But even though adoption has been slow, more and more applications are gradually getting Gears treatments.

Today Google announced that Gmail can now be taken offline with Google Gears, meaning that you can now read and reply to your Gmail messages while you’re disconnected from the interweb, and have all of the email synchronize when you’re back online again.  There are still some bits of functionality that aren’t available in an offline mode – like the calendar, for example – but it’s a great start and about time.

Google Reader has offered offline support through Gears for some time now, and so has Google Docs.  Wordpress, although not an application developed by Google, has featured gears support for some time now.

It’s exciting to see so many powerful and rich applications available for offline use with Gears.  This could be one of those little things that Microsoft hears about and gets them a little bit nervous about the long-term future.  It’s probably far too early to make predictions about how much further web applications will go in replacing traditional desktop applications – and certainly there will always be some applications that will probably never be practical as web applications, like Adobe Photoshop for example.  But traditional “knowledge worker” applications – office productivity applications – seem like prime targets to be replaced by rich web applications.  Reliable and usable offline versions will likely accelerate the pace of innovation in these types of applications, as having an offline version will likely speed up end user adoption.  In other words, I think we’re hitting an inflection point where Google may consider a heavier investment in engineering and development of these tools.  Plus, Microsoft is planning a full web interface of their Office suite with the Office 14 release.  This could be the start of a new software war: the offline office suite war.

But I could be wrong.  As I said, I overestimated how quickly Gears would be adopted in the first place.  So we’ll see, I suppose.  My money is on Google for now, though.

We approach this business as a software platform business. We are watching the landscape. We like competition as long as they don’t rip off our IP. And if they do, we will go after anyone who does.

I don’t want to talk about any specific company. We are ready to suit up and go against anyone. However, we will not stand for having our IP ripped off.

Cook declined to answer whether he was talking specifically about Palm, and the recently announced Palm Pre.

The current speculation is that this might be a personal battle between Palm and iPhone, since Palm’s executive chairman, Jon Rubinstein, used to be Apple’s product chief.  Rubinstein was installed as chairman by Elevation Partners, the company that recently invested an additional $100 million into Palm.

However, it’s much more likely a strong statement to anyone who’s thinking about entering into the already crowded smartphone market.  I would imagine that might actually be Microsoft, especially with so many Zune phone rumors flying around.

Getting shutdown (now or soon):

• Google Video
• Google Catalogs Search
• Dodgeball
• Jaiku (may live on w/volunteers)
• Google Mashup Editor

Rumored to be shut down soon:

• Grand Central
• Knol
• Google Base
• Google Notebook

I’d add: Google Sites to that list, too.  But CNET didn’t call it yet.

I’ve got to say: I’m not surprised to see any of these get the ax.  Google Video was replaced by YouTube.  Google Catalog Search turned useless as most companies now offer their catalogs online, and besides there’s Google Book Search still.  Dodgeball — I’d never even heard of it, unfortunately.  Jaiku was similar to Pownce (which is now gone), Twitter, FriendFeed, and many others, but not quite as powerful.  And Google Mashup Editor… Well… Mashups are just a bad idea.  I think it’s time we finally just all admit that real application integration shouldn’t happen on the glass.  It should happen behind the scenes through SOA or even REST.

As for the others: Grand Central: never heard of it.  Knol: why compete with Wikipedia or Yahoo Answers?  And Google Base: I think Craigslist works better.

It’s sad to see these projects go, since it’s a sign of the economic times.

[More details at CNET News]

Looking at the phone, it’s easy to see why people like what they see:

• Large, vivid multi-touch touchscreen
• Email, web, contacts, etc.
• Slide-out keyboard
• Built-in WiFi
• Wireless charger (called a Touchstone)
• Integration of 3rd party apps (through a store maintained by Palm)

It’s too early to tell if this will be the ticket to Palm’s future, and keep them from hitting the technology dustbin, but the phone does look nice.  Only after the phone hits the market — sometime after the first half of 2009 — will consumers have a chance to shell out over $200 for the Palm Pre and decide if it’s a winner over the iPhone, BlackBerry Storm… Oh, and the HTC G1 Android-powered phone, too.

