Who says the open source and Free software world only copy but never innovate? Over at Canonical's design blog - you know, the company which does nothing for the Linux world *cough* - someone named Christian Giordano has shared some ideas about how Ubuntu - and therefore, the rest of the Linux world - could make use of hardware sensors to better serve its users. Pretty interesting stuff.

"What would Benjamin Franklin have thought about P2P file sharing? We'll never know, but a new book portrays him as a skeptic of intellectual property and an advocate for the common ownership of inventions and ideas." What a surprise. A person with brains favouring loose IP laws. Anyone with two braincells to rub together understands that a free flow of information and knowledge is beneficial to human development.

It's been a troubling couple of weeks for Mandriva, but I decided not to report on it since I found it hard to unravel the events leading up to all this. Now, though, the story has come to its (logical) conclusion: now that most of Mandriva's employees have been laid off, they came together and forked Mandriva. Enter Mageia.

On a Windows Vista or Vindows 7 disk, all versions of the operating system are present, from Starter to Ultimate, and everything in between. So, if you want too upgrade to a more capable version of Windows down the road, all you need to do is pop the Windows disk in, let Windows Anytime Upgrade do its thing, and you're done. It seems like Intel is experimenting with a similar technology... For its processors.

Yesterday's news regarding the lawsuit Skyhook has filed against Google seems to have made quite an impact here and there. If you read through the complaint (at Daring Fireball), Skyhook makes some interesting claims about how Google abuses its position to strongarm OEMs into using Google Location services, but the big claim, something everyone seems to overlook, is this one: Skyhook says Google tried to gain access to Skyhook's data.

I love OSNews, but it does seem like some of its editors enjoy just a little too much taking a good natured jab at Apple upon occasion (well, more like every chance that particular editor can get). I thought it time for a little good news and analysis about Apple that critics often overlook.

BareMetal OS v0.4.9 has been released. Newest features are network communication via Ethernet as well as Memory allocation/free functions. BareMetal is an open source 64bit operating system for x86-64 computers. It is written in assembly, and applications can be written in assembly or C/C++. It's aimed at three target segments (high performance computing, embedded applications, and education). The kernel binary is still under 16 KiB as well!

"Adobe Flash Player 'Square' is a preview release that enables native 64-bit support on Linux, Mac OS, and Windows operating systems, as well as enhanced support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 beta. We have made this preview available so that users can test existing content and new platforms for compatibility and stability."

After several months and preview releases, Microsoft has finally lifted the curtain for the Windows Explorer 9 beta release. Internet Explorer 9 is Microsoft's attempt at not just catching up to the competition, but at actually surpassing them. Since enough sites will be focusing on just how many nanoseconds faster or slower the beta is compared to the competition, I'll talk a little about the new minimalist interface.

"The NetBSD Foundation is pleased to announce NPF, a new packet filter by Mindaugas Rasiukevicius. NPF is designed for high performance on multiprocessor machines, and for easy extensibility."

"Parallels Desktop 6 for Mac launched today with a number of new features and refinements for users looking to run alternative operating systems in virtual environments on their Macs. As summarized on Parallels' site, the update brings enhancements to gaming and graphics, simpler setup and integration, greater manageability and mobility, and better performance. Beyond improvements to the standard Parallels Desktop application for Mac OS X, the company has also released a new, free iOS application, Parallels Mobile, bringing remote access on the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch to users running the desktop software."

The OpenIndiana project has been officially announced. OpenIndiana is part of the Illumos foundation and a community distribution which aims to to continue OpenSolaris, previously shut down by Oracle. Some details of the announcement were published on c0t0d0s0.org.

"Intel kicked off the second day of its developers conference by officially launching its app store and rolling out new Atom processors. The chip maker's AppUp center, which went into beta early this year, went live today, Renee James, an Intel senior vice president and general manager of the Software and Services Group, said during the morning's first keynote at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco today. The AppUp center is a consumer-centric store that focuses on free and paid apps for entertainment, productivity, networking and gaming. The apps are optimized for netbooks in terms of screen size and mobility, according to Intel. Intel also launched a new Atom chip that was formerly known as Groveland. Doug Davis, vice president of Intel's architecture group, took the wraps off the Atom CE4200, which is designed for smart TVs."

I never get tired of pictures like this.