“Microsoft to acquire Nokia’s devices & services business, license Nokia’s patents and mapping services.” From the press release: Microsoft Corporation and Nokia Corporation today announced that the Boards of Directors for both companies have decided to enter into a transaction whereby Microsoft will purchase substantially all of Nokia’s Devices & Services business, license Nokia’s patents, and license and use Nokia’s mapping services. So, in other words, most of Nokia. Phones, mapping services and intellectual property. Building on the partnership with Nokia announced in February 2011 and the increasing success of Nokia’s Lumia smartphones, Microsoft aims to accelerate the growth of its share and profit in mobile devices through faster innovation, increased synergies, and unified branding and marketing.

In 2011, I wrote about Apple vs. Android and how “It’s all about the ecosystem, stupid!”. The more time I spend with my iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV, the more of a believer I become in the power of the ecosystem. The Digital Hub Apple spent the first decade of this century focusing on the idea of The Digital Hub. It started with Mac + music, then they added photos, movies, TV shows, books, and all sorts of things.

Wayne Gretzky is often credited as being the single greatest hockey player of all time. It is said that his father, Walter Gretzky, taught him the most important thing to learn in hockey: “Skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” This quote in particular is one that Steve Jobs has brought up on numerous occasions, and is far more revealing about Apple’s internal culture than I think most of us realize. It is certainly the most salient explanation for Apple’s intense focus at the intersection of technology and liberal arts.

I currently own and love my iPad 2, but with HP slashing the prices on the new TouchPads this weekend, I decided to pick one up after calling around and finding some at my local Best Buy. Preface I feel that I should start by saying that I’m an Apple guy; or more specifically that I’ve always been an Apple guy. I was converted to the Mac platform back in the early 90’s when my Junior High school’s library got a new shipment of Apple Macintosh LC IIs.

Dave Shea recently asked, Support the standards and nothing but the standards, regardless of whether or not browsers get them right? or - Support what standards are available given today’s browser support, and kludge together markup/script/CSS hacks to overcome deficiencies in implementations? I am all-for the extensive use of web standards. Anyone who’s talked to me for more than two minutes when I’m in geek-mode, or who has read anything I’ve written on the subject knows this.