I agree with you, although you have some sort of google account even if you haven't "joined" it.
Your interactions with google are associated with your computer and a google id. I still use google and facebook (although I resisted facebook for a while), but I wouldn't mind if they were both a little less big brother.
Here the first google privacy info I found: Search Privacy at Google

Great, with all these extra resources, they'll be able to get the linux ports like Quake Live done faster!
A win for everyone!

Seriously though, hopefully this turns out the way id planned, and the linux and open source stuff doesn't get canned.

If you act now and pay just $10 million more, you'll also get this giant tape player for free!

Are you saying professional chess players don't prepare for big matches by studying their opponent? (and their opponent's previous games)

I realize that players at that level probably mostly play from a memory of board states, but there are so many possibilities that knowing which ones to focus on let's you analyze the possibilities that are most likely. The unbeatable chess strategy you describe is for a computer with a ton of memory and a fast search capability, not for humans or human-like AI.

Back to the main topic, I think a self-learning system can be much more human-like and smarter, but if the task is simple or restricted enough (checkers, for example), learning may not be needed to win.

That makes sense, but don't forget that new/future things in real life are often "cool", too. Sure there are plenty of advances that are boring, but, for example, when people first got to drive cars, it was probably pretty interesting.

Cool science fiction ideas that are physically possible, may eventually happen.

That sort of makes sense, but I'm thinking they replaced Data because, like his replacement, the earlier robotic/child-like Data is much more interesting than grown up Data (or any android) who has emotions and acts pretty much human.

For wrist angle, just add another wiimote to your forearm. Now you can measure wrist angle (assuming the motion plus is accurate enough). Motion capture people do these kinds of things, but if there's a max of 4 wiimotes, you'll be limited to how much you can capture.
The other issues you mention are not so easily solved: force feedback, etc.

Shouldn't the intent of the law be written into every law? Obviously this could lead to problems with multiple interpretations, but the problems that arise with specifying a law's details without specifying its purpose are ridiculous.

Interview with Steve Mosher from Openmoko about current state of things (7 minute video):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d8Tsvj2TdQ

Sean Moss-Pultz's presentation at openexpo (30 minute video):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFuwhPXYxxI&NR=1

Head FreeSmartPhone developer, Mickey Lauer's take on things.
http://www.vanille-media.de/site/index.php/2009/04/04/back-from-switzerland/

LinuxDevices article: Openmoko: Next-gen phone bites the dust, FreeRunner lives.
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS8568412362.html

You're overreacting a little -- you don't need to know anything about X11, you just make a typical DisplayInit() or OpenWindow() call.

I know you're just making an example, but firefox is not an OS and besides, it's much easier to write an app for this phone than to write a firefox plugin. But, because the widget set isn't restricted, something like firefox can just be compiled for it (although lighter-weight browsers run faster).

Basically, pick a language you know and open a window. Here's a simple python example that actually draws an image on my phone:

import pygame, time pygame.init()
pygame.display.set_mode( (480,640) )
image = pygame.image.load("pic.png")
pygame.display.get_surface().blit(image, (5,5))
pygame.display.flip()
while 1: time.sleep(1)

It's just an illustration, but development is easy, although the graphics hardware is not that fast.

Picking a standard widget set? A standard look & feel? Sure, maybe they could have done that better, although they worked on it, but if you want to restrict people from ever changing the look of their buttons, etc., that's where Apple and the iphone development fits best (yes, I know it's very popular), not linux.

I'm not really sure what you're looking for, but it doesn't sound like you want an open source phone. It's a linux platform -- you can install whatever you want on it. Apple, Microsoft, and Google are happy to restrict what goes on their phones. And you don't really need to use X on openmoko devices -- if you prefer something else, you can still use Android, Qt, etc.

If you just said Openmoko should offer a standard look and widget set, I could agree. Openmoko had and still was developing their own UI look and feel, etc. but allowing only one widget set on a linux platform ignores lots of developers and applications. There are plenty of linux apps that can be cross-compiled and tweaked and plenty of open source developers who don't want to be forced to code using only your favorite UI widgets.

Software-wise, I'm putting my bets on the FSO (freesmartphone.org) framework and distributions that use it. This includes FSO's testing distro, SHR, debian, and what was going to be Om.2009 with paroli.

Om.2008 was never intended to be a long term solution. For me, Android has fewer programming language options and more hoops to jump through if I just want to write programs for my phone.

I agree with you that openmoko management should have focused more on a single phone stack instead of restarting too many times, but I disagree with your choices -- not Qt, just a standard phone API (like FSO), and X11 to allow flexibility for developers--which is what they where doing, but it seems like they may have underestimated the difficulty involved in creating a robust working phone.
Also, you seem to imply openmoko is not selling the hardware anymore -- they are still selling phones, but are postponing work on the next phone -- we'll have to see if they're able to develop new phones again later.

Ah ok. Sorry, I never really had the wsod problem. For me, the good thing is that the longer I have this phone the better it gets (as software is released and bugs are fixed), but this is only good if the phone basics are always working. I'm guessing the wsod problem sucks, but hopefully you'll be able to use it as a phone now if you want. Also, irc and the mailing lists are pretty helpful if you want to figure out which version works for others.

The battery is fine. The iphone only lasts 5 hours when running something, the openmoko developers version I have lasts 4 hours without suspending. If you suspend it when not in use (hit the power button), it can last a long time. Here's a log where the phone was mainly listening for calls with 70 hours standby time: http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/StandbyLifetime

There are certainly issues, but battery life isn't the main one. Actual issues include:
- some phones/networks experience a buzzing noise on phone calls that requires a hardware fix. One of these days the fix will be in the newly sold phones.
- It's not clear for new users which software stack to load. (i.e. FSO is good for stable phone use)