Mac laptop as iPod

You should be able to plug a Mac laptop into anything you can plug an iPod into and have it work just like it was an iPod. For instance, if and when I get my iPod-capable car stereo, I should be able to plug in my work MacBook Pro and be able to control iTunes from the stereo's buttons just like I could an iPod.

Robotic surgery

I've been vaguely aware of the use of robots in surgery, but I didn't realize how potentially stunning their impact could be until I read this part of a brief article in the June 21, 2008 Economist:

A team of researchers at Germany's DLR Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics believe their new robotic-surgery system will be able to operate directly on a beating heart. They are using a new lightweight robot called MIRO. This can follow the motion of the heart muscle as it contracts. Meanwhile, the endoscope captures "a virtually stationary image" so that the surgeon can focus on a heart that appears to have stopped—but is actually beating as normal.

Emphasis mine.

That is amazing.

iPhone price isn't cheap enough

I was tempted for a fraction of a second by the announcement of the $200 iPhone. Then I remembered that the phone without a plan was worthless. The cheapest plan you can get from AT&T for the iPhone is $60/month. Taxes, surcharges, fees, and other dodgy tricks will bring that up to almost $80/month. That's nearly $1000 per year for the cheapest plan. Oh, and you're locked in for 2 years. From where I sit, the price went from $2500 to $2200. That's not nearly as exciting.

Of course, a lot of people look at just the price for the device, which makes me wonder if the iPod Touch is going to stay at $300 and up. Isn't the iPod Touch just an iPhone without the phone and the GPS?

AOL social networking

AOL really missed the boat when they didn't turn AOL Instant Messenger into a social network. It would have been so easy for them to buy Friendster in 2003 and marry it to AIM. It could have been huge.