Tech Monitor

In today's Tech Monitor, the anatomy of a tweet; Sony face legal action from gamers and why the new boy scout badge will not be of much use in the woods.

• The big news in tech circles was Hewlett Packard's acquisition of smartphone maker Palm. Last week, John Paczkowski at All Things Digitalpredicted the deal. Today he explains why HP wanted the beleaguered company.

"HP wants its own operating system. And by acquiring Palm that's exactly what it's getting. In Palm's webOS, HP has an elegant OS that it controls, something the company - a longtime Windows shop - has never had before."

• Many people, including MG Siegler at TechCrunch quoted HP's Brian Humphries, saying the firm's intent was "to double down on webOS".

"That's important. While it has been known for a while that Palm was looking for a buyer, the future of webOS wasn't certain depending on who the eventual purchaser was."

• The story was quickly overshadowed by Apple's boss Steve Job's outlining his thoughts on Flash technology and explaining why many of the company's products do not use the technology, depsite its widespread use on websites.

  The issue has been an ongoing topic of discussion amongst the digerati. But long time analyst Michael Gartenrberg says none of the chatter matters; it's all about the customer.

"If enough of Apple customers are frustrated to the point of not buying Apple devices, perhaps Apple will reconsider their position. Fact is, the lack of Flash does not appear to have slowed down Apple sales in the slightest. In fact, the opposite seems to be true."

• There have been a couple of stories what makes a "tweet", the short messages used on Twitter. Recently, ReadWriteWeb showed a map of the code behind a single tweet.

"Think a tweet is just 140 characters of text? Think again."

• This week, MIT Technology review outlines a new approach to anlysing the content of tweets:

"The researchers' idea was to provide a way for users to deal with a large number of Twitter messages quickly. They found that many users wanted to be able to quickly catch up on what's been going on, without having to go through every single tweet in their timeline."

• In late March, Sony disabled a feature on its PlayStation 3 that allowed players to install other operating systems. Now, according to game's site Kotaku,a Californian man is suing the company over the change.

"The suit claims that the "Install Other OS" function was "extremely valuable." According to the suit, the plaintiff he has not yet installed the latest firmware update so that he can continue to use the Other OS feature."

• Engadget were one of the first to pick up on the new video game badge for the Scouts in the US:

"The Boy Scouts of America have finally recognized that most important of modern children's pastimes with the creation of a "Video Games" belt loop and pin. However, our initial excitement on this momentous day is drastically lessened after reading how one goes about earning them."

• And finally the Gizmodo Phone scandal has continued to rumble on. This week, Jon Stewart on the Daily Show offered his take. The video isn't available in many countries, so if you still want some entertainment try Fast Company's Choose Your Own Adventure: The Gizmodo iPhone Saga .

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Links in full

• John Paczkowski | All Things D | My Own Private OS
• MG Siegler | Techcrunch | HP On Palm Acquisition
• Michael Gartenberg | Gartenblog | My Thoughts on Flash and Apple
• Sarah Perez | ReadWriteWeb | This is What a Tweet Looks Like
• Erica Naone | MIT Technology review | What's in a Tweet?
• Michael McWhertor | Kotaku | PlayStation lawsuit
• Tim Stevens | Engadget |Scouts introduce videogame badge
• Dan Nosowitz | Fast Company | Choose Your Own Adventure