Linux is very good (I have at least 6 devices that use it), and I don't have any fair complaints against it. However the fact remains that there ARE comparable kernels out there that android could make use of that would provide similar levels of performance. FreeBSD, for example. Or if google wanted to license a closed source kernel there would be a variety of options. I don't know why Linux was chosen for Android, but it's likely because it provides the best hardware support and was the easiest to build into such a system. Switching Linux out for FreeBSD wouldn't be like putting a chevette engine in a Ferrari, it would be like replacing a ford V8 with a chevy V8. It would be different underneath, and perhaps a hard swap to do, but not really noticeable if all the hardware works.

SkyDrive (formerly Windows Live Folders when it came out in August 2007) predates Google Drive by 5 years, Apples iCloud by 4 years and DropBox by a year. So how exactly is it a "me too" service?

I fucking hate Microsoft. That said. "SkyDrive" does not, in any sane persons thought processes infringe upon "BSkyB". British courts are insane.

it's amazing how people forget that the iphone wasn't at all the first smartphone and that it was a relatively small evolutionary step over something like the palm treo and not a revolutionary epiphany that they get credited with. almost everything that the iphone did, the palm treo could do - up to and including an app store. apple just did it slicker.

For Microsoft, Surface RT was a huge success. It sold much better than their previous offerings and reviews were great. People have also been quite happy using it. In that regard, Surface RT is a success, even though it didn't pass iPad on sales.

Hindsight is 20/20. Here are a few things Microsoft should have done:

• - Listen to users before releasing Win8, not wait until Win8.1 to start "listening"
• - Listen to users when market testing the first run of Surface ads, not wait until reviewers have panned the ads, the product, and the OS, and then start making decent ads
• - Listen to users before forcing UEFI Secure Boot (without an unlock), not wait until there is an uproar to say oops, change the Win8 logo requirements (desktop PCs escape armageddon... for now)
• - Listen to users before forcing always-on connected DRM with the new Xbox, not wait until there is an uproar then take some more things away from their platform
• - News flash! Listen to your shareholders! and get rid of Ballmer (ok, clearly there has not been a full scale shareholder revolt. yet.)
• - Listen to users who are jumping ship for Google and Apple, to see if a more humble Microsoft could win some of them back

Instead it's more of the same old Ballmer monkey tricks.

While I applaud the engineer's efforts, I wish his employer (Google), would spend a bit more of resources in making its maps aplication more functional [for me].

Here's my gripe, and I am not alone:

Why is it that there's no way to make routing avoid toll roads by default?

I have got a solution: I use Waze but worried that if Google's ambitions with it (Waze) go through, they may disable this feature.

You sometimes wonder why things so basic, take so long to implement. Why?

So true. To make any impact they have to offer a device that is much better (which I don't even think is possible considering the current state of iOS and Android), or much cheaper (and it's really hard/impossible to beat the low end android tablets).

What are you going to do about it?

But if you're going to pick a single language to be used by everyone for all purposes, then why pick something kludgy like JavaScript?

I remember 10 years ago I actually saw a retail boxed package of Red Hat Linux in a store in a small northern Wisconsin town, I thought it was funny.

To be fair, those TV's are probably all running Webkit. I still prefer Chrome over Internet Explorer, but IE 10 (the "Metro" version anyway) isn't a mind-numbingly terrible piece of software in comparison to the competition. It's good to know that, however ironic it may be, Microsoft, Mozilla, and Opera are all working opposite Google to keep the web away from just a different monoculture.

Wouldn't that be mainly due to Google's incumbancy?

Kids in school get used to Google, will use it at home. Potential for money for Google.

Kids in school get used to Bing, will use it at home. No potential money for Google.

Where's the money for Google? Microsoft can sell all kinds of stuff after using this as a promotional tool. Google can only sell ads, and I don't see them reacting to this until it's proven to have made an impact worth countering.