Walter decided to pick on a small, defenseless netbook webbook to ring out 2009. Can’t say that I’ve heard that term before.  But this little fella is from a company called Littl. I’ve scoured the site, and I’m not sure who the market for this is.  Net newbies? Grandma?  It doesn’t run Windows, (OK, a plus) and leans heavily on the cloud-computing concept.  There’s no task bar, dock, folders, icons for files and programs, none of that.  You can flip it over and use it in “easel-mode.”  It’s got a remote, too. The company also mentions that “finally we removed the stuff that breaks.”  So no frantic trips to Best Buy’s Geek Squad- thought I think they might puzzle on this one.

As part of improving its Google Wave online collaboration software, the MountainView crew bought out AppJet for their Ether Pad app. No truth to rumor Google is starting a bidding war with Apple over LaLa.

UPDATE: Apple Inc. has finalized deal and has purchased LaLa.com

Brinke is all upset ‘cos Barry had a press conference about Afghanistan, or as I like to call it The New Vietnam, and Charlie Brown was pre-empted and postponed. Wassa’ matter you? Gee whiz, you can order that and more here or go to your local Sam’s Club, Wal-Mart or video store, or download it all from iTunes and watch on your iTouch. We can watch vintage shows whenever we want now. Hell, I can re-watch or read Barry’s speech tonight here or on Barry’s YouTube channel. Appointment television is really a thing of the past, it’s so nineties.

UPDATE: If you had Apple TV installed, you’d be watching Charlie Brown, Rudolph and The Grinch, all in one sitting, and watch the Barryconference later.

BONUS UPDATE: For fans of Patrick McGoohan’s The Prisoner,

go here for full episodes of the entire series, ‘cos I luv you awl!

…. and man is it going to get ugly! Full report by Dion Hinchcliff on ZDNet

Wow! He actually credits Larry for predicting Chrome – back in 1996! He also surmises Chrome is not only a direct threat to Microsoft, but Apple, too, and Oracle/Sun.

Horse shit. Microsoft will go down because it will act too slow to respond to challenge and fuck up and implode. Apple will not lose its fan base, ‘cos people like the experience they buy with Apple – and more and more people are being sucked into it everyday; Apple is satisfying customers who used to be duped by Sony, H-P, Dell, Lenovo and of course Microsoft. Google Apps will have to really do something to leapfrog over Larry and start cutting into Oracle’s revenue stream. I see Google and Oracle becoming very wary partners in some future venture, then we’ll see who stabs who in the back first.

BTW, Cringely, that’s one hot babealicious wife, you lucky son-of-a-gun!

Update: Go here for all your fave I, Cringely video bits on YouTube