So, we have Intel and AMD. These guys are doing pretty well in laptops, servers, and of course desktops, but when it comes to mobile devices, they've so far been unable to adapt the x86 architecture to the stricter requirements that come with those devices. ARM, on the other hand, pretty much owns this market at this point. And you know what? It's time for Intel and AMD to get worried - really worried. ARM has just announced its Cortex-A15 MPCore chips - which will reach 2.5Ghz in quad-core configurations.

Ars Technica: "Today 377 members of the European Parliament adopted a written declaration on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) in which they demand greater transparency, assert that ISPs should not up end being liable for data sent through their networks, and say that ACTA 'should not force limitations upon judicial due process or weaken fundamental rights such as freedom of expression and the right to privacy'."

"Yesterday's release of iOS 4.1 was good news for iPhone gamers and iPhone 3G owners who had performance issues post-4.0, but bad news for jailbreakers, with the Dev Team themselves warning users not to upgrade to 4.1 as there was no known way to reverse the baseband post-update. As usual, though, what's true in the cat-and-mouse jailbreaking scene one day is not true the other, and now there's good news for jailbreakers, at least in theory. iPhone hacker pod2g has revealed on Twitter that he has successfully discovered a new bootrom exploit, and even better: all the new iOS hardware including the iPhone 4 and new iPod Touch is vulnerable to it."

"The recent announcement that Rice University grad student Jun Yao has demonstrated a new memory device has created a stir. As well it should. The new device is non-volatile, offers fast sub-100 ns switching times, can be written 10,000 times and is fully compatible with current CMOS manufacturing processes. A 1,000 bit proof-of-concept chip has been built by a private company."

"Duke Nukem Forever was announced in 1997, after its predecessor, Duke Nukem 3D, had rocked the PC market with a hero who liked kicking ass, hanging out with strippers, and murdering alien police officers that were, literally, pigs. It was inappropriate, raunchy, and amazing. It was also one of the games that gave 3D Realms the success that brought its destruction. Duke Nukem Forever began life as a completely self-funded game; its developer wanted nothing less than perfection, and would chase every update in technology in order to deliver it. The game saw monumental delays, suffered the slings and arrows of a gaming world that was first angry and then tolerant of its favorite whipping boy, had its home taken away, and has since risen from the dead. Is the public still interested in Duke Nukem? Hell yes it is. This is the story of the gaming industry's favorite joke, and how Duke may finally have the last laugh."

Apple has released the first major update to iOS 4. "The iOS 4.1 Software Update is the first major update to iOS 4, bringing Game Center, new iTunes features, high dynamic range photography, and more to iPhone."

"Linux Mint Debian Edition comes with a Debian base, which we transformed into a live media and on top of which we added a new installer. It's rougher and in some aspects not as user-friendly as our other editions, it's very young but it will improve continuously and rapidly, and it brings us one step closer to a situation where we're fully in control of the system without being impacted by upstream decisions." It's a rolling release, so expect continuous updates. Not a new concept by a long shot, but it's interesting to see a distribution like Mint try this out.

I attended VM World last week, and as you might imagine, it was "cloud computing" this and "cloud computing" that the whole time. The hype factor for the cloud is in overdrive right now. But is it warranted? A lot of people, even tech-oriented ones, outside of the data center sysadmin types, wonder what all the hype is about. I've come to believe that cloud computing is major computing revolution, but for most computing users, it's an invisible one.

"It took Hewlett-Packard less than a day to file a lawsuit against its former chief executive, Mark V. Hurd, over his decision to join its rival and partner Oracle as a co-president. H.P. filed its lawsuit on Tuesday in the Superior Court of California in Santa Clara, claiming that Mr. Hurd had breached his contract with the company. The lawsuit said that Mr. Hurd could use his intimate knowledge of H.P. and its trade secrets to aid Oracle and harm H.P. The two companies compete in the market for computer servers, storage systems and business software."

We already know quite a few details about Internet Explorer 9, Microsoft's upcoming attempt to retain - or grow - its market share in the browser world. Standards and speed are the main focus of IE9, and if a video of the upcoming beta release is anything to go by, they're doing pretty well. Just... Did they just manage to make the interface even less appealing?

Every so often we publish here at OSNews articles about copyright, about the war of the "old media" establishment against everyone else. Many, myself included, have argued that the way to get out of this mess -- short of changing the law -- is to have more artists release their work under a Creative Commons license. However, after a few years it became obvious to me that CC would never be able to change the industry all by itself. Offering a Free license, and having 30,000 albums released under it, was still not enough. Until the Summer of 2009, that is. Update: Added audio samples.

In previous OS News articles, I've claimed that mature computers up to ten years old can be refurbished and made useful. My last article identified and evaluated different ways to refurbish these computers. One approach is to keep the existing Windows install and clean it up. This has the advantage of retaining the Windows license and software, the installed applications, and the existing drivers. But it takes some work. In this article we'll see what this entails.

"When activities were introduced into KDE 4, they did not make much sense in isolation. In addition to having virtual desktops, there were activities, which the user could create and configure to have different wallpapers and different widgets. Much of the virtual desktop functionality of KDE 3 was absent and not directly connected to Plasma activities. With the release of KDE 4.5, Plasma has reached a much higher level of maturity, and activities can now be integrated with virtual desktops, dual monitor screens, and with the Dashboard feature."

I pay the cab driver, pick up my suitcase, and step outside. The background's filled with the notes from Dean Martin's rendition of "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!", and as I walk away from the cab the sounds of the city drive away the memories from the war, back in Sicily. It's February 8, 1945, Empire Bay, and the war is drawing to a close. Welcome to Mafia II.