Have you ever noticed that the next great über-device is always something ahead that people want, but rarely -- if ever -- something in front of them that they have? It almost doesn't matter what that device is, just as long as the rumor mill is so overhyped and over-amped that device-tech followers can't focus on anything else. It's almost as if the device is sustained by its lack of existence, by its mythology rather than its technology. As long as it's "out there," rather than right here, it becomes the single focal point for anyone who lusts after it, and fans literally count the days until it hits the shelves and changes their lives forever. "Forever," in this case, being about 38 minutes, until the rumor mill cranks back up again.

It's like a great party, where reality doesn't seem to matter much as long as everyone's having a good time.

What started out as a joke, or perhaps simple mad rantings, has turned into something bigger: "Operation Chokehold," which is scheduled for 3 p.m. ET today. Dan Lyons, writing as Fake Steve Jobs, has called on AT&T users to show their service dissatisfaction by trying to overwhelm the network with data-intensive tasks. The joke may be if no one participates or AT&T's network survives the data assault.

But questions remain about AT&T service quality. Ten days ago, I asked Betanews readers to share what they think about AT&T's service. I've picked a constellation of comments that hopefully reflect how Betanews readers feel about AT&T. By the way, please do stop and take Betanews poll: "Would wireless carrier quality kill the iPhone?"

It amazes me how Mac and tech blogs can take data touting Google Android phone gains and turn it into an iPhone beats Windows Mobile phone foo fest. Give it up. The data reveals much more interesting findings than that.

Earlier today, ComScore announced availability of report "Android: Crashing the Smartphone Party" and issued a press release about some of the data. The press release doesn't contain mobile operating system usage, but FierceDeveloper published the data, presumably from the nearly $5,000 report (That's too rich for my blood, dude). FireceDeveloper's two charts show iPhone OS overtaking Windows Mobile OS usage among U.S. mobile subscribers in October.

When Facebook implemented changes to its privacy system last week, users were invited by way of a "wizard"-like control panel to change their current privacy settings. But the only option they were given besides leaving privacy where it was to begin with, was an option called "Everyone." And what many users may not have been aware of, was that the "Everyone" setting effectively turned privacy controls off.

"Facebook's 'Everyone' setting overrides the user's choice to limit access by third-party applications and Web sites," reads the text of a complaint today filed before the US Federal Trade Commission (PDF available here) by the Electronic Privacy Information Center -- the same group that filed a complaint against Google's cloud-based privacy policy last March. EPIC is urging the FTC to charge Facebook with unfair and deceptive trade practices -- perhaps emboldened by the FTC's unexpectedly bold charges against Intel, filed yesterday.

In an apparent effort to appear as though the company is reversing its stance on a minority of customers consuming a disproportionate chunk of bandwidth, AT&T Mobility Chairman and CEO Ralph de la Vega is quoted by The Wall Street Journal yesterday as saying the company has "not made any decision" about implementing a tiered pricing structure.

Such a structure would have served as a sort of penalty for users who consume what AT&T may consider too much bandwidth, however much that is. As of Wednesday, de la Vega's position has changed, saying now that his company is considering "incentives" for customers to use less data, though declining to go into further detail...other than to enable the WSJ to spread the term "incentives" around.

The strangeness spinning around AT&T's quality of service is starting to make Christmas feel like Halloween. It's scary and tantalizingly inviting to observe. It's like watching a train wreck or freeway pileup in horror and awe. Does Apple have an app for that?

Tomorrow, a service which reliability many customers have questioned, may be intentionally brought down. Whether or not there is any action or even if it fails, everything is different now -- not just for AT&T but any company looking to manage customer relations. The crowd has found a voice. Will the AT&T mob be more American Revolution or French Revolution and its "reign of terror?"

Early in December, the Federal Communications Commission sent an inquiry to network provider Verizon, asking why the company doubled its Early Termination Fees in November and whether customers were properly notified and informed. Additionally, the Commission addressed the controversial $1.99 mobile Web connection fee, some claim is a dishonest method of obtaining service charges from customers for their accidental keystrokes.

