April 2011

Halting State by Charles Stross

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The novel “Halting State” by Charles Stross has been published for the first time in 2007. It was a finalist for the Hugo and Locus awards in 2008 as the best novel of the year.

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Last November news came about Novell being sold. Now the U.S.A. and German antitrust authorities have published their decision to change the terms of the acquisition of Novell’s patents by Microsoft and its partners in CPTN Holdings LLC.

Elisabeth Sladen in The Hand of Fear, her final classic Doctor Who story

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Yesterday, the English actress Elisabeth Sladen suddenly passed away. She’s been suffering from cancer for some time but she was a private person so she had kept it a secret.

Elisabeth Sladen’s career is inevitably linked to the famous series “Doctor Who” where she made her debut in 1973 in the serial “The Time Warrior” with the Third Doctor played by Jon Pertwee. Her character, journalist Sarah Jane Smith, was very successful thanks to her performance and stayed in the series with Tom Baker, when the Doctor regenerated, until 1976. Sarah Jane Smith’s departure in the serial “The Hand of Fear” was an event like a regeneration.

In 2006 Elisabeth Sladen resumed her role as Sarah Jane in the new “Doctor Who” series episode “School Reunion” with the Tenth Doctor, played by David Tennant. Later she became the protagonist of the new spin-off “The Sarah Jane Adventures” and appeared again in other episodes of the new “Doctor Who” series.

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UnXis, Inc. completed the acquisition of SCO’s Unix assets but it claims it got Unix and Unixware trademarks while at the end of the various lawsuits in the last years it was established that Novell own those trademarks while SCO had a license.