It's just a tiny example, but it illustrates a far bigger problem. Adam Becker: "So what's the problem? It's that this innocuous little guy is now being used for all sorts of disparate purposes, and every time it's used for another action, it loses more and more of its meaning." This is what happens when consistency is thrown out the door, and developers get little to no guidance from operating systems' parent companies. Mobile applications and the web are a UX free-for-all, and as a result, established iconography and concepts are used out of context and in wildly varying ways. Just because you can code a mobile application doesn't mean you know anything about user interface design - this lack of guidance is where both Apple and Google have failed miserably.

Paul Thurrot and Rafael Rivera have some good shots of the new theme for classic applications in windows 8. Looking pretty good - too bad Microsoft didn't come up with a new icon set as well. Still, white window borders with a white taskbar and these new widgets and flat appearance... Nice.

The average computer user might think that the number of languages their operating system supports is pretty long. OSX supports 22 languages, and Microsoft claims to support 96, but they're counting different regional dialects multiple times. But there are over 6000 languages, and though many of them are spoken by a dwindling few, there are some languages that are spoken by millions of people that are supported very poorly, if at all, by computer operating systems. The reason for the support being poor is that the people who speak those languages are poor, and are not good "markets." It's only because of the efforts of a few dedicated people that computing support for languages such as Burmese, Sinhalese, Pali, Cambodian, and Lao have been as good as they are, but the trends for the future are not good.

OSNews' server had a RAID controller go kaput earlier today. It's fixed and we're back up. Thanks to Jon Jensen and the guys at Endpoint for taking care of us.

"All major operating systems, from Windows to OS X to iOS to Android, are all fully customizable and manageable using either first- or third-party tools. Google's Chrome OS is no exception. As part of our ongoing check-in with the revamped operating system and new, more robust Chrome hardware, today we'll be spending some time with the Chrome OS management console, looking at whether it makes Chrome OS a viable choice for businesses."

I'm not sure if such a thing exists anymore (what, with both Firefox and Chrome doing the release-all-the-time thing), but browser season 2012 has been opened! Opera 12 has just been released, bringing with it all sorts of updates and improvements. She may not be the most popular of the pack, but she sure has the most loyal fanbase.

"The Heterogeneous System Architecture Foundation is poised to 'define and promote an open, standards-based approach to heterogeneous computing that will provide a common hardware specification and broad support ecosystem to make it easier for software developers to deliver innovative applications that can take greater advantage of today's modern processors.' The HSA Foundation goes without Intel's support." Interesting.

The BBC interviews Torvalds. I like this bit: "For me, Linux on the desktop is where I started, and Linux on the desktop is literally what I still use today primarily - although I obviously do have other Linux devices, including an Android phone - so I'd personally really love for it to take over in that market too. But I guess that in the meantime I can't really complain about the successes in other markets." Linux on the desktop is quite passe. Phones and servers is where it's at.

So, iOS 6 will make its way to devices all the way back to the 3GS... But many key features are not available at all on the 3GS, and even the iPhone 4 and iPad 2 are seeing features held back. "Some features, like the VIP List for email, the Offline Reading List, and Shared Photo Stream won't work on the iPhone 3GS. Even flagship iOS features like Flyover, turn-by-turn navigation, and FaceTime over cellular won't work on recent devices like the iPhone 4 or the iPad 2 - not to mention the iPhone 3GS." Pretty scummy and misleading.

Bitrig, a fork of OpenBSD, has surfaced. It aims to be less conservative than OpenBSD by being less loose with new features and only supporting modern architectures. Bitrig has also converted over to using LLVM's clang rather than GNU gcc for it's toolchain/compiler. A roadmap for Bitrig is also available.

Apple held its keynote speech just now, kicking off its developer conference. The company announced minor refreshes for its laptop line, introduced a stunning new laptop with a Retina display, and gave a sneak peek of iOS 6, which will launch in the Fall.

So, I've been sitting on this one for a few days now, since I decided to let the sensationalist headlines pass by before I took a stab at it. Developer Christina B. has started - and released code for - an amazingly intriguing project: implementing Darwin/BSD on top of the Linux kernel. Just to make this absolutely clear: it's not her intention to allow iOS applications to run on this new, hybrid system. Let me reiterate: it's not her intention to allow iOS applications to run on this new, hybrid system. This, however, does not make this project any less interesting.

So, Google has made it very hard to install Chrome extensions outside of the Chrome Web Store - out of security concerns. In addition, they sprung this on users and extension developers without much consultation or consideration for their concerns. As always - understandable to protect users, but the handling has an almost Apple-like bluntness to it. Next up: how to jailbreak your browser?

"I've lost track of the many reasons that have been given for the switch to Intel, but this I know for sure: no one has ever reported that, for 18 months, Project Marklar existed only because a self-demoted engineer wanted his son Max to be able to live closer to Max's grandparents." Amazing.