IPad (and others) allow you to switch to white text on a black background. For book reading indoors, I find that more comfortable.

From the Google blog:

You may notice that at the moment we include a limited number of U.S. cities and show results for round-trip economy-class flights only.

Yes, MS can get Samsung or some other vendor to put some hardware together for them, and throw a copy of the Windows 7 phone OS on it, but that's not really a product. You're going to need the set of applications (Kindle, etc.) that make a tablet interesting and some form of integration as well. Some of them may exist for the phone already, but unless they're optimized for the table screen, the user experience will really suck.

Apple has a service that allows you to find a lost or stolen iPhone. Presumably, the phone logs its position so it can upload it when asked. Nothing scary here, though the fact this data is available means people will try and extract it. My guess is that the next iOS release will wipe this data every seven days or so.

That story doesn't leave much to go on, it's pretty low information content. However, it should be noted that a vintage wine can contain up to 15% of its grapes from another year. That would obviously skew any carbon dating results.

That's not an unreasonable point of view, however, there's a "truth in advertising" issue going on. If Amazon said, "We'll sell you this book as a physical object for $X or rent it to you for $Y" there would be little argument about the issue. However, that's not what they're doing. They are claiming to sell you the ebook. But if you buy an ereader that's better than theirs, you can't take the book with you. If they decide you don't deserve the book (the 1984 fiasco), they can take it away without due process.

So if Amazon wants to get into the book renting business, more power to them. But that's not what they're claiming to do now.

It's not clear the constitution protects. All the protections enumerated in the Bill of Rights are granted to individuals.

Not overkill at all. I have an iPhone 3G and the browsing experience is passable. Using the NexusOne was like using a desktop computer almost. The web pages snapped right on screen. If I didn't have so many iPhone apps I like, I'd switch in a heartbeat.

like Stagecast Creator.

I don't think the competition between Google and Apple is the issue here, but the point about telcos as commodities seems spot on. Apple could sell unlocked phones just as easily as Google, there have been rumors about a Verizon iPhone for months. Also, having the telcos as commodities doesn't hurt Apple's ability to be an "experience company." Apple's machines plug into the same internet, the same power grid, the same USB connectors, etc. as all the rest. The way Apple controls the experience is buy selling both the hardware and the software together.