It's one of those days again: Apple held a product announcement today, announcing several new products. The most important of which was rumoured about for a long time now: a smaller iPad. It's called the iPad mini, and has the potential to become the best-selling iPad - and thus, the best selling tablet.

"Last week, the Dutch Minister of Safety and Justice asked the Parliament of the Netherlands to pass a law allowing police to obtain warrants to do the following: install malware on targets’ private computers, conduct remote searches on local and foreign computers to collect evidence, and delete data on remote computers in order to disable the accessibility of 'illegal files'. Requesting assistance from the country where the targetted computer(s) were located would be 'preferred' but possibly not required. These proposals are alarming, could have extremely problematic consequences, and may violate European human rights law." You get true net neutrality with one hand, but this idiocy with another. This reminds me a lot of how some of our busy intersections are designed; by people who bike to city hall all their lives and have no clue what it's like to drive a car across their pretty but extremely confusing and hence dangerous intersections.

Miguel de Icaza, founder of Xamarin and lead developer of the Mono open-source implementation of Microsoft's .NET platform, announced on his blog today that the third major revision of the Mono framework is now available. Mono 3.0 was released on GitHub on October 18. It adds support for some of the most recently added key features of the .NET platform, incorporates Microsoft's open-source framework for Web development, and beefs up the capabilities of Mono on Mac OS X and iOS. It also lays the groundwork for much more rapid development of features for the Mono platform going forward.

"One of the exhibits Samsung has now made public tells an interesting tale. It's the slide presentation that Apple showed Samsung when it first tried (and failed) to get Samsung to license Apple's patents prior to the start of litigation. While some of the numbers were earlier reported on when the exhibit was used at trial, the slides themselves provide more data - specifically on the difference between what Apple wanted Samsung to pay for Windows phones and for Android phones. The slides punch huge holes in Apple's FRAND arguments. Apple and Microsoft complain to regulators about FRAND rates being excessive and oppressive at approximately $6 per unit, or 2.4%; but the Apple offer was not only at a much higher rate, it targeted Android in a way that seems deliberately designed to destroy its ability to compete in the marketplace." Eagerly awaiting the 45 paragraph comment explaining how this is completely fair and not hypocritical at all. Bonus points if it includes something about Eric Schmidt being on Apple's board, and, double bonus point if it mentions one of the QWERTY Android prototypes. Mega Epic Bonus if it somehow manages to draw a line from Edison, Tesla, to Jobs.

"I've been writing about Windows for almost 20 years, and I feel like I've kind of seen it all. But for the past several days, I've been struggling under the weight of the most brutal email onslaught I've ever endured over these two decades. And if my email is any indication, and I believe it is, the majority of people out there have absolutely no idea what Windows RT is. This is a problem." When even Paul Thurrot is worried, you can be sure it is, actually, a problem. We're going to see and hear about a lot of frustrated customer who can't load up their 1997 copy of Awesome Garden Designer 2.0 Deluxe.

The Next Web: "Google has also been working with Samsung to launch a 10-inch tablet, confirming leaks which suggested Google had teamed up with the Korean manufacturer for another device. Our source tells us that internally the tablet goes under the name 'Codename Manta', runs Google's new Android 4.2 operating system (previously referred to as Key Lime Pie, but is set to retain the Jelly Bean branding), and will offer a 2560x1600 pixel (10:16) resolution, which we believe will offer around 300 pixels per inch compared to the new iPad's 264 PPI." Between the iPad and this supposed Android tablet... Poor Surface. Poor, poor Surface.

"Looking at the stats for all our apps (we have 4 universal apps with almost 3 million downloads) and for all versions after a month gives an interesting picture." Close to 70% is on iOS 6 already. In the meantime, Sony just announced it's going to leave loads of users in the cold by not upgrading their phones to Jelly Bean. Those that do have an update in the pipeline will have to wait until next year.

This has always bothered me. Google buys a huge hardware company called Motorola, and people expect new Google phones to appear within a few weeks or months. Of course, anybody with more than two brain cells to rub together realises buying and integrating such a huge company isn't something you just do in a few weeks or months. Luckily, The Verge reports Google has just stated the obvious.

Ubuntu 12.10 has been released, sporting the rather... Interesting tagline 'Avoid the pain of Windows 8'. Two main features are that websites can now be treated as actual applications, integrating them into Unity. The divide between local and online content when searching has also been softened, which, they claim, makes it easier to find what you're looking for. On the server side, it includes the Folsom release of OpenStack, "Cinder, for block storage and Quantum, a virtual networking API. Ubuntu's Metal-as-a-Service bare-metal provisioning tool has been updated and now supports Calxeda hyperscale hardware based on ARM".

"This may be a good sign for Microsoft: a little over a day after putting its new Surface RT tablet up for pre-order, the entry-level $499 version of the tablet has sold out. Its estimated shipping time has slipped from October 26, Windows 8's release date, to a more nebulous 'within three weeks'." We'll see. Wouldn't be the first time a company artificially keeps supply short to generate 'sold-out' hype.

Pretty cool: an alpha image of Android 4.2 from the leaked LG Nexus device includes SELinux. "According to the layout xml, SELinux will have a status readout tacked-on to the current About Phone screen. It will now list 'SELinux Status' at the very bottom, right under 'Kernel version' and 'Build Number'. If you're wondering why there are 3 options and not just 'on' and 'off', 'Permissive' is a logging mode, which will tell you when it would have blocked something, but won't actually block things. The other key piece of information to get from the string file is that this is an optional mode, don't go around saying that Google is shutting down root functionality or anything. This is for security conscious enterprise and government-types and probably won't be enabled on consumer phones."

Kaspersky is working on its own secure operating system for highly specialised tasks. "We're developing a secure operating system for protecting key information systems (industrial control systems) used in industry/infrastructure. Quite a few rumors about this project have appeared already on the Internet, so I guess it's time to lift the curtain (a little) on our secret project and let you know (a bit) about what's really going on." More here.

Microsoft's applied sciences department manager Stevie Bathich explains why the 1366x768 Surface RT screen is actually better than the iPad's Retina display - fancy display technology talk. Conclusion? "Doing a side by side with the new iPad in a consistently lit room, we have had many people see more detail on Surface RT than on the iPad with more resolution." I'm sure there's some truth behind the sciency talk, but I highly doubt that the Surface's display bests the iPad's. Seeing is believing, but since The Netherlands is not important, I won't get the opportunity to compare for a long time to come.

"Rachel Crosby speaks about her BlackBerry phone the way someone might speak of an embarrassing relative. 'I’m ashamed of it,' said Ms. Crosby, a Los Angeles sales representative who said she had stopped pulling out her BlackBerry at cocktail parties and conferences. In meetings, she says she hides her BlackBerry beneath her iPad for fear clients will see it and judge her." Other products many people own but feel ashamed about: sex toys. So essentially, the BlackBerry is now the equivalent of a vibrator. In all seriousness though - why feel ashamed because of a phone? Are people really that shallow? I'm really getting too old for this stuff.