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Last week Wednesday the Diaspora team released the source code for their social networking system to the world. The distributed, open source, so-called Facebook competitor released its code to the public recently but there seems to be some misunderstandings about what the release is all about

Dell responds to criticism by releasing code for Streak tablet. Dell, responding to complaints from users and open source advocates, has released the modified Android code used on its Streak tablet PC. When Dell first released the Streak it used a customised version of Google's Android operating system. But, because Android contains numerous open source-licensed components, Dell came in for a lot of criticism for not releasing the changes it had made.

Chrome continues its upward climb. Can it eclipse Firefox? Google's Chrome browser is in the fast lane. And with the expected release of Chrome OS in the near future, there is every chance that the relative newcomer in the world of browsers could topple Firefox and become the second most popular browser.

Open source Dropbox alternative releases early beta. Like using Dropbox but looking for a good open source alternative? The good news is that there is a new online storage sharing application heading your way and it's completely open source.

Mozilla adds hardware acceleration to its latest beta release. It's not entirely a surprise but Mozilla has included hardware acceleration in its latest beta release, beta 5. It's not a surprise because the previous beta had the capability built-in but it wasn't enabled.

Cloud storage services offers Ubuntu users an ever increasing range of features. Most users have heard of Dropbox, the online storage application which makes it easy to save files in the "cloud". As far as consumer-facing cloud storage solutions Dropbox is about the best there is.

It's probably not true to say that everybody hates Facebook. But there are many millions (of the hundreds of millions that use the site) that claim to hate Facebook's cavalier approach to privacy and founder Mark Zuckerberg's equally vague approach to the future of our privacy. There are even groups dedicated to encouraging users to leave Facebook (some on Facebook itself, ironically).

Consortium says H.264 to be royalty free forever but it's not as free as it sounds. The battle for the future of web video has just heated up again. What started as a snub for Adobe's Flash technology when Apple announced it would not support Flash on its Internet-connected devices, has now turned into a fierce battle for dominance in web multimedia.

It was bound to happen. Google is now roping in the power of hardware acceleration to boost the performance of its Chrome browser. In a post on the Chromium blog late last week the Chromium developers announced that they would add GPU (graphics processing unit) support to future editions of the Chrome browser, bringing Google's application in line with other major browsers.

Tablet fans will be spoilt for choice with a flood of Android tablet PCs heading their way. A year ago netbooks were the one must-have mobile device. This year it is the tablet PC that is an essential accessory. Apple's iPad wasn't the first tablet PC available but it is the best-known of these devices. But it will face stiff competition in the coming months as most hardware makers switch on to Android-based tablet devices.

HTC and Google in apparent alliance to launch Chrome-based tablet later this year. More details are emerging of a Chrome-based tablet PC expected to be launched by Google before Christmas. The tablet PC is expected to run Google's Chrome operating system and will be manufactured by HTC.

Oracle suing Google over Java could be a good thing for MeeGo. If any good is to come out of Oracle suing Google over Android, the one to benefit could be MeeGo, the Intel-Nokia joint-venture mobile operating system.

Ubuntu chief names next release, promises snappy desktop. It's just under two months to go to the release of Maverick Meerkat, the October release of Ubuntu, and Mark Shuttleworth has named its successor.

Is Oracle starting to show its true feelings for open source software? It's taken a few months but the effects of Oracle buying Sun Microsystems are starting to become obvious. And among them are a series of blows for open source software.

Canonical releases uTouch to add multi-touch support. Ubuntu's next release will include support for multi-touch input. This follows the release of uTouch 1.0 by Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu.

We've all heard of Firefox, Opera, Internet Explorer and Safari. But have you heard of IceCat, Maxathon or NetSurf? There are literally hundreds of different web browsers available to users. We look at some of the lesser-known browsers available.

Unlike proprietary software, open source software is not developed by a single company or group of developers. Instead it is developed by many different companies, thousands of individual developers and hordes of hobbyists.

The release of Ubuntu 10.10 is getting closer and details of what will be included are starting to become clear

The impending final release of Firefox 4 is something of a big deal for the Mozilla Foundation. Over the past year the popular open source browser has been facing some stiff competition from the likes of Google's Chrome and, even, Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser.

Dell makes PCs for consumers. The company that made its name selling directly from its website, doesn't claim to be on the bleeding edge of PC hardware but if consumers want it, Dell will deliver it. So it's unsurprising that in the main Dell has always supplied PCs equipped with Microsoft's Windows.