Oracle on Thursday filed suit against Google for patent and copyright infringement in the latter's development of the Android operating system. Google "knowingly, directly and repeatedly infringed Oracle's Java-related intellectual property," according to the suite, which "seeks appropriate remedies for their infringement," Oracle spokesperson Karen Tillman said. It's not clear whether the lawsuit will force Google to stop development work on Android and Chrome, or whether it will impact the Android Market.

As expected, sales of mobile devices are up considerably from last year, showing an increase of nearly 14 percent worldwide over the second quarter of 2009. That's according to a report released by Gartner, and the results fall closely in line with other reports out from firms such as Forrester Research and iSuppli. However, the margins that manufacturers are making on sales of those phones fell more than expected, according to Carolina Milanesi, vice president with Gartner and author of the report.

Server virtualization technologies for Linux have advanced at a rapid pace of innovation with VMware and Citrix initially leading the way. They are now being joined by significant strategic investments by Red Hat. Unfortunately, the storage side of the equation has lagged behind. Several trends, such as the explosion of unstructured data and the emergence of cloud computing, have shined a spotlight on the gap and woken many to the realization that it is holding the industry back from achieving a fully virtualized data center.

Since its inception, the cloud computing industry has been the beneficiary of various outputs of the open source movement. The symbiotic relationship between these two forces has helped to transform the technology industry and continues to reshape the marketplace. In my view, the open source movement has influenced the cloud computing industry in three primary areas: technological innovation; business model innovation; and community-building initiatives.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as the old saying goes, and it goes without saying that those of us in the Linux community see plenty of it in our favorite operating system. Maybe that's why it's been so hard to wrap our brains around the topic of a recent poll on TuxRadar entitled, "What would you change about Linux?" At first, Linux Girl's mind drew a huge blank. Then she read on. "If you had the resources, what single thing would you change? Would you merge KDE and Gnome? Would you introduce a new package manager? (eek!) Would you find all mentions of 'Linux' and replace it with GNU/Linux?"

Android smartphone users in Russia have been hit by a Trojan that, once installed, starts spouting off SMS text messages to premium numbers, Kaspersky Labs revealed on Tuesday. The attack is sent through a fake codec -- a media player application -- that users are asked to download and install. Once it's been installed, the Trojan begins sending SMS messages to premium rate numbers, racking up charges on the user's account. The attack may be a proof of concept test by the malware authors because it appears to be limited to Russia.

My newfound favorite computing app is the desktop dock. Over the last few weeks, I freed myself of dependence on the desktop icon to find and launch the programs I use every day. My search for the ideal docking app came to a halt with Avant Window Navigator, also known as "AWN." I was ready to settle down with GNOME Do and its handy Docky option. But I decided to check out AWN and Simdock first. The additional effort was time well spent. SimDock was a big disappointment. AWN is very similar to GNOME Do. But its few more bells and whistles pushed me into choosing it over GNOME Do.

Motorola and Verizon Wireless jointly announced the Droid 2 smartphone Tuesday, confirming weeks of speculation and leaks in the media. The Droid 2 will be available online on a pre-sale basis starting Wednesday, and it will arrive in stores Thursday. Pricing will be $199 with a two-year contract after a mail-in rebate. Purchasers must also get a data plan. The release of the Droid 2 closely follows that of another Verizon smartphone made by Motorola: The Droid X, a device with several similar characteristics, was released to the market less than one month ago.

Open source software is poised for rapid growth in enterprises over the next 12 months, but cost is no longer the primary driver behind open source adoption. That's according to a new study from global consultancy Accenture, which based its findings on interviews with 300 executives at organizations in the United States, the United Kingdom and Ireland with annual revenues above $500 million. More than two-thirds of the organizations surveyed anticipate increased investment in open source software in 2010.

Sometimes, what starts out as a simple conversation on the Linux blogs can lead to a momentous event. To wit: Mark Shuttleworth's recent treatise on "tribalism," which appeared on his blog late last month. "Tribalism is when one group of people start to think people from another group are 'wrong by default,'" Shuttleworth wrote. "It's the great-granddaddy of racism and sexism." The most dangerous kind of tribalism, Shuttleworth added, "is completely invisible: it has nothing to do with someone's 'birth tribe' and everything to do with their affiliations... ."

