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Last February, at the time Google completed its purchase of On2 Technologies, the video technology patent holder and maker of the VPx series of video codecs, the Free Software Foundation posted an open letter urging Google to release the latest version, VP8, to the open source community. Though Google has been pretty vocal since then about what it has perceived as the bright prospects for On2 under its wing, the volume was turned down to low on Tuesday, immediately after the digital television news service NewTeeVee cited anonymous sources as saying Google intends to do just as FSF asked.

Google declined official comment on the story to Betanews, but the tone of the spokesperson's declination speaks volumes, especially from this characteristically forthcoming company: "We're excited to be working with the On2 team to continue to improve the video experience on the Web, but we have nothing to announce at this time."

PC shipments are briskly growing again, in yet another small sign that economic recovery is possible. Today, Gartner and IDC both released preliminary shipments for first quarter. Gartner put shipment growth at 27.4 percent year over year, while IDC growth figures came in a little lower at 24 percent.

But the numbers are mixed, surprisingly. While sales soared in EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) and Asia-Pacific "the U.S. and Latin America were slightly lower than what we had expected," Mikako Kitagawa, Gartner principal analyst, said in a statement. Respectively, PC shipments grew by 24.8 percent, 36.9 percent, 20.2 percent and 35.4 percent. China posted strongest growth -- 45.4 percent.

Though the news is relatively fresh that Palm Inc. has been negotiating with China's Huawei Technologies about a possible buyout, the word from Investors' Business Daily sources is that these negotiations have actually been ongoing for at least two months. That nothing has come of them since February may be the most important, and potentially distressing, news of all.

In light of that realization, Palm is suddenly in need of yet another comprehensive makeover to save its flagging image. Suggestions from the field include relatively simple ones from Betanews contributor Carmi Levy -- that it should keep its Pre Plus and Pixi Plus hardware, and focus on building up its applications base -- and the completely opposite suggestion from widely respected industry analyst Dr. Gerry Purdy, who has published his viewpoints on mobile technologies in what's now called the MobileTrax newsletter, since 1986.

Expectations are a very dangerous thing indeed. As a user, if you expect a new device to do something -- however unrealistic that expectation may be -- you are bound to be disappointed when you find that it doesn't.

With Internet tablets, it's not really clear what users should expect when they pick one up for the first time. A couple of years ago, they were built on truncated versions of desktop operating systems, so users based their expectations on their desktop experience. Now, tablets are being built upon mobile operating systems, and expectations are shifting.

What saved Intel's neck during the worst part of the last economic downturn was the Atom processor, the heart of netbooks that started selling well as consumers' budgets tightened. Now that the 2008-09 dip is over, and even businesses' budget belts are loosening, the company's attention returns to the server side of the equation.

In Intel's quarterly conference call yesterday evening (Betanews thanks Seeking Alpha for the transcript), CEO Paul Otellini pointed to cloud computing and virtualization as trends that are empowering a resurgence in business sales...and helping the company to overcome an apparent tapering off in consumers' interest in netbooks.

Spring Design's Android-based, dual-screen e-reader named "Alex" made a sudden and noticeable splash when it was announced one day before book retailer Barnes & Noble debuted its Android-powered Nook e-reader, and then Spring Design sued them over it.

We had a look at a pre-production model of Alex at CES last January, and Spring Design started taking orders for the $399 e-reader in February.

Last week's staggering defeat to Comcast in a landmark DC Circuit Court decision left the US Federal Communications Commission stripped of any "ancillary authority" it thought it had to regulate the practices of Internet service providers. As of now, it isn't exactly clear just which government agency does have that authority.

Rather than wait for Congress to make a decision on the matter -- an event which may, arguably, never happen at all -- a coalition of major Internet stakeholders, including Skype, Google, eBay, Amazon, Netflix, TiVo, and Facebook are calling on the FCC to take action. Quite literally, they want the Commission to convene a hearing declaring its intention to fill the gap left by the court's removal of FCC authority...with FCC authority.

Microsoft's debut of the KIN yesterday has tech pundits talking about Microsoft's mobile strategy, about the future of Windows Phone, and about the state of the "dumbphone" in general. It's a compelling product. And because KIN comes from Sharp and Danger's parent company Microsoft, the KIN drew a lot of comparisons to the Sidekick straight away. Yesterday, I called KIN the "Sidekick of the 2010s," Ars Technica called it "Sidekick's next of KIN," and Wired said Microsoft wants to "update the Sidekick's M.O. for a new decade."

