Microsoft began the second beta test of a key virtualization tool this week, with the aim of helping to ease the way for corporate customers who are held back from migrating to Windows 7 by incompatibilities with required older applications. Version 2 of Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V) is now available for download for users interested in beta testing the upcoming release.

Microsoft has joined the wave of companies betting that 3-D is the next big thing for computing. At a recent talk at MIT, chief research and strategy officer Craig Mundie said he sees the technology as an innovation that "will get people out of treating a computer as a tool" and into treating the device as a natural extension of how they interact with the world around them. Microsoft plans to introduce consumers to the change through its gaming products, but Mundie outlined a vision that would eventually have people shopping and searching in 3-D as well.

An interesting discussion is currently raging through the world of computing, or more accurately, through the world of bloggers and analysts. It basically comes down to this: should the iPad be included in laptop and desktop sales figures? If it is included - Apple becomes the largest PC manufacturer in the United States. But, if the iPad should be included - why not the modern smartphone?

And we have another interesting development in the ongoing and ever-expanding idiocy that is the War of the High-Fiving Lawyers Mobile Patent World War. Motorola, now a central player in this worldwide conflict that is hurting consumers' wallets and clogging legal systems all over the world, has come to HTC's rescue by seeking to invalidate the patents Apple sued HTC with earlier this year.

Is it an indication of Steve Jobs' (in)famous strive for perfection, or just stupid bone-headedness? The white variant of the iPhone 4 was first delayed for a few weeks, but those few weeks became 'end of the year'. Now we know why: the manufacturers Apple employs are apparently having issues matching the shades of white of the various components. This anecdote ties in nicely with a very interesting interview with John Sculley about Steve Jobs' ways of doing business.

Nokia. The smartphone business is booming, and yet, the Finnish company - the quintessential phone maker - is getting pretty much none of the glitz and glamour. Their latest the device, the Nokia N8, is supposed to turn the tide, and Engadget has a thorough review of the device. Conclusion? It's getting repetitive, but hardware - awesome, software - not so much.

In his lengthy and interesting blog post covering the future of Plasma, KDE's Aaron Seigo proposes Qt Quick and QML (a declarative language that embeds JavaScript) as replacement of the Graphics View architecture currently used by Plasma. This holds a promise of massive speedups and cheap effects as all paint operations become candidates for OpenGL acceleration, contrary to the aging Graphics View architecture that is still stuck with various inefficiencies caused by the underlying QPainter approach. Expressiveness and easy programmability of QML is a nice bonus, of course.

In this day and age of iOS this and iPad that you'd nearly forget it, but the gadget maker from Cupertino actually makes personal computers and an accompanying operating system as well. It's been nearly three years since the last substantial release, so it's about time: Apple has just announced a press event titled 'Back to Mac', with a lion on the invite.

"Oracle and IBM today announced that the companies will collaborate to allow developers and customers to build and innovate based on existing Java investments and the OpenJDK reference implementation. Specifically, the companies will collaborate in the OpenJDK community to develop the leading open source Java environment."

Interesting little digging from TechCrunch's MG Siegler: as it turns out, Google's Chrome OS is nearing completion. The company is currently testing a release candidate build, and has reiterated that devices running Chrome OS will arrive later this year.

So, today was the big day for Microsoft. It's all or nothing. Die tot oder die gladiolen (cookie if you get that one without using Google). The software giant from Redmond officially launched its Windows Phone 7 operating system, alongside about ten handsets from different OEMs. Since Windows Phone 7 has been covered quite a lot already, leaving little to the imagination, did something actually new come out of all this? Yes, it did.

So, yeah, as we already detailed almost two weeks ago, MorphOS 2.6 has been released. We've already discussed this one and its new features last time around, so I'm having a little trouble coming up with stuff to write about, but I'll do my best to find anything interesting in the detailed release notes - as inexperienced as I am with MorphOS.

Google's big Android chief Andy Rubin has given an interview to PC Magazine, in which he touches on some interesting topics. Sadly, PC Magazine didn't ask about the patent situation and why Google is seemingly letting its OEMs fend for themselves, but there's still a lot of other interesting stuff in there.

You think only "pirates" and "freeloaders" rail against current copyright laws? Well, think again - even the Library of Congress seemingly has had enough. The topic is recorded sound preservation, and in a 181-page in-depth study, the Library of Congress concludes that apart from technical difficulties, US copyright law makes it virtually impossible for anyone to perform any form of audio preservation. The painted picture is grim - very grim.