Ben Kunz posted an article on the Business Week website where he details what he calls the “splinternet.” Basically, all the mobile devices that are flooding the market each have their own applications that are not real compatible with other devices.  Kunz mentions the iPod and the Droid phone along with Amazon’s Kindle reader.  Wouldn’t it be nice if we could have one device that would work in conjunction with other operating systems.  I love technology, but we as consumers need to start figuring out what we want and what we will tolerate.  Do you want to have 5 different devices just so you can take advantage of the internet?

That’s right, hope you didn’t have your hopes too high. Of course there is no explanation as to the reason for the delay, and to give Apple the benefit of the doubt, when they unveiled the iPad, they announced a release date of late March, so their not too delayed. You will be able to place orders online starting March 12, and I have to be honest, the more I follow this new technology, the more curious I am about it’s applicability. I love to read and having almost any book at my disposal in this slim device is intriguing.

he really said that?

Mark Cuban, as a guest contributor to MSNBC, has written an article concerning an upcoming merger between Comcast and NBC Universal. The question originally comes from Al Franken who wants the merger to include offering all of their TV shows over the internet. Mr. Cuban explains, in some not so subtle ways, why doing this would actually hurt consumers.

I have found Mark Cuban to be the type of entrepreneur who compensates for his lack of finesse with a huge amount of ego, he’s second only to Donald Trump. But here he makes some really good points; he seems to understand the situation.

Beware the sudden relationship status chages in Facebook.

This just in from MSNBC, it appears that digital dumping is on the rise. If you are dating someone and your sweetheart is a Facebook friend and their relationship status changes to single, chances are you have been dumped. Hopefully you get more of a warning, but there are some out there who are changing their realtionship status and that’s it. That’s cold. I don’t mean to go Dr. Phil on anyone here, but if you plan to end a relationship, respect the other person and do the honorable thing by doing it face to face or voice to voice.

MSNBC has an interesting story concerning long-distance romances and relationships. Before the internet, long distance relationships lived and died by the phone and written letters. Now, there’s instant messaging services, Facebook, or Second Life among other methods for fanning the long distance flames. I have to wonder how this will affect the quality of relationships. Now, before you start calling me one of those “Back in my day” curmudgeons, think about this. When you have to guage your contact with the cost of a phone call or you wait in agony for the next letter from your sweetheart to arrive, when you finally connect, the feeling is much stronger. Flirting over the phone or in a risque love letter increases your desire to be with that person. And when you do arrange to see each other, each moment is special, whether you’re taking a walk or just sitting on a park bench. Carrying on a long-distance relationship via the internet removes some of that. You don’t get a chance to miss that person, or even learn whether that person is right for you. Maybe I am a “back in my day” curmudgeon, but I wouldn’t have lived my dating years any other way.

Rather than trouble you with recapping the iPad presentation, I figured I’d let you take a look at Steve Jobs’ initial announcement from Wednesday. A couple of things: I love the idea of searching the web on computer that responds to touch without having to hunch over to see the screen, and I like the ability to flip the iPad sideways to engage a different view, but what has me concerned is their decision to remain with AT&T. AT&T, despite the commercials you see, does not have the best 3G coverage. Oh they cover a lot of the country, but the 3G network is extremely spotty. Why would Apple continue to do business exclusively with AT&T? Oh well.

Hillary Clinton has called China and other countries out for their restrictions on internet access. Citing freedom of speech, she states that people should have the right to browse the internet freely without fear of censorship from their government. To that I say, “Preach on, Clinton.”

I almost want to just leave the title with no text. Seriously, what do you say to this? Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, arguably the richest man in the solar system, philanthropist extraordinaire, is on Twitter.

Personally, I’ve never understood the value of personal twitters, corporate twitter accounts are great for promotions. Personal twitter accounts just seem like an opportunity to engage in more vain behavior.

Google is getting set to remove itself from China after learning of hackers attacking human rights activists into revealing e-mail accounts. This comes after Google has said in the past they would obey Chinese law concerning censorship of certain soci-political issues appearing on search results.

I appluad Google for taking this stand, even though this will probably strain Chinese-US relations.

I got this story from MSNBC.

It looks like Google is about to become more involved in the wireless market.  Behold the Nexus One.

Google is releasing this phone along with a vision statement of how to market it.  We’ve seen what Google has done to the internet with its search engine, so their plans for the cell phone should be very interesting.

Read the whole article here.