Companies buy open source because it's better, not cheaper. European enterprises are adopting open source software on the grounds of quality and flexibility, rather than merely considering it "good enough" because it is inexpensive, according to a new survey from research firm IDC.

With four weeks to go before the May 19 opening of Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, Fandango, the USA's largest online and phone movie ticketing service, is reporting unprecedented sales for the much anticipated movie, with sold-out shows in select markets.

Anthony Prozzi, a designer for Ford Motor, is keeping close watch as yet another new generation of technology-smitten youth grows up. It's this group of future customers he has in mind as he tries to anticipate what they'll want out of an automobile in 2020.

• Realplayer/RealOne RAM File Processing Buffer Overflow Vulnerability
• Mandrake updates for xli and cvs
• Redhat updates for Firefox and Realplayer
• Fedora updates for Helixplayer and cvs
  

Researchers at UCSD and UC Irvine have captured on video for the first time chemical signals that traverse human cells in response to tiny mechanical jabs, like waves spreading from pebbles tossed into a pond. Cells tugged in one direction sent biochemical signals in the opposite direction in the form of a signature pattern of fluorescent light.

Space pioneer Burt Rutan foresees space tourism companies running like a fast-food franchises, with his company licensing spacecraft to tour operators. But he says he may have trouble cutting through federal regulations to get there.

China's rapid Internet growth has brought with it a somewhat disturbing side effect: multiplying zombies up to no good.

eBay is the top brand name on the net, according to calculations by net monitoring company Envisional. Microsoft was the most prominent company name in the index, but it was the sixth most negatively perceived. McDonald's came in as the least popular.

Google Inc. asserts that Froogles and Froogles.com, a Web site that links to Web-based shopping deals, infringe on the Google trademark and dilute the value of the Google name. Richard Wolfe a sole proprietor operating this from his home.

Five Californian cities and counties have said they are committed to collecting damages from Microsoft despite a US District Judge dismissing their class action lawsuit against the software giant.

AMD might be going its own way by not following Intel with their DDR2 implementations. Instead, the world's second largest chipmaker may go straight to DDR3 or XDR in hopes of adopting a better architecture.

Despite his fondness for Windows, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says the company will make it easier for businesses to manage a wide variety of machines--including those running Linux.

As with last year's desktop security update, Windows XP SP2, Microsoft's newest server security upgrade, Windows Server 2003 SP1, breaks 14 applications, including a few from Microsoft itself, the Redmond, Wash.-based company has acknowledged in an online support document.

USENIX, the Advanced Computing Systems Association, celebrating its 30th anniversary, honored GNOME co-founder Miguel de Icaza and KDE creator Mattias Ettrich with its Software Tools User Group (STUG) award for their accomplishments in developing user friendly graphical user interfaces for the open source desktop.

A dispute between a prominent open-source developer and the maker of software used to manage Linux kernel development has forced Linux creator Linus Torvalds to embark on a new software project of his own. The new effort, called "git," began last week after a licensing dispute forced Torvalds to abandon the proprietary BitKeeper software he had used since 2002 to manage Linux kernel development.