"Apple has begun a new program, called AppleSeed, to give non-developers access to pre-release versions of Mac OS X. The program aims to collect 'feedback on the quality and usability' of Mac OS X 'in environments that cannot be replicated by Apple'. So far it appears to be quite limited and available only by direct invitation from Apple."

"Camino - the Gecko-based browser with a native Cocoa user interface - is considering switching its underlying rendering engine to WebKit. Developer Stuart Morgan announced the proposed change this week after Mozilla effectively put an end to the project that supported embedding Gecko into other software. While the team is still putting the finishing touches on a long overdue 2.1 update, which would finally bring rendering parity with Firefox 3.6, the small group is looking to recruit help to make the transition happen."

Ubuntu has released the first beta for Ubuntu 11.04. This si the first release where Unity is the default desktop environment. All the official Ubuntu derivatives have also bee beta'd.

If you download and use what appears to be a version of the commercial "Walk and Text" Android app from a file sharing site, you're in for a surprise. When you run it, it shows you that it's being "cracked" but it's really gathering information from your device, in preparation for an e-smackdown. It sends a bunch of personal information (name, phone number, IMEI) off to a server, and, just for lulz, text messages everyone on your contact list:

Playtime is over in Android Land. Over the last couple of months Google has reached out to the major carriers and device makers backing its mobile operating system with a message: There will be no more willy-nilly tweaks to the software. No more partnerships formed outside of Google's purview. From now on, companies hoping to receive early access to Google's most up-to-date software will need approval of their plans. And they will seek that approval from Andy Rubin, the head of Google's Android group.

Well, this clearly needs to get its own item. Yesterday we linked to a story about how Samsung is supposedly installing keyloggers onto its laptops to track user behaviour. Samsung immediately launched an investigation into the matter, and has come to a rather humbling conclusion: the guy coming up with the story is incompetent, and Samsung has the evidence to prove it.

Google will be subjected to independent privacy audits for the next 20 years over charges that it "violated its own privacy promises". The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said that the search giant wrongly used information from Google Mail users last year to create its social network Buzz. The FTC ruled that "the options for declining or leaving the social network were ineffective". "Google Buzz fell short of our usual standards," Google said in a blog post. "While we worked quickly to make improvements, regulators unsurprisingly wanted more detail about what went wrong and how we could prevent it from happening again. "Today, we've reached an agreement with the FTC to address their concerns." That agreement will require Google to undergo a privacy review once every two years for the next 20 years.

Ever since Microsoft adopted its new 'silent treatment' development process, barely any news about the next version of Windows leaves Redmond. Now though, we have WinRumors stating that for Windows 8, Microsoft is finally going to do something visibly useful for desktop users with Shadow Copy, a feature first introduced in Windows XP.

Apple is gearing up to deploy an OS X Lion update to developers that they may be classifying as the "GM1" release . . . That would still mean an early Summer release - and potentially one before Summer technically even begins. After all, early June would line up nicely with the June 5 to 9 timeframe that Apple's WWDC event is likely to take place this year.

Techcrunch is reporting from the usual "reliable sources" that one reason why there was no discussion of iOS 5 at the iPad 2 unveiling was that iOS 5 is going to be delayed until the fall, even though previous iOS updates have been done in the spring, making it a tradition of sorts. Furthermore, the upcoming WWDC will be "software only" and will not include the unveiling of any new hardware, in particular the iPhone 5, which will presumably be released concurrently with the iOS update.

"Version 4.6 of GCC was released over the weekend with a multitude of improvements and version 2.9 of the Low-Level Virtual Machine is due out in early April with its share of improvements. How though do these two leading open-source compilers compare? In this article we are providing benchmarks of GCC 4.5.2, GCC 4.6.0, DragonEgg with LLVM 2.9, and Clang with LLVM 2.9 across five distinct AMD/Intel systems to see how the compiler performance compares."

Ah yes, why not? The last time we did this, it was March 2009, so it's been two years since we offered a little insight into what kind of operating systems and browsers you, dear readers, are using. In those two years, a lot has changed. I will also explain why in the few cases that OSNews does host video, I will host it in WebM.

I'm still reeling from the unrivalled epicness and awesomeness that is Sucker Punch in IMAX (just got home - do not miss this film), but now I'm back to boring old reality where we apparently care about pieces of plastic that go beep. So, anywho. The deal between Nokia and Microsoft has many Symbian and Qt developers worry about the future of their platforms. To address these concerns, Purnima Kochikar, vice president of Forum Nokia, has published an open letter describing Nokia's plans for Symbian, Qt, and Java for Series 40 devices. While the letter doesn't deliver any hard dates, the transition phase to Windows Phone 7 is set to 2011/2012.

Yahoo plans to release some technologies, including storage technologies, to the open source community, a senior executive of the company said. These are systems that Yahoo built to help it handle large numbers of users on its websites, but that don't necessarily give it a competitive advantage, said David Chaiken, chief architect at Yahoo, in an interview in Bangalore on Friday.