Former Senior Vice President of AOL and political activist Mark Walsh makes a convincing argument that the Internet is broken. He believes that as soon as people started making money on the Internet, things changed for the worse.

"We really thought that the Internet, or the 'interactive services business' as we called it back then, was going to change the world," Walsh said in a recent TED talk. "And we thought it was important that that sense of community, that sense of transparency, that sense of empowerment was really a set of core principles that all of us believed in...it really was a perfect time. But then the money showed up, and things changed...The internet is broken because of that money."

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Samsung today officially announced the long-rumored Galaxy Spica (i5700,) the company's fourth Android smartphone and sequel to its Galaxy handset from early 2009.

Like the original Samsung Galaxy, this 3.2" touchscreen smartphone is not likely to hit the American market, and will be released in select markets in Europe and Asia.
This 3.6Mbps HSDPA 3G device is equipped with the basic Google-friendly Android 1.5 distro, a 3 Megapixel camera, and an 800MHz application processor. It's actually considerably less feature-rich than the Behold 2 which came to T-Mobile in October.

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For days, I've read blogs and news stories misstating Apple's cell phone profitability compared to Nokia. Headlines range from the AppleBlog's "Apple Surpasses Nokia as Most Profitable Cell Phone Maker" to Reuters' "Apple tops phone chart as Nokia, Samsung step up" to Silicon Alley Insider's "Apple's iPhone Operating Profit Beats Nokia For The First Time," among, many, many others. As good as this feat sounds for Apple -- profit share beating market share -- every one of these stories is wrong. Right, everyone is wrong.

Three days ago, Strategy Analytics released report "Apple Becomes World's Most Profitable Handset Vendor in Q3 2009," written by Alexander Spektor. I contacted Spektor this morning for clarification on the report or for an actual copy. He hasn't yet responded. So I have to go by all the misreporting.

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Yesterday, U.S. movie rental chain Blockbuster Inc. reported a third quarter net loss of $116.8 million, some $96 million worse than last year. Overall sales were $910.5 million, down from the $1.15 billion it made in the same quarter last year.

Numbers notwithstanding, Blockbuster may be in a better position now than it was earlier this year.

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Yesterday, Microsoft launched Windows Marketplace for Mobile's Web component, a version of the store fully accessible through any browser.

I lamented that Apple had not yet created a similar face for the iTunes App store, even though it is the most popular download shop among the smartphone competitors. Users who want to browse the contents of the iTunes store, be it music, videos, or applications, must have the iTunes desktop software installed or otherwise browse it on their iPod Touch or iPhone (in which case they're almost guaranteed to have iTunes installed on their PC anyway.)

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All next week, Betanews will be reporting from Los Angeles, at the scene of this year's Microsoft Professional Developers' Conference. Based on our experience with prior years' shows, here's the pattern we expect: Day 1 (officially next Tuesday) will center on self-congratulation for Windows 7, much of it deserved. Day 2 will likely bring out the bugle corps for the public introduction of Office 2010 Beta 1 -- not the Technical Preview that's currently being circulated, but a more feature-complete rendition that should have more Web- and cloud-related connectivity.

But our coverage will begin on Monday with an unusual twist to "Day 0," which is usually reserved for in-depth workshops that command extra attendance fees. This year, Microsoft is trying an unusual step by opening up its day-long "Windows 7 Developer Boot Camp," headlined by Technical Fellow and SysInternals engineer Mark Russinovich, not only to all PDC attendees but to the general public. Here, we'll see how much attention Windows 7 can get not just from developers, but from passers-by on the street corner.

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Now that it's finally been launched in at least some parts of the world today, Dell is working to keep its new Mini 3 smartphone device closely associated with Dell's computers, calling it "The world's most compact Dell" directly on its packaging.

"Our entry into the smartphone category is a logical extension of Dell's consumer product evolution over the past two years," Ron Garriques, President of Dell Global Consumer Group said in a prepared statement today. "We are developing smaller and smarter mobile products that enable our customers to take their Internet experience out of the home and do the things they want to do whenever and wherever they want."

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If there were a psychiatrist seated across the room from us, and we were to present to her our feelings about information technology as a force in our lives, her diagnosis would be simple and immediate: We have an obsession. Maybe having nothing to do with technology itself at all, we're obsessed with the notion of a nemesis with an unfair advantage influencing the decisions we make.

