Yesterday, I wanted to leave a link to a search query in a Facebook comment. Then this happened. Please Google, fix your damn query URLs. This is unusable, user-hostile crap.

If you ever needed any proof it's anything but roses ans sunshine over at Microsoft's Windows Phone division, it's this. The next version of Windows Phone, WP8, will run on the NT kernel, which marks a pretty substantial departure from the current release. This raises the question: will current handsets be upgradeable to WP8? First, Microsoft indicated no. Then they said yes (interview retracted). And now, they're saying no again.

"IKEA introduces UPPLEVA, a completely new range that integrates smart TV and sound system with furniture. UPPLEVA brings beauty and functionality to the living room, solving the problem of cable clutter and miss-match between TV and furniture." I'm throwing money at my screen but nothing is happening.

"At the Microsoft Management Summit today in Las Vegas, Microsoft officially announced that the next version of Windows Server will officially be named Windows Server 2012 - and will be released this calendar year. Microsoft Corporate Vice President Brad Anderson told the audience that 'nothing Microsoft has ever done has ever been as ambitious' as the features being incorporated into Windows Server 2012. Microsoft Principal Product Manager Jeff Woolsey walked through a few of those features, including Server 2012's storage pooling and the boosted capabilities of the Hyper-V virtual machine hypervisor."

Say what you want about Twitter - pointless, annoying, noise, useless - at least the company has its heart in the right place. Twitter just announced the Innovator's Patent Agreement, a promise not use their or their employees' patents offensively. In a world where yesterday's innovators are today's patent trolls - Apple, Microsoft, Oracle - this is a big deal.

"Google treats its infrastructure like a state secret, so Holzle rarely speaks about it in public. Today is one of those rare days: at the Open Networking Summit in Santa Clara, California, Holzle is announcing that Google essentially has remade a major part of its massive internal network, providing the company a bonanza in savings and efficiency. Google has done this by brashly adopting a new and radical open-source technology called OpenFlow."

"RIM, the troubled maker of the BlackBerry smartphone, is in talks to hire a financial adviser to help it weigh strategic options, according to four people with knowledge of the matter. A decision to work with at least one bank could come in the next few days, said one of the people, who asked to remain anonymous because the deliberations are private. RIM would prefer an agreement to license its mobile-phone software, and its next choice is a strategic investment, one person said. RIM doesn't plan to sell itself, the person said." So, anyone interested in licensing BlackBerry OS? Anyone...? What if they throw in a free beer...?

European carriers are dissatisfied with the Nokia Lumia phones, Reuters has found out. According to the carriers, the Lumia phones are simply "not good enough" to compete with the iPhone and Android phones. Nobody comes into stores asking for windows phones, and one carrier executive said "if the Lumia with the same hardware came with Android in it and not Windows, it would be much easier to sell". Ouch.

While I was fast asleep, Microsoft unveiled the SKUs for Windows 8 - and we're in for a surprise. Yes, after years and years of fully deserved mockery for releasing 343 versions of each Windows release, the company has seen the light and reduced everything to just four - of which only two, Windows 8 and Windows 8 Pro, will be freely available in stores.

"Sometimes we get lucky, and today is one of those days. I got a draft release from a partner of Google's upcoming Google Drive service and it gives away a wealth of information about how Google plans to take on the incumbent Dropbox. The short story? 5 GB of storage, and it launches next week, likely on Tuesday." No Linux support. Huh.

Yes! The first batch of Raspberry Pi boards is finally shipping out to customers around the world. It's been a long journey (ugh), but at least we'll be seeing reviews and videos now. My Pi is still on backorder, so no review on OSNews just yet.

Interesting set of options Apple has to move the iPhone to a 4" display, as detailed by Dan Provost. I don't care how Apple does it, as long as they do it. The iPhone's tiny screen is nearly unusable once I got used to the 4.3" of my HD7 and SII. This is quite a personal choice, of course, and there's no right or wrong, but it's clear there is a demand for larger displays.

"The principles of openness and universal access that underpinned the creation of the internet three decades ago are under greater threat than ever, according to Google co-founder Sergey Brin. The threat to the freedom of the internet comes, he claims, from a combination of governments increasingly trying to control access and communication by their citizens, the entertainment industry's attempts to crack down on piracy, and the rise of 'restrictive' walled gardens such as Facebook and Apple, which tightly control what software can be released on their platforms." That governments - east and west - are trying to destroy the open web, that we know. As for Facebook and Apple... Well, all I know is that it is completely and utterly impossible to check what information Apple has about you. Unlike Google (more here) and to a lesser degree Facebook, Apple provides zero means to see, export, or delete the information they have on you, associated with your Apple ID or otherwise. In 2012, that's just sinister.

"Modern science relies upon researchers sharing their work so that their peers can check and verify success or failure. But most scientists still don't share one crucial piece of information - the source codes of the computer programs driving much of today's scientific progress." Pretty crazy this isn't the norm yet.