Surprise, surprise - Acer, the same company who not too long ago bemoaned Google's open-source Android platform as not being suitable to run netbooks, has gone ahead with just such a device anyway, even though most other vendors are content to wait for Pine Trail before releasing more netbook models.

Acer did, however, play it safe by pairing Android with Windows in a sort of dual-boot environment (Android has to be booted first and acts like a sort of instant-on SplashTop replacement), but that's more than the other top tier OEMs have done. According to news and rumor site DigiTimes, that's because other OEMs are taking a more conservative wait-and-see approach and will re-evaluate things once the final quarter of 2009 shakes out.

After seeing sequential growth to the of tune of 20 percent in the last two quarters, DigiTimes notes that netbook shipments from Taiwan notebook vendors is on target to backslide 8 percent in Q4. Part of the reason, analysts surmise, is waning demand as customers eagerly await the arrival of Windows 7, but vendors are also trying to keep inventory levels down on the verge of Intel's upcoming Pine Trail platform, due to arrive in early 2010.

It still remains to be seen how many OEMs will embrace Android on netbooks, whether as a standalone OS or in conjunction with Windows. So far, Acer's dual-booting Aspire One AOD250, which was only recently announced in the U.S., is the only one consumers have to choose from here in the States. Other markets will also see the AOD250, but not until after the launch of Windows 7, DigiTimes reports.

The e-book reader market is fast becoming a crowded niche, so in order to stand out from the competition, some manufacturers are taking liberties with the basic design. Take Spring Design, for example, who on Monday announced a dual-screen e-book reader built around Google's Android platform.

"This is the start of a whole new experience of reading content on e-books, potentially igniting a whole new industry in multimedia e-book publishing for secondary authors to create supplementary content that is hyper linked to the text," said Dr. Priscilla Lu, CEO of Spring Design. "We are bringing life to books with audio, video, and annotations. This gives readers the ability to fully leverage the resources on the Web, and the tools available in search engines to augment the reading experience."

Called 'Alex,' the new e-book readers sport a 6-inch e-ink EPD display on the top portion and a 3.5-inch color LCD on the bottom. Spring Design says Android has been optimized to support integration between the two displays to prolong battery life. But what exactly is the point of the color display?

Apparently Alex owners are able to capture and cache Web content on the color display and toggle to view it on the EPD screen without taxing the battery. Users can also create their own images and notes to augment the original text.

Spring Design says it is still talking with "major content partners" and hopes to release Alex into the wild by the end of the year.

One could argue that this has been almost a banner year for Linux, what with Vista failing to attract the kind of fanfare that continues to follow XP. And the maturity of Linux distributions is undeniable, particularly Ubuntu, which has managed to attract mainstream users like never before. But is the Linux community not putting forth enough effort?

That's essentially the argument Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols makes, the self-proclaimed "Cyber Cynic" over at ComputerWorld. Vaughn-Nichols on Wednesday posted an article detailing five ways in which Linux for the desktop shoots itself in the foot.

Number one on his list is a lack of vendor support. He points out that, outside of of Novell, no other Linux vendor has made any real attempt to make a business out of its desktop distro, including Canonical, who he argues is focused on making profits in the cloud and in the server market.

Other ways in which Vaughan-Nichols says Linux comes up short in promoting itself on the desktop is in a lack of advertising and marketing, creating an unfriendly atmosphere for new users because of "too much bad techie attitude,"  too much infighting, and still not enough developer support.

Catch the full article here, then hit the jump and tell us if you agree with his assessment.