Odds and Ends

First off, an interesting throwback to part of yesterday's post: There is talk in Mozilla of teaming up with Gnome, leveraging elements of XUL (and maybe Mono) in an attempt to head off Microsoft's XAML.

It's not about usability, but demonstrates rather another seldom-seen phenomenon in Open Source: common sense.

And now, for the usual flurry of links:

Wi-Fi analysts agree to disagree, with the usual mix of nonsensical predictions and whiffs of common sense.
Everyone and their dog have been heralding PocketSkype as the dawn of a new VoIP era. Well, until it actually interoperates, it's not worth much. It is a neat technology demo, though.
VoIP is one of those things Canada wants to regulate and US lobbies don't. Expect Europe to find yet another way to deal with it.
And the Oscar for the dumbest copyright protection scheme ever goes to... The Broadcast Flag. Pretty soon owning a VCR will be a federal offense.

Via Engadget, Wi-Fi and streaming as an integral feature of the PlayStation 3, and TV handsets (PDF).
In the meantime, the Xbox gets a hard drive (again). Oh, and a patent.
More details on the new iPAQ. I can't say I like the all-in-one approach, though.
Nearly there, the PocketSurfer does only one thing - surfing the web via Bluetooth. I'd rather it did just a little more, but it's nice to see a cheap (if service-bound) device with these characteristics. Maybe it's hackable. Hmm...