• Palm Pre - This seems one of the best of the iPhone challengers - looks like a good OS, multi-tasking/touch, physics, nice design and a keyboard. See homepage, wikipedia, Gizmodo and PCWorld.
• Sony Vaio P - This one looks like a nice netbook, with a wide screen, build around a good sized keyboard. The use of a trackpoint means the whole thing can be sized just for the keyboard - would love to try it out. Competition for the "lesser" netbooks and the always rumored iPod tablet? See Gizmodo, Engadget.
• Dell Adiamo - This one (if the promise matches the buzz) would compete with MacBook Air; if it keeps with Dell's pricepoints, it would help with the pricing. See Gizmodo and Engdget.
• Windows 7 - This one, I hope will help keep Apple focused in doing a good job with MacOS. Ubuntu and, I'd hope soon, OpenSolaris, can help with the pressure, but I've felt that the quality of the desktop offerings from Apple has decreased since the iPod/iPhone started generating so much money, and they can use a strong competidor. See homepage and Gizmodo.

Roberto has provided a Schedule Update for JavaEE 6. As a brief summary: JAX-RS is in Final Draft, EJB 3.1 in Public Draft, and the remaining specs will also be in PD by end of October, and all the specs are planned to be final by JavaOne 09 (June 2-5, 2009).

Chris, in the UC2 team, has announced a new user-focused site for the multi-platform IPS-based tool. The IPSBestPractices site resides at Wikis.Sun.Com where it can leverage additional functional facilities and (equally more important) improved availability.

The latest Hudson builds (Download, ChangeLog) have new facilities for self-installing on Windows servers. Check Kohsuke's entries on Hudson 1.253 (the latest is 1.255) and Installing Hudson on Windows Got Easier.

BPEL is a key tool for users of tools like GlassFish ESB (site) but, as Adam points out, its diagrams are not necessarily at the ideal level. So, he has been exploring how to overlay some SVG diagrams over the BPEL ones. Check out Adam's Graphical Monitoring for BPEL 2 and give him feedback.

Finally, the retailers are already getting ready for Christmas so we are seeing the last batch of consumer-focused devices, including the latest E-Books: Sony's PRS 700 and Amazon's Kindle 2. The Sony looks prettier and has a touch-screen, but the G3 purchase connectivity of the Kindle is still very compelling. We will see...