"In developing Android, Google knowingly, directly and repeatedly infringed Oracle's Java-related intellectual property. This lawsuit seeks appropriate remedies for their infringement," said Oracle’s spokeswoman Karen Tillman in a statement. Oracle says that Java is now a key asset for Oracle and is seeking an injunction to stop Google from building and distributing the Android OS. The Redwood Shores based company is also claiming monetary damages.

In the end, the uncertainty seeded by the law suit may have the power to shake up the mobile industry for years to come. Google says that about 200,000 Android powered phones are being sold every day.

The Android operating system uses a virtual machine called Dalvik that Google re-compiled and that competes with Java. On its Android developer website, Google says that "Android includes a set of core libraries that provides most of the functionality available in the core libraries of the Java programming language." It continues saying that "Dalvik has been written so that a device can run multiple VMs efficiently."

In a clever move, Sun made the "free java" source code available under the GPLv2 license to gain the support of the open source community. However, the "standard edition" of Java had some exclusion to the GPLv2 license. It stated that only the platform code itself was open source, but not the user code running on it.

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. district court in San Francisco.

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OpenSUSE 11.3 uses KDE 4.4.4 as the default desktop environment. However, users that prefer Gnome can choose to install Version 2.30.1 or a preview of the upcoming Gnome 3.0 during the initial setup. Owners of netbook computers can use the lightweight LXDE environment, which debuts in the latest release.

"The openSUSE distribution is a stable, easy to use and complete multi-purpose distribution," Novell says on the openSUSE Wiki. "It is aimed for users and developers working on desktop or server. It's great for beginners, experienced users and ultra geeks, short it's perfect for everybody! OpenSUSE is also the base for Novell's award-winning SUSE Linux Enterprise products. The latest release … features new and massively improved versions of all useful server and desktop applications. It comes with more than 1,000 open source applications."

A first is the inclusion of Oracle’s Btrfs filesystems. While not recommended for production environments yet, users need to configure a separate boot partition to give it a test run since grub does not recognize Btrfs at this time.

The new version includes the updated Build Service 2.0 provides software developers with a tool to compile, release and publish their software, and a full collection of popular open-source programs such as OpenOffice and Firefox. The YaST2 system administration tool combines all programs users may need in one easy-to-use set of menus.

After the release of openSUSE 11.3, the development community starts to focus on version 11.4 that is scheduled to be released in March 2011. The project aims to release a new version every eight months. Critical updates will be provided for two releases plus two months, which at the current release cycle results in a support lifetime of 18 months.

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"Starting today, Nexus One users will begin to receive the Android 2.2 (codenamed Froyo) over-the-air software update on their phones," Google said in a statement. "In order to access the update, you will receive a message on your phone's notification bar. Just download the update, wait for it to install, and you should be all set. This update will be rolled out gradually to phones - and most users will receive the notification by the end of the week."

Nexus One phones running Android 2.2 can load data between two and five times faster. The Phone, applications Launcher, and Browser have dedicated shortcuts on the Home screen to make it easy to access them from any of the five home screen panels. Numeric pin or alpha-numeric password options are welcomed additions to improve security, and Exchange administrators have the ability to enforce password policies across devices. They can reset the smartphone to factory defaults in case it is lost or stolen. Devices can be synchronized with Exchange mail and calendars by providing a username and password.

Tip widgets show how users can customize the home screen with shortcuts or make use of multiple home screens. While most Nexus One owners can expect an upgrade within the next couple of days, users of other Android phones such as Sprint’s HTC Evo 4G (ip-192.com reported here) have to wait until the phones manufacturer rolls out an update.

Google has produced a short video that explains new features of the Linux based Android 2.2 operating system.

Owners of Google's Nexus One smartphone can expect an over-the-air update to Android 2.2 soon. Photo: Laeschke

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Ubuntu is simple and elegant, Dell says. "If you’re the kind of person who likes your computer to simply work, Ubuntu is right for you. It's based on stable, secure, easy-to-use software that’s been around for a long time." Dell claims that Ubuntu is social from the start. "The people who make Ubuntu designed it to be very social-media centric. Do you use Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, or any of the other dozens of popular social networking sites? Ubuntu 9.10 works very well with these websites. And beginning with Ubuntu 10.04, these websites will be integrated into the Ubuntu OS itself for your convenience."

While Ubuntu is available on Dell PC's, Laptops, and Netbooks since 2007, the new push for open source software comes as Dell preparers to ship Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (long term support) on several systems. Dell claims that dramatically improved boot times and thousands of free software programs including OpenOffice ultimately make Ubuntu a better operating system. "Do you need to open Microsoft Office documents? What about Adobe Acrobat? Ubuntu comes with the award-winning OpenOffice software. With it, not only can you create word processing documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and even drawings, but it can also open and save documents in Microsoft Office format. Do you ever get .pdf files emailed to you—no problem!"

A video on YouTube demonstrates the multimedia, 3-D and Windows desktop capabilities of Ubuntu 10.04 here.

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Based on Windows CE, the latest release includes support for Flash 10.1, Open GL ES 2.0, and Microsoft Silverlight. Portions of the base code have been re-written to allow seamless integration with Windows 7, play HD-videos and support the MPEG-4 codec and multi-touch using a customized version of Internet Explorer with pinch-to-zoom. The OS will allow users to share content between devices and utilize a new media library. Corporate users can connect to e-mail, calendar and contacts over enterprise networks through Microsoft AirSync and Microsoft Exchange.

Windows Embedded Compact 7 will power the new Asus Eee Pad (ip-192.com reported here) and supports Dual Core CPU's, Bluetooth 3.0, and DRM technology, among many other features. The OS is intended to power tablets, slates and portable media players, while Windows Mobile 7 is specifically built for smartphones.

Released as a public community tech preview (CTP), Microsoft expects that the lightweight operating system will be released to manufacturing in the fourth quarter of 2010. By using Silverlight for Windows Embedded Compact 7, OEM's will be able to develop customized user interfaces. Developers can download the publicly available CTP here.

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