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Bruce "Tog" Tognazzini, founder of the Apple Human Interface Group, former Apple Human Interface Evangelist, and all around Human Interface god, weighs in on the iPhone. Along the way we get a lesson in how to think about design, a peek at the future of interfaces, & some fascinating insights into Apple from a man who was an insider. Tog is always a must read and his review of the iPhone is the most thought-provoking and insightful that I have seen. My only gripe is that Tog doesn't publish very often…

This (http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2005/tc20050324_7462_tc024.htm) is totally insane. If anyone needed to understand why monopolies or near monopolies need to be crushed should go read that article.

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The Economist had a fascinating story about the impact of technology on the developing world. In particular how mobile phones are really impacting the poorest nations on earth.

Consider the case of the telephone man. Using a mico-loan a villager will buy a cellphone. When the cellphone rings he will take it to the person who the caller wants to speak to and charge them a small amount for use of the phone. The impact of this business is dramatic on the life of the villagers and also provides a good income for the “telephone” man. Awesome…

In southern china people take their cellphones to be blessed by the local buddhist monks….

In china phone numbers with the number 3 in them are considered bad luck. People pay good money for phone numbers with 4’s in them.

Amazing…

Thanks to gentle pressure applied by Scott I went out and switched to AT&T GSM service in New York. GSM is far more feature rich than your typical service & the next big thing at least here in the US, Europe has had it for years. I picked what was the hot phone at the time, the T68i. Its looks cool, its sleek, and has boatloads of features. All in all a good phone. Or so it appeared.
Winds up my phone got messed up. The shortcut key & the number 4 & 5 stopped working. Now this was a major problem (think voicemail). Also I noticed the phone was really slow navigating. Initially it seemed okay, but I was starting to get really annoyed about it.

I finally called AT&T and got my phone replaced under their warranty exchange program (nice to see them focusing on customer service). Got the new phone and now its navigates FAST!

I looked into why and it is because the new T68i has the latest and greatest firmware upgrade. I now have the R7A013 firmware. The phone rocks again!

To find out your version simply type in this secret command sequence:

> * < < * < *

where > is a right movement of the joystick and < is a left (thanks Mitch!).