In every major arena of information technology over the past five years, the principal topic of discussion has been the need to level the playing field, to restore something called "fair competition," to ensure that the smaller player still has a chance. For the topic of PC operating systems, to this day, there's a frenzied Pavlovian response to the notion that Microsoft Windows stole its ideas from Apple Mac OS -- I moderated public, online discussions about that same topic 25 years ago. For Web applications, we're beta testing the idea of shifting the Darth Vader mask from Microsoft over to Google, the dominant player in nine out of ten of the world's queries; and we're reveling in the irony of AT&T proclaiming Google an evil empire. For smartphones, we're evaluating whether Apple fits the role of dominant player, whether that Halloween costume we used to fit on Bill Gates and that we're testing on Eric Schmidt can be swapped out with Steve Jobs.

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Chipmaker Qualcomm's mobile broadcast television subsidiary FLO TV has officially launched its PTV 350 personal television at retail today.

This is the smartphone-sized device that Qualcomm and hardware maker HTC unveiled in October. Like many of HTC's smartphones, the FLO TV PTV 350 includes a 3.5" capacitive touchscreen, built-in stereo speakers, and a battery which can support 5 hours of continuous mobile broadcast viewing.

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Google today officially announced that it had acquired IP telephony software company Gizmo5, a service many users have already tried to use in conjunction with their Google Voice accounts to make SIP calls.

In the Google Voice blog, product managers Wesley Chan and Craig Walker said, "While we don't have any specific features to announce right now, Gizmo5's engineers will be joining the Google Voice team to continue improving the Google Voice and Gizmo5 experience. Current Gizmo5 users will still be able to use the service, though we will be suspending new signups for the time being, and existing users will no longer be able to sign up for a call-in number."

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The cases against Intel going forward, or backward

The most recently developed picture in consumers' and investors' minds about Intel's conduct during the early part of this decade came from the State of New York's antitrust suit, filed against Intel last week. There, State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo cited multiple e-mails, some from then-COO Otellini, which appeared to indicate that Intel was not only eager to enter into exclusivity deals with Dell and Hewlett-Packard secretly and separately from AMD, but was aware of the leverage those deals had in influencing those manufacturers' purchasing decisions and behavior.

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Microsoft has kept few secrets about its upcoming Dashboard update, which will give Xbox Live Gold members Twitter, Facebook, and Last.fm integration on November 17.

"Xbox Live's differentiator has always been our community, and we've already seen a tremendous response to these features in our public preview. It's the community that drives us forward and allows us to pioneer new ways of connecting people through the entertainment they love," Xbox Live general manager Marc Whitten said.

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Ever since Apple launched its App Store barely 16 months ago, we've paid a lot of attention -- indeed, too much -- to the number of applications it contains. As the App Store crossed the 100,000 title barrier last week, it occurred to me that the bigger this number gets, the less it actually means.

I get that Apple has won the sheer-number sweepstakes. I appreciate that no other mobile storefront can even come close. I also understand how broad software availability (in terms of sheer numbers as well as ease of acquisition) has helped fuel the growth of the iPhone/iPod touch universe. I just think we attach way too much importance to this single figure, and it distorts our ability to understand ultimate value to end users and developers alike.

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The largest and widest ranging PC technology dispute, perhaps in the industry's history, came to an abrupt end this morning with Intel and AMD agreeing to set aside most of their differences, and all of their legal disputes. Is this a signal to the various litigators in the information technology industry that litigation is no longer the way to go, that it's too expensive a way for a company to continue protecting its market position?
Betanews caught up with our contributing analyst Carmi Levy, by way of his trusty BlackBerry, on a train headed to Toronto this morning.

Carmi Levy: If litigation isn't too expensive from a fiscal perspective, then it certainly is onerous from a corporate attention perspective. Specifically, getting involved in years-long, tit-for-tat pitched legal battles that spill across global borders can often be the catalyst for losing focus on core competencies. While lawsuit-laden companies inevitably claim their legal processes do not impede strategic planning or day-to-day operations, it's clear that they're being overly optimistic. Litigation is a distraction. Never-ending litigation can split a company's focus for just long enough that it can easily lose touch with the needs of its market.

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The complete text of this morning's agreement between AMD and Intel was filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, and was made public early this afternoon. The agreement explicitly brings to an end three different legal disputes: the 2005 AMD antitrust suit against Intel in Delaware; the 2005 AMD antitrust suit against Intel in Tokyo, Japan; and Intel's objections to AMD's restructuring plan, specifically to spin off GlobalFoundries from a subsidiary to an independent unit.

The agreement acknowledges the gist of AMD's complaints about Intel's prior conduct, but Intel does not in turn acknowledge having acted as AMD suggested. But from there, the agreement effectively acts as if to say, "You know what? Let's forget about all that and start over."

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