But does this mean the T-Mobile Sidekick is finished?

Today, Apple upgraded MacBook Pros across the line -- 13.3, 15.4 and 17 inch -- but I'm not weeping with excitement. Could new MacBook Pros be any less inspiring? The hardware improvements are marginal, "Me-too" upgrades against Windows 7 laptops. New MacBook Pros, like older models, are perceived premium brand at premium pricing delivering maximum margins for Apple. It's the price people pay to be cool.

About once a year I stir up this price-vs-value debate, mainly because of entry-model display resolution, system memory and harddrive capacity, for which MacBook Pros are arguably deficient compared to Windows laptops. Apple's iLife suite is one of the Mac's main benefits, but the `09 version launched in January 2009. The digital media suite isn't even keeping feature pace with third-party apps for iPad, iPhone or iPod touch. The point: I expect more from Apple? Shouldn't you, given what Mac laptops cost?

In the history of anything whatsoever, timing is rarely, if ever, coincidental. More often these days, however, the strategy behind it looks confusing. Just days before it's scheduled to hold its developers conference in San Francisco (tomorrow and Thursday), Twitter revealed that it is in the process of either acquiring or building applications that will compete directly with the Twitter clients these developers will be taught how to build.

On Friday, Twitter revealed it was in the midst of purchasing Tweetie, believed to be the most popular Twitter client for Apple's iPhone. That product will become "Twitter for iPhone." That same day, the service released a Twitter client for BlackBerry; and it's that second event that let developers know, as Arlo Guthrie once put it, that there's a movement.

Since Apple is now a self-proclaimed "mobile device company," its trusty line of notebook computers received an update today with none of the commotion that the iPad and iPhone recently earned. Still, Apple's entire 2010 line of MacBook Pro notebooks has been updated with new CPUs and graphics processors, and a longer promised battery life. It may be small, but it is by no means insignificant.

The big news about Apple's notebook refresh last year was its overall drop in price. Cupertino got rid of the MacBook Pro's ExpressCard slot and removable battery, but offered a two-hour bump in battery life for several hundred dollars less than previous models. It was advertised as Apple's "most affordable lineup ever."

Way back in 2008, Opera Software's CEO Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner said the company's popular Opera Mini mobile browser was ported to the iPhone, but it could not be released because it competed with the iPhone's built-in Safari browser.

Then, last February, Opera Software actually started showing off its version the popular browser for iPhone OS as a run-up to its submission to Apple for App store review in March.

As rumors swirl around the latest chapter in Palm Inc.'s checkered journey from mobile darling to also-ran, I'll resist the urge to place bets on which company or companies will be making an acquisition play. It almost doesn't matter who buys Palm at this point. What matters is what that buyer does with Palm afterward, and how any acquisition would affect that company's existing mobile strategy.

For quite some time, it's been obvious to everyone but Palm that it would eventually need a white knight. Palm seems to have finally clued in, as Bloomberg is now reporting that the mobile device vendor has engaged Goldman Sachs and Qatalyst Partners to find a buyer.

Today's KIN phone launch should not be compared to iPhone. Anyone doing so should be whacked aside the head. Microsoft isn't trying to directly compete with Apple's smartphone but cater to a specific customer segment -- Millennials and younger Gen Ys who use technology to socialize with friends or follow celebrities. Microsoft describes KIN as "an experience for the social generation."

KIN "knits together a tight community of kindred spirits...who broadcast their lives all the time," said Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices division. Bach introduced KIN during an event early afternoon East Coast time. So there would be no confusion, he made the distinction of Windows Phone 7 being "everything on the phone." It's more multipurpose. By comparison, KIN is customized for social media consumers and pulls data from cloud services. "We're going to crank social up to 11," Bach said.

Microsoft today debuted a whole new Windows Phone experience developed in conjunction with Sharp called KIN.

Billed not as a smartphone, but as a "social phone," KIN is like the Sidekick/hiptop concept updated to fit a lifestyle based around constant social media use, which is made up of four components: