Sometimes a technology idea is too good to be true. A flexible keyboard, Internet
voting and watching feature films on your smart phone are examples. Today, these
concepts are still evolving, but they're broken right now. I'll tell you why and
what could be done to fix them once and for all.

1. Ultracompact PCs

Call them whatever you want: ultramobile PCs (UMPC), mobile information devices
(MID) or subnotebooks. I call them small PCs, and they are almost indistinguishable
from a good smart phone.

For example, the BlackBerry
8820, with its built-in GPS capability and excellent e-mail client, is a
better device than the Samsung
Q1 Ultra, described by the company as an "ultramobile personal computer."
The only real difference is that you squint less with the Q1. But most people
don't use a Q1 for gaming or writing long business documents.

The Apple iPhone
is a smarter, sexier, more useable computer than just about any MID, such as
the new Toshiba
prototype. Meanwhile, there's more power in the OQO
, than a regular UMPC, but the screen is just as tiny.

I figure that in less than three years, Apple will release a successor to the
iPhone that works more like a Mac and will become the first company to make
a true pocket computer -- one that runs any Mac OS X application natively, with
a mini-DVI port.

2. Satellite Internet

The fair-use policies for services such as Hughes
and WildBlue are killers.
If you download too many BitTorrent files or game demos, your speed gets throttled
back to something more like dial-up, and you have to slowly work your way back
up to normal.

In response to this complaint, Peter Gulla, vice president of marketing for
the North American division at Hughes Network Systems LLC, said that most Internet
service providers manage broadband use. If they didn't, more resources would
be required, and the service would cost more, he said. "Hughes offers a
variety of HughesNet service plans to address the differing needs of our subscribers,"
Gulla said. "In order to arrive at our Fair Access Policy, Hughes conducted
an analysis of HughesNet customer usage and then established a download threshold
for each plan that was well above average usage rates. "

WildBlue Communications Inc. did not respond when asked to comment on my complaint.

Another issue is that the stationary modem that you need for satellite Internet
is a bulky device and uses coaxial cable that most people need a technician
to install.

Also, in my personal experience, Hughes tech-support agents would often read
from a script and could not proceed

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