Sorry for the delay, but busy traveling to Berlin for ITB. Le’ts start of with a little bit of irony.

1. In a very interesting turn of events, Kayak is going to power flight meta-search for Bing Travel…to help counter Google’s push into the travel sector with their acquisition of ITA Software…which powers Kayak’s meta-search engine. #irony.
2. More strong growth at Salesforce.com, yet profits are puny. So to change the story, at the DEMO conference SFDC VP, Platform and Marketing George Hu talks up the potential of Chatter, their social collaboration platform. But I love this comment: “what is keeping him up at nights is the education of this massive sales force. As the company has grown from a single application (Salesforce Automation) to a CRM platform, collaboration through social enterprise, and Data-as-a-Service, it has become increasingly difficult to train each new employee to manage their products.” Have they thought of using their own product? #evenmoreirony
3. Well little furry critters need a place to sleep too!  So Hipmunk gets into hotel search. I cover this of course because of the cute logo, but also because I know that it irks some ‘prominent’ travel bloggers that a SV startup gets so much press for what they feel is so little.  While I love the ‘agony’ filter on air search and the associated UI, I don’t think that Hipmunk’s ‘ecstasy’ filter for hotels works as well.
4. For those of you who think that Apple may one day actually adopt Flash…not a chance. Dead on.
5. Super-rich, but want to make sure you can get the best deal on your private jet? FlyRuby aims to be the Kayak of private air travel. Now this is a product I wish I had enough cash to use…just once. Flying on a private jet is right up there with going on a seaplane (with or without pickup by Herve Villachez).
6. This looks like an interesting company, but I’m not sure if it’s a necessary company. What do you think? Is this a problem for you or anyone you know?
7. For those developing for the cloud, here’s a new Cloud IDE, called Cloud9 that you might want to check out. The Cloud9 development platform for JavaScript incorporates HTML5, and supporting Python, Ruby and PHP.
8. Apple introduced the iPad 2 to some fanfare, tracking pretty much with predictions leading up to the announcement. Some felt that the newest iPad wasn’t groundbreaking enough, but to my eye, it surpassed the recently announced Motorola XOOM and still-not-shipping RIM PlayBook and HP TouchPad in the spec wars (which Apple does not really play; and really we’re not putting that much emphasis on an SD card slot are we?) — all while hitting a lower entry price point.  And to those that groused that it was evolutionary, not revolutionary…chill out? As DF’s John Gruber noted, Apple has released 3 products that changed the mobile device landscape (iPod, iPhone and iPad) in the past decade while the combined forces of all other players have delivered none. ‘Nuff said.
9. How the specialist tour and activities market works is a mystery to most and terribly complex to orchestrate…and that’s just the way Alex Bainbridge of TourCMS likes it. But out of the goodness of his heart he tries to create a map of sorts of how the sector lays out. This comes on the heels of a report on the sector released by PhoCusWright.
10. Hotel meta-search is heating up with both Google and Pegasus Solutions announcing new products. Pegasus’ solution enables participating hotels to participate more fully in meta-search sites like Kayak.com. Pegasus, along with Trust International and others is providing the data supporting Google’s Hotel Price Ads solution,  which seems a little less meta-searchy and a little more advertisy (typical Google), but does display availability and pricing by dates input by the customer.

Better late than never. Here’s the best from Christmas and New Years’ week:

