Monthly Archive for April, 2008

From MSNBC:

I don’t have kids. But I’m still enough of one inside that I get a certain amount of glee from seeing what’s out there for today’s generation. That, and I tend to spoil my friends’ kids silly, but so far it’s been real young kid/toddler stuff. I’m ready to step it up.

When I was a little one, there was no baby laptop, no cutesy MP3 player, no big-button, child-friendly play cell phone. Is it me, or does it seem like some toys encourage kids to prep for adulthood way too soon?

From the New York Times:

Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive and field general, has Napoleonic dreams of global conquest for his 10-month-old wonder gadget, the iPhone. So it may be fitting that he’s encountering his most serious resistance in a city called Waterloo.

That is where, 70 miles west of Toronto in Ontario, 19 nondescript, low-rise office buildings comprise the headquarters of Research In Motion, maker of the BlackBerry.

R.I.M. is the North American leader in building smartphones, those versatile handsets that operate more like computers than phones. But R.I.M. may have trouble dominating the market’s next phase. Once the exclusive domain of e-mail-obsessed professionals, smartphones are now prized by consumers who want easy access to the Web, digital music and video even more than an omnipresent connection to their in-boxes.

Since the iPhone went on sale last summer, amid long lines of shoppers and media adulation, the contours of the smartphone market have begun to shift rapidly toward consumers.

From the New York Times:

Who says cellphones are good only for talking? Today they are bringing together two unlikely brand names: Nokia and Spike Lee.

Mr. Lee, the director, is teaming up with Nokia, the cellphone maker, to direct a short film comprising YouTube-style videos created by teenagers and adults using their mobile phones.

From CNet News:

For years, Microsoft has maintained that the PC is the center of the digital home and office.

But Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie said Tuesday that it’s time for the company to acknowledge a new reality.

“Over the past 10 years, the PC era has given way to an era in which the Web is at the center of our experiences–experiences delivered not just through the browser but also through many different devices including PCs, phones, media players, game consoles, set-top boxes and televisions, cars, and more,” Ozzie said in a memo to be sent to employees on Wednesday.