For Google, the problem with being a free, abundant, and rather infinite set of services is that it's hard to create much of a stir about anything. There are so many major software service options under the 'more' menu on the Gmail page that they've had to go and add a final item called 'even more.'

I don't want to sound like some old person pining for how things used to be, because I'm not. But walking down the street, for example, used to be a public activity; you'd see the other people.

Your email inbox is a bit like a Las Vegas roulette machine. You know, you just check it and check it, and every once in a while there's some juicy little tidbit of reward, like the three quarters that pop down on a one-armed bandit. And that keeps you coming back for more.

Like most early enthusiasts, I always thought the way the Internet encouraged multitasking made users less vulnerable to manipulation, while simultaneously exploiting even more of our brain's capacity than before. Apparently not.

In the industrial age and in analog clocks, a minute is some portion of an hour which is some portion of a day. You know, in the digital age, a minute is just a number. It's just 3:23. It's almost this absolute duration that doesn't have a connection to where the sun is or where our day is.

Nothing is sacred. And, more importantly...the 'nothing' you end up with is truly sacred.

The iPad - contrary to the way most people thought about it - is not a tablet computer running the Apple operating system. It's more like a very big iPhone, running the iPhone operating system.