Northeastern University has picked a patent-infringement fight, and they picked it with the big boys on the playground: Google.

Google released the development kit for it's much-discussed mobile-OS Andriod today with a contest worth $10 million.

Last week, we reported that Microsoft — which we affectionately like to think of as "The Empire" — had struck a blow against Linux in developing countries by destroying a Nigerian deal to provide Mandriva Linux to school-children.

The push from cities around the country to provide city-funded wireless internet access is starting to stagnate, with plan changes in two more cities.

According to the Associated Press, Sony CEO Howard Stringer wishes he could turn back time. The comments came at a Manhattan "Captains of Industry" lecture sponsored by the 92nd Street YMCA, and related to Sony's Blu Ray DVD format.

If you were hoping to get your hands on the latest Firefox 3 Release Candidate, you're going to have to go after it old-school.

According to testimony by a former AT&T technician before Congress, the NSA has been using AT&T to listen in on God knows what.

The latest release of Fedora Linux — Red Hat's community-developed version — has hit the street, going by the codename Warewolf.

The number one requested Skype feature for Linux users has arrived: Video. That's right, the latest beta release from Skype offers video among a host of other features. Linux users are used to having to deal with missing features in Windows-centric applications, and video in Skype has long been one of those. That's all over now.

The murder trial of Namesys-founder Hans Reiser continued today, with the prosecution alleging that Reiser's six-year-old son is part of the cover-up, describing the boy's answers in police interviews as having "been influenced."

If you're an Amazon user who has been looking for a way to pick up Red Hat's Enterprise Linux, today is your lucky day. The company announced today that it's OS would be available through Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) for $19 per month per user, with additional access charges for each hour used.

With a flick of the pitchfork, Microsoft's CIO Stuart Scott found himself cast out of Hell — er, Redmond, that is — and sent off to the unemployment office.

If you're in the United Kingdom and want an iPhone, get ready, because their on the way.

Well, the news has finally come, and the geek community is shedding a tear: Google won't be offering up an Open Source smart-phone. However, it will be offering up an Open Source mobile-OS for somebody else's smart-phone.

If you're excited by the "$100 Laptop" — even though it'll cost you $400 to get one — then this is right up your alley: There are now pictures of them coming off the production line. That's right, One Laptop Per Child is in production, and there are pictures to prove it. You have have a look via the OLPC's wiki.

The ink appears to be dry on Red Hat's sign-up as part of Sun's open-source Java program, OpenJDK. Red Hat will now be integrating the work it's done on the Java SE JDK, called IcedTea, with the OpenJDK project, and will eventually offer an implementation for it's Enterprise distro. Red Hat currently provides open-source alternatives to the proprietary elements that remain in OpenJDK.

The cyber-rumor mills are atwitter with the news that Microsoft may open up the live.com domain for email tomorrow.

Hans Reiser, an open source Linux engineer, traumatized his 5-year-old son with violent video games and horror movies, prosecutor Paul Hora told jurors in the opening of Reiser's murder trial. Reiser is accused of murdering his Russian-born wife Nina Reiser, who disappeared in September 2006.

Microsoft's IE chief Chris Wilson is up in arms about JavaScript, and he's set his sights on Brendan Eich, Mozilla's CTO. It's definitely a battle to watch, as Eich is only the creator of JavaScript. Way to go Wilson: take on the creator himself.

If you've picked up a Seagate hard-drive in the last five years, dig out your proof-of-purchase and get ready. The drive manufacturer has just settled a class-action suit over the definition of "gigabyte," and will be issuing credits to affected customers.