"Java SE 7 is officially released today! After nearly five years of collaboration within the worldwide Java community, Java Platform, Standard Edition is ready for download! It's an important step in Java’s evolution. Thanks to everyone who suggested features, reviewed specs, argued on mailing lists, talked about Java 7 at your JUG meeting, submitted bugs, wrote blogs and tweeted about #java7."

I've kind of painted myself in a corner with that headline, because I never anticipated I would need another preview article for this project. However, thanks to all your comments on both the site and through email, the scope of this project has grown considerably. As part of this growing scope, I'm acquiring more and more devices, and yesterday, I managed to score a phone which, while almost forgotten by most of the rest of the technology press, contained two very important firsts. Not only was this the first phone with a capacitive touch screen, it was also the first phone with an interface design from the ground-up for finger/touch input. Say hello to the LG KE850, better known as the LG Prada.

MeegoExperts reports that NVIDIA just released a set of video drivers enabling MeeGo to run on the numerous Tegra 2 tablets, such as the Advent Vega, Adam, Asus Transformer, Motorola Xoom and also the new range of Tegra 2 handsets. This will enable MeeGo and potentially other Linux distros using hardfp video drivers to compete in environment previously dominated exclusively by Android OS.

"KDE is delighted to announce its latest set of releases, providing major updates to the KDE Plasma Workspaces, KDE Applications, and the KDE Platform that provides the foundation for KDE software. Version 4.7 of these releases provide many new features and improved stability and performance."

"Mozilla today announced Boot to Gecko , a very ambitious project that aims to create a 'complete, standalone operating system for the open web'. This project's goal is to develop what seems like a ChromeOS-like operating system where all the apps are based on HTML5."

Debian announced that they are going to introduce multiarch support for Wheezy (7.0) in 2013. Well, nice, but aren't they a little bit late now that problems are mostly sorted out and systems moved to 64-bit? This would have been great news at the time when Lenny (5.0) was released, but does it even matter in 2013? Are they just going to make things more complicated for no reason?

And the patent and lawsuit related news just keeps on coming. Sorry. Anywho, this one's a doozy. As we all know, Oracle - led by Larry Elison, who just so happens to be one of Steve Jobs' best friends, but this is of course entirely coincidental - is suing the crap out of Google over the use of Java in Android, claiming not only patent but also copyright infringement. Well, when Sun was still on its own, its CEO, Jonathan Schwarz, publicly and explicitly endorsed Android's use of Java in a blog post - a post that has since been removed by Oracle. But, as we all know, the internet never forgets.

"Research in Motion said today it is planning to cut 2000 jobs as part of a cost optimization program. The company gave other additional details on the program as well, which it first announced in June. The changes are aimed at creating greater alignment of the organization, and streamlining its operations to better position the company for future growth and profitability."

We at OSNews would like to extend our thoughts and sympathies to the victims of the horrible events that took place in Norway, yesterday. There really are no words to describe what has transpired, and as such, I won't even attempt to do so. Suffice to say, OSNews will be silent until after the weekend. I have lost my interest in writing and quibbling about stupid ones and zeros, at least for now. "No one will bomb us to silence, no one will shoot us to silence, no one will ever scare us from being Norway."

In this day and age, it's really hard to stand out in the smartphone world. There's only so much you can do with the default slab design, and despite all the talk, iOS and Android are petty much the same thing in the grand scheme of things. Thank god for Japan, though. At least those guys have the sheer determination to build a smartphone which dual boots Symbian and... Windows 7. No, not Windows Phone 7. Windows 7.

"Now everyone can use Google's Go language on the company's App Engine cloud platform as the company has announced that the Go runtime, which has been in development since it was announced at Google I/O, is now generally available."

ChromeOS is set for a speed upgrade with Intel Core-based processors. Why, you may ask, given that Chrome OS is a cloud orientated device? The answer might have something to do with more and more offline applications being available, including Google Docs offline, which is coming this summer (many other Google applications are also set to follow this route). Other possible factors might include Google's gaming strategy with a newly established gaming division. High definition video playback, recently added to ChromeOS, will benefit from faster processors.

"Ailing Nokia on Thursday surrendered its lead in the global smartphone market to rival Apple and shed more market share as it reported a steep net loss for the second quarter. Nokia's outloook for its handset business to be profitable in the current quarter brought some relief to its battered share price but analysts doubted it would dispel fears about the future of the onetime cellphone leviathan. Nokia, still the world's largest phone maker by volume, has failed to come up with an attractive smartphone offering to compete with Apple's iPhone, Research In Motion's BlackBerry and a wide array of handsets using Google's Android software. Nokia said it sold 16.7 million smartphones in the quarter, falling behind Apple's 20.3 million iPhones." Hard to believe Windows Phone 7 - as great and fresh product I find it - can turn the tide for Nokia. Still, every phone maker today owes pretty much its entire business to Nokia (and Motorola).

Linux 3.0 has been released. Technically, the release of version 3.0 of the Linux kernel shouldn't be too eventful, since the jump in version number doesn't actually signify any huge change or whatever; the only reason behind the bump to 3.0 is to come to saner version numbering. Still, man, it's like, totally version 3 of the Linux kernel.