Yesterday, I asked Betanews readers: "Should the police have been allowed to raid [Jason] Chen's home and confiscate his computers?" How did you answer? I've randomly picked some of the responses -- hoping to filter out some of the noise for better readability (There are more than 135 comments as I write this post).

But first a quick recap of what happened and some of the broader reaction: Yesterday, Gizmodo revealed that on Friday evening, police searched and seized computers from Chen's home. Chen is a Gizmodo editor and writer of the first story about Apple's so-called "next iPhone," which the tech blog paid $5,000 to obtain. Gizmodo has since returned the prototype to Apple.

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First announced just two weeks after Windows Embedded Standard 2009 was released, Windows Embedded Standard 7 has at last been released to manufacturers, Microsoft announced today. The company says that new devices built on the platform should be arriving soon, and that we should expect to see some "exciting developments" in Windows 7 consumer devices at Computex in June.

Though Windows Embedded Standard 7 can be used in dozens of different environments such as digital signage, thin clients, and industrial control systems, Microsoft has emphasized the value of this version to connected set-top boxes, TVs, and media players.

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Amid news yesterday of a discovery by an independent programmer of what appeared to be another door left open for Web apps to access Facebook users' personal data, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D - N.Y.) called upon the Federal Trade Commission to take the next step in forming the equivalent of a US "privacy commissioner."

It was the first step in a one-two punch, as Sen. Schumer later joined three other Democrat senators in penning a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, calling upon him to make his site's privacy policy clearer and tighter, in order to give the FTC less to scrutinize.

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The Symbian Foundation's 100% open source mobile operating system Symbian^3 has officially made its debut today on the new Nokia N8 handset.

Unlike Google's Android, which launched on a mid-range smartphone in late 2008, Symbian^3 is being ushered into the market on a device with cutting-edge equipment.

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Research In Motion could deliver sixteen completely new smartphones with built-in telekinesis amplifiers, but it would not satisfy the legions of BlackBerry users who depend on its reliable messaging ability, who need a real Web browser that shows real Web pages, and who would appreciate a media player that doesn't look ported from a Commodore 64.

Why RIM officials can't just deliver the news to WES conference attendees directly is puzzling, but during this second day of the three-day event, the Day 2 keynote offers RIM users a two-minute quick-cut video of BlackBerry OS 6.0, alongside a parade of new enterprise apps. Granted, enterprise apps are important, but what BlackBerry has been lacking this past year is a proper platform for them.

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Gizmodo's big "next iPhone" scoop has generated more than pageviews. Now it's the police raid. Late this afternoon -- actually at stock market close -- the gadget blog posted about the police raid, which occurred Friday night at the residence of Gizmodo editor Jason Chen. Law enforcement executed a search warrant before confiscating -- count `em -- four PCs and two servers. Chen wasn't home. The police broke down a door to enter his home.

The timing (Friday night) and location (Chen's home) are oh-so revealing. Somebody wants to send a message to reporters about obtaining information and items that might belong to a big corporation -- say, Apple. While I've publicly scolded Gizmodo for scooping stolen goods (pun intended), the situation as recounted by the tech blog (and not yet corroborated) chills my soul. The action as described stinks of harassment, intended to scare off the free press.

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Make your connection to Microsoft Windows Home Server "Vail" Public Beta through Fileforum now.

One of Silverlight video's biggest advantages to date has been the server's ability to tweak the bitrate of video playback as it's being played back, and as the bandwidth of the connection varies. It's the smooth streaming feature that premiered last June with Silverlight 3. Now, with Silverlight 4 already well under way, Microsoft today premiered a public beta of a forthcoming release of Windows Home Server, which will be capable of smooth-streaming video to any Silverlight-enhanced client via the Web.

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A slow, but steadily increasing, trickle of messages on Apple's iPad discussion forums appears to confirm the findings of Princeton University's Network Systems engineers, who dealt this month with a rapid influx of iPads over a concentrated area. What they've been noticing is that Wi-Fi on iPads that are set for dynamic DHCP leases -- assignments of IP addresses to clients for limited time periods -- are failing to renew those leases when time expires, often after just a few hours.

As a result, users' iPads are stuck with the message "Connecting..." and no easy, or apparent, way to renew their network connections. Although Princeton discovered the problem as early as April 4, and Apple forum discussions began April 11, Apple's only suggestion has left some customers struggling.