1. An excellent interview of TSA Chief John Pistole on how they are approaching airport security. This is a much more nuanced point of view than what one would expect from the TSA in light of enhanced pat-down protocols that seem more suited to “Cinemax After Dark” than an airport in broad daylight. Great stuff on risk mitigation v. elimination, proportionality of response, scalability of approach, and profiling.
2. Will Google be your next wireless carrier? Forget handsets, Google may be looking for more, and they certainly have helped themselves if they do go down that route with their lobbying efforts to put more holes in wireless net neutrality rules than in Swiss cheese.
3. It’s not $6B in cash, nor is it a $6B valuation, but Groupon finally got their money – and importantly retained control of their own destiny – with a $950M funding round.
4. And on a related note…while many companies have tried to copy the Groupon model, perhaps TravelZoo is better positioned than others to succeed.
5. Well now that Skype is available on iOS, is T-Mobile going to take all those Facetime/WiFi ads off TV? They are pretty annoying anyway.
6. Wither WiMAX? Clearwire, the leading provider of WiMAX services looks to be in financial trouble. Om Malik wonders whether Sprint can afford to…or not to…buy Clearwire if it looks like Clearwire will fail. Sprint CEO Dan Hesse has bet the company’s 4G strategy on Clearwire (I made my own much, much smaller bet on Sprint 4G), so he probably has little option than to push all his chips in the middle of the table.
7. Yapta, which provides price tracking for hotel and air, is more than half-way to completing its $6.4M funding round.
8. There were a number of articles written after a report in Fortune declared that $100 unsubsidized Android smartphones were on their way, with some declaring that this will be the end of the iPhone.  Except for one thing…there are already Android smartphones close to $100 on the market today and the specs touted by Broadcom describe products that seem closer to the iPhone 3G/3GS than the iPhone 4 or the iPhone 5 that will be shipping by the time these products will. Anyway, Daring Fireball’s John Gruber provides an excellent perspective.
9. One of the better, detailed reviews of what the FCC ruling on Net Neutrality really means.
10. Kinda cool, kinda scary, but iPads are in the cockpit.

Hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving (at least in the US). Thanks to everyone in all the other countries who I hoped worked extra hard to make up for the fact that we were in a turkey coma for a few days.

Here’s what I thought was interesting from last week, along with my usual commentary:

1. How much is Kayak worth? You can interpolate a value of $857M based on some of the information in their registration statement. But are you a believer? For a company who’s net income was just a hair over $6M through the first three quarters of 2010, it feels a little dot-commy. But they have perhaps the best iPad travel app and some great ads, so who knows. I guess as long as they don’t break out a sock puppet, they’ll probably be OK.
2. Do you remember when Novell was THE network operating system company? NetWare was king as was the 5-1/4” floppy disk. They squandered opportunities in office productivity (WordPerfect), groupware (GroupWise), network management (ZenWorks). And in tryin got reinvent itself as a Linux house with the acquisition of SUSE didn’t really work as they are a distant third to RedHat and Oracle (Sun). But hell, they did fetch $2.2B and that’s still a lotof money by any measure. But there is a measure of synergy with Attachmate and particularly NetIQ’s product lines.
3. Yay! iOS 4.2 drops and the iPhone and iPad operating systems are brought back into balance. Even better, I’ve now got multi-tasking, printing and streaming on my iPad.
4. Jury awards Oracle a $1.3B judgment against SAP in the TomorrowNow case.  This is a major blow to SAP and will also have implications in the war with HP (where Leo Apotheker, now HP CEO, but was SAP’s CEO) and in Oracle’s litigation against Google with respect to Android’s alleged infringement of Java intellectual property. Interesting times.
5. The war between airlines and the GDSs continues to escalate. So far the only winners are the lawyers.
6. As a marketer, I’m always interested in understanding buyer psychology and how it needs to play into your marketing and product development plans. So the guest post on Tnooz on the subject was of interest to me. However, I’m not totally in agreement with with everything in the article.  I agree that different segments of the market have different expectations and may require different experiences to move them to action and develop brand loyalty. But I think the point about social proof was only partially addressed. Social proof only matters if I believe that the people reviewing, commenting or contributing in some way have similar interests and desires as I do. And this is an area that I think many travel companies are missing out on really integrating with users’ social graph
7. This one made me laugh. In Japan they actually NTT DOCOMO had to invoke Darth Vader to promote the Android-based Samsung Galaxy S against the iPhone. The iPhone has about two-thirds of the market in Japan.  Could they do more to further position Google as the Evil Empire?
8. Timothy O’Neill-Dunne has a great article on the dynamic pricing conundrum (once you get past the romance novel graphic…TOD is such a softie). The cost and response time implications are particularly interesting. I would love to see some of the data behind his assumptions.
9. It looks like the release of Google ChromeOS is growing closer.  But I’m almost surprised that so much interest seems to be invested in what amounts to a netbook OS. I mean there’s not even that much interest in netbooks anymore as the momentum is behind tablets…even ones that won’t ship for months like the RIM Playbook. And even within Google there seems to be conflicting points of view as to the future of the Chrome OS.
10. Mobissimo becomes the first company to offer a travel search engine within Facebook.  It’s interesting, but I’m not quite sure if it’s differentiating or defensible just yet. But I am sure that Dennis got the Tom & Jerry analogy wrong vis-à-vis Kayak. Jerry Mouse is the cute one who outsmarts Tom Cat. And it seems Kayak, led by the handsome Steve Hafner, who has massively outraised Mobissimo and is on the cusp of an IPO, looks more the part of Jerry in my estimation.

