While we're at it, I want to share an insight that I have in regards to iPhone and Palm Pre. They are both a hardware, running a proprietary OS developed by a company - in their case all of them by just one - and their OS is way too integrated to the hardware. I believe this is both the strongest and the weakest point of  both of these devices and ultimately will lead to their demise. However "amazing" the iPhone seems to be, it is just groundbreakingly different and being a classic Apple product, it works seamlessly on its own platform.

Palm Pre is sort of a dead on arrival product in my view - it's more of the same thing. It looks cool, and I am sure it will perform well too. But this is a different world now. We want more and we will get more. A good OS on a wider supported hardware will out-perform and out-do both iPhone and Pre in the medium to long term. It's OK for Apple to lose market share or whatnot, but Palm, come on guys, wake up and smell the roses.

Next year will be Android's. If Microsoft cannot get its act together and create something that is actually designed for the average Joe Android will kick some serious butt. Building an OS for the phone hardware is the way to go, and since all phone hardwares differ tremendously, MS's closed circuit development mentality is doomed to fail unless they come up with an immense product support developer group that will keep hardware manufacturers' problems at bay. Using the mobile device with a stylus is so 20th century. Android, on the other hand, is trying to achieve just that. Build an OS with robust kernel, let it be open, don't expect to make any money out of it and let the world rock. Since they have millions of dollars to spend on public service, they will hire a gazillion developers to support the OS and keep the customers (ahem, users) happy.

So, pick up an Android phone and start developing. Don't expect to sell your product though, but I am sure uncle Google will subsidize your expenses and compensate for your losses.

Microsoft, please, please get out of that isolated Seattle haven and enter the world of lame users, who need flashy, cool looking, finger poking, 21st century gadgets. That scroll bar looks hideous, the buttons are disgusting and frankly, I cannot type anything on that on-screen keyboard. Bring back the magic, or you are history dude.

Apple, the evil empire. Well, keep on doing what you are doing. You have your obedient, happy customers to buy whatever you produce. As long as they look cool, the price is of no concern for them - apparently. You can strike exclusive deals all you want. Someday that empire will come crumbling down, because, well, it's an empire. You are as good as your emperor.

Goody

All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome.

Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.

All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.

Mankind is not likely to salvage civilization unless he can evolve a system of good and evil which is independent of heaven and hell.

Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them.

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.

We may find in the long run that tinned food is a deadlier weapon than the machine-gun.

We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.

What can you do against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself, who gives your arguments a fair hearing and then simply persists in his lunacy?

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

- George Orwell (1903-1950)

The foresight that Orwell had, alongside Ray Bradbury never fails to astonish me. These man made pinpoint accurate predictions, observations from half a century ago about today. Just read Fahrenheit 451 with a little bit of interest and you will see what I mean.