• In their defense, it was never technically announced as a real product. Last year, the Internet went aflutter over the idea of the Microsoft Courier, which turned the tablet concept into a book which focused less on consuming media but acting more like a journal where once could save scraps of content, take notes using a stylus and turn nerds into puddles of awe. Instead, the company killed it yesterday, choosing to focus their energy on the coming-soon Windows Phone 7 Series. Hopefully its memory endures, if not the product itself. source

• That being said, Jobs’ letter is incredibly two-faced, hypocritical, and very misleading. It’s clearly a marketing trick to pull the wool over the eyes of consumers, and while that’s okay (they’re in it to make money, after all), it’s our job to remove that wool from our eyes.
• OSNews blogger Thom Holwerda • In a response to the Apple vs. Flash saga that has been chewing up most of the online attention today. He points out that Apple has been slow moving some of its software to the Cocoa platform (which Jobs criticized Adobe for being slow to do), Apple’s use of the H264 video codec (because it’s not really open, something Holwerda has covered at length), and the suckitude of iTunes. Despite Holwerda’s take, which has been getting a lot of attention due to the fact it’s harshly written, there’s been a debate about whether or not Jobs was actually hypocritical. Don’t think about this too hard; it’ll numb your brain. source

• Steve Jobs will see you in his office, STAT. Hogan, 21, found the iPhone prototype at a bar and later sold Gizmodo the device thinking it would be reviewed. Earlier, Hogan had a friend attempt to get the phone back to Apple, but reportedly didn’t try very hard. After that, he and others working with him made the rounds among journalists, asking for money, including Wired (which broke the story). Gizmodo took the bait. And the rest is this guy’s infamy. source

• 110,275 followers for Hugo already

• » Bringing along his buddies: The controversial socialist-leaning Venezuelan leader, who just joined Twitter a couple days ago, is pushing for his buddies Evo Morales (Bolivia’s president) and Fidel Castro (the subject of SFB’s very first news posts, and technically on Twitter already) to join the service. We hope this becomes a big trend. It’d be fun to throw an @ symbol at Fidel. source

• My decision to run for the U.S. Senate as a candidate without party affiliation says more about our nation and our state than it says about me. Unfortunately our political system is broken. I think we need a new tone in Washington.
• Florida Gov. Charlie Crist • Who’s now an indie kid in the Florida Senate’s political race. (Though he went out of his way to say “independent.” WTF?) He loses a lot of backing by turning his back on Republicans, but polls suggest he has a much better chance of winning now that he’s out of the primary. The moderate got pushed out as part of a rightward lean by the party, who’s backing bizarro hippie favorite Marco Rubio. The New York Times suggests that Crist may suffer from that lack of infrastructure, though if Rubio or Democratic candidate Kendrick Meek can’t expand their collective bases, he’s the winner. source

• four number of groups that will be suing over the controversial new law
• two of those groups are related to the American Civil Liberties Union source

• 28 children stabbed in the incident; five were critically wounded source

• Key point: It’s not getting on the iPhone due to technology reasons. Steve Jobs’ 1,657-word manifesto on Flash is a really interesting document on the nature of one of Silicon Valley’s biggest fights. We don’t think Jobs has ever been this open. We’d like to see him keep this up in the future. It really makes his points seem reasonable. Here’s a summary that’s about a fifth of the size.

First: Let’s get this out of the way

• no Steve doesn’t mention the
  kerfuffle between Apple and Gizmodo over the leaked iPhone
• no Flash won’t be getting on the
  iPhone anytime soon, so lose
  those dreams now, guys

Cutting his six points to three

• one Flash is a closed, proprietary standard, and Apple’s goals for the Web are to use open standards such as HTML5. And lots of sites use these already.
• two Flash is another thing that has to run on a device that needs to be as lightweight as possible. This affects phone performance as well as battery life.
• three Flash is a technology that’s designed for PCs, not touchscreens. Plus, Adobe has been bad about supporting our platforms in the past, and could repeat here.

Key quote from his Steveness

• Flash was created during the PC era – for PCs and mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs. But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where Flash falls short.
• Steve Jobs • Sticking the dagger into the company’s technology. His main point? Flash isn’t a platform designed for mobile phones, and as he’s trying to push for the strongest app development on the platform he can, he wants to avoid putting a technology on his phones that adds one more thing to the load. But he’s clear that it’s not because of competitive reasons, like everyone thinks it is. We’re still not convinced. source