A lot of big news last week from Microsoft, Oracle and IBM agree on the future of Java, the iPad is coming to Verizon and notes from Amadeus Horizons 2010 in San Francisco.

1. Oracle and IBM team up to provide a unified future for Java. Should be good for the developer community for sure. But maybe not so much for Google with respect to the Java patent infringement suit concerning the Android mobile OS. Altimeter Group’s Ray Wang breaks it down.
2. Bing search goes social with Facebook integration.  Microsoft and Facebook announced a new partnership that brings Facebook “Like” and OpenGraph profile search to Bing using “Instant Personalization”.  I expect this will have a big impact for travel, especially for hotel, restaurant and tour/activity search and portends a big challenge for companies like TripAdvisor. And not for nothing, it’s definitely another shot across the bow at Google from both Microsoft and Facebook.
3. Microsoft “Launches” Windows Phone 7…phones to actually follow in a few weeks. While many seem to like the Metro UI, few seem to think it has a chance to succeed. Scoble says all WP7 has going for it is Office integration and that’s not enough. Mary-Jo Foley says Microsoft’s real target for WP7 is feature phone owners. But most feature phones are free or close to it. The initial price with contract for the WP7 devices is $199. This will be a tough road to hoe.
4. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, Spirit Airlines’ “edgy” marketing sure gets results.
5. The iPad is coming to Verizon and the iPhone won’t be far behind. Only a few more months and I’m free of my Pre!
6. Amadeus completed its bi-annual Airline IT conference, Horizons 2010. Tnooz’s Dennis Schaal recaps the first day. On the second day the highlight was a terrific talk about the future of technology in travel by Forrester analyst Henry Harteveldt.
7. The worst kept secret is out: Amadeus officially puts Opodo up for sale…er, is “evaluating strategic alternatives” with JP Morgan.
8. A terrific look at the private sale model by Matt Zito.
9. Is there such a thing as too much Cloud Security? Cisco’s Christopher Hoff poses the question.
10. IDC Staranalyst Michael Fauscette keeps the great posts coming. This time he suggests a couple of important fixes to remove barriers to creating a collaborative, social enterprise

The week was pretty much dominated by the launch of Facebook Places, but a few other things happened too…including a $7B acquisition by Intel that I only partially get as a lot of dollars must have gone for parts of Intuit’s business that’s far afield from Intel’s chip business. But who am I to judge. Anyway, here’s this week’s list:

