Discussed in the documentation, but this is Slashdot, so nobody will read that.

No. This is not HTTP server push. Has nothing to do with HTTP server push. Has nothing to do with Web Slices, either. This is more like dynamically assigned micro-mailboxes for message passing. Read the docs.

The graph is crap. Note the lack of any explanation of methodology -- or even a clear explanation what's actually being measured.

Actual measured usage of the Web by mobile devices (i.e., phones and not including tablets) puts Android collectively slightly ahead of the iPhone. Rim has fallen to about 4-5% and everybody else is not worth talking about. The reason Blackberry scores so low is that most Blackberry devices suck at Web browsing. They're still very good email tools and that's what they're used for in corporate settings.

If you include tablets -- which typically are used in lieu of laptops or desktops -- then iOS takes about 60 percent and Android between 30 and 35 on the mainstream, non-geek sites that I measure.

As for the heaviest users of smartphones -- it's not geeks, but rather teenage girls. They're spending most of their time in the Facebook app and not even showing up as Web users.

I have access to a great deal of actual and current mobile usage data, and this is just completely at odds with reality. "Feature phone" owners in the United States typically do not have data plans and do not use the Internet.

Actual measured usage of mobile Web services by "feature phones" is slightly above that of Windows Mobile, which is to say "irrelevant noise at the bottom of the chart" in the range of 1 to 2 percent.

Grandpa's Jitterbug may in fact run J2ME, but Grandpa doesn't use it.

From http://source.android.com/faqs.html#what-kind-of-open-source-project-is-android

Why did we open the Android source code?

Google started the Android project in response to our own experiences launching mobile apps. We wanted to make sure that there would always be an open platform available for carriers, OEMs, and developers to use to make their innovative ideas a reality. We also wanted to make sure that there was no central point of failure, so that no single industry player could restrict or control the innovations of any other. The single most important goal of the Android Open-Source Project (AOSP) is to make sure that the open-source Android software is implemented as widely and compatibly as possible, to everyone's benefit.

"No central point of failure, so that no single industry player could could restrict or control the innovations of any other."

Seems pretty clear.

You made a mistake relying on bad reviews written by morons. I've looked at a lot of them. They're mostly immature Apple fanbois trashing the competition and/or ignorant "tech journalists" who are cutting and pasting other peoples' reviews. 90% of what you see on tech blogs is pure plagiarism with a lame excuse link buried at the bottom.

The truth is that the Kindle Fire is a really pleasant device, a great bargain, well-supported by Amazon (three OS updates so far) and with the 6.2.1 OS, quite snappy.

I have a Fire, and my daughter has the Nook Color. In terms of performance, responsiveness and usability, the Kindle is head and shoulders above the Color (which is last year's model). A much faster dual-core CPU is the biggest reason, but the display is also much brighter. The Nook Tablet, which is about $50 more, is arguably better hardware, but it's more limited on the media and software side. Both support Netflix. The Fire has more apps and the Amazon music and video, which is important if you are a Prime member but maybe not all that big a deal otherwise. The Fire lacks SD card support and has no microphone like the Nook Tablet.

For books, the Nook Android software is easily obtained and sideloaded on the Kindle Fire without rooting, so you have a choice. I'm not so sure that can be done the other way around.

The Kindle Fire 6.2.1 upgrade wipes and reconfigures the Android /system partition. This is an easy way to do the upgrade, but if you rooted your Fire in order to install the Google app framework, you'll suddenly discover that calendar and contact sync has gone away. Most of the other Google software works without requiring rooting, and it's simple to pull a backup off your Android phone that can be installed on the Kindle Fire.

The culprit here isn't Amazon, but rather Google, which is responsible for making its apps unavailable on the KF platform and for requiring that its application components be installed on the system partition. The only way to make the system partition writeable is to root the device.

There are some parts of the Fire UI that needed some work; the carousel in particular was jerky and not always responsive. That's fixed in 6.2.1. I also see reports that the Kindle Fire doesn't like flaky, crappy wifi routers (and there are a LOT of crap routers out there). I don't know how much of that might be fixed in the upgrade. My routers all work fine.

GetJar.com. Not nearly as complete as Google Market but it does have some good stuff.

I rooted my KF to install the Google services -- not sure why they need to go on the system partition, but there you go.

Amazon really needs to either deal with Google, or provide proper support for calendar and contact sync.

Programming languages don't create programming messes. People do.

You don't need to jailbreak a Kindle Fire to replace the launcher. You can sideload an alternative launcher and set it as the default without root access.

Honestly? The only reason for a "visible" operating system is local storage, mostly of photos, and "edge case" applications that have not yet been implemented as web apps. As for which is best ... Windows can die in a fire, OS X is bouncy happy joyful brain-dead moonbeam cultware, and both Unity and Gnome 3 are headed straight for hell.

I want operating systems to just leave me alone. Stop annoying me. Stop moving my stuff without my permission. Stop demanding that I upgrade and reboot. Stop messing with the menu that I customized just because some designer says so. Stop breaking things that work, Ubuntu. LEAVE ME ALONE.

I spend almost all my time in a Web browser -- specifically, Chrome. Pretty much everything I do daily is already better on the Web.

I should be running ChromeOS. I can't bring myself to switch to a Chromebook, but not for rational reasons. If you believed the arguments people raise against the Chromebook, you'd think we all lived half our lifetimes in airplanes that don't have wi-fi. You know what I do when I get in an airplane? I put in my headphones and close my eyes.