I don't care much about the Gear, but I like that Samsung is finally using Tizen for something.

Inside the bubble of Windows Phone, this is a huge update, and definitely one I'm looking forward to. However, outside of this bubble, this update contains nothing that iOS and Android haven't had for years, making WP 8.1 feel like what the platform should have been from day one.

If Microsoft can keep up with the competition going forward from 8.1, things could (finally) get interesting.

There are three reasons why this phone fascinates me. One, it is the first non-crappy device for Firefox OS, which I'm interested in, but never got into because I didn't want to waste money on underpowered hardware. This phone seems to solve that. Two, it's designed to provide dual-boot from the get-go, so you can truly run multiple ROMs. Three, it's an x86 phone, which fascinates me simply because it isn't ARM - and opens up possibilities of craziness like desktop operating systems on your phone.

It's also relatively cheap at EUR 222, which is almost doable as an impulse buy. I'm keeping my eye on this one.

A major milestone for the young company. The fourth big update to Sailfish OS will be released early March, at which point the operating system leaves beta and hits 1.0. This fourth update will further improve landscape supports, include visual changes, new camera functionality, and more.

On top of that, Sailfish will be made available for popular Android devices as well, so that you no longer need to buy a Jolla phone in order to use the operating system. Furthermore - and I did not see this one coming - they will release a Sailfish launcher for Android that brings some of the operating system's unique features to Android.

These men and women are on a roll.

I wonder what the future holds for DuckDuckGo. Will there be a point where people leave Google Search completely, instead of just casting curious glances at DDG?

A huge deal. WhatsApp is one of the biggest messaging services is in the world - maybe even the biggest.

I've already made the jump to Chinese smartphones early last year, and with still zero complaints about the Find 5, I have no intention of ever going back. Here, too, Gionee, shows that the stereotype we have here of Chinese devices being nothing but clones is starting to get very, very outdated. Influenced by lobbying from western companies, our governments will do all they can to block the influx of Chinese devices for as long as they can, but it won't take long for consumer demand for high-quality devices at low prices to overcome that.

Chinese companies like Oppo, Huawei, Xaomi, and others will do to the device market what Japanese and later South-Korean car brands have done to the car market. If I were a Korean, Japanese, or American device maker - I'd be worried.

Also, I totally want this phone. Beautiful.

So, convertibles. Laptop/tablet hybrids. I think their popularity started with early Asus Transformers, but since then, they've become a pretty big staple in the device landscape. Since I'm in the market for a replacement for my dreadful ARM Surface RT, I've been looking at this market segment again, and have noted that there's a lot of choice out there.

After the dreadful experience with the Surface RT, I'm steering clear of anything Windows RT-related. An x86-based convertible Windows 8.1 machine, however, still has some major appeal due to its excellent desktop application support that fits in nicely with my existing workstation. The tablet side of Windows 8.1, however, is still woefully underserved, with very few applications, and even those that do exist are of abysmal quality.

As far as hardware goes, the Lenovo Miix 2 10" (not to be confused with the older Miix 2!) has really grabbed by attention. It's supposed to end up at around EUR 400-500, which is acceptable. The Surface 2 Pro is also interesting, but quite expensive - although it does have a far better processor than the 10" Miix 2. There's also an 11" Miix 2 which sports the same processor as the Surface 2 Pro, but 11" seems a bit large in my view.

I've also been looking at Android convertibles, and here I run into a bit of trouble - most of them tend to run outdated versions of Android, and I'm really not looking forward to figuring out which of them have the best AOSP support. Do any of you have any suggestions here? Any models to look for? Experiences with custom, AOSP-like ROMs?

An even bigger question regarding Android on convertibles is just how well Android handles laptop-like computing. Does it do a good job of it, considering where Android comes from? It seems like to me that where Windows has the upper hand on the laptop side of the convertible, Android rules on the tablet side of it. Am I right in thinking this is so?

The Acer C720 is similar in specs to other Chromebooks currently on the market. It's a Haswell architecture with a dual core Celeron, 2 GB of RAM, 16 GB flash, HDMI-out, 3 USB, webcam, Bluetooth, and a 1366x768 px screen. It's 0.8" tall, and weighs just 2.76 lbs. Its battery life is rated for 8.5 hours but in real world usage rated at about 7 hours. You can view its specs in detail here.

The laptop feels very light, sturdy and of a good build quality. Its keyboard is easy to get accustomed to, and I had no trouble at all, coming from a radically different keyboard design on the DELL. The ChromeOS function keys are really handy too, e.g. to change brightness, volume etc. The touchpad has the right size, position and responsiveness too.

I never really dove too deep into Plan 9, but it has always fascinated me. I think it's time to learn more - and I suggest you do so too. It's weekend, after all, right?

Another day, another fear-mongering 'Android is closed!'-article at Ars Technica. After Peter Bright's article last week (sharply torn to shreds by Dianne Hackborn), we now have an article with the scary title "New Android OEM licensing terms leak; 'open' comes with a lot of restrictions".

The title itself is already highly misleading, since one, the licensing terms aren't new (they're from early 2011 - that's three years old), and two, they're not licensing terms for Android, but for the suite of Google applications that run atop Android.

This article makes the classic mistake about the nature of Android. It conflates the Android Open Source Project with the suite of optional proprietary Google applications, the GMS. These old, most likely outdated licensing terms cover the Google applications, and not the open source Android platform, which anyone can download, alter, build and ship. Everyone can build a smartphone business based on the Android Open Source Project, which is a complete smartphone operating system.

Major scoop by Tom Warren.

Now, I have a very crazy theory about this whole thing. I obviously have no inside sources like Warren has, so load this image in another tab while reading this, but what if instead of this being an attempt to bridge the 'application gap', this is the first step in a Microsoft transition towards Android as a whole?

Much like the PC world, which eventually settled on two players, the mobile world has settled on two players: Android and iOS. It's the cold and harsh truth. Does it really make sense for Microsoft to focus all that energy on developing Windows Phone - not to a whole lot of avail so far - when they could just take Android, add their own services, and more importantly, their own very popular and ubiquitous enterprise software, and sell that instead? Microsoft actually started out as an application software provider, and not as an operating system vendor, so it's not like they would do something they're not comfortable with.

The biggest reason this crazy, unfounded theory came to my mind is that I simply cannot believe Microsoft would actually make it possible to run Android applications on Windows Phone. First, running Android applications on another platform is not exactly issue-free. Second, this has not exactly helped BlackBerry (and Sailfish, for that matter) either. Third, Windows Phone (and Windows 8 Metro) are already afterthoughts for developers, nothing more than mere side-projects in between iOS and Android work. Why would any of them develop native applications if they can just send their already completed APK to Microsoft? It'd be the death of Windows Phone and Metro.

Combined with the news that Nokia's Android phone is actually going to come out, it wouldn't surprise me at all if Microsoft is thinking about phasing out Windows Phone, with the ability to run Android applications on the platform as a first step in this migration.

There are major issues with such an approach, of course, not least of which the problem Amazon has also run into: no Google Play Services, meaning several popular applications won't run at all. If you're truly, truly outrageous, you could even consider a pact between Microsoft and Google, a combined effort that would take some possible antitrust heat off Google's back, and would give them a united front against Apple and iOS. Even this has precedent: unlike what some think, Microsoft and Apple have a long history of close cooperation. There's no reason Microsoft wouldn't do it again, if needed.

In any case, this is all very interesting stuff, and it shows just how much of a problem the lack of any presence in the mobile world has become for Microsoft. The new CEO has some very tough calls to make.

Since I'm sure at least some of you will do a double-take upon reading this summary: they're referring to another kind of DOS.

This will go down as one of the craziest stories in what I reluctantly call "technology" of all time.