"Nokia's latest device, the N800 Internet Tablet, is unique, to say the least. It's not a smartphone, yet it can send and receive e-mail messages; it's not a phone, yet it can make phone calls; it's not a portable multimedia player; yet it can playback audio/video files; and it's not a notebook, yet it can browser the web. Are you confused yet? Alright, let's see if we can define the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet. The N800 does a lot of things, but it can't be placed in any one of the multitude of portable categories. Nope, it's in a category all by itself."

Mandriva announced the release of Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring. Download the hybrid live/install CD One or the purely free/open source Free. Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring includes the latest software (KDE 3.5.6, GNOME 2.18, Firefox and Thunderbird 2.0) and several new features: Metisse; WengoPhone; Google desktop applications like Picasa and Earth; updates and improvements to many of the Mandriva configuration tools and the brand new drakvirt for configuring virtualization; and a brand new desktop theme. For more information see the Spring product page and the Wiki page, where you can find download and installation instructions, the Release Tour, the Release Notes and the Errata.

Even more Haiku news today. Oliver Ruiz Dorantes, who will be monitoring GSoC student Salvatore Benedetto coming summer, has started work on what will become an office suite for Haiku. His blog already shows the first screenshots of the project. He is seeking for help on the project, so if you have the experience, feel free t help him out. Also, a new batch of icons has been added to Haiku.

"Those flash-based laptops we're all dreaming about may be a lot cheaper than we expected. Asus just announced their plans to make five budget, solid state laptops this year priced from USD 199 to USD 549. Each machine will have a 7-inch display, and depending on the model it'll have a flash drive ranging from 1GB to 40GB. The lappies are expected later this year."

AbiWord 2.5.1 has been released for AmigaOS4 using Cygnix. Besides AbiWord's usual word processing features, this package also includes a KHTML-based browser for AmigaOS4. "Additionally, for displaying the online help files the KHTML based browser, 'osb-browser', is included! This browser has following features: standards compliant (x)html rendering engine with CSS support; Javascript support; SSL support."

The founder of the Ubuntu-project talks in an interview about the integration of proprietary drivers, the One Laptop per Child project, and 'great applications' from Microsoft. "I certainly would not push the large IT companies to put Linux on consumer PCs, because I understand that in their business, the cost of a user accidentally getting Linux, thinking that they get cheap Windows would be a problem for the companies selling the computers. So I don't think it is really ready yet for mass consumer sales of Linux on desktop."

APC has obtained a leaked document showing the technical details of Intel's Red Flag Linux software stack, as well as photos and screenshots of the suser-interface. On a related note, Transmedia plans to announce that its Glide productivity suite and media sharing environment for desktop and mobile devices is available for Linux users.

Microsoft has given a go-to-market name for its cross-platform, cross-browser plug-in for delivering the next generation of user experiences and rich Internet applications for the Web. The technology formerly known as WPF/E is now known as Silverlight.

"This feature includes various hacks to boost Ubuntu's performance, such as viewing running processes, identifying resources, finding process startups, tuning kernel parameters, and speeding up boot time. This is a complete chapter in the ExtremeTech book 'Hacking Ubuntu: Serious Hacks Mods And Cusomtizations'."

"Trolltech today announced the start of the Qtopia Greenphone Developer Challenge, a global contest for innovative development of Linux-based mobile phone applications. Entrants can create their applications using either the community or commercial version of Qtopia Phone Edition."

Research In Motion's newest BlackBerry devices, the Pearl and 8800, run on BlackBerry OS 4.2. An upgrade to this platform from version 4.1 is ready to go for the older 8700 and 7310 models, according to an unnamed RIM executive who leaked this and some additional information The Boy Genius. On other mobile news, Nokia today announced the addition of Widgets and Web Run-Time to its S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 smartphone platform (to be released next year).

Intel is developing its own take on the mini-tablet, with a new ultra-mobile PC platform to be announced at this week’s Intel Developer Forum in Beijing. The big surprise? It’s based on Linux. In the meantime, Intel announced new details of its forthcoming Santa Rosa PC platform, including a significant revision of the Core 2 Duo chip.

This article details how to make Ubuntu use the ROX Desktop without using ROX Session. "Can we get rid of ROX-Session? It should be possible to integrate ROX with your existing session manager. In this experiment, I configure a fresh Ubuntu installation to run ROX, without using ROX-Session."

During a special event at the National Association of Broadcasters conference today, Apple introduced some new products. They introduced Final Cut Server and Final Cut Studio 2. "Final Cut Studio 2 puts a powerful new version of Final Cut Pro at the center of an integrated post-production workflow. Final Cut Pro 6, Motion 3, Soundtrack Pro 2, Compressor 3, DVD Studio Pro 4, and Color - a brand-new application for professional color grading - are all included in Final Cut Studio for USD 1299."