David Coursey

Comcast may now be wondering whether suing the FCC to fight net neutrality was such a good idea, for while it won the lawsuit, it now stands to lose the battle in a very big way.

Instead of neutrality regulations only, the FCC now plans sweeping regulation of broadband with an uncertain outcome, now and in the future.

With the Feds reportedly only "days away" from launching a full-scale antitrust inquiry, Apple is reportedly tweaking its iPhone and iPad developer program to dodge a probe into its business practices. At issue may be Apple's ability to tightly control the mobile platforms it has invented.

For all the noise Steve Jobs has made about the technical weaknesses of Adobe Flash, the fight is really about Apple's ability to control the software that runs on its platforms. Jobs wants to protect the iPad and iPhone from being watered down by generic, cross-platform mobile applications, including those based on Flash.

Is HP's purchase of Palm a good deal or a bad one? How will it change the smartphone industry? The world wants to know and it's up to you to tell them. Here you'll find the issues and some analysis, but the final judgment is yours. You be the analyst.

When considering a merger/acquisition, I look at the number of things, but start with the Golden Rule of Tech: Mergers rarely accomplish what the buyer hopes in terms of opening new markets or grabbing share in existing ones. The bigger the dollars involved, the more reason to be suspect.

HP's purchase of Palm could not only save webOS, but should also cause a few shivers for Microsoft.

Microsoft may be on its way to earning a percentage of every Android handset sold, something even Google hasn't accomplished.

Apple's notable successes, the iPad and iPhone, hide an important fact: Apple's secrecy comes at the expense of success with business customers. In essence, Apple accepts a position of limited influence in the business world in exchange for a marketing strategy that manipulates consumers brilliantly.

"Lucid Lynx" is the codename given to Canonical's Ubuntu Linux 10.04, now in beta, which adds social networking features and a new look to the popular Linux distribution. A final release is due April 29, the company said.

The new "LTS" release is intended for long-term use and will be supported for three years as a desktop OS and five years on servers, Canonical said. It was released late last week for desktop, netbook, and server use and may be downloaded here.

Yesterday's statement from Palm's CEO, lamenting how Motorola's Droid beat the Palm Pre into Verizon stores, I was reminded of a famous Marlon Brando line from "On the Waterfront." Many people know the words, even of they don't know they come from a 1954 motion picture.

"I coulda been a contender," said Brando's character, Terry, a washed-up boxer, lamenting his fate.

Suddenly this week, Research In Motion began looking vulnerable. Still the top smartphone maker for U.S. customers, the BlackBerry company was stung when a new study revealed that 39 percent of its users would just as soon have an iPhone.

How much trouble is RIM in?

Are you ready to get behind the National Broadband Plan? You better be, because if tech savvy broadband users don’t push it through, there is little chance we'll see 100mbps Internet connections for 100 million or bridge the digital divide that today denies broadband to almost that same number of people.

There are certainly more critical issues facing America right now, including a slowly lifting recession, unemployment, a broken educational system, and the lack of quality healthcare for many of us. Compared to these things, improving broadband access and the other issues the plan tackles, will seem less than critical to many people.

Foursquare and other location-based applications are a great idea, but commercializing them may be a challenge. Key will be making them minimally intrusive and maximally useful, as well as avoiding the nightmare scenario of a world totally engulfed in personalized, located-based ads.

The South-by-Southwest (SXSW) festival this week in Austin has provided a platform for Foursquare to demonstrate its social networking application, in which users give their friends permission to see their whereabouts after they "check-in" at specific locations.

Artwork: Chip TaylorWhile it's great the Federal Communications Commission is offering free broadband speed tests, it would be greater if the commission would use the data to force carriers to more accurately describe the speeds they offer and then keep their promises.

There are lots of speed tests available on the Internet, but when the agency charged with regulating Internet carriers offers a speed test, it should be more than a curiosity or a toy.