You really can't make this stuff up. I wish I could - I'd be a millionaire comedian with an annoying ventriloquist dummy whose unfunny show takes over "Comedy" Central every other month. In any case, the Galaxy Tab 10.1N, the slightly modified version of the Tab 10.1 Samsung introduced in Germany to circumvent the injunction from Apple, has been labelled okay by the German courts, even though Apple still contents that it looks too much like an iPad.

"Clement Lefebvre, the Linux Mint founder, has started working on a GNOME Shell fork called Cinnamon, which tries to offer a layout similar to GNOME 2, with emphasis on 'making users feel at home and providing them with an easy to use and comfortable desktop experience'. Among the features that we'll probably see in Cinnamon are GNOME2-like notifications and systray icons, option to change the panel position and other panel options like autohide, etc. Some of these features are already available through Mint GNOME Shell Extensions (MGSE), but their functionality is pretty limited."

M.I.T. has just announced it is expanding its list of free online courses anyone can take. Attendees earn completion certificates. M.I.T.'s OpenCourseWare project already offers 2,100 courses used by 100 million people. OpenCulture, Free Ed, E-learning Center, and Alison offer competing free online courses, including many on computing and IT certification.

Gtk+ has GNOME on the one hand, and Xfce on the other. Qt, on the other hand, only has KDE - there's no lightweight, less encompassing alternative if KDE doesn't float your boat, but you'd still want a Qt desktop. Luckily for you, there's now Razor-qt, a small, lightweight and simple Qt desktop environment.

"Samsung Electronics plan to provide the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update for GALAXY devices. The platform update for GALAXY S II and GALAXY Note will start in the first quarter 2012, and other GALAXY devices will soon follow. The ICS-upgradable devices are the GALAXY S II, GALAXY S II LTE, GALAXY Note, GALAXY R, GALAXY Tab 10.1, GALAXY Tab 8.9, GALAXY Tab 7.7, and GALAXY Tab 7.0 Plus." Could be worse, I suppose.

2011 will go down in the history books as a great year for tablets mostly for Apple's iPad however, not all tablet vendors fared as well as Apple. It's not for lack of products that prevented Android tablets from taking any market share away from Apple this year. By our calculation, over 100 tablets were introduced since the iPad however, we defy even the most tech-savvy of you to name more than a few of them. What was so wrong with the competition that it failed to make any inroads in the tablet market, at least until the Amazon Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble Nook came along?

Once upon a time, in a land, far, far away, there were two mobile operating systems. One of them was designed for mobile from the ground up; the other was trying really hard to copy its older, desktop brother. One was limited in functionality, inflexible and lacked multitasking, but was very efficient, fast, and easy to use. The other had everything and the kitchen sink, was very flexible and could multitask, but had a steep learning curve, was inconsistent, and not particularly pretty.

Ethnologist Tricia Wang, via TechRice, writes on The Future of Computing in China. Touching upon such issues as culture, cloud vs super computing, and Silicon Valley vs Massachussetts's Route 128, she builds a case that, despite great strides and individual successes and brilliance, China's computing future will move in a different (perhaps slower) direction compared to the West

AT&T has told the U.S. Congress that its customers agreed to host Carrier IQ tracking software on their cellphones in their contracts. You might recall that, after the scandal over warrentless surveillance broke in 2006, AT&T quietly changed their contract for internet service to say that it -- not its customers -- owns all the customers' internet records. Those concerned about privacy might consider whether AT&T merits their trust.

Without corporate backing or advertising, Puppy Linux has become one of the world's ten most popular Linux distributions. In the past few months Puppy has whelped a litter of like systems, each with its own unique DNA. This article summarizes Puppy and then describes the new brood.

It was fun while it lasted. This internet thing became too powerful, and shifted the balance of power too much to the people. Politicians found a partner in the content industry, and here we have it. After a mysterious unexplained 180 by a Dutch political party, ACTA has been signed by all 27 members of the EU. In the meantime, it's looking like SOPA, despite delays, is going to make it through, despite fierce opposition from the technology industry (except Apple and Microsoft, who don't care about a free and open web) and the very architects of the internet. To top it all off, UMG apparently has complete control over YouTube's content, allowing them to remove any video they don't like without even having to invoke the DMCA.

Only weeks ago StatCounter reported that Chrome pushed past Firefox to become the second most popular web browser after IE. A new StatCounter report says Chrome 15 has jumped into the number one spot, replacing IE8. This is the first time a non-Microsoft browser has led the list in StatCounter's tracking.

"Mobile devices that adapt to who you are, reflecting what you are doing when you are doing it. This concept is at the heart of the Plasma Active user experience. Plasma Active One was released in October 2011, providing early adopters the first opportunity to experience Activities on a tablet. Since then, the design and development team behind this open source touch interface has been hard at work on an update. The fruits of their labor were released today, December 14, 2011 as Plasma Active Two."

A new study from UCSB finds significant increases in businesses hiring organized shills to push products online. These 'malicious crowd-sourcing systems' enlist dozens or hundreds of professional shills to orchestrate mass account creation, generate bogus ratings, and post canned cut-and-paste positive reviews -- with each 'task' costing between 13 and 70 cents. 'Unscrupulous crowd-sourcing sites, coupled with international payment systems, have enabled a burgeoning crowdturfing market that targets U.S. websites, but is fueled by a global workforce.'