Windows 8 will be one of the most significant releases for Microsoft ever, since it pretty much rethinks the entire graphical user interface. One of the problems I personally see with Metro is that it doesn't appear to be particularly conducive to getting actual work done. In an interview with The Verge, Microsoft design director Steve Kaneko confirmed that it's hard to adapt applications like Office to use Metro.

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.

I'm guessing Apple is getting desperate, since its software patent lawsuits aren't doing particularly well. Moving on from software and design patents, the company is now suing Samsung over... Patents for mobile phone and tablet cases (more at The Verge). I think Apple has more offensive lawsuits than products now, so technically, "patent maker" is more accurate than "gadget maker" or "device maker". Fun times.

"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.

The ITC has ruled in the Apple vs. HTC software patent case, and it's pretty damning for the Cupertino software patent and gadget company. Out of the four asserted software patents, HTC was only found to infringe one (some nonsense about formatting phone numbers in emails or whatever) - and HTC has already stated an update to circumvent the software patent is ready. Update: A remarkable case of prior art was found - but probably too late.

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.

Oracle's Sun Java JDK packages are to be removed from the Ubuntu partner repositories and disabled on users systems. Oracle, in retiring the "Operating System Distributor License for Java," means Canonical no longer have permission to distribute the package. The change will affect Ubuntu 10.04 LTs, Ubuntu 10.10 and 11.04 users only. Users who have the "sun-java-6" package installed on their system will see it removed via a future software update -- the exact date of which is "TBD."

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.

Apple makes the best consumer laptops. For me, there's absolutely no denying that this is the case. Apple has had this lead over the competition since the iBook G3 Dual USB 12.1" and 14", and has never lost it. Right now, the rumour mill is abuzz about Apple supposedly prepping to launch a MacBook Pro with a retina display - 2880x1800.

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.

"Qt has reached another important evolutionary milestone today. We are very proud to announce that Qt 4.8.0 has now been released. Many people have worked long and hard to deliver Qt 4.8.0. Today that hard work reaches final release maturity, and we are celebrating! Featuring Qt Platform Abstraction, threaded OpenGL support, multithreaded HTTP and optimized file system access, Qt 4.8.0 can be downloaded as binary or source packages."

"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."

The Guardian reports on some statistics showing developer income and download statistics for Android vs iOS apps. From The Guardian "Will more developers remove their iOS blinkers in 2012 ? There is some new research to chew over on this matter. We'll start with analytics firm Flurry, which regularly publishes stats on trends among the 55,000 developers using its tools in their apps"

If HP wants a future for struggling WebOS, it must invest in the platform, not abandon it, writes Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister. 'It seems HP may only be truly committed to the platform if it can offload the cost of developing and maintaining it. Yet if that's what HP hopes to achieve by opening the WebOS source, it's bound to be disappointed.' Instead, HP should dedicated its own developer resources and 'release as much code as possible under an Apache, BSD, or similarly permissive license. Dual licensing under the GPL might leave HP with more opportunities to monetize the platform, but it won't garner as much interest from hardware makers, who are what WebOS needs most.'