The fact of the matter is, most people have very obvious usage patterns that can be tracked across login sessions. In order to get useful information out of a transaction, the vendor doesn’t need to actually know your private details. If they know that “computer A” bought x, y, and z products, then they have a pretty good model of who the user of “computer A” is, even without having a name and address. Then the next time “computer A” logs in to do some shopping at their web site, the vendor can splash the appropriate ads across the screen. I think the real trick here is the ability to fund transactions without giving actual funding source information to the vendor. They will still know who you have as your credit card vendor of course, but at least they won’t be storing your card number on their server to have it stolen. And this is what the Microsoft technical information mostly talks about, but everything I have read on the web is talking about “privacy”, which seems like it will kill it for all the wrong reasons.

Basically the main complaints I have heard are “it’s not an iPhone” and “it’s not a laptop”. Yes, that is true. If you want to work at the corner coffee shop, you still need a laptop. If you want the internet anywhere, you still need an iPhone. However, if you want the internet in your living room, then this is for you. This is the real way to surf. You don’t need a keyboard to surf. You don’t need 3G access in your living room. You don’t need a camera or multi tasking or any of those things. You do need a pretty powerful CPU, which is provided. And if you are really spending some time on the net, instead of just looking something up, you need a big screen. Which the iPad has. This is the internet on your coffee table.

Will it kill the kindle? Perhaps, but that is not the point. Will it replace laptops? No, it is not a device to get work done on, though you can do a little if you need to. (The one exception to that might be giving slide presentations, but I really think that a laptop is still a better platform for that.) And finally, the iPhone is the perfect form factor for a phone, so I have no idea why people think that this would even try to replace that. The best review I saw called it the beginning of “casual computing”. That seems correct to me.

Long term, probably the most interesting sign of the future is actually the chip inside it. An independent retailer designing their own chip? I have no idea where that is going to lead.

So horribly wrongly wonderful.

We are getting a new overlay area code in the 773 (and surrounding) areas. This means that starting November 9th, we all need to dial 1 + area code + phone number for ALL phone calls, even if they are still in the same area code that your number is.

Suffice it to say, it is horrible. I mean I love technology, and in fact salivate over new operating systems, but the notion of having an operating system party just bothers me. And even worse, with those people. Fortunately “Windows 7″ was just code. With some minor modifications we know what the part is really about.

Oh my.

“What’s really powerful about blocks is that they enable you to wrap much more complex functions—as well as their arguments and data—in a way that can be easily passed around in a program, much as a variable can be easily referenced and passed.”

Sounds like a closure, no? Too cool. Anyone need a mac programmer?

Accountability. Trivial change lists. Trivial distribution. Rollback. Remote backup. Remove the fear of rapid development.

What am I forgetting?