Today, the iPad 2 came out. It is a beautiful device -- thin, fast, light, and a bright and shiny 9.7-inch screen that glitters straight in the eyes. But the iPad's problems start with its software, iOS 4.3, which is a one-trick pony.

The iOS 4.3 operating system has very little connection to online services (which are also called cloud). Android 3.0 has integrated Gmail, Google Docs, Google Maps and other online services, which makes tablets like Xoom much better.

The first thing you do after buying an iPad is give Apple your credit card number, only which after you can download apps. You may think it's harmless to buy one song from Apple for $0.99, isn't it? That's what Apple makes you think, and that's their whole point. Slowly but steadily they'll squeeze your pocket app after app, song after song.

Linux Fund just bought the domain Open.org, now it needs your input on what to do with the website. The remarkable nonprofit has given away $750,000 in open-source project donations to date, and is now asking: "come help us imagine what it could be."

The first tablet with Google's Android 3.0 operating system, Motorola Xoom, is finally here. The tablet has a 10-inch screen and is one of the first serious challengers to Apple's iPad. It also has a more powerful dual-core processor.

But with iPad 2 due in the next few weeks, have Motorola and Google done enough to challenge Apple and iOS? Yes, there's always a start, and Google has built a pretty solid OS that has strong device support around it.

Motorola Xoom has finally become available, after making an major early impression with a strong feature set. The 10-inch has strong software (Google's Android 3.0 OS) and strong hardware (Nvidia's speedy dual-core Tegra 2 chip).

This is the first Android 3.0 tablet, and can lay a serious challenge to Apple's iPad. A spate of 7-inch screens with Android 2.2 (Froyo) such as Samsung's Galaxy Tab couldn't dent Apple's dominance.

Microsoft has removed some open-source software from its Windows Phone marketplace. The company has banned applications with licensed under GPL -- such as GNU GPL -- which is used to distribute free and open-source software.

Essentially, Windows Phone developers won't be allowed to publish application code under open-source licenses. This is a ploy by Microsoft to keep its OS and application code away from review.

A number of published reports today had comments from a visibly upset Paul Otellini, who just lost a customer in Nokia, when it opted for the Windows Phone 7.

Nokia dumped its Meego OS -- which was under development with Intel -- in favor of WP7 earlier this week. Otellini cursed just like Yahoo's CEO (Carol Bartz) after he heard the news of Nokia's move to WP7, PC World states.

The last two weeks have been somewhat historic for Linux: HP announcing WebOS tablets; and Nokia sadly dumping Linux for Windows Phone 7. But the best news so far: London Stock Exchange having migrated over to the Linux-based trading platform -- Millennium Exchange.

LiMo Foundation has announced LiMo 4, it's latest Linux distro for smartphones, handsets and other mobile devices. It's a free operating system and hardware independent, so device makers and telecom operators can tweak the OS for their offerings.

The LiMo distro will be available for download in July, the organization said in a release. A number of telecom operators seem to have good things to say about the OS, which is interesting.