Almost exactly three years ago, I wrote about why OSNews was no longer OSNews: the alternative operating system scene had died, and OSNews, too, had to go with the times and move towards reporting on a new wave of operating systems - mobile, and all the repercussions that the explosion of smartphones and tablets have caused. Still, I was wondering something today: why aren't we seeing alternative operating systems on mobile?

"In the past five years, flash memory has progressed from a promising accelerator, whose place in the data center was still uncertain, to an established enterprise component for storing performance-critical data. It's rise to prominence followed its proliferation in the consumer world and the volume economics that followed. With SSDs, flash arrived in a form optimized for compatibility - just replace a hard drive with an SSD for radically better performance. But the properties of the NAND flash memory used by SSDs differ significantly from those of the magnetic media in the hard drives they often displace. While SSDs have become more pervasive in a variety of uses, the industry has only just started to design storage systems that embrace the nuances of flash memory. As it escapes the confines of compatibility, significant improvements in performance, reliability, and cost are possible."

Martin Hedberg has interviewed Jean-Louis Gassee - founder of Be, Inc. and former Apple executive. We're looking at 45 minutes (part 1, 2, 3, and 4) of talk about operating systems an their future, so sit down, relaxe, and enjoy.

"The OFT has launched an investigation into whether children are being unfairly pressured or encouraged to pay for additional content in 'free' web and app-based games, including upgraded membership or virtual currency such as coins, gems or fruit. Typically, players can access only portions of these games for free, with new levels or features, such as faster game play, costing money." Instances of this may be illegal, especially when it targets children. As for me - I just find it incredibly annoying.

Facebook Home is now available on the Google Play Store, for the Samsung Galaxy SII, SII, HTC One, One X, and One X+, with support for the HTC One and Galaxy S4 coming in the future. No need to download it, though; Home's single interesting feature, Chat Heads, is available in the regular Facebook Messenger for Android as well.

"Beneath the sheen of do-gooder ideology, FairSearch can be most charitably described as a Google watchdog. It seeks to fan the flames of disapproval where they've started organically, originate them where they haven't, and generally disseminate negativity toward the Google brand. Think of it as a PR firm working to destroy rather than create goodwill." To make matters worse, FairSearch' work isn't even very good.

"Not many of us like thinking about death - especially our own. But making plans for what happens after you're gone is really important for the people you leave behind. So today, we're launching a new feature that makes it easy to tell Google what you want done with your digital assets when you die or can no longer use your account." Trailblazing. If you ever wonder why people tend to be favourable to Google - despite its many failing - it's stuff like this. While others are running cringe-inducing marketing campaigns or planning yet another patent lawsuit, Google gives users an immeasurably important feature like this. If you recently lost somebody, you will understand.

"The parties have no interest in efficiently and expeditiously resolving this dispute; they instead are using this and similar litigation worldwide as a business strategy that appears to have no end," US District Judge Robert Scola said, "That is not a proper use of this court." Judge Scola knows what's up. "Without a hint of irony, the parties now ask the court to mop up a mess they made by holding a hearing to reduce the size and complexity of the case," he adds, "The court declines this invitation." Always fun to see stuff like this. Oh, one more? He calls their conduct "obstreperous and cantankerous conduct".

"After selling 7.19 million phones in China last year, Xiaomi is now one step closer to world domination with a new device that'll take it to new territories: the Xiaomi Phone 2S (or MI-2S)." MIUI v5 also looks pretty great. When I find some time, I'll install it on my SII and see what's what.

"Google announced an update to its Google Play mobile app on Android - its online store for apps, music, books, magazines, movies and TV shows - today, one that is aimed at cleaning up the UI and optimizing it for different device types. It's a model of clarity and discoverability, not to mention scalability, features that are sorely lacking in Microsoft's Windows Store." As a Surface RT owner, I couldn't agree more with Paul Thurrott.

The Wii U isn't doing well. "We're told by someone with access to the NPD's data that sales for January were 'well under' 100,000 units. By our estimates, sales were somewhere between 45,000 and 59,000 units for the month, which is lower than any of the three previous-generation home consoles sold in their worst months, with the possible exception of a recent performance by the original Wii." All that is old will be new again.

The reviews are universally positive, and virtually everyone seems to agree: the HTC One is one heck of an Android device, and quite possibly the best phone currently on the market. Outstanding build quality, great design, fast - and just like the One X before it, it looks like to me it's a far better phone than its Galaxy counterparts. Why, then, is no one buying HTC phones?

Peter Bright has summarised some of the post-fork discussions on the WebKit mailinglists. "Now that Google is going its own way and developing its rendering engine independently of the WebKit project, both sides of the split are starting the work of removing all the things they don't actually need. This is already causing some tensions among WebKit users and Web developers, as it could lead to the removal of technology that they use or technology that is in the process of being standardized. This is leading some to question whether Apple is willing or able to fill in the gaps that Google has left." There's a clear winner and loser here.

Sigh. First it was the Apple TV. Then it became smartwatches. Now we're moving on to Google Glass competitors. People, this is all bullshit. Made-up nonsense to get hits. Headlines like 'X to release Y competitor' score a double whammy; X blogs will get excited about it, Y blogs will complain about X being a copycat. So, with one made-up story you score double the amount of hits. It's a variant on the old but now rarely used 'X to release Y killer', where 'Y' was usually an Apple product.