"The ZX Spectrum is 30 years old. The successor to Sir Clive Sinclair's ZX81 - at the time the world's best selling consumer computer - it introduced colour 'high resolution' graphics and sound. It also offered an extended version of Sinclair Basic, a computer language with which hundreds of thousands of users were already familiar."

"Reports are coming in from around the Internet that the Gmail redesign, which we were previously able to stave off with 'revert to the old look temporarily', is now forcing itself upon us. I too have succumbed to the new design, and have been forced to find ways to cope. Here's what I did to make it semi-bearable." The Gmail redesign has been the biggest whine-a-thon in the history of the web ('cope'? Bearable'?). For what it's worth, the Gmail redesign has been a godsend for me - the new Gmail is beautiful, understated, and elegant. I love it. I guess the old adage still goes: the satisfied people don't take to the web.

"Lua OS is - or aspires to become - two things: 1) a first-class modern Linux distribution for the desktop that you can use every day for everything you want to do with your computer - and something that is always offering enjoyment. 2) a next-generation, orthogonally persistent operating system for portable, manageable and secure scripting code. The Lua OS project is spearheaded by Stefan Reich who deserted from Google Inc. in 2008 in order to pursue much greater visions."

This is getting repetitive, but girl scout, red, etc. etc. "Apple CEO Tim Cook and Valve head Gabe Newell did not actually meet last week as rumored, according to a new podcast interview with Newell." You don't say. Pattern recognition, folks.

"Linux vendor Canonical said it has 'no interest' in Linux kernel development. Two weeks ago a Linux Foundation report showed that since version 2.6.32, Microsoft had committed more code to the Linux kernel than Canonical. Since then, Canonical has faced claims from rivals that it does not contribute to Linux as much as it should given its popularity. Recently Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth told The Inquirer that his company has no interest in contributing to the Linux kernel." Why is this such a bad thing? You can contribute more to open source than code alone. Like, I don't know, users?

Tobias Bjerrome Ahlin, an interface designer at Spotify, is a big believer in skeuomorphism. Whereas Apple is a strong advocate of this design concept, Microsoft is clearly moving in the exact opposite direction, while Android is in the process of moving away from skeuomorphism entirely, to a more digital experience. As a passionate hater of skeuomorphism in UIs, I found Ahlin's examples to be a bit weak.

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"When I started working on a no-DRM, open-standards-based solution for distributing high-definition video on fixed media ('Lib-Ray'), I naturally thought of Theora, because it was developed as a free software project. Several people have suggested, though, that the VP8 codec would be a better fit for my application. This month, I've finally gotten the necessary vpxtools and mkvtoolnix packages installed on my Debian system, and so I'm having a first-look at VP8. The results are very promising, though the tools are somewhat finicky."

"Microsoft beat Wall Street's profit forecast as personal computer sales held up better than expected, lifting its shares 2.5 percent after hours. The results buoyed optimism around the world's largest software maker, which is lining up a new tablet-friendly version of Windows for later this year and is looking to make a dent into Apple and Google's domination of the mobile market this holiday shopping season." Are Wall Street forecasts ever right?

"Florian Mueller has confessed - in the interests of being 'transparent', he says - that Oracle has hired him, for his analysis of FRAND issues. I know. You are shocked, shocked. Who'd have ever guessed? We did. Groklaw did. We get suspicious when someone's 'analysis' is uniformly that Google is doomed. It's my Spidey sense. And it's usually on the money, as they say." We've had a no-link policy in place for Mueller from back when everybody else was still citing him as a trustworthy, independent analyst. My own senses told me otherwise, and I was right. Paint me red, girl scout, etc. etc.

"Mark Shuttleworth has announced at the OpenStack conference that Canonical has received a ringing endorsement from HP in the form of certification for Ubuntu 12.04 LTS on the ProLiant server systems. Responding to customer demand, HP has decided to officially support the popular flavor of Linux giving sysadmins another flexible software option to leverage their current and future hardware."

Nokia's results for the first quarter are in... And it's grim. Very grim. We're looking at a net loss of EUR 929 million, an almost complete collapse compared to last year's EUR 344 million profit. It's also almost double the loss analysts expected. Revenue dropped by 29%, too.

"The pitch is as simple as it is universal: you only need one account (with us!) and you'll have all your digital needs taken care of. That's the goal Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Sony - to varying degrees and using strikingly divergent strategies - are all trying to accomplish. As a group, they're just a selection of the vast hordes of service providers looking to expand their ecosystems and monopolize your time (see the efforts of Evernote, Spotify, and Zynga), but they're also the only ones big and influential enough to actually fulfill that aspiration. My aim today will be to compare, in terms of features and approach, the 'access-everything' accounts on offer from those six biggest companies. Does Google+ let you do more than Facebook? Can the Sony Entertainment Network match wits with Microsoft's Live services? Let's find out."

"Windows Phone is a rapidly growing market where indie developers can be successful. We are looking forward to an even better second year as indie game developers, and can't wait for Windows 8!" Great to see success stories like this. Since I run my own one-man business as well, I somehow feel kinship.