Hugh Molotsi

Read this scathing review .

I wonder if the folks at Apple saw this coming. BlackBerry is now touting their upcoming iPhone competitor, the BlackBerry Storm . The innovation which I guess has to be seen to be believed is a touch screen with tactile feel. Having tried typing on an iPhone, this is the biggest drawback of what is an otherwise fantastic device. Meanwhile, there's been strong demand for the first Android phone, the G1, manufactured by HTC and offered by T-Mobile. TMobile is tripling production and expects to sell over 500,000 by year end. I'm surprised because the G1 feature set is underwhelming to me and the design a little stodgy. But it does demonstrate the appeal of open designs and the power of the Google brand. I wonder if there's anyone out there still buying plain cell phones anymore?

In a few weeks, we should get a first glimpse at Google's foray into mobile space: the Android OS for mobile devices. Taiwanese handset manufacturer HTC is set to introduce an Android device that will be offered by TMobile . What makes Android intriguing is not the fact that it's another Google creation. While Google is a formidable competitor that Apple and RIM should pay attention to, what peeks my interest is that Android is open source. If the open source model can work as well in the mobile space as it has for Linux in servers and embedded devices, consumers can expect a plethora of innovations in the mobile space at affordable prices. Apple has clearly set the bar for smartphones with the iPhone but may once again find that their closed model may cause them to be eclipsed by the hordes of motivated open source developers around the world.

RIM just announced their first BlackBerry flip phone: The BlackBerry Pearl 8220 .

With all the excitement about the iPhone and BlackBerry , smartphone pioneer Palm has almost been forgotten. Their latest phone may just change all of that. The new Palm Treo Pro has an impressive list of features: A high resolution (320x320) screen, 3G, Wi - Fi , GPS, 2 Megapixel camera with video capture and Windows Mobile 6.1 (although I'm not sure that's a good thing). Unfortunately for Palm, none of the US carriers is subsidizing this phone so you have to pay a pricey $549 to pick this up. Meanwhile, Citigroup reviewed the BlackBerry Bold and described it as a big improvement but not a game changer. Apparently the Bold is plagued by the same 3G connection issues that have been reported with the new iPhone. That's the downside of being an early adopter! We're still waiting to hear when AT&T will release the Bold...

Like many of you, I was affected by Gmail's outage on Monday . The previous week, our family blog molotsi.com was affected by the Sitemeter bug which prevented IE7 users from viewing thousands of web sites included the infamous PerezHilton.com. There's been a fast movement towards " cloud computing " (even my company Intuit is getting into the picture with our Small Business Connected Strategy ) but the Gmail and Sitemeter incidents have exposed how your business can become vulnerable to operational breakdowns in cloud providers. Is this an example of more problems to come or over time are we unlikely to see breakdowns of this scale?

Apple's release of the iPhone completely shook up the mobile market by becoming an instant hit that lived up to Apple's high standards for design. Count my wife among the millions of iPhone owners. The real game changer is Apple's App Store which Steve Jobs reported sold a staggering 2 million programs per day (Apple gets 30% of the revenue from each program sold). All this has me eagerly anticipating the release of RIM's BlackBerry Bold which should become available later this month. Despite all the noise about the iPhone, RIM has been quietly gaining market share and extending their enterprise dominance into the consumer space. RIM makes great handsets which may not be as sexy as the iPhone but are much easier for developers with its solid JDK. It's going to interesting watching this battle of the titans...

Check out this eye-opening article about America's prison population. More that 1% of all adults in the US are in prison. America is the world's incarceration champ - both in sheer numbers of prisoners and percent of population behind bars. Spending on corrections has quadrupled to $49 billion over the last 20 years even though crime and recidivism rates are basically unchanged in that time period. Most dramatically, four states (Vermont, Michigan, Oregon and Connecticut) spend more on corrections than on education. What twisted priorities!  I believe we need to repeal mandatory sentencing laws like “Three Strikes”, invest in education and community programs, and support organizations like Fresh Lifelines for Youth that help at risk youth make better decisions and become upstanding members of the community.