By the year 2012, there will be more smartphones running the Android OS than Apple's iOS. That's according to iSuppli, which projects that 75 million Android-based smartphones will be in use two years from now. Android will have a 19.4 percent share of the global market for smartphones, says iSuppli, while Apple's iOS will claim 15.9 percent. For a platform that will be just 5 years old in 2012, that's a considerable growth rate, and an enormous jump up from a 2.7 percent market share in 2009. By 2014, Android will own 22.8 percent of the smartphone market, iSuppli predicts.

This is your brain. This is your brain on Linux Desktop. It is a good thing. To borrow and twist the old "brain on drugs" PSA, your brain on Linux Desktop could be one of the best things that could happen to you for your computer fix. Linux Desktop continues its ascent into users' collective consciousness with great graphics, powerful applications, and seamless interfaces. Linux Desktop frees your brain to think about the work (or the fun) at hand. Imagine -- transparent computing, and it's free!

There must be something about the US$200 price point -- for the second time this summer, Linux bloggers have been pondering the notion of a $200 computer. Back in June, it was Phil Shapiro who kicked off the conversation by demonstrating how to configure an Ubuntu machine for less than $200. Now, just barely two months later, here we are again, this time contemplating ExtremeTech's recent post entitled, "Build a $200 PC." Linux was part of the picture this time around too, of course. So was a lively conversation.

A tech enthusiast site says it has uncovered evidence of a dual-core HTC phone called the "Glacier" that may be headed for T-Mobile. The report by AlienBabelTech.com details a since-removed entry on benchmarking site GLBenchmark showing a phone called "HTC Glacier" being tested by a user whose LinkedIn social networking profile reveals he works for T-Mobile. The device in question clocks in on a processor test at three times faster than HTC's fastest device, according to AlienBabelTech, a feat that it says can only be achieved by a dual-core handset.

A new group announced Tuesday aims to create a community-built and -maintained version of Oracle's OpenSolaris operating system in which all portions of the code are open and fully available for use by developers. Called "Illumos," the new project will replace the closed portions of Oracle's OpenSolaris code with open versions, making it possible for developers to create their own solutions based on the software. "Right now, it's almost impossible to build derivative products from OpenSolaris," said Garrett D'Amore, tech lead for the Illumos project.

I have a problem with Linux! It has too many cool ways to navigate the desktop and launch programs. I fell in love with the really awesome GNOME Do recently and started a feud with my other computing personas. One relishes the panel, and another is enamored with the desktop draped in icons of my always-used programs. The desktop icons fetish is a carry over from my earlier Microsoft Windows daze. It's easy to set up in Ubuntu Linux and similar distros with a right-click from the applications' menu. Launching apps from desktop icons is hard-wired into Puppy Linux.

The latest version of the Linux kernel was released on Sunday, offering not just a host of bug fixes but also new features designed for multicore environments. Most notably, tapping technology contributed by Google, Linux version 2.6.35 includes Receive Packet Steering and Receive Flow Steering features that help to spread network handling across the CPUs available in the system. The addition of RPS and RFS technology "effectively emulates what a multiqueue NIC can provide, but instead it is implemented in software and for all kind of network hardware," said the Kernel Newbies website.

As much as I'd like to review the Verizon Droid X from a perspective utterly unpolluted by bias, preconceptions and ingrained habits, that's just not going to happen. The problem is, I'm a human being. Not only that, but I'm also a human being who's been using a certain other smartphone of note as my daily driver for a few years. No matter how often I try out BlackBerries, WinMos, Palms and Androids, my constant use of that other phone has created a certain baseline in my mind. Comparison will be inevitable.

There are many occupational hazards associated with being a fan of FOSS, but one Linux Girl never expected to have to endure is what's afflicting her now: whiplash. Yes, after all the unexpected twists and turns in Dell's approach to Ubuntu, another surprise maneuver came up last week that was simply too much. The move in question, you ask? Well, just days after the news broke that Dell had removed all Ubuntu-preloaded machines from its site, reports emerged that the company is actually *expanding* its desktop Ubuntu selection.

Personal data about millions of Android users could be sent to a mysterious Chinese website thanks to a set of wallpaper apps in the Android Market. That's according to mobile security firm Lookout, which discovered the questionable apps as part of its new App Genome Project, an effort to identify security threats in the wild and provide insight into how applications are tapping into personal data and accessing other phone resources. The apps include branded wallpapers from "Star Wars" and "My Little Pony."