You do mean merchandising, right? Because there aren't any ads on that page.

Google has never claimed to be wholly open. I mean, look at Honeycomb: its sources aren't even released yet. Still, what's there is better than any other mobile contender (and I do mean contender. Meego doesn't count yet).

Modal computing is not the future. It isn't even a step in the right direction. I own a tablet in addition to a laptop, but I hardly ever use it for anything outside of web browsing. Why? I don't like being restricted to a single task onscreen at a time. We left that behind in the 80's. I didn't get a 1080P screen so…

These are alternatives, true, but all of the companies you listed off are frankly tiny compared to their "gang of four" competition. Not to mention, Ebay seems to be stagnating compared to Amazon, who has moved into business well beyond online sales. As for Bing... yeah, no.

I own a Xoom, and I find that reading websites and PDF pages in portrait mode is actually quite pleasent. I'm not sure why everyone rags on it so much.

Remember, it's not just music, it's SOCIAL music.

Android users left out in the tether-less cold can always install Cyanogenmod or other stock Android-based ROMs to take advantage of built-in tether. This method also has the advantage of being much, much harder to block. Enjoy.

While it is true that Java can be very inefficient, it also does the best job at true platform-independence I've seen. It is certainly possible to develop portable applications that will run faster in c++, you are still stuck manually building your app for every platform you want to support. If performance and a…

Basing your opinion on smartphones based on someone's store display prank seems skewed, at best. You would probably find yourself better off at least trying out a working Android phone before jumping onto the iOS bandwagon.

With Android 2 I agree that this is a significant issue, but Android Honeycomb apps written natively look both native and awesome in their own right (example here). The problem will likely be mitigated if not resolved completely when the release of Ice Cream bring's Honeycomb's UI improvements to the smartphone level.

That and an optimized UI. I've tried using an Android Honeycomb and a Windows 7 10" side-by-side, and while the Windows tablet could certainly run more productivity apps, it was exceedingly annoying to have to tap ten times to get at the tiny buttons. A tradeoff, I suppose, though in the end I doubt I would buy a…

Google's philosophy has long been "do not interfere," even if other companies are offering direct competitors to the Market's functionality. I sincerely hope Amazon's appstore crashes and burns, since all it's doing is adding unnecessary avenues for app downloading, but we shall see how it turns out.

Carrying one of these around with a laptop as a secondary display might be an interesting solution. Might even fit in the average laptop case, too.

tl;dr: this is not a review, this is drool. If this is you're idea of a useful gadget recommendation, get off the site.

First, some perspective. I write this after returning from Best buy having used both the iPad 2 and the Xoom.

Part of that is using HTC's own browser versus the stock android one. When you get a chance, install Cyanogenmod; it'll run much faster and actually get updates.

Antennagate really didn't seem like a huge issue to me; it felt more like the media was blowing it beyond proportion when the vast majority of phones do the same thing (this coming from an Android owner btw). This, however, is ridiculous. There is no excuse for Apple not testing their DST correction software after the…

Called it. As the seasons turn, so will iOS alarms break. Again and again. Kind of makes you wonder why Apple didn't bother to test their alarms for DST after like the tenth time it happened.

I generally accomplish this sort of behavior via Screen. It's amazingly convenient for any terminal multitasking, including manpage-reading. Plus you get persistent terminals in cases such as SSH, always a plus.

I've brought several machines back from the dead using Linux, both in terms of LiveCD fixes and in giving new speed. I only ever boot into Windows to game, and that's rare now as well.