To be fair, they stay behind and backport security fixes for compatibility reasons - mainly enterprise apps that want to ensure they are not going to introduce any breaking changes while staying secure. Their customer isn't the day to day user that wants the latest and greatest.

Many people plug in their tv because it has apps (netflix, amazon, youtube, weather, etc). Pretty simple really.

While I don't like the decision to remove the app from the store, and hope google clarifies the reasoning (at least to the publisher) it's not the end of the world for most Android devices since they can install the app manually. Neither iOS or Windows 7 Mobile allow for this as far as I know. And yes, some android devices don't either (mostly at&t phones) but, for now, they are the exception to the rule.

I thought it was funny without making fun of the protesters or anyone involved. It's clear they weren't being serious....why so uptight planet earth?

World record for speed texting was done using an android device with swype, I believe.

It depends on where you work. Smaller shops tend to be pretty lax on what you do with your personal time. Bigger companies are iffier.

Most people I know that work in IT smoke egregious amounts of pot.

I love my Droid and haven't found a phone that I would upgrade to yet. However, if the next generation of android phones have locked bootloaders and terrible custom-ui's I see no difference between iOS and Android, even if the source is released. Source means nothing if you can't actually use it.

Google has some options to alleviate this though. For one, they could force the vendors to allow users to disable these 3rd party interfaces and leave the bootloader relatively unlocked. These companies shouldn't have to deal with us overclocking and burning out our CPU's and expecting warranty support, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be able to do it if we choose to. It's a very similar argument to 'owning' your software vs licensing it.

Yea, people fail to recognize that they're both great systems.

The only problem is, many vendors are making it increasingly hard to replace the ROM on your phone. Motorola has their locked bootloader, the G2 has the auto-unroot 'protection.' If google doesn't release a new dev. device our homebrew options for android will gradually fade away, I fear.

For the most part he is wrong. However, multiple markets for android will make things messy. Unfortunately, Google needs to clean up the existing market a lot. Google has a good thing going for it, I just hope they don't let the vendors steamroll them into making android a wildlife preserve. I had a friend come to me last week with their brand new fascinate and beg me to remove Bing from it. Took me about an hour and lots of messy hacks, but it was done and google was added.

Damn, you caught my subtle ruse. I'll have to be careful around you.

I thought 2011 was going to be the year of Linux on the desktop?

I know it's really hard to click a link, so I'll provide the relevant part for you:
Parents can pay for the computers upfront or lease them from the district, with the option to buy after three years. The payments should work out to about $20 to $25 per month, Hayes said. The cost also includes free tech support. "We realize for some families that will be a stretch," he said. In those cases, the district will provide financial assistance. Students who don't participate will be able to borrow a school-provided laptop during the day, but they won't be able to take it home, Hayes said.