Tomorrow is the expected announcement of the new Apple “tablet” computer. Predictions for this device are all over the map, ranging from a “true” tablet computer, down to an oversized iPhone, and everything in between. I don’t have any inside information about Apple, but I think I have a pretty good idea what this new device is going to be. And if I’m wrong, Apple may just be releasing their first major lemon in a really long time.

I expect the new Apple device to be a “Kindle killer:” a device that leverages the iPhone OS in a larger and more versatile interface that is optimized for buying, transferring and consuming content. I hardly think it will limit itself to simply books or magazines; I expect this to be a next-generation media consumption device, to beautifully handle video and to incorporate gaming at least inasmuch as the iPhone does currently and quite likely even more.

For Immediate Release

ARLINGTON, MA (U.S.) - January 13, 2010 - Juhan Sonin, Creative Director of Involution Studios Boston, will be speaking on Thursday February 4 at the mHealth Networking Conference in Washington, D.C. His presentation, Health Everyware, is based on more than five years of experience envisioning and designing a system and artifacts around next-generation health care.

This is part one of a three-part series that will detail Google’s rise to becoming the dominant company in the computing industry. Part one will review the history of IBM and Microsoft, Google’s predecessors in this position; part two will take a close look at the last decade in computing and particularly at Google’s; and part three will look into the future and help you understand what’s to come for Google and the rest of the industry.

Depending on which gushing analyst you listen to, Google’s release last week of the Nexus One “superphone” is going to change the computing industry. Some are pointing to the phone itself and the fact that Google is now officially a hardware company. Others are pointing to the Google ecommerce store and approach to selling the phone and calling that the true harbinger of future dominance. Wrapped up in much of this excitement is a sense of surprise, as if Google’s doing these things wasn’t something that—at the very least—should be seen as a predictable result of Google’s expanded impact in the industry over the past decade. This very short-sighted breathlessness makes me wonder if the people who are telling us what to think really know what they are talking about.