1. I really liked this article on how to identify productive, creative types (hat tip to Forrester analyst Mike Gaultieri).
2. Yet another travel search contender with a quirky name and a unique twist on presentation of results – Hipmunk.  Ding-dong, the fare matrix is dead? Check ‘em out and decide for yourself.  Pretty ballsy to start up a company like this, just weeks after Google buys the leader in the space.
3. Excellent analysis and insight into the Oracle-Google patent fight from RoughlyDrafted. This is not the simplistic money-grab as one might think. So if Google has to pay royalties for Java, can they still give Android away for free?
4. It’s looking more and more like NFC is coming to the iPhone next year and other devices. I’m still not sold on the use case.
5. The opening weekend didn’t go so well for RIM’s Blackberry Torch? Should RIM start marketing the Torch as a “Limited Edition”?
6. The list of iPad-versaries continues to build. Up next: what I’m calling the “EvilPad” from Google and Verizon. The twist? It’s based on Google’s much anticipated Chrome OS, not Android. I wonder if Verizon will prioritize traffic for EvilPad users J
7. Facebook announces Places.  This is perhaps the most reported announcement of the week and there are a ton of articles about what it means, but the best was probably from Altimiter Group’s Charlene Li.  Much of the initial focus was on what this means for Foursquare or Gowalla (and perhaps how quickly they can sell themselves to Google, Apple or Microsoft), but others think that Yelp has the most to fear. From a travel perspective, you can find good insights from Tnooz and Troy Thompson at the Travel 2.0 blog.
8. Intel buys McAfee for $7.68 Billion…that’s with a “B”.  I can understand the need to add security directly onto the chip, but that’s a pretty penny to pay for it and so much of McAfee’s revenues seem off-task for Intel. It certainly can’t be that Intel felt they needed to augment their brand recognition. Maybe they just felt they needed the deal to remind people that they’re still here?
9. Travel rewards startup Topguest, which only went into beta a few weeks ago, is the first travel related company to integrate with Facebook Places.
10. Product quality is a big issue and there are a number of ways to improve it.  CIO Magazine’s Thomas Wallgum recaps 7 steps to improve software quality from Forrester’s latest report.

Another day, another iPad-versary (hat tip to Harry McCracken).  Today Download Squad reported that an upcoming tablet from Google and Verizon is more than just a rumor…and that it will ship in time for Black Friday and the Christmas shopping season.

The “EvilPad”, as I have termed it, has a unique twist – it’s supposed to feature Google’s much anticipated ChromeOS, rather than Android. It will be interesting to see how well adapted the ChromeOS is to a touch environment as it was originally intended to be a netbook/notebook OS, whereas Android was developed to be the mobile device, touch-oriented OS.

Another challenge for the EvilPad will be the enormous game of catch-up that it has to play in the AppWars against both Apple and Google’s own Android devices.  The forthcoming Chrome App Store (again, borrowing heavily from Apple, this time from iTunes) seems as if it will be leaning heavily on web apps that require constant connectivity to the Internet rather than downloaded apps.  If you have an 3G or higher unlimited data plan, maybe that works, but that seems to be counter to the trend from all wireless providers. Maybe Google and Verizon will be providing EvilPad users access to the Schminternet

And of course, we can’t not report on the specs. As usual for HTC-built, Google-based devices, the hardware looks impressive, but we all know that hardware without excellent software doesn’t mean a heck of a lot.  Download Squad reports:

• NVidia’s Tegra 2 platform
• 1280×720 multitouch display
• Memory: 2GB of RAM, minimum 32GB SSD
• WiFi/Bluetooth/LTE connectivity
• GPS
• Webcam
• Possible expandable storage via a multi-card reader

Hot industry stats, debates on legislation, an Open Source cloud stack and other news of note:

1. Since Congress has started to take up the question of whether airlines need to be transparent about ancillary fees across channels, in order to allow travelers adequately compare real costs of their choices, Timothy O’Neill-Dunne puts forward the definitive answer. Of course no one in Washington is listening, so this drama will surely last longer than the Microsoft Kin (what wouldn’t?).



2. On a related note, Sabre announces that it will update its “Air Total Pricing” system to enable travel agents and consumers see the total price of their trip, inclusive of ancillary fees before they book. The comparison shopping aspect will be addressed first, but the booking and fulfillment portion of the equation probably won’t be solved until later this year.
3. Forrester Cloud Computing analyst James Staten provides his view on Rackspace’s announcement to Open Source their cloud computing stack. NASA may not have found intelligent life out there, but must think the folks at Rackspace are pretty bright because they are amongst the first to deploy the platform.
4. Shortly after being identified as key competitors by Google, heretofore unheralded start ups Everbread and Vayant go mano-a-mano as Vayant alleges copyright infringement.
5. The continuation of a good week for Apple. First they declare there is no Antenna-gate and then they obliterate earnings estimates with their best quarter ever.  iPads almost outsold Macs and it was the most Macs ever sold in a quarter.
6. To patent or not to patent. That is the question. Great article by Pamela Samuelson from Cal-Berkley on why startups decide to patent…or not.
7. TopGuest, a new location-based travel rewards service has a bunch of notable investors, but more importantly nabs a partnership with the InterContinental Priority Club and IHG’s 4,400 properties.
8. Amadeus released preliminary results of their Guide to Ancillary Revenue in association with leading airline ancillary revenue consultancy IdeaWorks. Some good stats if you missed it.
9. While we have our survey out on what you think about the new Open AXIS Group, Professor Sabena gives us his take.
10. An entertaining and insightful view on the upside of newly passed legislation in NY outlawing the use of private dwellings short-term rentals. While decried by many as propping up the large hotel chains, there are real safety, health and security concerns that this bill protects unsuspecting travelers from.

