Yesterday, Mozilla announced that Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 was available for download (obviously, only download this if you’re comfortable with software that might not work). ZDNET reports it brings with it a whole new raft of features and improvements.

Russian confidence tricksters are manufacturing iPhone clones that run long enough to convince someone to part with their money.

Russian news site Cifrovik reports conmen are equipping an iPhone shell with a backlit panel and some electronics that light up long enough to show the Apple logo. This can be enough to convince someone it’s a working iPhone with a dead battery.

Colligo Networks Inc. announced the release of Colligo Workgroup Edition 5.0 and Colligo Workgroup for Lotus Notes 5.0, its ‘server free’ ad-hoc networking and database replication software products. Version 5.0 offers reliable peer-to-peer collaboration and IBM Lotus Notes replication technology.

Resco, a supplier of advanced developer components and tools for mobile devices, announced release of MobileForms Toolkit 2008 Volume 3. The new version of this suite of Visual Studio components designed specifically for mobile devices will be released on October 27, 2008. The main improvements in Resco MobileForms Toolkit 2008 Volume 3 are in the area of data input into the mobile devices with touch screen.

One of the most anticipated games of 2008 was Stars Wars: The Force Unleashed from LucasArts. In it, the player takes on the role of Darth Vader’s secret apprentice in an effort to hunt down remaining Jedi, carrying out secret missions of espionage and destruction on behalf of the Dark Lord. Resurrecting our WE GOT GAME! column, Editor-at-Large James Booth takes his Force powers with me wherever he goes with a hands-on look at the PSP version of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

Read this Computing Unplugged article.

The new Blackberry Pearl Flip adds WiFi calling and browsing, a 2 megapixel camera, and a brighter 240 x 320 screen.

SYWARE, Inc. has announced the Fall 2008 Visual CE and Associated Tools training courses. Visual CE is a rapid application development tool used to create database applications to run on Microsoft Windows Mobile Pocket PCs.

Okay – this isn’t serious, only fun. Of course, you could use the result to see if anyone pays attention to your presentations. SCIgen generates random Computer Science research papers using hand-written context-free grammar.

In what can only be described as the most casual of Microsoft Windows naming announcements ever, the next version will be called Windows 7.

BrushVideo.com’s free service lets people edit their own videos online. After editing their videos, users can upload it to YouTube or use it on a web page.