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Flanked by other eco-wares ranging from Philips light bulbs to a home soda-making machine, PC manufacturers on hand at Pepcom's EcoFocus conference touted new computers that, while Energy Star 5.0-compliant, also happen to be made from recycled and/or non-hazardous stuff.

Lenovo demo'd its new 14-inch L-412 (pictured right) and 15-inch L-512 ThinkPads, two laptops launched last week with customer's choice of Intel Core i3 or Core i5 processors. Both feature palm rests, covers, and cases which are 20% comprised of recycled material, such as office water jugs and old IT equipment.

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The most successful brands share several attributes in common. One of the most important: Ownership of a single word that defines the brand. Last week, Facebook made the word "like" its own, in one of the biggest branding coups in decades.

"Like" is seemingly everywhere this week and associated with Facebook. The social network didn't just extend the mechanism beyond its territorial borders, but claimed ownership over the word, too. Backed by the social network's reach and popularity -- approaching 500 million subscribers -- and Open Graph protocol, the "Like" thumbs-up icon already appears on hundreds of thousands of Web pages outside Facebook. Perhaps then, Facebook's branding coup is double -- not just 'like' but the thumbs-up symbol, too.

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For reasons still being debated in the press, Research In Motion was not the star of the last Mobile World Congress show in February. Evidently something wasn't ready yet. But ahead of a smaller wireless conference in Orlando this week, RIM has plans to own the show.

This morning, the company announced two new models -- not refurbished versions of existing models as some press sources have said, but new chasses with new components...just familiar brands. But spokespersons for the company tossed some bread crumbs that lead in the direction of more announcements, perhaps as soon as this afternoon. Word on the rumored BlackBerry OS 6.0 with a (real) Web browser, may be on the docket.

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A process of elimination which has, apparently since February, cast aside a who's-who of possible suitors, has left Lenovo as the only prospective suitor for Palm, Inc. still standing, after everyone else told Reuters no. It could mean Lenovo is genuinely interested, though it could also mean the only ones giving Palm any positive value...are in the press.

The thing about Lenovo is, it already has a smartphone. In fact, it debuted in its home country of China just last Tuesday, and it's no slouch: It has a stupid name -- LePhone -- but it features the astounding 1 GHz Snapdragon processor that's at the heart of HTC's latest models, a widescreen AMOLED display, Wi-Fi, and an eye-catching QWERTY keyboard with the D-pad in the middle. It was running Android 1.6 at CES in January, though reviewers say it should be running Android 2.x today. Arguably, Lenovo already has a phone that could defeat a Palm Pre Plus in a comparison test in its home country. And though analysts have said Palm could give Lenovo an entry point into the US market...wouldn't it be more sensible to enter the market with the phone you're already making?

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While bitterness continues over the implications of Sections 3.3.1 through 3.3.3 of Apple's recently modified Developers' Agreement (PDF available here, through the Electronic Frontier Foundation), there's lingering suspicion about the indeterminate boundaries pointed to by the long-standing Section 3.3.14, which now applies to iPad content as well as iPhone.

"Applications may be rejected if they contain content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, sounds, etc.) that in Apple's reasonable judgment may be found objectionable, for example, materials that may be considered obscene, pornographic, or defamatory," the section reads.

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What a difference 12 months and an accounting change make. As I briefly noted yesterday, only about $1 billion separated Apple from Microsoft results in the first calendar quarter. With so many blogs obsessed about when Apple's market capitalization might exceed Microsoft's, perhaps the focus should be on earnings.

Some people might not understand the significance. The comparisons here are real, because they're not fudgy market share or market capitalization comparisons. Apple has closed a huge revenue gap on Microsoft and lessened the lead in net income. This year promises the most visceral competition between Apple and Microsoft ever.

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Many instances of malware on Windows-based systems masquerade themselves as system services -- the various independent processes that respond to requests from both the operating system and applications with functions that users typically need. Network connectivity and printing are among the more common Windows services; and if you've ever perused the processes list of Task Manager (or, better yet, Process Explorer), you'll find these processes are represented by the single .EXE file that hosts them, svchost.exe.

Any anti-virus database looking for a rogue system service will probably have to refer to svchost.exe as the process that launches it, even though that process is clearly part of Windows itself. On Wednesday, McAfee distributed a .DAT file to many of its enterprise customers that may have had a single faulty character. As a result, their anti-virus systems successfully quarantined not the service launched by svchost.exe, but svchost.exe itself.

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