Verizon's response was originally due at the end of today's business day, but the carrier asked for more time. Today, the FCC granted Verizon three more days to finish its response, and on Monday we will find out the answers to some rather blunt questions from the FCC.

This morning in the Android Developer's Blog, Google Engineer Raphaël Moll announced the Android device dashboard, a statistical tool which lets developers know which Android versions are most commonly used.

Today's dashboard's data is accurate up to three days ago, and provides insight into the mix of Android devices out in the wild.

Research in Motion said this morning that North American customers could be experiencing delays receiving e-mail on their BlackBerry devices today. Betanews has seen the outage first-hand: E-mails have not been reflected to one of our BlackBerry devices since approximately 8:20 pm ET yesterday.

Though the specifics of the outage have not been detailed yet, the problem is isolated to RIM's BIS push e-mail services; and voice calls, Web browsing, and text messaging are not affected, the company has said.

Now that the theatrical release of James Cameron's Avatar is only hours away, the Blu-Ray Disc Association has announced the final release of the Blu-ray 3D specification.

During Panasonic's keynote at CES 2009, Cameron spoke about the production of Avatar and his collaboration with Panasonic on the acceleration of 3D Blu-ray technology. The film, which debuts nationwide at 12:01 am tonight, was filmed with new stereoscopic cameras that were still in development as filming took place. Panasonic, as well as other Blu-ray Disc Association member companies, devoted floorspace at CES to showing off the possibilities of 3D in the home.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is a man who has pretty much everything. That makes him a difficult person to buy holiday gifts for. God forbid, if you're the Microsoft employee who picks Ballmer's name to be his secret Santa. Just because Ballmer might have everything, doesn't mean you should buy him anything.

I couldn't resist putting together a list of things not to buy Microsoft's chief executive. It might seem like a slow news day thing to do. In fact, Tuesday was a busy news day. This is all just holiday fun.

Are you shopping for or asking Santa for a compact digital camera this holiday? Sure, it seems like everyone who is anyone wants a digital SLR for their Christmas stocking. But compacts have their place -- and a newer crop are closer to digital SLRs in performance and photo quality.

But to be fair, close is still a long ways off. Shutter response, action shooting, optical viewfinder, photographic quality and changeable lenses all put dSLRs way ahead of compacts. Still, compacts can be easily carried pretty much anywhere, and many newer models sport surprisingly pro features.

Clearly choosing the path of minimum compromise, the US Federal Trade Commission this morning voted to press antitrust charges against Intel, in an action that now parallels that of the European Commission, as well as the state of New York.

The principal charges are those we've covered here before, and which are also at the root of the EC's case, among them that Intel entered into near-exclusivity or exclusivity arrangements with Dell and Hewlett-Packard. According to the terms of those arrangements (which may or may not be legally considered "agreements" since they apparently were not entirely on paper), the OEMs promised to purchase mainly Intel parts in particular market segments, in exchange for preferential pricing and rebates (or programs that had the same effect as rebates).

With all the recent attention given to Google's Chrome OS, it is only natural that interest in other cloud-based environments should be higher than usual. However, interest in Webtop operating systems still remains relatively low.

Earlier this year, Ray Valdes of Gartner Research said, "From a long-term perspective, I don't see any change to current market trends, which are that Webtop ventures are not gaining market traction."

Is there something about set-top boxes that make consumers not want to subscribe to cable? In a sparsely covered request for public comments two weeks ago, the US Federal Communications Commission asked the general public for comments on several questions related to whether there's something wrong with the design or functionality of the set-top boxes to which customers subscribe, that make them reluctant to embrace cable and satellite TV.

Embracing cable and/or satellite, the FCC sees, is critical to embracing broadband, as the FCC's request indicated. But taking the matter one big step further, FCC Media Chief William Lake -- in a remark first noticed by Reuters' John Poirier -- suggested that regulation on the content of set-top boxes (STBs) themselves may be necessary in order to drive broadband adoption.