Google is updating the Android Market, from where smartphone and tablet users can buy new applications. It will be unveiled in two weeks, according to a blog entry on the Android website.

The updated Android Market includes improved "merchandising of applications streamline the browse-to-purchase experience, and make it easier for developers to distribute their applications."

The improvements will make it easier for users to discover and find applications. There are new categories as well: Widgets and Live Wallpapers. There will also be new categories for popular apps and games

Many have asked: will Ubuntu be on tablets? Well, Ubuntu is *already on* tablets.

Kno will soon ship the its $899 Kno dual-screen folding tablet, which is based on Ubuntu Linux. The device targeted at the education market as a textbook replacement. You can preorder today, and the device will reach you in under 10 days.

The tablet has two 14.1-inch screens that fold up like a book. Kno says students spend thousands of dollars on textbooks, and could save dough if using the tablet instead to read electronic textbooks.

A specialized touch interface has been built by Kno for the tablet, which also has stylus input.

Microsoft's Windows turned 25 last month, but the origins of the operating system pre-date to MS-DOS.

MS-DOS may have been exiled with Windows, but working with the DOS prompt through CMD reminds me of the annoying, but good old days of working in Shell.

But save your nerves, there is a better option: FreeDOS. It's still alive and doing well, so check it out.

Linux Foundation has announced the release of LSB 4.1, which simply put, helps brings support for a single application among multiple versions of Linux. Each distribution has its quirks, so this should help bring cross-compatibility and reduce the cost of software development.

The final version of Linux Standard Base 4.1 will be released in August. It is backed by major Linux distro vendors including Canonical, Novell, Oracle, Red Flag, Red Hat and Linpus.

Google earlier this week officially announced that its Linux-based netbook operating system, Chrome OS,  was going into beta. The OS is primarily driven on the cloud/Web -- the way Google envisions computing in the future with Google Docs and the Chrome browser -- and has the Chromium browser backend.

It's perhaps an early vision of what things may look like going on, but one experiment around that form of computing has already failed. The concept of Sun's network computer, a thin client, relied on the network for computing, but it failed.

Microsoft has joined other companies in suing Android. That move was expected to come, considering Windows is expected to launch Windows Phone 7, with which patent protection is being offered.

In a new attack on multinational corporations, the Communist government in India's southern state of Kerala is campaigning to eliminate Microsoft from use in public institutions, just weeks after it imposed a ban on Coca-Cola and Pepsi.

So you want a Linux that's set up with just the applications you want -- no more, no less. What do you do? Well, an expert Linux user does it himself. But, not everyone's a Linux legend. For the rest of us, there are two good choices.

There's a low-end personal option: Instalinux.com's free service, SystemDesigner. There's also a high-end corporate choice: rPath's rBuilder.

Desktop migration specialist Versora on Aug. 8 released an updated version (v2.0) of its Progression Desktop Windows to Linux desktop migration software, a tool that helps users to transfer files and settings from their Windows system to a Linux system.