Comments

The thing about the Singularity is this - it's wholly focused on the hardware side. All the information about hardware being equal to what the human brain can store, or hold the number of interconnections ignores the way the brain is wired. Just as you can't pour 10,000 bags of Spaghetti onto the ground and have an Eiffel Tower suddenly emerge, you are not going to get anything like human intelligence from simply having a vast amount of computing power and memory sitting there. And since the difficulty of making a working program increases with complexity, it's going to be a long time building toward that goal - if anyone indeed wants to put that much effort forth. I think rather more interesting is the possibility of wiring the human brain into electronics directly to combine the strengths of both platforms, rather than simply trying to recreate something we already have working today in analog form.

Plus the DRM-heavy iTunes all but guarantees that once someone buys on iTunes, they're stuck with iPods and iTunes for good. That's why I buy iTunes Plus music which is DRM free. iTunes is no more DRM heavy than most other things, especially in the realm of video... iTunes does after all allow you DRM free ripping of CD's, or importing of video from other sources (I have an over the air HD receiver that transcodes DRM from video into iTunes). And being "stuck" with something that works better than any other device (as the article speaks of) is hardly a hardship. Personally I've found call quality to be good and not many problems with hangups - but just like any other cell phone it's hugely dependent on the network the provider has. The good think about all the iPhone sales is that it's allowing AT&T to greatly expand the network and improve the quality, it's already better here than it was a few years ago. Also I'm not sure what people are looking for in other browsers, as Safari is a fairly excellent browser on the iPhone.