Another week, another instalment in the Apple vs. Psystar soap opera. Last week, we left off when Apple was accusing Psystar of destroying evidence, and even though we had a blunt response to El Reg in which the clone maker denied ever having done such a thing, we did not yet have an official court filing from them. Well, we do now.

In what can surely be called a surprise move, Nokia has announced that it will enter the netbook market with an Atom-based netbook which will ship with Windows 7. While many of the components appear relatively normal compared to other netbooks, it does come with a few features that will set the device apart from the rest. Instant update: Ars believes this is the first Intel Pine Trail netbook.

Qt usually takes the boring memory allocation and deallocation from you, either through its implicitly shared containers, or with QObject's parent child relationship model. But every once in a while, we need to allocate something on the heap, and then the stress starts - where do we delete it, and how do we make sure to not leak the memory? To fix this problem, QScopedPointer was born. It will delete the object it is pointing to automatically when it goes out of scope.

True to the "under-promise and over-deliver" mantra, Apple has announced that it will start shipping Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard August 28. The original release date was announced to fall somewhere in September, so Apple is delivering ahead of schedule.

A reader asks: Why is Linux still not as user friendly as the two other main OSes with all the people developing for Linux? Is it because it is mainly developed by geeks? My initial feeling when reading this question was that it was kind of a throwaway, kind of a slam in disguise as a genuine question. But the more I thought about it, the more intrigued I felt. There truly are a large amount of resources being dedicated to the development of Linux and its operating system halo (DEs, drivers, apps, etc). Some of these resources are from large companies (IBM, Red Hat, Novell). Why isn't Linux more user-friendly? Is this an inherent limitation with open source software?

PC gamers vs. console gamers. There's this assumption that PC gamers are capable of playing more complex games than console gamers. The games industry itself has picked up on this assumption and generally dumbs down games for the consoles because they assume us poor console gamers are not capable enough, and as the consoles have increasingly become the focal point of the industry, PC games also started suffering from the dumbing down effect. That's why the developers behind Sacred 2 deserve all the more praise for not assuming all gamers on consoles are 13-year-old Halo-addicted kids by releasing a traditional top-down hack and slash game with an incredibly detailed world and intricate character development.

Like any true geek who's addicted to online presence, a VoIP SIP, Twitter, and a multi-protocol IM application are the first kinds of apps I am trying to locate when jumping smartphone platforms. The iPhone is currently my platform of choice, and the AppStore has its share of such communication applications. So I decided to give a whirl to Acrobits' Softphone, set it up with Gizmo5 and Google Voice, and use it to call my family in Greece or more rarely, my husband at work. Update: New version is out, fixing most of the things mentioned in the review below, and implementing PUSH.

Oracle on Thursday said the U.S. Department of Justice has approved its $7.4 billion acquisition of Sun Microsystems, although the deal is subject to certain conditions and still needs the blessing of European regulators. Oracle first announced its bid in April and Sun shareholders approved the acquisition on July 16. The combined company will give Oracle an array of new assets, including a stake in the computer hardware market, the open-source MySQL database and stewardship of the Java programming language. Sun would be just the latest in a long string of companies gobbled up in recent years by Oracle.

I've often wondered why computers - be it laptops or desktop - are so relatively monolithic. Wouldn't it make much more sense to have a whole cluster of very tiny individual computers, all with their own tiny processor, RAM, data storage, and serial ports, which power up when needed and are easily replaced when broken? Well, Liquidware thought so too, and came up with the Illuminato X Machina.

This morning a USA Today article discussed the FCC's investigation into why the Google Voice App was banned from the iPhone. The article goes on to say that Google could "soon find itself in the hot seat" because Android cannot use Skype, proposing that Google itself blocks VoIP to force users into traditional voice calls. Andy Rubin, Google's Vice President of Mobile Platforms, had to step forward and call USA Today out. Rubin said, "Here are the facts, clear and simple: While the first generation of our Android software did not support full-featured VoIP applications due to technology limitations, we have worked through those limitations in subsequent versions of Android, and developers are now able to build and upload VoIP services." Rubin says it's up to the operators to decide if certain applications violate their terms of service.

Apple has posted the responses to the FCC's questions on its website. "We are pleased to respond to the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau's inquiry dated July 31, 2009, requesting information regarding Apple's App Store and its application approval process." AT&T made a short statement too. Update: And Google too.

There has been a lot of rumors around about Nokia's upcoming open-source Maemo phone, dubbed the N900. Mobile-Review now has a first look at the device, with lots of photos. It runs the Gtk+ version of Maemo. "Due to variety of visual effects, smooth transitions and decent reaction time of the touch screen (which is a significant improvement over the Nokia N97), the N900 feels more like the Apple iPhone. At the same time its UI looks nothing like that of the iPhone - it's just different, but eye-candy nonetheless (maybe somewhat similar to HTC's products). Everyone who had a chance to play with it noted that it didn't look like any other Nokia-branded device, yet it was an enjoyable experience overall."

Apple and AT&T Friday are expected to tell the Federal Communications Commission why Google's free voice application, called Google Voice, is banned from the Apple iPhone. Google is also filing comments. But Google may soon find itself on the hot seat as well, telecom and public policy analysts say. Why: Consumers who use Android, the Google-developed operating system for wireless devices, can't use Skype, a leading Voice over Internet Protocol service. A pioneer in free Internet calling, Skype allows you to talk as long as you want without draining cellphone minutes. Android users get Skype Lite, a watered-down version of the original that routes calls over traditional phone networks — not the Internet. As a result, long-distance calls are still cheap or free, but cellphone minutes are gobbled up every time a Skype Lite call is made.

The Airline Control Program, introduced by IBM around 1967, predated the term 'open source' by decades. But you may be surprised by how much of its development reflects the FOSS movement today.