A few days ago, Microsoft released Windows Phone 7.5, also known as Mango, to its developers for testing their applications. It didn't take long for the hacking community (in the form of Windows HoneHacker.com) to come up with a clever solution to enable the phones of non-developers to upgrade to Mango - and guess what, I did just that. Here are a few thoughts.

Even though I was extremely sceptical of this whole tablet thing, I bought an iPad 2 a few weeks ago. Obviously, this occasion couldn't pass by without a proper review of the thing on OSNews, so here we are. Inside, my view on the iPad 2, and more importantly, how my perception of tablets has been turned around completely.

Apple is likely to replace Hewlett-Packard (HP) as the global number one notebook vendor in 2012 if tablet PCs are included in the calculation of global notebook shipments, according to industry sources.

As we reported earlier this week, YGN Ethical Hacker Group threatened to go full disclosure with a security flaw in Apple's developers' website. Apple has given in to the pressure, and has fixed the flaw. Since it's been fixed, the details of the flaw are now available online.

Via TorrentFreak: "Entertainment industry lobby groups often describe file-sharers as thieves who refuse to pay for any type of digital content. But not everyone agrees with this view. Swedish telecom giant Ericsson sees copyright abuse as the underlying cause of the piracy problem. In a brilliant article, Rene Summer, Director of Government and Industry Relations at Ericsson, explains how copyright holders themselves actually breed pirates by clinging to outdated business methods." No faeces, Sherlock.

I think we just witnessed the seed for a whole boatload of new patent lawsuits in the mobile space. The bid for the massive Nortel patent portfolio, has been won not by Google, but by a consortium of companies including Apple, Microsoft, and Research In Motion. Sigh.

Newly published results show Apple's newly adopted Thunderbolt technology blows FireWire 800 out of the water with data transfer speeds to an external RAID system at 700MB/s.

OSNews interviews Alexander Tsolkas, security consultant, Director Sales & Marketing at IÏ€sec Ltd. Germany, and creator of HSS, or High Security Server, a highly secure Linux kernel and a proprietary management Control Panel. We ask him about his product and about the state of ultra high security computing.

Google is activating half a million Android devices a day, a big jump in just the last couple months, a sign of growing momentum for the platform. While SymbianOS appears to be hanging on in the mobile arena, trends indicate that the iOS share is slipping slightly, losing ground to Android. The pure marketshare numbers don't tell the whole story, since the entire segment is growing rapidly, so even platforms that are in declining share might be adding new users. But if the upsurge in Android activations continues, Android may overtake iOS in a few months and move into second place behind SymbianOS. Blackberry is in a slow decline, while WP7 does not have enough market share to appear in the statistics.

Well, this just got interesting. There's been a bit of a backlash over Apple's Final Cut X Pro, which is considered a step down from previous versions by many professional videographers, as they claim it lacks countless features - leading to the nickname 'iMovie Pro'. Former Shake product designer and former Apple employee Ron Brinkmann has now weighed in on the situation. His advice to professionals? Don't rely on companies like Apple.

"One item of interest regarding last week's Mac OS X 10.6.8 update reveals that Apple has enabled TRIM support retroactively for solid state hard drives shipped in Apple-produced configurations. TRIM is a feature that allows solid state drives (SSDs) to automatically handle garbage collection, cleaning up unused blocks of data and preparing them for rewriting, thereby preventing slowdowns that would otherwise occur over time as garbage data accumulates."

"Apple have been processing refunds for Final Cut Pro X as complaints flood in from grumpy pros - and it seems they are taking a lenient approach. Although the iTunes/App Store terms and conditions state that 'all sales are final' , when an application does not meet the expectations of a user, like in the case of a 59p iPhone game, Apple have been known to refund the purchase. Now it seems they are doing so with Final Cut Pro X to the tune of $299."

Well, here we have another attempt. After the failure of the overly complicated Google Wave (remember that? It was supposed to change the world and all that), Google is undertaking another attempt at social networking. It's called Google+. Update: Forget the crap I wrote here, this article is seven pages on insider information on Google+. Surprised by the beautiful interface? It's been designed by Andy Hertzfeld. The Andy Hertzfeld.

"Opera 11.50 introduces a new and novel type of browser extension: Speed Dial extensions. Instead of handy thumbnails and links to your top sites, you can embed your Speed Dial with extensions that keep you updated - instantly - on what is happening around the Web." Other cool stuff includes more updates to the interface, password synchronisation between your Opera installations, and lots under-the-hood stuff.