There were several stories today on TechCrunch about upcoming tablets as well as several…shall we say curious…statements from Microsoft executives at their Worldwide Partner Conference in the nation’s capital.  I find much of the conversation and posturing from vendors and pundits interesting and incredulous at the same time.  Sometimes I’m not even sure if they know what the game is that they’re playing.

From a media perspective it seems to come down to whether you’re an Apple fan or someone who wants to see Apple knocked down a few pegs.  I mean one of the dumber comments I’ve seen was by Inc.’s Renee Oricchio who when comparing a proposed Droid tablet to the iPad asked:

“Who’s more business oriented? Do you really see the UPS man having you sign for a package on his iPad? Hmmm… But, I bet you can see doing it on an Android pad. I can. I can see the UPS man using a mashup app between Google maps and his delivery route data, even Google calendars.”

Is there inherently anything different about an Android-based tablet that could possibly make this statement true? Did I miss where you can’t access Google Maps or Calendars on the iPad or where those services couldn’t be built into an app or via a HTML5-based site. I didn’t think her other points made any sense either.

Anyway, not that anyone’s asking me, but I’d suggest that tablet vendors follow this advice:

1. If it’s not shipping within the next 6 months, shut up. Earlier this week there was an “announcement” of sorts from HP about a flexible tablet based on the WebOS from the recently acquired Palm. Personally I think that WebOS is a great platform and that it provides HP a chance to really own the corporate tablet market. But as someone who owns a Palm Pré, just focus on taking the OS to the next level and get out a new phone and the Slate before you start talking about something that won’t ship for 5 years.  Another example of getting too far ahead of yourself was the Microsoft Courier. When it was first introduced it seemed a dream device, and perhaps most notably a very-non Microsoft-like. It seemed like a sure fire hit…except that Microsoft killed it a few months ago and we’ll never know. But of course none of that stopped Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer from telling the world that he’s hardcore about tablet computers at WPC 2010. Ship something…please.

1. Do not focus on specs. It’s a race to the bottom, not the top. This is the classic mistake that many tech companies make, often borne out of a lack of any real differentiation. It’s also the easiest thing to get “beat” on by the next product the competitor releases. Besides, so many companies use the same components and it’s difficult (if not impossible) for customer to really understand what impact the difference in specs really has on the performance and quality of the product they bought (didn’t we learn this about processor clock speed?).  Author Steven Sinek’s latest book “Start with Why” premise is that best, most profitable companies with the most loyal customer base are those that don’t focus on what they do (focusing on product specs) but have a very clear vision, understanding of “why” they created their company and the products they make flow from that vision.

1. Keep usability front and center. This is the flip side of the spec issue. It’s amazing to me that companies learn the lessons of why different mobile devices have succeeded and others have failed. The success of the first Palm Pilot was its simplicity. There were 4 buttons on the device, built around a customized operating system and the apps worked well.  On the other hand, there’s Microsoft’s Windows Mobile OS. Microsoft proffered this shrunken version of the Windows desktop operating system that was ill-suited to the medium, putting the importance of extending the Windows franchise ahead of the needs of the customer.  Well it worked so well that Microsoft finally had to shed the Windows moniker for the launch of Windows Phone7 this fall.

