If you follow the keyboard collectors market (yeah, didn't think so . . .) then you'd certainly know that the IBM model M15 split ergonomic is pretty much the most desirable keyboard out there. A small number of them were made over a short span of time (1994-1995), and their clunky plastic knob and super-adjustable design meant that over years many of them broke. So when one lands on eBay, it's a big deal.

Today EFF, joined by Public Knowledge, the Computer & Communications Industry Association and the Apache Software Foundation, filed an amicus brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a case in which Microsoft is trying to make it easier to invalidate an issued U.S. patent. If successful, this challenge should help in the fight against bad patents by lowering the standard required to prove that the patent is invalid to the same one required to prove infringement. It should especially help the free and open source community.

We've got some good news for Symbian, and we've got some bad news. We already had Sony Ericsson abandoning the Symbian platform, but today Samsung joined them in leaving Symbian behind. The good news is that Nokia has released some figures on downloads from its Ovi Store, and it ain't that bad, actually.

A few months ago, Google open sourced the VP8 video codec as part of the WebM video project, to create a truly Free/free unencumbered video format for the web as an answer to the non-Free/free patent-encumbered H264 format. Today, Google launched a new image format for the web, WebP, which aims to significantly reduce the file size of photos and images on the web.

"To mark the first anniversary of Microsoft Security Essentials, the company has released some sobering statistics it has gathered during the past year via the free anti-malware software. According to Microsoft, Security Essentials has been installed on 31 million computers worldwide. Out of that group, 27 million users reported malware infections during the year."

Pirating Android apps is a long-standing problem. But it seems to be getting worse, even as Google begins to respond much more aggressively. The dilemma: protecting developers' investments, and revenue stream, while keeping an open platform.

"I am truly shocked that so many people are being duped by BlackBerry's recent announcement of their tablet, the PlayBook. I have read endless comments from people who are saying they can't wait to get this tablet computer. Well, I think I have some bad news for you folks. There is no evidence that the PlayBook exist as advertised. Why do I say this? I will make it brief..."

Bright days ahead for the Amiga world. AROS is doing well, AmigaOS4 is getting one heck of a machine in the AmigaOne X1000, and MorphOS continues its development at a brisk pace. Version 2.6 of MorphOS, currently in development, will add support for (G4, I'm assuming) PowerMacs, which, alongside support for the Mac Mini and eMac, gives MorphOS a solid base of used hardware to run on.

OCZ Technology, today unveileda proprietary drive interface called "High-Speed Data Link" (HSDL) that's expected to boost I/O for solid-state drives (SSDs) in high-performance computing environments.

When Research In Motion unveiled its BlackBerry Playbook tablet on Monday, including the new QNX-based operating system it runs, I already speculated that it would probably make its way onto RIM's smartphones as well. RIM has now confirmed this suspicion.

The Fedora 14 Beta was released today, but as a Network World article points out, it "will be the first Red Hat supported distribution to let users choose MeeGo as their desktop." This new release will also include the Sugar interface, intended for netbooks, and "will also be the first version to fully incorporate Red Hat's VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure), called SPICE, or Simple Protocol for Independent Computing Environments. SPICE will allow Fedora to host virtual desktops that can be accessed over a network."

From the NetBSD Blog: "The fourth (failing further faults, final) release candidate of NetBSD 5.1 is now available for download. Those of you who prefer to build from source can continue to follow the netbsd-5 branch, but the netbsd-5-1-RC4 tag is available as well. See src/doc/CHANGES-5.1 for the list of changes from RC3 to RC4."

"Federal law enforcement and national security officials are preparing to seek sweeping new regulations for the Internet, arguing that their ability to wiretap criminal and terrorism suspects is 'going dark' as people increasingly communicate online instead of by telephone. Essentially, officials want Congress to require all services that enable communications - including encrypted e-mail transmitters like BlackBerry, social networking Web sites like Facebook and software that allows direct 'peer to peer' messaging like Skype - to be technically capable of complying if served with a wiretap order. The mandate would include being able to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages." I could quote Benjamin Franklin again - but I'm starting to suspect that our politicians (this isn't just a US thing, it happens all over the world) have no respect for the wise men and women who fought for the principles we are now trying to shove upon the rest of the world. How can the west push freedom and liberty around the world while at the same time taking them away at home?

Is Research In Motion still, well, in motion? Heck yeah they are. They just unveiled their long-awaited tablet, christened the BlackBerry PlayBook. It's got a dual-core 1Ghz ARM processor, and it runs... QNX! This alone already makes it the most awesome tablet ever.