To be fair, Microsoft hasn’t come out and said that their goal is to have Windows 7 boot in 15 seconds. But they have said this: Windows 7, a top goal is to significantly increase the number of systems that experience very good boot times. In the lab, a very good system is one that boots in under 15 seconds.

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Google has signed a deal under which GeoEye will supply the search giant with imagery from a satellite due to launch in coming days, the companies said.

Under the deal, Google is the exclusive online mapping site that may use the imagery. Google uses satellite imagery in its Google Maps and Google Earth product.

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Google unveiled on Thursday its plans for a store where mobile users can find Android applications, a concept similar to the iPhone’s App Store.

The first handsets running Android, expected to appear later this year, will include a beta version of the Android Market, Google’s Eric Chu wrote in a blog post. Initially, users will at least be able to find free applications there. After that, Google expects to update the Market to allow users to buy and download paid content.

The Market will feature a feedback and rating system similar to that used in YouTube, Chu said.

Developers can add their applications to the market by registering as a merchant, uploading the content, and publishing it. Google expects to add features for developers after the initial launch, including a dashboard where developers can find analytics information about their content. Developers will also be able to upload different versions of their applications that might work better on different devices.

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PostPath is best known as a drop-in replacement for Microsoft Exchange. Unlike other would-be Exchange competitors Scalix and Lotus Domino/Notes, which use a Outlook-compatible Mail Application Programming Interface (MAPI) on the client PC, PostPath actually reverse-engineered Microsoft’s MAPI and Active Directory (AD) protocols. This means that, from the network and Windows PC’s viewpoint, PostPath actually appears to be an Exchange server.

While PostPath is the only Exchange challenger that has used reverse-engineering to challenge Microsoft, its approach may be adopted by other open source companies. When the European Commission forced Microsoft to open up the Common Internet File System (CIFS) and AD protocols, it also forced the company to open up the MAPI protocols.

An open source project called OpenChange is now working with Samba using this information to build open source implementations of Microsoft Exchange Server and Exchange protocols. No commercial open source business is currently following up on OpenChange’s efforts, though, according to Sarah Radicati, CEO of The Radicati Group.

Sharp is presenting an environmentally friendly way to watch television at this year’s IFA electronics show in Berlin.

The company says solar-panel and LCD (liquid crystal display) television technology is at the stage where a single panel can provide enough energy to power the TV for four and a half hours per day with no additional electricity required from the grid.

Sharp is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of solar panels for electricity generation and on its stand at IFA it’s showing a polycrystalline-type panel that is capable of generating 200kWh (kilowatt hours) per year of electricity. That corresponds to the same amount of energy used by its LC-52XS1E television, a 52-inch model that was introduced at IFA, if it’s used 4.5 hours per day, which is the average amount of time a Japanese household spends watching TV each day.

At IFA the TV and a solar panel were set up together on Sharp’s stand but were not actually connected. The lack of sunlight inside the exhibition hall meant it wasn’t something that could be demonstrated at the show, a Sharp spokesman said.

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Intel Corp. has acquired Opened Hand, a London-based company which specializes in mobile Linux development and services.

Opened Hand will focus on participating in the Moblin Software Platform community, which is developing a Linux software stack for Intel’s Atom processors. The software will be optimized for low-power Netbooks and “mobile Internet devices.”

“Opened Hand brings great expertise and technology in the area of user-interaction frameworks, improving Intel’s ability to address the unique challenges of enabling cutting edge UIs for these new class of devices,” a spokesperson for Intel told ZDNet.co.uk.

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