It’s a sad fact of life that as we get older our ability to learn new skills and retain information lessens. Which explains why a five-year-old child can pretty much rebuild a PC while their grandparents have trouble finding the on/off button. Believe it or not, Linux could be the answer to the elderly’s prayers thanks to a new PC called SimplicITy.

The Dell Latitude 2100 was designed as the first touch netbook aimed at K-12 students with a rugged case and an option of five bold colors. However its robust features and modest pricing appeal to a much broader market.

For the first time, Linux is now used on more than 1 percent of computers. While not a major breakthrough, it means the system has beaten Apple in their respective marches to a milestone.

The latest edition of the Ubuntu operating system, is out today. Aside from various stability and performance tweaks, it’s main new feature is a cloud computing technology designed to match that offered by Amazon.

An analyst has questioned a much-repeated claim that Linux-based netbooks have a considerably higher return rate than their Windows counterparts. And a spokesman for the firm behind Linux distribution Ubuntu says returns would be lower if companies did a better job of setting Linux up.

In announcing the next version Ubuntu (9.10, “Karmic Koala”) the founder of the Ubuntu Open Source operating system effort had a lot to say about cloud computing.

When I first heard about Michael Arrington and TechCrunch’s idea to develop and manufacture a low cost Web tablet, I was intrigued and quite keen on the idea. Certainly, I could see the appeal of having such a product on the market. But with laptops and notebooks getting cheaper by the day, is it all a little pointless?

After the bad publicity of a security hole in its servers, Red Hat has better news to crow about. The latest version of its Fedora OS is out and from the rave reviews, Fedora 10 looks like it might give Ubuntu serious competition.

The firm which produces the chips in most smartphones will use a Linux system when it enters the netbook market. ARM has announced a deal to use Ubuntu, one of the most popular versions of the open source operating system.

The software company Canonical, developer of the Ubuntu operating system, is not yet turning a profit. But company founder Mark Shuttleworth is not concerned about that just yet. Shuttleworth, a self-made security industry tycoon, has lots of money left and is willing to wait for profits to flow. The Ubuntu operating system, by Canonical fiat, is given away free to users.

The Intrepid Ibix or Ubuntu 8.10 drops 30 October. Canonical Ltd, the operating system’s commercial sponsor, announced the release of both server and desktop updates.

It seems that everybody has a blog these days, and that means everybody has blog comments to manage. Developer Daniel Dura has introduced a new application that could go a long way toward making that task easier. The application is called Moderator, and it was built using the Adobe Air platform. Moderator allows you to handle comment moderation chores without opening a browser window.

I’ll believe it when I see it, but Microsoft is considering a feature for Windows 7 that would boot up to a limited functionality environment in 8 seconds. With a development like this, Microsoft would be pushing PCs well into the appliance space, especially considering some TVs take longer than that to power up. And, it would be a significant differentiator from Microsoft’s open source nemesis, Linux.

An IBM plan to launch a mass-market suite of open-source software could get a major boost with reports that laptop firm Lenovo is interested in adopting the technology.

Linux has lived a long life of stability and sturdy usability, but what if the underpinnings of that strategy fell away and the developer community were to welcome an influx of open source designers focused on producing the most pleasant and intuitive interface imaginable. It would serve as a slap in the face for current industry players who have focused on furthering the current paradigm: using a mouse and keyboard to manipulate various windows and enter text.

With Microsoft getting so much flak over Vista’s issues, you’d think Linux would be getting some headway in the consumer desktop arena. Unfortunately, the only really benefiting from Vista’s bad PR is likely Apple.

We’ve been waiting for it and here it is, Dell’s 8.9-inch mini laptop dubbed the “mini-Inspiron” which sadly shares a similar design.  I’m not a fan of the Inspiron design, they’re bulky, fat and ugly, I liked the previous designs better like that of the Inspiron M1710 and earlier E-series models.  Though, the mini-Inspiron looks… okay.