Mario shines on GameCube

He`s short. He`s fat. He`s not a snappy dresser and he spends his day fantasising about princesses. He`s also responsible for billions of dollars in global sales since the mid-1980s, reports Reuters. He is, of course, Mario the Plumber, star of stage, screen and the most successful video game franchise in history.

The first original console game for the last six years is being released today for the Nintendo GameCube. The new game is called Super Mario Sunshine. The six-year absence may not have done the little man in red overalls any good, as a recent survey by GameSpot suggests that there are more players eager to get their hands on Zelda and Metroid than there are for the latest Mario release.

Linux may have been built by geeks for the people, but the once icon of freedom is becoming just a little bit corporate. Reuters reports that in the US, one in five servers sold last year ran on Linux with bigger sales predicted in the coming year.

Linux, closely associated with Internet start-ups like Yahoo and Amazon.com, is more than just surviving the dot-com bust and is becoming a major player, gaining favour with budget-conscious, old-line companies drawn by its performance improvements and lack of licensing costs.

The International Data Corporation reports that Linux users spent only $80 million on the software, less than 1% of the amount spent on all operating systems for all computers, even though Linux is widely used.

The newest version of Mac OS X, version 10.2 and codenamed "Jaguar", is going on sale in US stores tonight. The new release includes many of the features announced at the recent MacWorld show as well as many others.

Among the new features are the iChat AIM-compatible messaging application, junk mail filtering and Rendezvous networking technology. Also included are Inkwell, the company`s handwriting recognition technology, QuickTime 6, Sherlock 3 and the Quartz Extreme graphics technology. Steve Jobs, Apple`s CEO, says: "With Jaguar, you get a whole new Mac."