ZDNet tells us that two odour companies have merged. Not to be confused with perfume, these companies seek to build hardware that can eminate and/or interpret smells.

Increasingly, hardware companies are moving to wireless network, reports ZDNet.

NWFusion is covering a story about the US military’s use of wearable computers on ground-troops, and wireless networks in the air. The digital army is to be tested in a mock battle.

LinuxToday cautions us all that Python 1.6 is incompatible with the GPL.

Santa Cruz Operation will lay off 190 people and take a $5 million to $6 million charge this quarter as part of its sale of Unix operating system software and services to Linux company Caldera Systems.
The layoffs, 19 percent of the company’s work force, will occur in the parts of the business being transferred to Caldera, SCO said. CNet has the story.

Song-swap company Napster Inc., which is being sued for copyright infringement by the recording industry, attempted to distance itself Thursday from a federal judge’s strong ruling against MP3.com Inc, according to a story by Reuters.

Their job is to watch the Linux, Unix and NetWare competition. But some rivals claim that spreading FUD is part of Doug Miller & Co.’s job, too, reports ZDNet.

The Federal Trade Commission has announced a $37.5 million judgment against the operators of at least six Internet pornography sites who billed customers for services they didn’t purchase, reports CNet.

In a surprise move following Wednesday’s release of the patent on the main security algorithm used in digital security products, Baltimore Technologies will offer one of its key developer toolkit products for free from its website. Dublin-based Baltimore, the third-largest company marketing security products following its January merger with U.S.-based CyberTrust, hopes the free availability of the toolkit will encourage developers to incorporate public key cryptography into many more applications, reports Wired.com.

LinuxWorld takes a look at several new products,including VA Linux’s new 4U Database Server, Rave Systems’ SPARC Rackmount Servers, American Megatrends’ new embedded Linux system (called Indium), IBM’s open source Andrew File System (AFS), and Eazel’s Nautilus file manager.