Of course, I'm pulling for "The Internet" if for no other reason than I want to see it show up to accept the award. And see how they make out the check.

Okay, not really. Reading something like that makes me want to get up on a table with a cardboard sign that says "TOOL."

The internet is a tool. Tim Berners-Lee is a fine choice for an award. A tool is not. (And trust me, you don't want to get me started on a rant about the anthropomorphizing of entities that have no business being anthropomorphized. You know, like corporations.) Tim also has the distinct advantage of being able to cash a check. Maybe they could bump it to him via PayPal on iPhone.

As a tool, the internet is a wonderful thing. It is not something that requires referring to in the third person. Internet is a noun, and as such it is a person, place or thing. I'll give you two of the three, as long as person isn't one of them. The internet is not going to come to your meeting so don't bother scheduling the conference room, okay?

Use it, abuse it, just don't confuse it with a sentient being. Once you do that, you'll start blaming it for the ills of the world. Oh wait, too late.

C'est la vie. I bet electricity was blamed by Victorians for a decline in romantic evening walks in the moonlight. Little did they know that in the future Facebook would be responsible for 20% of UK divorces. Amateurs.

It would be nice to think that it will be nuclear weapon free - but that's just another flight of fantasy, isn't it? I mean, if the US is spending $7B to update their nuclear arsenal that costs $52B a year to maintain, that's a hefty chunk of change for something you want to phase out.

And no, still no jetpacks. Sure, we'll have iPads, but flying cars? Not so much.

So, I guess a little expectation levelling is in order. I understand that astronaut is no longer a growth career opportunity. That's okay, advertising was always the sitcom career I envisioned for myself when I was a kid.

So the future of my childhood isn't panning out as planned. I don't have a lightsaber either. On the plus side, I haven't sliced off any major appendages with my lightsaber. So there's that.

The future is what happens today when people stop talking about creating it and simply go out and make it happen.

My favorite kind of story is one where the protaganist is told over and over that s/he can't do that, failure is inevitable, blah blah blah, only to succeed beyond anyone's wild dreams.

So when I hear people complain that we're not going back to the moon, I wonder instead when we're going to get to Mars. No flying cars? Don't care. I just want one that's electric. And I'm not giving up on a nuke free world just yet. At some point someone has got to own up to the fact that using a nuclear weapon is stupid, so owning and maintaining them is simply an exercise in expanding our horizons beyond conventional stupidity into truly exeptional stupidity.

Expectations are a funny thing. Aim too high and you are bound to fail repeatedly, and hit on a few grand compromises along the way. You may eventually get where you're going, or you may not. But the end result will be better than waiting to see if someone else gets it done in your stead.

Oh, and about that jetpack...

Eight hours until it goes up for sale, but you can usually count on a few must have utilities and some other interesting software - especially if you work in video - to be bundled up for the price of a single app.

And yes, it's the best way to accidentally squeeze in a game or other fun app that is just thrown in the bundle. The best things are usually the disk utilities. If your hard drive isn't performing up to snuff, chances are there will be an app in the bundle to help you out with that.

Or if you really want to clear your head, unfollow everybody on your list and only follow the Dalai Lama. Well, okay, the Dalai Lama and Social Edge.

Same thing for the rest of the Social Edge clan. We've done more than one update while spread out on multiple continents in multiple time zones. Doing so is easier than I would have imagined ten years ago. Or even five.

But yes, it can sometimes be a burden. I have often regretted not getting a smaller, lighter laptop. Family vacation planning always involves making sure there's readily available wifi on Tuesdays.

So why do I do it? Because I love what I do. More to the point, I love what you do and hope that there are more than a few of there out there that feel the same way about what it is that we do here as John Montilla does. Makes lugging the extra laptop pounds and scrounging for wifi even easier.

Yes, it was marvelous when the iPod came out. More music everywhere you go! And as the hard drive increased in size, there was even more music available to you. But what made this great wasn't that you could have more music. The iPhone took the iPod and merged it with a smartphone and a camera and a handheld gaming toy so that you only needed one device. Why does this matter? Because you only have so many pockets.

