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Motorola is placing two new bets on the open-source Android operating system with the release of its Backflip and Devour smartphones. The uniquely designed Backflip began selling through AT&T Wireless late last week, and the Detour is now available from Verizon Wireless.

The 3G/Wi-Fi Backflip, at $99 after rebate and with a two-year contract, is gaining a lot of attention for its unique flip-out QWERTY keyboard, which AT&T has described as "an original reverse flip design."

Big Selling Point -- MOTOBLUR

Google might figuratively be doing a backflip Thursday with news that AT&T will, for the first time, offer a mobile device based on the software and search giant's open-source Android mobile operating system. Appropriately, the device is Motorola's Backflip smartphone.

The bickering between Apple and Adobe over why Apple's iPhone and its new iPad don't run Adobe's Flash software is giving me a headache.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs says Flash is buggy and accuses Adobe of being lazy. Kevin Lynch, Adobe's chief technology officer, denies that and accuses Apple of trying to control what iPhone and iPad users can do with their devices.

Jobs says Flash is on its way out. No way, says Lynch. Enough already. You guys are beginning to remind me of my kids. Can't you find some way to get along?

Google said Tuesday that it's harnessing HTML5 to deliver Google Voice to Palm webOS and iPhone OS 3.0 and higher smartphones. As the next major revision to the web's core hypertext markup language, HTML5 introduces a number of new elements and attributes that let developers construct powerful new services with the look and feel of stand-alone mobile apps.

Google said Tuesday that it's harnessing HTML5 to deliver Google Voice to Palm webOS and iPhone OS 3.0 and higher smartphones. As the next major revision to the web's core hypertext markup language, HTML5 introduces a number of new elements and attributes that let developers construct powerful new services with the look and feel of stand-alone mobile apps.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the Internet Explorer browser waters, a new threat has emerged despite Microsoft's speedy out-of-band security patch. Symantec has confirmed a new exploit for the security hole used in the recent high-profile attacks against Google and other companies. The new exploit is in the wild and IT administrators who haven't applied Thursday's emergency patch are at risk.

The new threat is not the same Trojan.Hydraq malware that was used in the recent attacks against Google.

Despite the buzz around Google's Nexus One smartphone, other Android device makers are working to rise above the noise at this week's Consumer Electronics Show. Motorola's latest Android smartphone is the Backflip, but analysts aren't too sure the market will do cartwheels over the device, especially in the wake of Google's big announcement.

Google's computer operating system, due to be released next year, may rank among software most targeted by hackers in 2010, according to a Dec. 29 report from the computer security company McAfee.

The Web-based operating system, dubbed Chrome, relies on a technology known as HTML 5 that's designed to help Web applications behave like PC software. Developers use HTML 5 language to ensure that software delivers fast response times and stores information that users can access even when they're not connected to the Internet.

In his famous experiment, Alan Turing pictured so

by Richard Eskow