Additional coverage of the Palm Pre:

• Hands on video with the Pre [ArsTechnica]
• Hands on photos of the Pre [TechCrunch]
• Photos of the Pre at CES [CNET News]

Best Buy also sells refurbished 3G models for people that want to upgrade.

Personally, I’m still sticking with my iTouch until the iPhone gets a full keyboard.  I just can’t type worth a dime on the touch screen.

[c/o Reuters]

It’s clear that this was all inspired by Twitter and the 140 character limitation for status updates.  The ironic thing to me is that Twitter’s limitations weren’t about philosophy or trying to create a new way of doing things.  It was all about being able to send and receive updates over SMS, which have a strict limit of 160 characters per message.

Twitter’s real goal was probably not to be a ground-breaking new service that relied on a simple, extremely short command line for performing multiple actions and gestures.  It’s much more likely that their aim was to be compatible with updates from SMS text messages so that people could send updates, and also receive them as well without truncation.

Twitter’s intention is pretty clear: provide a simple status update service for the web that allowed you to broadcast your status to your friends.  This is evidenced by the fact that the update window today is still titled "What are you doing?" and not something more complex, like: "Add to the discussion" or "Share something with your friends."  That Twitter’s simple application has found other uses, and that people are building productivity tools based on the same concept, is a rather serendipitous discovery of the utility of being able to send SMS text message updates to the web.

The other aspect that I find intriguing is how useful this has proven to be.  There’s no flashy graphical interface, no extra buttons or complex forms.  And yet, it’s extremely flexible and useful, and people easily understand how it works.

It will be interesting to see how much further this goes.  If mobile devices improve their capabilities to interact with web applications, as they likely will over the coming years, it will be interesting to see if the "command line interface" of manipulating web applications continues, or ultimately gets replaced by flashier, more graphically driven applications.

As much as I enjoy being able to send updates to applications through SMS text messages, my gut tells me that "richer" mobile web interfaces are on the way, with more bells and whistles than we’ll know what to do with.  So enjoy it while it lasts.

The price of home computers has dropped significantly.  It’s now cheaper than ever to buy a home PC, and with most of the best applications on the web being free or advertisement driven, the only recurring cost is the monthly fee for an Internet connection (unless you’re using a free municipally-operated WiFi service or public hotspot).  It seems like market forces are attempting to drop it even lower, and Microsoft is looking at how to make that happen.

I’ve read lots of opinion articles and speculation before that Microsoft should consider making a "free" version of Windows that is entirely ad-driven, as a way to sway people from switching to alternate operating systems like Linux, or even beat Google to the punch assuming they ever enter the OS market.  The suggestion was that even businesses would consider switching to Vista if they knew that it was free.

Here’s one final rambling note: it seems a bit ironic how AdWare and SpyWare aren’t well tolerated practices for desktop applications, but it’s okay for sites like Facebook to have targeted ads.

Palm will be getting a much needed injection of cash from Elevation Partners, in the amount of $100 million USD.  In details disclosed in a Palm company press release on Monday, Elevation Partners will buy shares of Palm’s stock at a 31% premium over current market prices.  News of Elevation Partners’ investment has sent Palm’s stock price up, currently trading at $3.57, up from a low of $1.42 just earlier this month.

Will the injection of cash be enough to keep Palm from going under?  It certainly wouldn’t be impossible, but it’s definitely going to be a challenge.  Palm had a miserable Q2 FY09, selling just under 600,000 total smartphones, with a pre-tax loss of $97.7 million USD, and a total gross profit decrease of over 60%.  The smartphone market got a lot more company with Google releasing their Android OS, and Apple’s iPhone continuing to dominate sales of new smartphones.

Is the next generation of Palm a no-go?