Databases? Boring... until you think about the filing cabinets you don't have a use for anymore. CRM? Same thing. Anybody have a Rolodex anymore?

Laptops are great little slightly underpowered computers. So why are netbooks killing the market? Because less is more when it comes to something you carry. And this is where the iPad steps in and saves my back. If it can do all the things I need my MacBook for when I'm traveling, I can shed 5+ pounds from my carry on. Netbooks and iPads are a threat to the laptop market? Try the chiropractic market.

I saw Barnes & Noble's Nook for the first time today on the train ride in to the office. The Kindle is the first eReader to gain a bit of traction. Why? Less is more, more or less. It isn't that you can take hundreds of books with you, it is the fact that you don't have to take a stack of four with you on vacation. Or on the train. Or plane.

Other technologies do more than getting rid of bulk from our lives. Online ordering eliminated the need to drive to four stores to find the right item. Digital products that take the place of physical products eliminate the need to have your online order shipped to your door.

Of course, we can take the process of eliminating further by eliminating a lot of those office buildings people congregate in. How much time, energy and materials are spent commuting to office buildings where most of people's time is spent alone in an office or wishing they were more alone in a cubicle so they could get work done. There are enough virtual meeting tools out there to get the job done.

The problem that arises, hoever, is what to do with everything we get rid of? A lot of it can be recycled, yes. Office space can be converted into other uses. But the big wins come in not generating more and more stuff as we move forward. Less is more.

Oh sure, the regular crowd has its regular complaints. In today's media marketplace there are two sides to every story. It goes a little something like this: 'Some people love the x, while others have their doubts about it. Could it be that x is what will bring about the end of everything that is good in our known universe? Could it adversely affect the unknown universe?!?!?!?!?!' It is as if critical thinking skills have become totally passe and undesireable in the modern mass media.

Basically, the iPad is a big iPod Touch. It's an iPhone without the phone. It'll be able to use 3G - and VOIP, so it could be phone-esque.

It doesn't have a camera, which is a little bit of a bummer because you can't video conference with it. And when was the last time you video conferenced? Everybody always thought the future was going to be filled with video phones. Turns out that the future is all about texting, be it email or SMS.

It doesn't have multi-tasking. Yes, Apple figured out how to multi-task with System 7. Is it annoying? Yes. But since we all know it is coming eventually, whoopee.

Apple put out a computer that is truly for 'the rest of us.' It is a simple, straightforward slab that is simple to use, and simple to configure. Geeks won't like that they have to go through Apple and their App Store submission process to sell their wares is what I'm hearing - only since they're making money doing that already... isn't that a moot point?

The more interesting thing is the software aspects of the device. No, not the lack of multitasking. The new stuff. iBooks and iWork.

iWork is really interesting in that it is a suite of full fledged productivity Apps, nothing limited about them. (Okay, Numbers is still not a full-fledged spreadsheet, but it does what most people do with a spreadsheet.) And people are creating real apps for the iPhone and will do even more with the extra screen real estate and CPU power of the iPad. Already we've seen some really innovative apps for the iPhone. Apps that will compete with what's left of the big box software makers out there.

 iBooks is the other really big change. Apple is opening up a digital bookstore, a la iTunes for music and video. It uses the ePub open format so in theory books that you buy can be transported to other devices. We'll have to see how that works in practice. I was a little surprised there wasn't more emphasis on the format of the books. ePub isn't known for how it handles graphics and media within text. After learning that, I understood why magazines weren't a focus just yet, although the New York Times app looks to be a great implementation of a media and text rich content delivery vehicle.

If the open ePub format enables book portability, well, hot diggity! Popularizing an open ebook format will do wonders for making ebooks more readily available. That should in turn make a low cost device like the OLPC2 a more viable platform for getting books into the hands of kids around the world. This may not be the intent of the iPad and iBooks, but it has the potential to effect this change.

Oh, and the accessibility features? Not mentioned. But since the iPhone OS already has those features, there wasn't much left that needed to be covered.