Yet usability is what’s been behind the success of the iPod, iPhone and now the iPad. Neither of the first two products were first in the market, but they redefined the category and thrust Apple into the American consciousness as never before. The iPad is often ridiculed as a giant iPhone or a device for your Mom, but the execution is excellent and it’s the elegance of the interface, designed for the medium has been the key to the success of the device and Apple’s ability to define the segment – so much so that everyone else on the planet is rushing to join the party.

1. The characterization of the iPad as a consumption device is a false argument. I’m not sure that I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard this repeated. Nor do I necessarily believe that it’s true (at least compared to other similar devices) or whether or not it matters.  There’s no debating that many of the apps that were featured in the launch were consumption based, but considering apps like Documents to Go by DataViz, Evernote, OmniGraffle, Wordpress, twitter apps, I just don’t believe it’s true.  And that’s not considering the fact that we’re looking at a product that’s only been in the market for just over 3 months so the best apps are still in the future. And it’s clear that iMovie for the iPad (just released for iPhone4) is in the very near future.  And if you look at this video, I’d like you to tell me that you can’t create on the iPad with a straight face.

1. One last thing…if your tablet requires a stylus, you’re doing it wrong. Bill Buxton from Microsoft Research recently declared at WPC “A device without a stylus is like chinese food without chopsticks”, meaning that their new tablet concepts are going to use a stylus…something not considered on the oft-praised, but not to be released Courier. When will they learn.

Well I hope that everyone enjoyed their holiday. But before I get to the tech and travel news, I must comment on “The Decision”.  Yes, I was among the 10 million people that watched LeBron James rip the heart of his own city when he announced his decision to play for the Miami Heat next year. Like many I feel terrible for Cavs fans and LeBron is diminished in my eyes. Not for the choice that he made. I mean hey, if I was a single, 25-year old mega-millionaire, I’d probably want to play with my two best friends and live in South Beach too. For LeBron South Beach won’t be eye-candy, it will be candy.  And he’s the owner of the candy store (or at least COO with Dwayne Wade as CEO).

Credit: Al Diaz/Miami Herald

But what was unforgivable for me was the way that he manufactured the drama and built-up his own TV special when in fact the decision had been made days, if not months ago. I just can’t imagine that as an Ohio native that he didn’t understand just how his decision to leave would devastate the community and his fans…and how dragging out the process and announcing his decision on national TV would make the effect even worse.  Jeff Van Gundy had it right on the broadcast when he said that the one thing he’d regret is not informing the Cavs of his decision before the broadcast. I think that Cavs’ owner Dan Gilbert’s fantastic/unfortunate/comical “open letter to Cavs fans” is testament to that.

OK, on to this week’s curation.

1. Everbread raises about $85M from Bessemer Ventures. I guess it pays to be named by Google as a competitor.
2. YouTube Mobile goes HTML5. Seems as if the mobile web site beats the app, which seems to jive with Google’s strategy of moving towards a mobile web, rather than an apps.
3. There has been a lot of talk about how Facebook could have an impact on the travel industry via their OpenGraph. Well Facebook made their first overt move into the travel space by acquiring NextStop, but then immediately shut it down.  In all likelihood we’ll see the NextStop tech in another form, but it will continue to get interesting.
4. Last week OpenAxis debuted, this week it’s the BLLA announcing the development of a new standard for defining boutique and lifestyle lodgings in hopes to level the distribution playing field with the large hotel chains.
5. Very interesting stats on how people are using the iPad from Resolve Market Resarch. On a related note, Enterprise Irregular Jeff Nolan recants his original take on the iPad and notes that besides e-Readers, netbooks are getting smacked down in favor of iPads.
6. Good sign for a future recovery: US Venture Capital fundraising is up 13%, although that’s still only half of what was raised in the first half of 2008, it’s moving in the right direction. And since emerging businesses are the real jobs engine in the country (many say small business, but really it’s new businesses), this is promising for the future.
7. Continental re-ups their GDS relationship with Travelport through 2013. It’s interesting that CO is doing these kinds of deals with the merger with United scheduled to close later this year. I understand the urgency on Travelport’s part, but with another year on the existing deal, why did CO jump now? At some point doesn’t a merged CO-UA have to re-evaluate and re-negotiate these kinds of contracts?
8. Next week is Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner conference in DC and Azure (Microsoft’s Cloud Computing platform) is supposed be front and center. Altimeter Group’s Ray Wang gives Microsoft partners some Azure rewards and risks to keep in mind while listening to the presentations at the conference.
9. Just a week after OpenAxis is announced, American Airlines announces that it will be making all its optional services available exclusively through Farelogix.
10. Two weeks in a row a major technology company buys a travel firm.  This time it was Facebook buying Nextstop. At first there was speculation that this was Facebook first step into the travel sector to keep up with Google and Apple, as had been rumored after they unfurled their OpenGraph at f8 in April. But according to TechCrunch it looks like perhaps they’re just accumulating talent.

