The KDE open source project has released version 4.7 of its KDE Software Compilation (SC) suite debuting support for the new Telepathy unified communications infrastructure and a new level of user experience, according to its developers.

Nokia’s decision to use Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system in its future smartphone devices hasn’t stopped the MeeGo open source project from continuing its development with version 1.2 released today sporting app and telephony updates.

New open source projects have been launched by KDE developers aimed at bringing a consistent user interface across a varied of touch screen interfaces like tablets and entertainment devices and take data integration to a new level.

In the lead up to the next major release of its flagship Web browser, Firefox, Mozilla Corporation is now releasing public builds of Firefox 4 beta compiled with Nokia's Qt environment in addition to the incumbent GTK+.

Less than a week after the MeeGo 1.0 netbook operating system was released by Intel and Nokia, six companies have announced support for the platform while a market analyst firm has called for a "major investment" if it is to compete with Apple, Google and Microsoft.

The final release of KDE 4.4 is due in early 2010, and not since the arrival of KDE 4.0 two years ago has an open source desktop environment been so highly anticipated by the free desktop community. Unlike the anti-climax that was the first KDE 4 release, however, KDE 4.4's developers say this new version will actually deliver on many of the original promises of this next-generation desktop environment -- and then some.