So, in sum, nothing very revolutionary, but more evolutionary. But the evolutionary steps have the potential to really change things in this consumer space.

The iPad? iSlate? iTablet?

No, sorry, but we'll get to that. I'm talking about D.light's Kiran solar powered lantern. It has been designed to replace more expensive and dangerous kerosene lanterns for lighting where electricity is unreliable or unavailable. It is slick and will get plenty of use in my household where electricity is quite reliable.

Apple's new tablet is supposed to debut tomorrow, and it will change the way a lot of us think about, consume and interact with information and media. It will be a game changer, no doubt, as Apple's big products always are. Rumors are that book, newspaper and magazine distribution will be coming to the iPad and this will be a good thing for those industries as well as for those of us who want these materials in digital format. A Wired or National Geographic subscription with videos and photo galleries embedded in the articles? Nifty. The possibilities are infinite.

Hopefully, the new Apple iPad (or whatever it ends up being called) is solar powered. And maybe once the price comes down, it can fill a need that the OLPC project has tried to fill for a while now. (No, that won't happen immediately, but today's cool new gizmo is tomorrow's ubiquitous product. See: cellphone.) Hopefully they will avoid some of the accessibility issues that have hindered Amazon's Kindle recently - which is probable, given their previous experience with the iPhone in this area.

As for a product that will be a truly global gamechanger for 2010? I'd put my money on the d.light Kiran. The kind of impact that it is designed to create is simply on a different scale than that of a new Apple gizmo*.

(*This of course does not negate the technogeek-lust I have for Apple's unnanounced wonder-toy. Rest assured that I will get my hands on one soon! And when the big announcement turns out to be iPhone OS 4.0... I'll get over it.)

So far, however, more than $22 million has been donated to the Red Cross for Haiti earthquake relief. Thatz sum srz bnjaminz! Global X, as usual, was ahead of the curve. It is stunning to me that so many people have been enabled to donate so immediately and effectively in this manner. Count on good people doing good things - and bet on the fact that most people are good.

Sadly, there are Haiti relief donation scams popping up here and there, reminding us as always that we are our own worst enemy. Stick with the folks you know who are working in the region. Such as:

• Water.org
• Partners in Health
• Free the Children
• Peace Dividend Trust

You thought maybe spending more time with your family was a good idea, huh? Until you invited your cousin over to watch some football and he spilled bear on your couch. They're family. You have to love them, but you don't have to subject your furniture to their fluids.

Maybe you're a smoker and have decided to quit? Listen to the siren call of that nicotine. 'Smoooooooooke me. Just one little puff...' You don't have the resolve. Go light it up like a chimney.

But don't renig on your promise to back it up. It's not hard, it just requires doing it. It's not expensive either. I saw a 1.5TB external drive selling for less than $100 the other day. Buy two and rotate. This year, as I do every year, I implore you to follow through on this one new year's resolution. Back it up.

Anyway, here's a monkey picture.

Next week, my post might be coming from a plane. Who knew wifi was easier to find while mobile than while on the ground?

Turns out the biggest roadblock to saving ourselves from ourselves is, well, ourselves.

It's a theme I have heard all year long. People want x and in order to do so they are going to destroy y. So in order to save y, you have to find for z, and it had better be something better than x or they aren't going to want to hear it. 'Maldives are drowning? So what. Let 'em. Not my problem. I've got a GDP to worry about.'

It's not enough to save the world. Somebody's going to have to be able to make a buck at it too. As a matter of fact, it is going to have to be a lot of somebodys'.

Instead of dealing with a bunch of dis-incentivized politicians, how about sending entrepreneurs next time. Let them share ideas back and forth and build products that are more wickedly cool and more environmentally sound than the junk we're paying for now.

So what?

As all those tree huggers gather in Copenhagen to try and save the world from this Myth!, what exactly is it that you object to? You have a problem with them wanting to act on what 99% of the scientific community is telling us is occurring? What horrible things are they trying to do to the poor unsuspecting world?

Let's see... they'd really like it if we could stop polluting the world a bit. Develop energy technologies that aren't finite, and are abundantly available at any longitude or latitude. Drive cars that don't require the burning of fossil fuels.