Well it was not a particularly newsworthy week. Partially because of the shortened week for Memorial Day as well as the expected lull between Google’s I/O conference and Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) that kicks off today.  But there were still a few items worth noting. As an FYI, I’m heading out on vacation on Friday for about 10 days (10 year anniversary + wife’s xx-th birthday), so no column next week. Not sure if I’ll squeeze out another post this week, so if not “Mahalo”.

1. Adobe announces new technology to power digital publishing for the iPad, iPhone that’s behind the Wired iPad app. Burton Group’s @pragkirk believes it outputs Objective-C, yet unconfirmed. Seems this is all Apple ever wanted. They didn’t care about the tool, just that it results in code that delivers high performance and doesn’t crash. So now if CS5 can output to HTML5 and this new tech, why do we need Flash again?
2. How would travel search look if fare search engines knew who you were? Interesting proposition, presuming that the travel suppliers kept a customer-centric perspective and tried to build a better relationship with their customers rather than implementing this solely to squeeze more ancillary revenues from travelers.
3. The much awaited Google Chrome will launch this fall.  As with any OS, I think adoption is going to be predicated on the availability of apps. If it’s just going to support Google Apps and web browsing, I think there’s limited uptake. So the announcements surrounding the Chrome OS will be more telling than the OS announcement itself.
4. Say what? HP CEO, Mark Hurd says that they didn’t purchase Palm to be in the smartphone business, but mainly for the underlying IP in WebOS to use on a variety of devices.  As an owner of the an H/Pre, up til now I was hopeful that there would be an investment into improving WebOS for the phone. Now, I think I’m more motivated to switch to the upcoming new iPhone or Android than when it looked like Palm may go bankrupt L
5. Amid all the debate about Facebook’s privacy policies, Mark Cuban wonders whether Facebook’s “simplified”, revised privacy policies actually hurt Google and provide a path for newspapers to chart out a new future.
6. At TRAVDEX, I mentioned how Siri might really change the game for travel search as a “do engine” rather than a simple search engine. Robert Scoble paints a picture of how location, search and social might transform how we plan and book travel and how we do other things in our daily lives by 2012.
7. Just days before WWDC, AT&T screws Apple again by abandoning “all you can eat” data plans. People who love their iPhones have abandoned them for Android solely to because of AT&T’s terrible service. This about-face a mere 4 months from the iPad announcement just gives AT&T haters another reason to hate. UPDATE: AT&T has said they’ll grandfather anyone who buys an iPad 3G through June 7, even though they’re currently backordered.
8. Social media superstar, Chris Brogan is launching a new site called “Man on the Go” where he will share his experiences and recommendations of travel gear, hotels, restaurants, etc. It should be interesting to watch what effect he may have on the travel industry. Already he’s highlighted a company called ExpertFlyer.
9. Not necessarily what I would call breaking news, but the New York Times notes that while the airlines have introduced new capabilities leveraging smartphones, they are still – as Henry Harteveldt says –  “prisoners of their past” from a technology perspective.
10. Looking for a place to eat while on the road? Good news. Yelp takes its restaurant reviews to the next level, integrating restaurant booking via OpenTable.  A smart move given that 3 out of 10 businesses reviewed on Yelp are restaurants. Another example of how companies are shortening the distance between investigation and booking.