Linux Is Gaining a Place at Sun, in Both Strategy and New Server. Trying to blunt a growing challenge to the low end of its business, Sun Microsystems plans on introduce its first computers running the Linux operating system. By John Markoff. [New York Times: Technology]

Microsoft names the day for Xbox online. The company will hit the switch on its Xbox Live online game-playing service a year after the console was released. But the timing could let Sony steal a march. [CNET News.com]

KDE smokes MS in SSL bug fix. Hardly a surprise [The Register]

Xbox Live set for November 15 launch. MS pins console dreams on the Internet [The Register]

Japanese protest at government Net numbers scheme [NeoWin]

Lawmakers lend an ear to tech worries. Improving the economy and boosting security top the agenda at a gathering of Democrats and tech execs. Intel’s Andy Grove takes the stage, presenting a wish list to politicians. [CNET News.com]

Flash Player flaw opens Windows for attack. Macromedia warns that its multimedia file player has a vulnerability that could allow attackers to run malicious code on Windows and Unix-based operating systems. [CNET News.com]

Putting people first. As with earlier Microsoft mantras (ActiveX, Windows DNA), .NET means almost everything and therefore nothing in particular. The Redmond priesthood incants XML with the same mystical vagueness. No resounding amen has yet been heard from the hundreds of millions of souls who use Windows and Office, who were recently demoted from “knowledge workers” to “information workers,” and who were then reclassified as “first-class data objects.” Instead they ask, “What’s in it for me?” [read the full story][Jon’s Radio]

Obstruction of Judges. Why has it become next to impossible for a president — Democrat or Republican — to get a nominee to a federal appeals court approved by the Senate? By Jeffrey Rosen. [New York Times: Politics]

Hundreds accused of witchcraft in Central African Republic / But many deaths actually from AIDS [lnk.to]