A group of OpenOffice enthusiasts have released OpenOffice Premium, a new bundle that includes the OpenOffice suite and a grab-bag of extras, such as clip art, document templates, and fonts. The idea is to provide a package that is similar to a new installation of commercial office suites such as Microsoft Office and Corel Perfect Office, both of which come with a plethora of clip art and other goodies.

The choice of the word “Premium” for this bundle is somewhat misleading, as the package is available as a free download.

Source: Ars

A new search engine promises to give schoolchildren results from sites pre-screened by teachers and librarians.

Time Warner Inc.’s AOL launched StudyBuddy in time for the school year. It is free, though a premium version with more resources is available for $4.95 a month. Users of StudyBuddy can even choose a grade range, such as K-2, to narrow choices even more.

Source: AP

Verizon Communications Inc. on Wednesday said it dropped its plans to impose a supplier surcharge for DSL-based Internet access service on its retail customers.

A small number of customers who have already been billed for the surcharge will receive a credit, the company said in a statement.

Source: Reuters

Slightly later than planned, Microsoft on Wednesday released a trial version of a free parental-control tool for Windows XP.

Windows Live OneCare Family Safety is designed to help keep Web content that parents deem inappropriate from reaching their children. The beta version of the tool, available to the general public, updates an earlier preview version of the tool made available to about 3,000 testers in March.

The first version of OneCare Family Safety will let people filter online content and get activity reports on Web sites that were visited by others, Packer said.

Source: News.com

Microsoft Office alternative, OpenOffice, will ship in a native version for OS X next month.

Until now the software has required that users install the X11 Window System, a graphical interface that lets Unix-based applications work on Macs. The new version of the software won’t require X11, and will work just like any other OS X-native application.

Source: MacWorld

MHW2 BH series of hard disk drives (HDDs) for mobile PCs, its first 2.5-inch HDD offerings to incorporate advanced perpendicular magnetic recording technology for enhanced storage capacity.

Two new models, the 160GB MHW2160BH (which boasts the industry’s highest storage capacity for a 5,400 rpm HDD), and the 80GB MHW2080BH, will go on sale worldwide from October, the company said.

Source: Crisscross

RadioShack Corp. followed through on its announced plans to cut about 400 jobs, but the electronics retailer has been forced on the defensive about its method of notifying laid-off employees by e-mail.

Employees at the Fort Worth headquarters received an e-mail Tuesday morning telling them they were being dismissed immediately.

“The work force reduction notification is currently in progress,” the notice stated. “Unfortunately your position is one that has been eliminated.”

Company officials had told employees in a series of meetings that layoff notices would be delivered electronically, spokeswoman Kay Jackson said. She said employees were invited to ask questions before Tuesday’s notification on a company intranet site.

Source: AP

In a surprise move, Linspire is now offering its Click ‘N Run software service at no charge to its Linspire and Freespire Linux distribution customers. In addition, the company will soon be open-sourcing the CNR Client.

CNR, previously a fee-based service offered at annual subscription rates of $20 for basic and $50 for premium (”Gold”) access to new programs, had been the San Diego-based company’s main source of income.

Now, however, according to CEO Kevin Carmony, Linspire is doing well enough from selling its higher-end products and services that it can afford to offer its basic CNR service free of charge. Thus, both Linspire and Freespire users can use the extremely easy software delivery and update program for free.

Source: eWeek

Microsoft on Tuesday made the pre-Release Candidate 1 (RC1) of Windows Vista available for public downloading, saying that it wanted the extra testers to help track down bugs.

The not-quite-RC1, which debuted to a closed circle of testers last week, will be on the Microsoft site for a limited time: once 100,000 have downloaded the 3.2GB file, the Redmond, Wash. developer will shut off the spigot.

Source: InformationWeek

Creative has updated its Zen Vision:M digital music player and Zen Vision video device, at least in the company’s native Singapore. Both gadgets had appeared in Western magazine ads, but this is the first time the company has discussed them officially.

The Vision:M gets a 60GB hard drive, double the capacity of the first version, which launched back in December 2005. The Vision W will also ship with 60GB of storage - there’ll be a 30GB version, just like its predecessor, too. What the new version offers - hence the ‘W’ - is a 4.3in, 16:9 widescreen display, a big improvement on the earlier model’s 3.7in, 640 x 480 job.

Source: Reg Hardware

The first fruit of Sony’s optical drive partnership with NEC have arrived in Europe: a drive the company claims is the world’s fastest DVD±R writer, capable of burning single-layer discs at up to 18x speed.

Sony admitted the availability of media certified for use at 18x was “limited”, but it claimed the drive - dubbed the AWG170A - would write 16x discs at the higher speed. It also said the drive will write DVD-RAM discs as 12x. DVD±R DL discs are written at up to 8x, it added, the same speed the drive writes DVD RWs. DVD-RW discs are written at 6x. CD-R/RW discs are burned at 48x.

Source: Reg Hardware

Search engine Google plans to offer consumers the chance to download and print classic novels free of charge.

The firm’s book search tool will let people print classics such as Dante’s Inferno or Aesop’s Fables, as well as other books no longer under copyright.

Until now, the service has only let people read such books on-screen.

Volunteers working for a project known as Gutenberg have for some years copied out-of-copyright books as text files, which can then be used for printing, reading or piping into a programme for editing.

In contrast, Google is offering the books in a “print-ready” format, as have several other - albeit much smaller and less well-known - firms.

Source: BBC