A lot of people are wondering why Nokia didn't choose to go with Android. How can Nokia differentiate themselves when Android is a lot more open and free than Windows Phone 7? As usual, the key to this is in the details. If you read the announcements carefully, you'll see that Microsoft offered Nokia something Google most likely didn't. Update: What a surprise. Elop just confirmed Nokia has a special deal with Microsoft. Whereas HTC, Samsung, and so on are not allowed to customise WP7 - Nokia is, further confirming my theory.

It's official. Dismissed as a silly rumour by many, Nokia and Micorsoft have just announced a very comprehensive partnership in which Windows Phone 7 will become Nokia's prime smartphone platform. It goes a lot deeper than that, though. Update: Qt will not be available for Windows Phone 7. Qt will remain the development platform for MeeGo and Symbian. Update II: During its Capital Market Day event, Elop confirmed Nokia will not make a comprehensive MeeGo product line. It will be a platform to learn from, but it won't become a competitive platform. Update III: Android was not an option because it would be difficult to differentiate there. Update IV: There will be 'substantial reductions in employment' in Finland and around the world. Also, before I forget, thanks Engadget for the live-blogging where I get this stuff from!

Absolutely fantastic article over at Ars about a guy trying to hunt down Anonymous - which cost him and his company dearly. "Aaron Barr believed he had penetrated Anonymous. The loose hacker collective had been responsible for everything from anti-Scientology protests to pro-Wikileaks attacks on MasterCard and Visa, and the FBI was now after them. But matching their online identities to real-world names and locations proved daunting. Barr found a way to crack the code. But had he?" A comment to the article says it best: "Personally, I'm rooting for Anonymous. I may not care for their attitude or their methods sometimes, but I think a little fear and caution on the worst excesses of those who would impair our rights is good thing." Governments and companies should fear the people - not the other way around.

"Microsoft has informed close partners that SP1 has hit the Release to Manufacturing milestone. MSDN and TechNet customers will receive the bits on February 16, followed by a general web release on February 22. According to sources close to the matter, Microsoft sent out internal announcements to mark the RTM of Windows 7 SP1 in January. Russian site Wzor confirmed the RTM too and has leaked several versions of Windows 7 SP1 for various languages."

It was HP/Palm's - or, as I sould say, HP's - big day today. After a period of silence, the company unveiled three new webOS products - two phones, and a tablet. The Veer, a small but capable 'mini-Pre', the Pre 3, an updated version of the Pre with a 1.4Ghz processor, and finally, finally, finally, the webOS tablet: the HP TouchPad.

Here's some very interesting analysis of why dropping Symbian or MeeGo for Android or Windows Phone 7 would be the closest thing to brand suicide which Nokia could do now.

"The MeeGo project has updated its roadmap. The project will now release Meego 1.2 in April 2011 and plans to release MeeGo 1.3 in October, moving to a biannual release schedule. The six-monthly release schedule has been a target for the MeeGo developers as they establish their open development and release process."

Speaking of Nokia - Engadget got their hands on what is supposedly an internal memo sent to Nokia employees by the company's new CEO. It's... Brutal. As in, brutally honest. There's no sugar-coating here, no unicorns, no glitter. "Nokia, our platform is burning." Update: Android is probably out of the question. Will it be Windows Phone 7, after all? Damn; Palm tonight, Nokia Friday - what a week for mobile! Update: The "Communities Dominate Brands" blog published an in-depth analysis of the memo, which claims with sound arguments that it might well be a hoax.

Remember last week, when we talked about the rumours that Research In Motion might bring Android application compatibility to its new QNX-based mobile operating system? Well, while the following news seems to have nothing to do with RIM, it does show it's possible to bring Android application compatibility to other platforms. Myriad has announced Alien Dalvik, which allows Android applications to run on other platforms at comparable speed.

"A new report suggests that Apple may be planning to eliminate retail boxed software from its Apple Stores, instead focusing on promoting the Mac App Store for software sales. This is indeed a trend that Apple has been pushing for a while, but not all the software that Apple sells would necessarily be a great fit for pure digital distribution."

"So why do all these American reporters, who know quite well that they get praise and money for doing what Assange has done, stand in a silence that can only be called cowardly, while a fellow publisher faces threats of extradition, banning, prosecution for spying - which can incur the death penalty - and calls for his assassination? U.S. journalism's business model is collapsing; the people who should be out in front defending Assange are facing cut salaries or unemployment because of the medium that Assange represents. These journalists are not willing to concede that Assange is, of course, a publisher, rather than some sort of hybrid terrorist blogger, because of their self-interested prejudices against a medium in which they are not the gatekeepers." Great article - focussing on the US, but just as applicable in the rest of the world (except the great nation of Iceland, obviously). The internet could very well become the single most important 'invention' in human history. We must stand guard against our governments getting their filthy, inefficient, censoring, controlling, and damaging hands on it.

"Internet vigilante group Anonymous turned its sights on security firm HBGary on Sunday evening in an attempt to "teach a lesson you'll never forget." The firm had been working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation to unmask members of Anonymous following the group's pro-WikiLeaks attacks on financial services companies, and was prepared to release its findings next week."

"One member of the European Parliament and a handful of their advisors and assistants started a free software group last Saturday, aiming to increase the use of Free and open source software in the European Parliament's IT infrastructure. The user group is open to all who work in the European Parliament, including staff and assistants working in political groups."

We have a new operating system! Well, no - we have a new operating environment, since it's technically not an operating system. Pyxis 2 is an operating environment written in C# on the .NET Micro Framework. The goal of the project is to make it easier for developers to develop robust NETMF applications, while providing users with a common environment to launch applications in. It is open source (Apache 2.0).