IsComputerOn has a great writeup on the evaluation of submissions for this year’s Google Summer of Code (GSoC) effort. From the article:

[…]the projects which passed evaluation were:

• Mike Smith’s additions to VirtualBox™ are already meeting or exceeding usability expectations.
• Nathan Heisey brought our support of SDL up to the version 1.3. Haiku is also really thankful for the collaboration we had from the SDL project having Ryan ‘icculus’ Gordon co-mentoring this project.
• Gabriel Hartmann provided Haiku with a USB video driver for high-end webcams. His work has already found its way to Haiku’s source tree; while not perfect yet, it should prove to be a good starting point for incremental work onward.
• Sean Healy’s project will enable 3rd party projects to access Be/Haiku’s API with other langages than C++, namely Python and Perl.

Please head on over and read the full writeup and congrats to Haiku and the student contributors!

Yesterday, I wrote an article discussing why I felt Apple TV apps were already available today, although in an indirect form. Today, I came across a blog post with a similar view, only it was more focused on Apple TV as a gaming platform, starting with the launch of iOS 5. It’s a nice read to see what could be possible.

With Google's recent acquisition of Motorola Mobility, the media has focused their sites on the patents gained, and how they may be used to fend off threats from Android's competitors, such as Apple and Microsoft. Considering Motorola was a pioneer in the cell phone industry, they must have some good patents in their portfolio. While there is no mistaking that patents are a large reason for the acquisition, I feel the media may be overlooking one aspect.

It seems that ever since Apple released their second generation Apple TV, people have wondered if it would officially support 3rd-party apps. The logic goes that since it is now built on iOS, why not follow in its siblings' (iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch) footsteps. And why not? Whether your a cable-cutter, a wannabe cable-cutter, or someone looking at adding additional functionality to your Apple TV, officially supported apps seem to make sense.

If the rumors are true, Motorola’s EX225 could be the next phone to sport a dedicated Facebook button.

Two things come to mind:

• How successful has the HTC Status been for AT&T?
• With Google’s recent acquisition of Motorola Mobility, how long before this becomes a Google+ button?

I guess I’ll just have to wait and see…