Both Mozilla and Google have expressed concern over Windows 8. Microsoft's next big operating system release restricts access to certain APIs and technologies browsers need - only making them available to Internet Explorer. Looking at the facts, it would seem Mozilla and Google have a solid case - coincidentally, the responses on the web are proof of the slippery slope we're on regarding ownership over our own machines.

Since The Pirate Bay blockade (which is easily circumvented) has just been extended to all other ISPs in The Netherlands (logically, court orders fall outside net neutrality), here's a link to a landing page which automatically redirects Dutch visitors to a valid The Pirate Bay proxy, circumventing the blockade. The more resourceful among us can always alter their hosts file, add a redirect in their router software, change DNS servers (any pros and cons from people who actually do this?), and about a gazillion other things. The Dutch copyright lobby's next step? Blocking websites that detail how to circumvent the blockade. Hey Kuik, we're right here!

John Sullivan, executive director of the Free Software Foundation: "Were it grounded in reality, Oracle's claim that copyright law gives them proprietary control over any software that uses a particular functional API would be terrible for free software and programmers everywhere. It is an unethical and greedy interpretation created with the express purpose of subjugating as many computer users as possible, and is particularly bad in this context because it comes at a time when the sun has barely set on the free software community's celebration of Java as a language newly suitable for use in the free world. Fortunately, the claim is not yet reality, and we hope Judge Alsup will keep it that way." Couldn't agree more.

Because there aren't enough of these things already: "Today, we're announcing the App Center, a new place for people to find social apps. The App Center gives developers an additional way to grow their apps and creates opportunities for more types of apps to be successful." Like I'm giving Facebook my credit card number. I mean, Apple, Microsoft, and Google: fine. But I draw the line at Facebook. Really. I will. And yes, this is sarcasm.

Apple has released OS X Lion 10.7.4, which, among several other bug fixes, plugs a hole in FileVault that affected some users. Nothing particularly interesting going on otherwise.

Speaking of HP, the company replied to a question if they copied Apple for their latest ultrabook, the Envy Spectre XT. "There are similarities in a way, not due to Apple but due to the way technologies developed. Apple may like to think that they own silver, but they don't. In no way did HP try to mimic Apple. In life there are a lot of similarities." It's an ultrabook, a category of laptops defined by Intel. Coincidentally, Intel also developed the internals of the MacBook Air. These products are looking relatively similar because their internals have been designed by the same damn company. Get over it.

"Dragging and dropping is a great way to get stuff done on your Mac, but DragonDrop makes it even better. DragonDrop lets you set down what you're dragging, leaving you free to find your destination without worrying about keeping the mouse button held down." Great utility (found via Daring Fireball), but shaking with the mouse is a horrible interaction - it's very intensive and error-prone (Aero Shake, anyone?). I'd love for that little drop container to be permanently visible (oh, and a Windows/Linux version would be awesome, of course).

"An operating system designed to power the smart cities of the future will be put through its paces in London. Living Plan IT has developed its Urban OS to provide a platform to connect services and citizens. With partners including Hitachi, Phillips and Greenwich council, it aims to use the Greenwich peninsula as a testbed for new technologies running on the system. The OS aims to connect key services such as water, transport, and energy." UrbanOS goes way over my head - it'd be great if someone could summarise how it works and what its key aspects are.

"The Apache OpenOffice Project today announced the availability of Apache OpenOffice 3.4, the first release of OpenOffice under the governance of the Apache Software Foundation." I don't think OpenOffice could have ended up in a better foster home.

A long list of new Windows Phone applications Nokia is developing in conjunction with partners (and a few non-Nokia ones). A number of them are going to be Nokia Lumia exclusives - I'm not sure the rest of the Windows Phone OEMs are going to like that. It'll be interesting to see how far Nokia and Microsoft can take this before everything snaps.

Tizen reached 1.0 only recently, but there's already a Tizen Conference going on - and during that conference, Samsung had a relatively barebones reference device running Tizen 1.0. The Handheld Blog has a seven minute video of the device in action, and while I'm very happy big players are investing in all these alternative platforms, I do have to wonder - how viable are they?

There's some movement in the Oracle-Google lawsuit today, but it's rather difficult to determine just what kind of movement. The jury was told by the judge Alsup to assume APIs are copyrightable - something Alsup still has to determine later during trial - and with that in mind, the judge ruled Google violated Oracle's copyright on Java. However, the jury did not come to an agreement on a rather crucial question: whether or not it was fair use. All in all, a rather meaningless verdict at this point, since it's incomplete. Also, what kind of nonsense is it for a judge to tell a jury to assume something is illegal? Am I the only one who thinks that's just complete insanity?

This is absolutely fascinating. Steven Troughton-Smith has gotten his hands on one of the two early Android prototypes - the Google 'Sooner'. The Sooner is the BlackBerry-esque Google phone, which was supposed to be released first, followed by the much more advanced Google Dream (yup, what would eventually become the G1). Lots of high-res screenhots to get a good look at early Android. Update: Fascinating comment.

Ron Amadeo argues that the SIII is ugly because it was designed by lawyers. "So there you have it. A darn-near perfect explanation of the GSIII design. Sure, it's butt ugly, but it's also 100% (well maybe 90%) lawyer approved. An amorphous, unsymmetrical blob that doesn't come in black, with a non-permanent dock and non-square icons. There's no way Apple can add this design to their Samsung lawsuit." Sure would explain how Samsung went from the elegantly understated SII to this monstrosity of a phone. Anyone out there who actually likes the SIII's 'design'? If so, care to explain why?