Palm’s hopes are now centered around the release of its Nova operating system with a new smartphone to match.  The ironic thing, though, is the name “Nova” itself.  It’s already got a stigma attached to it – those old Chevy Novas weren’t exactly known for their reliability, safety or utility.  And I’m sure most people have heard the urban legend that “Nova” didn’t sell in Spanish-speaking countries because “no va” means “it does not go,” or “it does not work.”  Despite that being debunked, the fact that the urban legend itself persists lends insight to how people think about the name “Nova.”

Palm’s Nova is supposed to be filled with Web2.0 goodness.  Lots of Internet connectivity, and a good web browser.  All of that loveliness.  But where it begins to get messy is Palm’s tri-pronged focus: Nova for the consumer market, Palm OS for consumers and “prosumers” (Palm sold the Palm OS, but still owns a license to use and modify it), and Windows Mobile for the enterprise users.  Yes, that’s right: three operating systems, all targeted at different markets.

Looking to Apple as an example of a technology company rebirth.

Palm could learn a lot from Apple.  The ironic thing about that statement is: they already have.  The original Palm Pilot was a huge step up from Apple’s failed Newton PDA.  The Newton was too bulky, and was very bad at recognizing handwriting.  Palm solved this problem by inventing their own text entry system with custom gestures for letters.  It took a while to get the hang of entering text with the Palm, but the pros could write in text just as fast as scribbling it down on a notepad, and the Palm devices were more compact and lighter than the Newton.

Apple was once on the verge of entering the technology dustbin.  Before Steve Jobs returned to the company as CEO in 1997 (after having left in 1985), Apple was slowly dying.  They were losing market share, and they had lost touch with what made them successful.  One of Jobs’ first actions as CEO was to cut the Newton, amongst other projects.  Jobs helped to usher in the new iMac in 1998, which re-invigorated Apple’s sales.

Apple’s return to success was driven by Jobs, but also by the companies’ return to the principles that made it successful: sell well designed technology for the average consumer that works well.  Despite Apple’s hardware routinely being above-market costs, people willingly shell out the cash because they know what the Apple brand stands for.

With Palm introducing three OS lines, it will be a real challenge for the consumer and prosumer to sort out which model they will be most happy using.  Additionally, Palm’s commitment to the latest Web2.0 craze seems to be at odds with what made Palm successful: making reliable, easy-to-use PDAs that work for multiple applications, whether it be for the ordinary consumer or the prosumer/enterprise user market.

Palm’s decision to release three types of smartphones and personal productivity devices seems risky.  The added engineering cost for all three, plus the possibility that each device will fail to completely reach its intended target, may ultimately prove the decision to be unprofitable overall.  But if the risk pays off in the end, we may be on the verge of witnessing another example of a technology company rebirth.  Whatever the case, 2009 will likely be a make-or-break year for the future of Palm.

Loopt

Loopt, as with Loki and Yahoo’s FireEagle service, are all in the same category of sites that I feel actually go a little too far in terms of transparency, into that highly subjective realm of “TMI”.

Who are these people that need to know where I am at all times?  Yes, I use Twitter, and sometimes I share with my friends where I’m heading or where I am at, but it’s selective, and I don’t need to give them exact the geo-location.  I would certainly never Tweet “In the bathroom, GPS location: 37.0625,-95.677068.”  I know that the services let you specify how exact you want to be (ranging from just displaying what city you are in to displaying your exact position), but I still don’t quite understand when or why I would want to broadcast my location to everyone all the time.  It seems like something I would do so selectively that Twitter could do the job nicely without giving away more than I am comfortable with.

Am I crazy?

When we charged them up in the newsroom, we found one of the $20 Blackberry phones contained more than 50 phone numbers for people connected with the McCain-Palin campaign, as well as hundreds of emails from early September until a few days after election night.

It probably didn’t include anything that we’d all suspect (like campaign staffers exchanging emails about Palin’s $150,000+ shopping spree), but it may offer insight into the final moments of the campaign.

It is rather ironic that they’d forget to wipe the device clean, given that a McCain’s advisor claimed McCain was responsible for inventing the BlackBerry.

Read the full article at MyFox Washington DC.