Joe Camel? Newly arrived from the 80's? Actually, he's just making a guest appearance today here in the west. He lives and works full time in South Korea, where they have an epidemic smoking problem, resulting in thousands of deaths a year. Probably he moonlights in India and China as well.

So I wonder how much his company paid LG for this product placement?

"want be" = won't be. Freudian slip.

While I agree with the general thrust of the author's arguments, I do think he is missing the salient point of the Google announcement, which is this: Google OS isn't about the constraints of our current infrastructure and devices and our ways of using them; it isn't about the current capabilities, even in concept, of a cloud-centric OS; and it definitely isn't about what to some might look like a "weird" hybrid of the PC and cellphone (although that hybrid will very likely come, Google notwithstanding). Google OS in its current form is a proof-of-concept and a shot across the bow of the current model of distributed computing; its the seed that's intended to supplant, virally, the PC itself, in favor of the collaborative, networked, client-server model foreseen by Douglas Englebart, but with this difference: Google will be the network.

If the operating system is essentially a Google browser and apps are services resident in the cloud; and if the Web is indexed by Google and contained in its entirety on Google servers; then Google will have succeeded in making itself not merely the portal to the Web, but the Web itself; and, indeed, the singular computer, thus giving new and real meaning to the term "singularity."

It may take awhile to get there, but at some point we'll be on our way and there want be any going back. You can crack your skull thinking about this one but that doesn't make the possibility of it any less real.

Will internet connectivity be so constant and ubiquitous and secure that you'll feel comfortable relying on it to connect you with your life? Sure, but imagine being suddenly cut off from everything that makes you you -- wouldn't that possibility, real or imagined, give some company or some government a bit too much coercive capability? I mean, it's not like they don't already have enough, and we're nowhere near there yet. I think I'll keep me and my productivity on this side of the cloud as much as possible for as long as possible, thank you very much.

Will internet connectivity be so constant and ubiquitous and secure that you'll feel comfortable relying on it to connect you with your life? Sure, but imagine being suddenly cut off from everything that makes you you -- wouldn't that possibility, real or imagined, give some company or some government a bit too much coercive capability? I mean, it's not like they don't already have enough, and we're nowhere near there yet. I think I'll keep me and my productivity on this side of the cloud as much as possible for as long as possible, thank you very much.

Hey Mr. Balmer: something's coming to GET you!

"I can´t understand such a hostility against Nokia... It remains the biggest mobile phone manufacture in the world and the most innovative with such a wide portfolio."

There is such hostility against Nokia precisely because they ARE the biggest in the world, and with the widest portfolio; they practically created, and thereby OWNED, the smartphone space, and it was theirs to drive as they wished. Based on what they've done recently, and continue to do, you could hardly call them the most innovative, unless you mean innovating ways to lose market share and get left behind.

The best Nokia handsets are always top-of-the-line as phones, but as handheld computers they inevitably leave a great deal lacking. Nokia insists (if anything too loudly) on referring to their smartphones only as handheld computers, but insistence alone doesn't make it so. Each $600 handset generates tons of interest, excitement, and pre-sales; only to have its shortcomings as a computer revealed in use. Nokia then responds to this by creating yet another $600 handset, half-baked despite its expense, and the cycle repeats. Meanwhile the PC Suite is a confused mishmash of mismatched offerings that serve no purpose better than showing what kind of siloed thinking it is that must prevail at Nokia headquarters. The company doesn't seem to get software, nor its integration with hardware. It doesn't seem to get services. It doesn't seem to get people's desire to buy something that works as advertised, and that can be upgraded in future.

What company does seem to get the handheld computer side of things, software and services and their integration with hardware, ease of use and value and upgradeability? I don't have to tell you, you know who it is.

"saying things are different for the Kindle raises some interesting questions about what Amazon thinks 'ownership' means."

Not sure about Amazon, but here's what it means to me: no Kindle, no problem.

You could be forgiven for thinking that Nokia has lost the plot. Truth is, though, they never really had it; they just had the only game in town for awhile. Now that's no longer the case, and Nokia needs to rearrange itself. Maybe they need to ask, What Would Apple Do?

I haven't seen the N97, but the comments I've heard make it sound like my recently departed N95: Under baked and with an awkward interface. And the Ovi store? OMG, give me a break. It's a joke.

I know Nokia has millions tied up in Symbian, but they might want to consider cutting their losses at this point. The OS is difficult to write for and not really suited to more robust devices. Too 2004, in other words.

Do something around Linux, maybe, and make a device that is the best it can be, then keep improving it. Anything less will be too little. And frankly, it may already be too late. If you don't believe me, ask the folks at Palm.

Maybe it stands for eX-leaders (as in "former") of market. Or eX-clever. . . .