Having a 3.1 inch screen running at WVGA resolution, that thing must have some crazy pixel density. Anyway, I hope they'll use these specs (and Android 2.1) in the consumer version of the Zii.

Google vs. Apple (launching Android)
Apple vs. Google (blocking Latitude and Google Voice)
AT&T vs. Google (accusing Google of blocking calls)
Verizon vs. AT&T (there's a map for that)
Verizon vs. Apple (misfit iPhone)
AT&T vs. Verizon (that's not true, kind of)
Now: Apple vs. Verizon (make calls, kind of, and surf)

What's next?

"Sure, you can argue that I'm not the target for Chrome OS, but that's a weak argument -- in fact, it's a cop out. To paraphrase Jean-Louis Gaseé, great ideas and products should be designed for both passengers and sailors, expert users and novices. I spend ten hours or more on a computer every day, so if Chrome OS isn't for me, then who is it for?"

I'm sorry, but isn't this a non-sequitur?
By that logic there are no target audiences or market segments. Everyone likes the same computers, the same software, the same food, the same music, the same TV shows...
Clearly, if something's not for you, then it's not for anyone.

@Matt

You can connect a camera to a Chrome OS machine and view images. They showed it off in the presentation. I'm sure they will also provide drivers for printers.

@raghavb

So by your reckoning, a core 2 duo with 2 GB of RAM boots in 7 + 5 = 12 seconds? Is that without an operating system, perhaps?
And I'm sure you will be able to run Chrome OS on whatever computer he has. It's just not optimized for it.

I have a few complaints.

1. The site looks really busy. One of the things I loved about he old layout was its simplicity. This is not a newspaper, you don't have to cram every square centimeter with text or flashy graphics.

2. The font in the commenting system is too small. Easy to fix.

3. There's not enough space between articles on the front page, adds to the 'busy' look. Again, easy to fix.

4. I'd like to see comments colored by ranking again. Right now it's more difficult to separate low ranked comments from high ranked comments.

5. I think the side panel is the biggest culprit. It makes the website look needlessly complicated without really adding much of value.
Does anyone still browse through older website content by date? Don't people just Google stuff?
Does the twitter feed add anything that isn't posted on the main page anyway?
Do we need two separate twitter feeds?
Do people still use Digg?

One reason why I still care about what Creative does is that they are really good at audio quality.
Hopefully they'll also show off a consumer version of the Zii. Here's hoping for a high resolution screen and Android 2.0.

It's perfectly possible that Google wanted to get the multi-touch framework out to developers, and perhaps more importantly handset makers, as soon as possible. Consider that speech-recognition was added in 1.5 and text-to-speech was added in 1.6, but neither feature was really fully used until the navigation app in 2.0.

Also...
If Apple has a patent that prohibits multi-touch in Android, Google would not have implemented it at all (as the article suggests).
If Apple has patents that prohibit specific gestures like pinch-zoom, we would still expect there to be SOME multi-touch gestures used by the default apps. As it stands, there are none.

The navigation software could be relegated to the iPhone's web browser just like Google Latitude was.

"Technically, we could make the HD2 an Android phone, but I have to take care of Windows Mobile"

In some way this makes sense. There is a market for Windows Mobile phones and HTC has to make sure to stay on top of it.
In other ways it doesn't. Windows mobile, just like Android are components. Components used to build a product. If a new component comes along that is better than the one you are currently using, replace the old one. You don't need to "take care of" it.

In the end, as the article says, this doesn't mean that we won't see an HD2-like phone running Android from HTC. All it means is that it won't be the HD2.