I can. Ok, I admit that there is a Debian layer in between. But still, running a Debian chroot in Android is easy because Android is Linux based. I never really liked Maemo back in the days when I used Nokia Internet Tablets. There were just too many system parts closed and therefore alternative distributions never really took off. I don't really know about Meego but I would assume that the situation is similar. For Android on the other hand there are already several alternative mods, Cyanogen being the most popular one. Some drivers at the bottom layer are closed but I can live with that.

Maybe Google has outsourced the voice recognition to India so that it is really some Indian guy in a voice recognition center who is processing your voice. Might be less expensive than developing a reliable machine voice recognition. Note that I am not serious.

Thanks for skrewing up my day. Now I will feel old until the next punchcard story.

I don't think such a technology would be very popular in the foreseeable future. I mean would you want an implant in your brain that will be outdated after a couple of years? Not to speak of risks that every surgical operation has. Today 5 of 100000 die simply of the general anaesthesia of a surgery. I would imagine that for brain surgeries the mortality rate is even higher.

For treatment of patients with severe disorders such technologies make a lot of sense. But just mental enhancement? I wouldn't want it. But then again I am not using ritalin...

This is strange. A news article in Germany http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/web/0,1518,709769,00.html (german) which refers to Net Applications statistics states that it is actually the other way around. Though this seems to be the world wide statistic.

That is not an unlikely scenario. If your right hand or arm is cut off you will want to call 911 and all that is left is your left hand...

It is scary that Google doen't provide an opt out option in the Market app. But there is a way out, at least if the Cyanogen mod is available for your phone: Install the Cyanogen mod without the proprietary Google bits (incudes Market app, Gmail app, text-to-speech etc). I just checked it. The vending apk that is responsible for the OTA removal/install functionality (according to http://jon.oberheide.org/blog/2010/06/25/remote-kill-and-install-on-google-android/) is not running on my N1. I get along pretty well without the Market. You can install your apps directly from some download site or you can install apktor which allows you to access public repositories.

Totally agreed, Apple didn't invent the touch screen smart phone. As I understood it the parent referred to the form factor and capacitive touch for which you don't need a pen.

An iPhone like design was inevitable. You need a big screen to display nice visuals and video. Controlling by touch is a natural extension for a device that is "all screen". Apple just put enough money into it to be ahead of its competitors in 2007.