Finally, after years of vendor lock-in, the PC has finally been freed from its shackles. We hope to see an open hardware market, where the end-user has more choices and there are more than one prominent software development ecosystems.

On comparing the port to the actual Dalvik core, it was seen that the ported C# version had drastic performance improvements over the existing Java based Dalvik core.

Seven months into ownership of Skype, and Microsoft is already making changes to it. Although it is not trying to port any existing infrastructure to its own technology stack immediately, there is a fair chance of that happening.

The Apache Software Foundation has recently announced the release of a new application server based on Apache Tomcat 7.0.27. The new server is called TomEE and it is a sub-project of Apache OpenEJB.

The wait is finally over, and Ubuntu 12.04 has been released. It sports some bold features, and the fact that this is a long-term release (LTS) makes Ubuntu 12.04 even more special.

Linus Torvalds is one of the most respected men in the world of software. He has made considerable efforts to build and maintain an OS kernel that changed the way software is done. Linus truly deserves this award for bringing together an awesome group of selfless people and creating a better world for us all.

Microsoft Open Sources ASP.net MVC, their web development framework.

As part of this plan, all public offices will be moved to use Open Source software in their daily operations. This includes all the ministries, the national hospital and the capital city of Reykjavik.

Ubuntu is preferred on the server because of its LTS releases, which are supported with updates for long years. Moreover, it has a large base of zealots who participate closely in the state of affairs.

Usually, work on Nouveau drivers starts once the binary drivers are out and available for update. This involves months of reverse engineering the binary drivers. However, to everyone’s surprise, Ben Skeggs from RedHat has managed to reverse engineer the binary driver and commit the reverse engineered code to the Nouveau DRM repository, hours after the launch of the official GPU.

With the latest version of Linux kernel, things are finally looking good for the btrfs file system. In addition, the GCC has been updated to include the TI C6 architecture and as always, there are new drivers and bug fixes.

Recently, another major tech giant started using OpenStreetMaps for one of its products. However, their adoption was hushed, with no mention or credit given to OpenStreetMaps. I’m talking about uOod.

After a wait period of six years, the response was so overwhelming that the Raspberry Pi website crashed under heavy load. They came back with an announcement but by then, they had sold out too.

Even if this campaign does not succeed in “liberating” Android initially, it will create some awareness about the limited amount of control that Android users enjoy on their mobile devices. Nonetheless, this is a good beginning.

The idea of an OS on a pluggable stick is not new. However, what is definitely new, is a full-fledged processing unit with a dedicated GPU packed into a USB + HDMI stick. This stick leverages the screen real estate of any device with a USB port or an HDMI port, and takes portability to a new level.