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One of the goals put forth for Ubuntu's Jaunty Jackalope at the last Developer Summit, the development of a unified, hands-off notification display, has finally made an appearance in the testing release, according to Canonical CEO Mark Shuttleworth.

The new notification display is designed to behave similarly regardless of desktop environment, and deliver notifications in an non-intrusive manner. An overview of what Shuttleworth calls attention-management guidelines is outlined on the Ubuntu wiki, describing how to design notifications that get the user's attention, inform, and then effortlessly get out of the way.

The development team working in this area is aware of at least 35 applications that need extra attention to work well with the new system, and its current focus is to address these issues and identify other applications with similar quirks.

Few things are more heartbreaking than the notion of children without access to healthcare. While no one denies that there's a tremendous need for better healthcare options for American children, the U.S. provides for emergency care, vaccinations, and other basic needs. Children in many other countries aren't so lucky.

IntraHealth International works with nations across the globe to provide the training and infrastructure communities need to solve public health issues within their own country. One initiative, IntraHealth OPEN focuses on using open source technologies in impoverished areas because of its accessibility, adaptability, and versatility.

IntraHealth OPEN recently announced the launch of the OPEN Remix project, an intriguing new partnership with artists in the recording industry that it hopes will help put the latest open source technologies directly in the hands of health workers in Africa.

Google's Summer of Code (SoC) Program has united students interested in open source with projects and mentors for several years now. The intiative's goal is to foster interest in open source software while exposing students to real-world software development processes. It's easy to see, based on how enthusiastically some projects embrace the annual event, that the students aren't the only ones who benefit from the program.

This week, both KDE and GNOME announced that development teams under their respective umbrellas wishing to submit project ideas and mentor students this summer were able to do so.

This also means interested students can get a sneak peek at potential projects and mentors. The list of projects (and mentors) won't be finalized until mid-March, but seeing as students only have two weeks to submit their applications, an advance project screening might prove helpful.

Foxmarks syncs bookmarks in Safari, Internet Explorer. The Foxmarks browser synchronization platform now works with proprietary browsers. It's always been a hit with mobile users.

Chrome getting faster JavaScript. Chrome developers have swapped a built-in third-party software package in favor of their own as part of a browser speedup.

Google just added 1.5 million books to your phone. Google has 1.5 million public domain titles scanned and digitized in a small-screen format.

Marten Mickos, Sun's SVP of databases, to leave in a reorg. This follows the resignation of MySQL co-founder Monty Widenius, and a big quarter for MySQL.

Does Microsoft subvert the virtualization space to harm Red Hat? BoycottNovell looks into allegedly suspicious partnerships and revenue sharing.

Facebook joins OpenID. Facebook has joined the board of the OpenID Foundation and will host an OpenID Design Summit.