I agree that it's wrong to profit from spelling mistakes. But it's extremely hard to police against this type of wrong doing. You can't prevent people from getting domain names like www.ebbay.com. Google has done the smart thing so when you type "www.goolge.com", it redirects you to the correct Google page.

As for ads on these questionable sites, it would be extremely hard for Google to justify not selling ads to them. They are not porn sites. There very well could be a backlash against Google if it stopped selling ads to these sites. With the general Western public already unhappy about Google bowing down to China's censorship for Google China, this would be a silly move on their part.

I agree with Mini. Microsoft has just become too bloated to produce anything good anymore. Microsoft is relying on XBOX right now to survive, which is pretty sad considering it's supposed to be a computer software company. I'm sure Microsoft has a very sophisticated business model. But they really should look into slimming down, perhaps six-sigma style.

In certain respects, the Disney of today is very much like the Apple before Steve Jobs returned to saved it. With so many new emerging companies in the media industry, it is very hard for Disney to compete. Many consumers may feel that Disney is an old-timer and cannot really keep up with all the new forms of technology. It is a large company, carrying with it a lot of bulk. The stagnant share price of Disney within the last 5 years reflects this.

This is exactly where Steve Jobs can come in and help. After returning to Apple, he basically rebranded the whole company. Decent Mp3 players are made by over a dozen companies. But why does everyone want an Ipod? It's obvious that Jobs is a marketing genius. And that is exactly what Disney needs. They have always delivered a good product. But they just need some rebranding for the modern generation. Mickey mouse just doesn't cut it anymore. Nonetheless, hopefully Jobs keeps his promise and continues to make Apple his number one priority.

I believe the article from FT.com refers to Skype censoring text. Speech recognition is still a very underdeveloped technology. For Skype to be able to identify sensitive words and remove them in real time is a very difficult task. So if people in China want to freely discuss sensitive issues, Skype is actually providing a medium for them to do so, unless of course, Skype records the calls or the Chinese government taps the lines. In that case, the Chinese people should be very careful about what they say over Skype, lest they be arrested a la Yahoo. But I doubt the average person in China has to be worried about this. (It would be cost prohibitive to do so.)

Banning SkypeOut (computer to landline calls) is more of an economic issue to protect the Chinese telecom companies. You could say it is Skype bowing down to communist China. But the situation is analgous to countries putting trade tariffs to protect their own companies.

Nokia funding coupled with MIT brains (including Internet legend Berners-Lee in this case) will definitely produce some exciting research. I'm hoping for more practical research culminating into actual commercial products/services within 5 years. Hopefully Nokia will push for this.

It's interesting that marketing/business folk are targeting the rich people who can afford these luxuries.

It's sad that the aerospace industry has not really commercialized faster planes. With the exception of the now discontinued Concorde, flying time has not really changed in the last 10 to 15 years. The Concorde itself shows that the technology is readily available. But I guess a struggling airline industry and soaring gas prices may be reasons why companies are not investing into developing faster planes for commercial use.

Nice big leather seats with nifty gadgets may be luxury flying. But getting half way around the world in 5 hours is really first class.