphones in the estuary, the only place in Ireland where dolphins are resident all year round.