Google: Android Fragmentation a Non-Issue

Fragmentation. You'll often hear people say this is a major problem with Google's Android platform; there are many devices running multiple different versions of the mobile operating system, leading to fragmentation. Dan Morrill, Android's open source and compatibility program manager, addresses this issue in a blog post, and details what Google is doing to fight it. The gist: it's a non-issue - according to Google, that is.

Intel Fashions Supercomputing Phoenix from Ashes of Larrabee

"In an announcement at the International Supercomputing Conference, Intel provided further details on the many-core chip that it hinted at earlier in the month. The first product based on the new design will be codenamed Knight's Corner, and will debut at 22nm with around 50 x86 cores on the same die. Developer kits, which include a prototype of the design called Knight's Ferry, have been shipping to select partners for a while now, and will ship more broadly in the second half of the year. When Intel moves to 22nm in 2011, Knight's Corner will make its official debut."

Microsoft Launches Windows Embedded Compact 7 CTP

And the award for Most Boring And Non-descriptive Press Release Title 2010 goes to Microsoft for "Microsoft Outlines Business Opportunities for Hardware Makers Across Windows Platform". The press release itself appears to be about as interesting as watching paint dry, until you reach that small part where it says Microsoft has released the first community technology preview of Windows Embedded Compact 7 (1).

Review: Windows 7’s Built-in Speech Recognition

"Microsoft has pumped out voice recognition software for years, but the company has a curious aversion to publicizing the fact. With Windows 7, Microsoft's speech recognition has become a decent productivity tool and one that the company should be proud to proclaim as an OS feature. For the casual speech recognition user, nothing beats free - especially when one considers the $100+ price points for third-party software. But is it powerful enough for serious users?"

Firefox for Windows Starts 64bit Transition

"Mainstream microprocessors have been 64-bit for years. Operating systems have followed suit. Now it's time for a program used by hundreds of millions of people to make the leap: Firefox. Programmer Armen Zambrano Gasparnian announced the first 64-bit Firefox builds for Windows on Friday, offering an FTP site for those who want to download it. But the software isn't for mainstream users yet."

Tablet Overload at Computex

It's time for Computex! This means loads of gadgets and related stuff to flood the internet, so let's get started by focussing on ASUS. The company showed off two interesting tablets: the Eee Tablet (which is actually a notepad) and the Eee Pad (which is actually a tablet). No, this doesn't make any sense, but product naming hasn't been a strong point at ASUS for a while now. There's also the ExoPC Slate (not from ASUS), which has a pretty interesting user interface.

IMICA Becomes Aros Fully Native, Celebrates in Silence

The journey that started 18 months ago to create a next generation Amiga on commodity hardware has now reached its first major milestone by becoming a completely driver native Aros system powered by the energy efficient Intel Atom processor. This has been achieved with the supply of hardware and in some cases financial rewards to key developers in the Aros world. The plan with the following steps has been to create a base reference platform for Aros and the Amiga community to build on and support.

Will Apple Embrace the Web? No.

I've been meaning to write this for some time, and for all the time I delayed the more poignant the point I wanted to make started to become as new news came out further solidifying my angle. When I begun writing this article the iPad had not yet been revealed, iPhone OS 4 was not on the map and Apple had not yet purchased Lala. You've probably just noticed that all of these events in fact point toward Apple embracing the web more and in this article I will point out why this is not the case because I believe Apple's agenda here is similar to something we've already seen in recent history.

KOffice 2.2 Released

KOffice 2.2, the office suite for KDE, has been released. New features include import filters for Office 2007 thanks to Nokia, and the return of the Access clone Kexi. With this release, the KOffice team writes, "we are at a stage where we think that KOffice can be used for real work by some users". A full list of changes can be found here.

FSF: Apple’s iTunes Store Terms of Service at Odds with GPL

"The Free Software Foundation is up in arms over Apple's iTunes Store Terms of Service, suggesting that these terms fundamentally conflict with the terms of the GNU Public License. The foundation has warned Apple that a version of GNU Go distributed by the App Store makes Apple liable to comply with GPL terms that allow free sharing of code, but warned that its 'Usage Rules' violate those terms. The fallout could potentially affect any app that uses GPLed code."

Disabling the Tynt Copy/Paste Nonsense on Websites

If there's one thing several people are really, really good at, it's ruining the web. The latest attempt is something quite insipid, something that had me scratching my head a few times before I realised what was going on. When copying and pasting text from certain websites, content would be added to your clipboard without you knowing about it - something like "Read more at". John Gruber finds this just as insipid as I do, and investigated a little further - while also coming up with a way to block this nonsense. Seriously - this is right up there with those in-text underline ad things.

Nokia N8 Demonstration: Nokia’s Got Work to Do

Like Research in Motion, Nokia is playing catch-up, software-wise, to the iPhone OS and Android, which is funny in a cruel way because both Nokia and RIM have a far larger market share than both of them. Nokia has put out a preview video of their upcoming N8 smartphone, which runs the latest Symbian version, Symbian^3. Nokia, like RIM, has got work to do.