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by gmosx, at 14 Dec 2008--
Don't get me wrong, I truly admire Google's technical achievements. However, I am afraid that Google's '20 percent time' scheme may have negative side-effects. Different teams work in isolation without a solid engineering framework. Their output is often convoluted and incompatible: multiple VM's (V8, Dalvik), inconsistent coding conventions and different implementation languages, overly complex specifications (OpenSocial), non standard approaches to common problems, NIH syndrome, etc. Have a look at Amazon's (AWS) services for a stark contrast: well engineered, standards compliant APIs, 'genetically engineered' to work together. A developer's nirvana.
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I was blown away by the first promotional videos of the forthcoming Nokia N97. The hardware looks irresistibly sexy: the screen 'pops open' with a clever and efficient mechanism, the diagonal button is an ingenious touch, and (being an old hacker) I love the full-size keyboard. But the real surprise is the software: I strongly believe that an iGoogle style (and allow me to say 'Wii channel'-like) User Interface is the way to go. The old 'desktop' paradigm used by Android belongs to the 70's.