So your problem is that you prefer oil derricks to wind farms? Refineries over solar panels? You would blow a mountain top off rather than use a hydrogen fuel cell, or - dare I say it? - ethanol? You can't stand the thought of not being able to drive a car that gets 5 MPG?

Do you object to industry finding and developing new technologies to sell in the marketplace that are cleaner than what we are using currently? Are you sitting in traffic, watching the exhaust from the vehicles in front of you and thinking hey, this is the best we can do?

The U.S. space program managed to figure out how to put a man on the moon in about a decade. Tangible benefits of having been to the moon? Well, we did get some pretty cool pictures, right? And some moon rocks. Those are cool. But the process of figuring out how to do that meant creating a lot of things that we take for granted now. Like Velcro. Doppler radar. Ultrasounds. Tang.

A push for greener technologies will allow us to better our quality of life while preserving the planet for the generations to come. Maybe in the process of developing a car battery that will extend the range enough for me to drive across the continent without stopping at some smelly gas station, that same technology could be used in making my iPhone battery last a whole day without requiring a recharge. Or maybe traffic congestion could be dealt with by developing better and cheaper video conferencing to allow for more telecommuting. Oh, the humanity!

But instead, we are left dealing with people who still find it too difficult to push a trash can AND a recycling bin to the curb. And really, if you bring up the whole cow farting thing again, I'm going to stop being polite and ask you to join me in becoming a vegetarian. Help me make the sky blue again or I'm coming after your filet mignon.

When I think about the world I want to leave my kids, it doesn't include congested freeways, peanut butter colored skies or wars over economic resources. As lovely as the smog enhanced sunsets in my hometown in Southern California are, I'd gladly give them up for blue skies the rest of the day.

So really, what's the worst thing that can come of all this huffing and puffing about climate change? A new flavor of Tang?

Granted, the Gap clothes weren't *ahem* my style. But maybe that's just because I'm old. There is a (red) iPod shuffle at my house though.

So there are products that, when made (red), can work their way into ones everyday life.

And today I saw another one that makes sense. For me at least. I don't know how the back end of Shazam works, but I do find myself using it from time to time. I used to know every song that I heard on the radio but alas, it appears that father time is catching up with me.

And so (SHAZAM) RED makes sense for me. Now the next time I chaperone a high school dance and one of the other parental unit like people asks 'what's this noise kids these days are listening to?' I'll be able to whip out my iPhone, tag the song with (SHAZAM) RED and tell them "It's Kardinall Offishall, featuring Akon," while feeling doubly smug about it.

Thursday was Thanksgiving here in the US, and I had a quick little holiday on the coast in California in an area without cell phone reception. (My plan is with AT&T, so this wasn't as hard to do as one might think. Thank you, thank you, I'm here all week. Don't forget to tip the wait staff.)

WiFi was available nearby, but was spotty at best. I was able to check email each day to make sure that things were up and running still on Social Edge, but I didn't respond to any inquiries and didn't check any web sites for news, info, or anything else. My phone became a timepiece and a camera, and I delved into some old-school technologies - books and board games.

At first, it wasn't good. I felt like I should be checking on this. Or that. Or... wait, why was that so important exactly? Turns out, it could all wait. By the second evening I had stopped reflexively fondling my phone, wishing that it would magically pick up signal.

There's something about always being connected that makes us very reluctant to let go of what it is we're focusing on. There are plenty of pluses and minuses to being connected all the time, and one of them is that you can address a problem at anytime from just about anywhere. But it also means that when you are working on a solution to a long term problem, never letting it leave your consciousness can mean never looking at it from a fresh perspective.

Having enjoyed the tranquility and allowing everything to fall away for a few days, when I returned to the office yesterday and started remembering where I had left off the week before I saw new solutions to age old problems present themselves. In retrospect, they were so shamefully apparent I am shocked that I hadn't seen them before, but understand better now that sometimes to change your perspective can require averting your focus for a while.

So unplug. If I can, as tangled up in the interweb as I am, you can too.