Open source Solaris imminent?

Sun Microsystems may finally unveil its open source version of Solaris at an event next week, or at least make some new announcement around the project, reports The Register.

The report says Sun is holding a news conference on 25 January to discuss the company`s Solaris open source initiative. Although an open source version of Solaris could still be months away, insiders indicate Sun will at least talk about how the Common Development and Distribution Licence (CDDL) approved recently will come into play and how certain parts of Solaris might be governed by the licence.

The report says CDDL will likely be used to cover the Solaris kernel. Sun will then wrap other licences around the various packages that plug into the operating system.

Two US firms are developing plans to enable music and film fans to control their digital media players just by speaking to them.

BBC News reports that ScanSoft and Gracenote are developing technology to give people access to their film and music libraries by voice control. The aim of the project is hands-free access to digital music and films in the car, or at home or on the move.

The new technology, expected to be available towards the end of 2005, will be designed so that people can play any individual song or movie out of a collection, just by saying its name.

Novell is supporting a project to develop a Windows version of the Evolution groupware client.

ComputerWorld reports that Novell hopes the project will give Windows desktop users an open source alternative to Microsoft Outlook.

Evolution is a suite that includes e-mail, calendaring and address-book software. A version for Linux desktops is already available, and an effort to port it to Windows is now under way.

Intel has launched a renewed version of its Centrino platform in an effort to boost the performance of lightweight wireless notebooks to make them more useful as everyday computers, reports CNet.

The new laptop technology, code-named Sonoma, pairs slightly faster Pentium M processors with the Intel Mobile Express 915 chipset, a group of supporting chips code-named Alviso that incorporates a number of performance enhancements, including a faster bus and higher-performance graphics, as well as a WiFi module.

GFI has released a new version of its network security scanner, GFI LANguard Network Security Scanner (NSS).

The new version can detect all machines and devices connected to the network via a wireless link. It can also alert administrators when suspicious USB devices are connected to the network.

NSS version 6 also includes further Linux security checks and the ability to create custom Linux checks.