My Holy Shit! List

Rands in Repose has done an interesting post, The Dark Underbelly of Holy Shit, in which he lists and explains the things that have made him exclaim, Holy Shit!

I decided to do my own. Mine is not limited to digital technology, however, and stretches back to my early childhood. So, in chronological order:

Amazon: Family Of Tablets Or Favored Son?

Rumor: Amazon has an “entire family” of Android devices coming this holiday

I wouldn’t be surprised if Amazon is working on a “family” — but only internally. I don’t see Amazon unleashing more than one tablet initially. It would confuse the market too much.

I stick with a 6″ Mirasol display. Trying to do both a Pixel Qi and a Mirasol screen would give customers too much to think about. It’d be unnecessary sales friction.

And I will bet against everyone again and say it won’t be Android inside. Should it be Android inside, it’ll be the kind of Android seen in the NookColor: locked-down and skinned all over. That would mean a whole new set of APIs for devs to deal with.

We’ll all see by the end of the year.

Previously here:

Bezos: Tablet Will Be A Kindle Companion
Amazon’s Post-Print Trademark
Amazon’s Tablet Will Have A Six Inch Screen
That Pixel Qi Screen: A Flop
An Amazon Tablet: Repercussions

Did Google Just Turn Apple Into The New AOL?

After reading this article, Why Google Choosing Arduino Matters and is This the End of “Made for iPod” (TM)?, I had an unsettling feeling of history repeating itself in several ways.

Although the Make magazine writer has several objections to the way Google specified the hardware, the overall tone is one of excitement for the future.

I couldn’t stop my mind from seeing parallels to early desktop computing history that accounted for the crazy success of the Apple II computer.