Author: Cyrus

Israeli airport security, clearly always on high alert, shot the hell out of a young woman’s laptop at the airport. Incredibly the HDD survived. I went inside to check on my bag. I had left it unattended, where they instructed. It was still there so I went back outside. Moments later a man came outside and introduced himself as the manager on duty. And then, “I’m sorry but we had to blow up your laptop. “ What….all my client case notes and testimony, writing, pictures, music and applications. Years of work. NO!!!! What?? Are you insane?? What were you thinking?…

What do you get when you combine two of the hottest electronic trends like mini netbooks and touchscreen smartphones? The answer would be Nokia’s new N900 phone and its custom-made operating system, Maemo. Designed as a loose follow-up to Nokia’s N97, the Nokia N900 has a bit of an identity crisis between a smartphone with a desktop OS, or a portable computer with telephone capabilities. Either way, this search for identity has created an excellent entry in what could easily be a new cell phone subgenre. Although the price is still shrouded in mystery, this drool-worthy gadget will start to…

While Nokia’s Ovi Store still has a ways to go to even consider competing with Apple’s App Store (although recently-revealed plans for a complete revamp in spring 2010 sound exciting) the Finns are busy beavering away in-house at bringing some interesting applications to Nokia users. In a show of openness that other manufacturers could learn from, Nokia sticks all its work in progress apps up for free public consumption – and comment – on its Beta Labs site. These are split into two categories, Beta Applications (serious stuff on a fast track to graduate to a commercial Nokia offering in…