I spied an interesting piece of news recently. HP acquired Palm. So why exactly does a PC manufacturing company acquire a cell phone company? The answer is obvious (they're going to make cell phones).

Visit Spokeo.com for 30 seconds, if you haven't already. Type in your name and state of residence or those of a loved one. (Go ahead, we'll wait...)

Yep, we agree. Very scary stuff.

Over the last few years, terabytes of tech buzz all over the net have hailed the iPhone as the "Porsche" of all mobile computing devices. More recently, smartphone manufacturers whose units feature the open-source Android OS have hit the ground running with some pretty aggressive marketing campaigns -- online and off.

Let's DeLorean it back to the late eighties and early nineties, to when Molly Ringwald was prom queen and the New Kids were still, well...nevermind, it's a tired joke. Zack Morris defined a generation, along with 49-er shoulderpads and offensively large hair. And who could forget Anthony Michael Hall, brutally typecast as "the geek" -- by the way, have you seen him lately? It's living proof that life can be fair...

I think most traveling professionals would agree: Thumbing e-mail replies on-the-fly in another country, on a foreign network, is a gargantuan pain in the @$$. When I arrive in a new city and check into a hotel where the wireless is less than divine, and I collapse backwards in dramatic fatigue onto a bed that isn’t even mine—the last thing I want to do is reach over and “thumb-cuddle” with my Blackberry.

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